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20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

3.43 of 5 stars 3.43 · rating details · 821 ratings · 158 reviews

Life as a film extra in Beijing might seem hard, but Fenfang won't be defeated. She has travelled 1800 miles to seek her fortune in the city, and has no desire to return to the never-ending sweet potato fields back home. Determined to live a modern life, Fenfang works as a cleaner in the Young Pioneer's movie theatre, falls in love with unsuitable men and keeps her kitchen...more

Paperback, 208 pages

Published January 1st 2009 by Vintage (first published January 1st 208)

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Mar 12, 2013 Samadrita rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: China enthusiasts

Shelves: asian-literature, china-taiwan-hong-kong, 1001-and-more, for-teh-ladies, feminism-feminist-undertones, anti-communist, slice-of-life, semi-favorites, awesomesauce, light-breezy-reads, novella-short-stories, autobiographical-biography-memoir, by-women-who-matter

Sometimes I get this nagging suspicion that there's a greater conspiracy at work to make women writers all over the world, feel unloved and unappreciated.
*cough* V.S. Naipaul *cough*
There's a deliberateness in the way most fiction authored by women is either labelled 'chick lit' and dismissed right away without a second thought or made light of under various other excuses.

Why else would this book have an average rating below 3.5?

Let me offer you a word of advice. Don't go by the beautiful cove...more

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Oct 17, 2008 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This short novel tells the tale of Fenfang, a young Chinese woman who leaves her peasant village for Beijing in the hopes of changing her life. In Beijing she becomes an actress, scoring such enviable roles as Woman Walking Over Bridge or Woman Pouring Tea, all non-speaking, background parts. No matter how she tries to become a major player--both in film and in her own life--greatness seems to evade Fenfang. Barely scraping by, Fengang is ravenous for this meaningful life she so longs for but ca...more

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Nov 12, 2008 Celeste Ng added it · review of another edition

The dust jacket of Xiaolu Guo’s Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth depicts not one but three young Chinese women: on the front, a doll-eyed girl sips a pink milkshake through pursed, glossed lips; on the spine, she leans against a subway pole with eyes closed, as if exhausted by the title that slices across her face; and finally, on the luridly red-tinted back, she crosses a darkened street, hurrying out of the photo head-first. You might read these women as Morning, Afternoon, and Night; or a...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Stephanie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: found-in-translation, china-and-chinese

To be fair, the title doesn’t deny it: these vignettes are indeed shards: random, unpolished, occasionally sharp, but mostly something to be swept up, trashed and then forgotten.

After her accomplished English language debut A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers, this translation of filmmaker-writer Xiaolu Guo’s 1988 semi-autobiographical book about a young village girl trying to make it in Beijing’s film industry seems juvenile and self-absorbed.

Perhaps lost in translation are the argo...more To be fair, the title doesn’t deny it: these vignettes are indeed shards: random, unpolished, occasionally sharp, but mostly something to be swept up, trashed and then forgotten.

After her accomplished English language debut A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers, this translation of filmmaker-writer Xiaolu Guo’s 1988 semi-autobiographical book about a young village girl trying to make it in Beijing’s film industry seems juvenile and self-absorbed.

Perhaps lost in translation are the argot and turns of phrase which would have made the narrative a refreshing read in Chinese, but 20 Fragments Of A Ravenous Youth is an unremarkable look at contemporary China, a subject which has been better tackled in other Chinese works available in English by writers like Wang Anyi and Yan Geling.

That said, there are some fascinating insights into the plight of modern Chinese youth. On her first day in Beijing after fleeing the potato fields of home, Fenfang is rejected from hotel after hotel due to her obvious peasant status, but eventually finds free housing when a mother-daughter pair run out of their house quarrelling and are promptly knocked down in a hit-and-run.

How this country girl feels about occupying a house whose owners have so untimely departed is never fleshed out, her seemingly blase attitude perhaps a reflection of the dog-eat-dog world of Beijing, but not making for great character development.

The same goes for her relationships with various men, including an abusive husband. One moment she is sitting dumbly by a pond while he swims around ignoring her, the next moment she has moved in with his family in a tiny one-bedroom flat even as she bemoans the lack of romance. Months later, after she has finally managed to move away and hide her tracks from him, she calls him and asks him for dinner. “What on earth had possessed me to revisit my past?” she wonders. Beats me.

Sure, there must be complex psychological reasons that took her from A to B to C, but the author isn’t interested in sharing and, soon, we stop being interested in trying to fill in the blanks ourselves.(less)

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Jan 23, 2009 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This aptly titled little book is an interesting record of the life of a young girl in China around the end of the millennium. The best part of the book is that it captures the feeling of that time period in youth (late teens/ early twenties) when all your friends were desperately poor, nobody had anything permanent going on in their love life, nobody had a serious job or career, and everyone had time to hang out, watch movies, read books, and just talk. Also, since the novel is set in late-ninet...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Rachael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Twenty-one-year-old Fenfang Wang is a little lost. She might know the general direction of where she’s headed, Beijing, but after that, nothing is certain. But she can’t go back to her little isolated village in the Chinese countryside; she’s had enough of that monotonous life of digging up sweet potatoes. And so, young Fenfang navigates her way through dusty Beijing, struggling to find a place she belongs in and some satisfaction to her life. But along the way as she barely gets by, she encount...more Twenty-one-year-old Fenfang Wang is a little lost. She might know the general direction of where she’s headed, Beijing, but after that, nothing is certain. But she can’t go back to her little isolated village in the Chinese countryside; she’s had enough of that monotonous life of digging up sweet potatoes. And so, young Fenfang navigates her way through dusty Beijing, struggling to find a place she belongs in and some satisfaction to her life. But along the way as she barely gets by, she encounters many obstacles of the newly modern Chinese era, from restriction of the Communist regime and dreary jobs as a film extra to bad men and hopeless dreams. In this uniquely written coming-of-age tale, a young Chinese woman strives to forge her own identity amidst the hardships in the city and her own life.

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth was an interesting tale and glimpse into the life of a contemporary Chinese city. I enjoyed Fenfang’s frank voice; Fenfang can be relied on to tell it like it is, from the most depressing parts to the very best. However, I felt this honesty failed to really animate any of the characters besides Fenfang, and even Fenfang’s character was sometimes a little weak. The plot never gets too exciting; this novel focuses more on the mental and emotional maturation of Fenfang. This isn’t a bad thing per se, but the plot’s boringness did make Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth a little more difficult to get through. The story read more like a memoir than a novel, and I wasn’t left with a sense of accomplishment that is generally standard in coming-of-age novels. Again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it leaves the readers a little confused unless they really take the time to think about Fenfang’s story.

I don’t recommend Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth because while it had its great moments, nothing about it really drew me in. readers who enjoy short stories about identity especially in combination with foreign landscapes and cultures may also like this novel.

reposted from http://thebookmuncher.blogspot.com (less)

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Apr 05, 2013 Kiera Healy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and though I've never been to Beijing, everyday life in a large Asian city is described so beautifully in this novel that it made me feel tremendously homesick. I don't know how evocative the prose would be for someone without the experience of life in a place like this, but this book certainly had a strong emotional impact on me.

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth tells the story of Fenfang, a peasant who has travelled to Beijing with dreams of making it big...more I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and though I've never been to Beijing, everyday life in a large Asian city is described so beautifully in this novel that it made me feel tremendously homesick. I don't know how evocative the prose would be for someone without the experience of life in a place like this, but this book certainly had a strong emotional impact on me.

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth tells the story of Fenfang, a peasant who has travelled to Beijing with dreams of making it big in the film industry. The fragments are just that - roughly, they are chapters, written in chronological order, but many are simply slices of life. These provide a fascinating look at China. The city of Beijing was familiar to me in many ways - the cockroaches, the heat, the "Soni" branding, the trips to McDonald's simply to enjoy the air-conditioning - but completely alien in others. In Hong Kong there are no peasants, and it's always strange to hear that word in a modern context. It's interesting too to see how the state plays its part. Europeans often ask me about communism in China, and this book illustrates it really well. Fenfang has a run-in with the police when she is accused of behaving immodestly in a state-owned house. The film industry is carefully organised, with directors being given ranks.

I enjoyed this book on a number of levels. I loved the look at Beijing life. There's a sly sense of humour here, too. Fenfang works primarily as an extra, and one career highlight is the chance to play the non-speaking role of Bride #300 in a mass wedding, a tall woman who marries a dwarf. There are times when the novel is deeply moving: Fenfang has two completely unsuitable relationships, one with an abusive man who stalks her long after their break-up, and one with an American ex-pat who simply inhabits a different world. She tells her story in retrospect, so it's hard to see the appeal of the abuser; this is always the way with hindsight, right? Her visit to her parents' village is another emotional passage, and a stark look at China's urban-rural divide.

All in all, I highly recommend this novel. If you have any interest in Chinese culture, this is well worth a read!(less)

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Jan 31, 2013 Evelyn Rose rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The line ‘Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?’ which Fengfang quotes from Whitman’s House of Leaves is the most fitting question that surrounds our young narrator’s journey from a ‘forgotten sweet potato under the dark soil’ to an ‘extra’ in the big city. For Fengfang is in search of a meaningful life despite nothing remaining certain except the inevitability of a transient youth. However, it is the pursuit that drives Fenfang forward, propelling her to forge her own identity fro...more

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Jul 14, 2011 edward rathke rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A quick novella that I read over about an eight hour period. Began at 3am, fell asleep at 4am, woke at 10am and finished by 1130.

The life of a young rural chinese woman in Beijing and the chaos that is her life. She is in a search for the 'shiny things' which is never defined but never misunderstood. She's searching for what all young people want, for what all people want. She works as a film extra to make money and writes scripts because her friends tell her to.

The language is surprising at ti...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Kathy Chung rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: china, asian, life

Reviewed at : Mama Kucing Meow : 20 Fragment of a Ravenous Youth

Reviewed on : 11 March 2011

This is indeed an interesting book. Story is set in the current commercialised China. The main character, FenFang was just 17 years old when she decided to run away from home and venture into Beijing. She felt trapped in the runt of her village life. Day in day out doing and seeing the same thing.

There are 20 "fragments" in this book. Each"fragment" tell a story of FenFang's experience of her life in the c...more

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Nov 02, 2010 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is a book I don't even know how I came across. There it was, in my library check-out pile, so I read it. So, I don't really have a context for it at all.

That being said, I'm glad I read it. It was intriguing and constructed well enough that I read it in two or three days; it's also not long at all. But the author covers a lot of material in those 164 (small) pages.

I rarely agree with the "Praise for" statements on the back of a cover. But in this case, I agree with two of them. The Irish Ti...more This is a book I don't even know how I came across. There it was, in my library check-out pile, so I read it. So, I don't really have a context for it at all.

That being said, I'm glad I read it. It was intriguing and constructed well enough that I read it in two or three days; it's also not long at all. But the author covers a lot of material in those 164 (small) pages.

I rarely agree with the "Praise for" statements on the back of a cover. But in this case, I agree with two of them. The Irish Times used the phrase "instinctive, humane witness" to describe the author. I'd use it to describe the main character, Fenfang, whose eyes and voice we witness parts of China (primarily Beijing) in some of the first years of the twenty-first century. (I'm not sure how closely Fenfang is based on the author's own experience, but it appears, and it feels, like they could be related.)

The Sunday Times (which would be...where?) says it's a "sharp, unpretentious, sophisticated piece." And if they mean "sharp" like "raw" or like "keenly insightful" then I also agree. The "unpretentious, sophisticated" part it right on.

I think it's important to note that this book was translated from Chinese, and then the author revised it in English. I think that shows through a little, not that I fault the work for that fact. Some parts read more smoothly is all. And it's also relevant to note that Xiaoulu Guo intentionally wrote in a raw, unsophisticated, slang-driven Chinese, and had to have Fenfang's voice translated over to English, where sometimes no correlations existed.

What I like best about this book is that it is a work of observation, seemingly lightly shaped by the author. Fenfang is, in all likelihood, severely depressed, clinically anxious, and possibly traumatized. But the book isn't about that. It's the observations of a raw, unvarnished human who is driven by a quest, without even recognizing what path she's on. Despite that, the author shapes the story enough that it itself is not a depressing read, and that we have hope for Fenfang as she leaves Beijing and continues the quest at the end of the book.(less)

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Jan 17, 2010 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, chinese-authors

This was a great book to break me out of my beginning-of-the-year reading slump. It's less than 200 pages, and while it is a light, quick read, there was also a lot to take in.

Stylistically, the title fits the novel in a way that I just adore. Not only is it written in 20 "fragments", but the idea of fragments, hunger, and youth are all touched upon in this book. It can be a little blunt at times, but not excessively so. (It'd be great for YA teachers/readers who are looking to study themes and...more This was a great book to break me out of my beginning-of-the-year reading slump. It's less than 200 pages, and while it is a light, quick read, there was also a lot to take in.

Stylistically, the title fits the novel in a way that I just adore. Not only is it written in 20 "fragments", but the idea of fragments, hunger, and youth are all touched upon in this book. It can be a little blunt at times, but not excessively so. (It'd be great for YA teachers/readers who are looking to study themes and how titles function as a piece of a work.)

Another reviewer touched on the idea that people were fawning over this book because of the "exoticism" factor. While I do agree that there is a theme of exoticism currently running rampant through contemporary literature, I don't know if this book is a good example of that. It is semi-autobiographical, apparently, so it doesn't seem like it's being exotic for exotic's sake.

I marked a number of quotes that I thought were particularly fitting. Some of them include:

"He didn't seem to realize how remote the Red Sox and the World Series were to me. It wasn't just that they were 18,000 miles away. It was that I didn't even know what a baseball looked like. Was it the size of a ping-pong ball or a volleyball? I had no idea."

"And my father? Absent. I think we shared the same weariness of root vegetables."

"Everything was illegal, so no one could be bothered to do something legal, even the policemen."

You could argue that the book "isn't China enough" but I think that might be the point. It is China on the edge, slipping quickly toward McDonald's and air-conditioning, and to the ordinary people like our narrator, it does feel as if every morning she is waking up in a world that is entirely different.

Quotes like the last one above feel like a cold wind coming from the (literal) east. I wish this would have been explored more in the book, as well as the narrator's relationships with the foreign men she knew (one of whom said that China was more American than America, and he wanted to stay in China forever).

It could have been so much more, but for what it is, knowing that it is something that was originally written in Chinese, translated, and then fiddled with in English by the author herself, it is perfect. It is a snapshot of a Chinese woman, and as the author continues to mature as a writer and a woman, I'm sure she is going to look back upon this book and want to change things about the narrator. She could rewrite the entire book if she wanted, but I don't think that would be beneficial, as we all have parts of our lives we wish we could change.(less)

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Dec 05, 2012 Ed added it · review of another edition

Guo, Xiaolu. (2008). Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth: A Novel. New York: Nan A. Talese/Random House. 176 pp. ISBN 978-0-385-52592-3 (Hardcover); $21.95

Guo’s book is published as an adult title, but it will resonate with teens because its focus on Fenfang becoming more than just a number as she attempts a career as an actor. What strikes me about this book is how clearly it describes American teenagers searching to find a place in a world that is too big and too biting to care much about one...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Willem van den Oever rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: china, in-english, kindle

‘ Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth’ gives us an intimate glimpse into the life of a young girl, Fenfang, as she tries to find her place in life. Having run off from her small countryside village, she winds up in Beijing, looking for the shiny things in life. But Beijing, like the rest of China, is rapidly changing during the second half of the 1990’s and it’s not easy for young Fenfang to deal with her surroundings. The change is omnipresent: boyfriends who come and go without leaving a fulf...more

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Mar 23, 2010 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: relationships, kindle, women, 2010, china, contemporary-fiction, social-commentary, the-challenged-reader

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth is a small book, but it does provide an insight into a world many of us know so little about, life inside Communist China.

Told in twenty chapters, each a fragment of Fenfang’s life, this book is a series of small narratives in the life of this young woman. Growing up in a small village Fenfang sees her future as a never ending farming of the sweet potato fields all around her. Her parents are silent and worn down so Fenfeng decides to pack it all in and head...more

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Jun 02, 2009 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Xiaolu Guo’s impressive first novel has a narrator who leaps off the page and strides into our world commanding attention with her paradoxical fragility and virulence. Seventeen year old Fenfang leaves behind her family and their provincial way of life as sweet potato farmers for the seething city of Beijing in search of something more than a monotonous existence.
The story is told in twenty brief chapters brimming with deadpan humor and shining with Fenfeng’s resiliency amidst squalor and fail...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Andy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

I had picked this up a while ago around the same time as 'a concise...dictionary' which never set me alight. 20 Fragments leaves me with much the same feeling.

We follow Fenfang through (20) brief moments in her life over a number of years living in Beijing. Brief, generally unconnected and lacking much depth they are however, representative of a young, lost life, evoking the fragile place of a young girl alone in her world. She's idealistic, disconnected and often superficial. As such, we never...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Jesse rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What at first seems a bit like hollow shards of reflection gain resonance as the pieces fall into place and some semblance of the self begin to be form. Each chapter--or fragment--conveyed in shimmery, deceptively simple prose, serves as a brief reflection of what initially seems to be a trivial situation or occurrence, only revealing its emotional weight later. It's as if the traces and residue of the "off moments" are the things that give shape to life itself, bringing to mind Joyce Carol Oate...more

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Nov 02, 2009 Cecily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: oriental

As the title implies, this is a fragmentary account of youthful ambition, rather than a conventional novel. It is deliberately raw and unpolished: fast-paced, often angry and slightly stilted.

Fenfang is a young Chinese woman who, around the turn of the millennium, leaves the claustrophobic monotony of her family and village life to go to Beijing and get into the film industry. Even once there, she is torn between the need to conform (her "Mao drawer") and desire to rebel (leaving home).

Of cours...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Zee rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: booksread2010, chinese, contemporary

Quick Review | '20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth' - Xiaolu Guo

4/5 Stars

"Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, isn't it about time I got my lucky break?"

'20 fragments of a Ravenous Youth' is the disjointed chronicle of Fenfang Wang; a young woman who leaves the monotonous life of Ginger Hill Village behind to make it big in one of the most complex capitals of the world, Beijing.

Unlike the other inhabitants, Fenfang is painfully aware of the hum-drum life of her existence. Days seem to melt into one anothe...more

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Jul 06, 2009 Tanya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just finished "Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth" by Xiaolu Guo (who also wrote A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers). Twenty Fragments is a great YAish book, though I'm not sure you could use it in school (it probably depends where you are and how old your students are). There's mild sexual content and some swearing. The main character, for instance, refers to god as "heavenly bastard up in the sky." (Okay, so I laughed EVERY single time she said it, but I know it's not for ever...more

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Jan 03, 2011 Melinda Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I approached this book as if it was a bunch of short stories. If you read it any other way, you're likely to be disappointed, as there is no particular time line connecting the stories, and indeed some jump back and forth through the main characters life and can become quite confusing.

Being so short, it was hard to establish a dislike for the character or the premise, and insights are predominantly superficial. She struggles to become much of anything, choosing acting when someone suggests it t...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Nesa Sivagnanam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a first book I'm reading by this writer and I must say that I liked it very much. I read it through in one sitting and the way the story is written pretty much demands that.

Fenfang is and has travelled one thousand eight hundred miles to seek her fortune in Beijing. In the city she tries the persona of a movie extra. She's tired of making tin cans, cleaning rooms and tidying movie theaters for a living. She's hungry for love, to appease the loneliness in her stomach that even her favori...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Vanessa Wu rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think Xiaolu Guo has a problem with narrative. That's why she likes writing in fragments. I wonder what her films are like. It's possible to make films without having to explain anything. In a novel, if this is a novel, you can't really get away with that for long. Which is probably why this nearly-novel is very short.

One of the things I didn't like is that it jumps around in time without being clear about the chronology. Just when did this little 17 year old from a sweet potato farm get her...more

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Jul 29, 2008 kira rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Beautifully written and a little sad. Guo's books (well, this one and A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary) remind me a bit of Jean Rhys... stories of women who have moved to places that are foreign to them in search of something -- freedom, love, change, challenge -- and the alienation and loneliness they suffer there, often at the hands of various men.

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Feb 09, 2011 Lucia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is displayed as the titles suggests, depicting in twenty parts, the life of Fenfang, a young Chinese woman living in Beijing. Having grown up in rural China on a sweet potato farm with her silent parents, Fenfang has never wanted anything more than to live a more modern life as her own person. Working primarily as a film extra, but also taking on such mismatched jobs as a cleaner, usherette and tin can assembler, Fenfang feels she is observing her life rather than actually living it, w...more This book is displayed as the titles suggests, depicting in twenty parts, the life of Fenfang, a young Chinese woman living in Beijing. Having grown up in rural China on a sweet potato farm with her silent parents, Fenfang has never wanted anything more than to live a more modern life as her own person. Working primarily as a film extra, but also taking on such mismatched jobs as a cleaner, usherette and tin can assembler, Fenfang feels she is observing her life rather than actually living it, with a fixed certainty that she may as well 'be young or die.'

I have never been able to identify with a character more than I did and can, with Fenfang. Sometimes Guo's sharply observed prose so matched my own feelings that there was nothing left to do but cry. Fenfang's ideas about her youth and her attitude toward it, as well as her frankness, are completely dumbfounding. On the back of my copy, the Daily Telegraph stated that this book depicted 'universal youth,' and I absolutely agree. In case you need further confirmation, I adore 20 Fragments Of A Ravenous Youth.

For me, this novel was about Fenfang's independance, sense of individuality and the powerful need to simply get away, all of which arrive most forcefully with youth. It is obvious that the narrating character wants to be and is capable of being independent, but the question is, does she know how? Oh, and of course her ravenous hunger for a juicy chunk of life. It is clear at the conclusion of the book, the primary way in which Guo's character has developed, and this flows naturally with the general drift of these ideas (but I won't spoil that for you).

Before reading the actual novel, I first read Guo's acknowledgments at the rear, in which she states that she first wrote this book in Chinese when she was very young. This doesn't surprise me now that I have read the novel, mainly because of her profoundly clear perception of youth and her ability to express it so exactly. Her language is clean and simple, yet raw, distinctly honest and at times very beautiful. I loved Fenfang's dry humor and Guo's ability to create a very real atmosphere through her descriptions. One thing which struck me about the way the novel was written was that sometimes it seemed as though many things blurred past, either unacknowledged or given very little mention. It appeared as though relevant things were happening which the reader wasn't privy to. Then I realized this was how Fenfang felt her life was going by.

A highly impressive novel. Xiaolu Guo hit the nail on the head so precisely with her scintillating and insightful novel. I think I want to create a list of my favorite books read this year so I can put this one near the top.(less)

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Mar 06, 2009 earthy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(I don't even know what genre to put this one in!) It's short and definitely fragmented (i.e., very little plot connecting the twenty "chapters"), but it's a tough, often lyrical look at life in Beijing from the point of view of a young country girl who goes there to make her fortune. Unfortunately, her "fortune" basically means a string of meaningless jobs and half-hearted attempts at romance and the film industry.

Not a good book, per se, and a bit depressing, but I like that this isn't about f...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Neury72 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Je m'attendais à une suite de l'histoire d'amour... Mais non, je me suis trompée...

A travers des photos, la vie d'une Chinoise en Chine cette fois est décrite, avec ses rêves de devenir une célèbre actrice (débuter en figurante, puis finir en star) et ses illusions du quotidien.

J'ai eu moins de plaisir à parcourir cet ouvrage que le précédent. Les photos ne sont pas esthétiques, je n'ai pas réussi à saisir leur essence, leur objectif, leur but...

Je me suis tout de même attachée au personnage, c...more

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Mar 18, 2010 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book in a few short hours. I couldn't put it down. I think some people may not understand the simple style, but it resonated with me. The simplicity of the language is a reflection of the isolation of the character and the short, sparse sentences reflected perfectly the loneliness and depression of a woman in huge city. Bonus: it managed to highlight current issues in China without being preachy.

The author doesn't play around with pretty words, because the character does not live a p...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Charlotte rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I started reading this book a month or two ago, when I was meant to be revising for my exams. I read six or so of the twenty fragments before putting it aside, and then yesterday I came back to it, ready to finish.

It's beautifully written and really striking – the structure of the book, the way it's told in fragments, definitely helps here. Everything seems very emblematic, very important. There's no dead weight. & it made me feel like I was getting to know a lot about Fenfang when really, t...more

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About Xiaolu Guo

Xiaolu Guo (Simplified Chinese: 郭小櫓 pinyin:guō xiǎo lǔ, born 1973) is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker. She utilizes various media, including film and writing, to tell stories of alienation, introspection and tragedy, and to explore China's past, present and future in an increasingly connected world.

Her novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers was nominated for the 2007 Orange Prize f...more

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A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

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Quotes from Twenty Fragments of a ...

“People always say it's harder to heal a wounded heart than a wounded body. Bullshit. It's exactly the opposite—a wounded body takes much longer to heal. A wounded heart is nothing but ashes of memories. But the body is everything. The body is blood and veins and cells and nerves. A wounded body is when, after leaving a man you’ve lived with for three years, you curl up on your side of the bed as if there’s still somebody beside you. That is a wounded body: a body that feels connected to someone who is no longer there.” — 18 people liked it

“Huizi would say, never look back to the past. Never regret. Even if there is emptiness ahead, never look back.” — 13 people liked it

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20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

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