Frontier / Can Xue / 2008 in Chinese / 2017 translated into English
Anushka and I began reading Frontier in Shantiniketan, continued it on our front porch in Chicago, and finished it over the phone while i lay sick with covid. Frontier is a book that demands to be reread, occupying a strange place between dreamlike surrealism, dystopian literature, and horror. The plot devices and narrative structure that define traditional Western fiction fall flat in describing what makes Frontier so captivating. I would frequently find myself laughing, cringing, and doubling back to track the meandering narrative. Soon, I realized trying to understand the components and logic of the plot was actually distracting me from the moment by moment magic of the story. It literally feels like you're in a dream, where the most insane and irrational possibilities are taken without doubt and the narrative pace can sink in for a while before suddenly snapping to other wild or strange possibilities. The only thing that raised my eyebrows was the treatment of a Black character in the book, who definitely is exoticized, which on one hand would be a realistic portrayal of the Black experience in China but on the other hand its impossible for the novel to treat very ethically bc all characters seem to lack an interiority. This isn't a psychological drama bc the reasoning of characters is perturbed by this dream logic. Overall, the racial awkwardness contributed to the uncanny, unsettled feeling. Because narrative matters less, the book sinks into purer emotion and sensation somehow. It's truly a marvelous strange disturbing novel that I'll twirl in my head for years in sure. Reminded me most of Red Ants by Pergentino Jose. 4.5/5