Braised Pork
Braised Pork by An Yu
Reviewed by Jess
📙📙📙
I seem to have become accidentally enamoured with reading authors from the Far East - I’ve always loved Murakami but then I read the AMAZING Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and have not stopped since. So when this dropped into our book club postbox I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it - thanks so much to @vintagebooks for sending us this and the amazing matching silk scarf! So beautiful 🖤🤍
An Yu’s debut novel is about Jia Jia, widowed in a shocking way and coming to terms with a life of independence. It’s clear from the beginning that her marriage was one of convenience and controlled exclusively by her husband, but it was their life, and of course Jia Jia mourns. But things take a weird turn when she discovers an odd drawing by her husband.
What follows is what I can only describe as an almost mythical folk tale type story? The story moves from the busy city to Beijing to the mountains of Tibet as Jia Jia searches for answers to the weird drawing, and she encounters folk tales and Tibetan mysticism that helps her look into her past and her memories. There’s also her burgeoning romance with Leo, a local bartender who seems to awaken in her feelings of love and desire she hasn’t felt before.
I assume this is meant to be a study on modern Chinese life, of a young woman finding her own way in the world, and of freedom from your past constraints. But I personally found the whole thing quite uneasy, like we never really get an insight into Jia Jia fully. Maybe it’s deliberate to have a character so closed off even whilst she’s going through so much? I don’t know. Also a lot of the magical dream-state moments are very lost on me; in the beginning she imagines she’s drowning, something you can understand as a metaphor for grief, but these watery dream sequences never give any clarity or reason to her feelings. Maybe I just don’t get it?
Either way it is definitely beautifully written, in a slow steady pace that keeps you going, but I finished feeling a little baffled at what I just read. Let me know your thoughts if you’ve read it!
