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The Invisibility Cloak

Ge Fei,

Canaan Morse (Translator)

3.80 · Rating details · 972 ratings · 130 reviews

An NYRB Classics Original

The hero of The Invisibility Cloak lives in contemporary Beijing—where everyone is doing their best to hustle up the ladder of success while shouldering an ever-growing burden of consumer goods—and he’s a loser. Well into his forties, he’s divorced (and still doting on his ex), childless, and living with his sister (her husband wants him out) in an ...more

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Paperback, NYRB Classics, 126 pages

Published October 11th 2016 by New York Review Books (first published May 1st 2012)

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Oct 25, 2016 Trish rated it it was amazing

Shelves: family, fiction, funny, literature, horror, totally-unexpected, mysteries, asia, music

This wonderful short novel, Ge Fei’s first translated to English, has just been published by NYRB as a Classics Original. The cover copy calls it a “comic novel” and it is...in the sense of the straight man in a comic duo undergoing relationship trouble, family trouble, and job trouble in a fast modernizing Beijing. Our hero—we only ever learn his surname, Cui (pronounced Ts-wei)—plays the straight man role to the end, never quite losing his nerve, though he comes close, while we watch helplessl This wonderful short novel, Ge Fei’s first translated to English, has just been published by NYRB as a Classics Original. The cover copy calls it a “comic novel” and it is...in the sense of the straight man in a comic duo undergoing relationship trouble, family trouble, and job trouble in a fast modernizing Beijing. Our hero—we only ever learn his surname, Cui (pronounced Ts-wei)—plays the straight man role to the end, never quite losing his nerve, though he comes close, while we watch helplessly.

Cui is not completely destitute, except in terms of money, love, and friendship. He has skills. He can put together hi-fi sound systems that audiofiles want to buy. When forced to move from his sister’s unused apartment one winter, Cui develops a sound system that should qualify as “the best in the world,” for any discriminating buyer in China, in hopes that the profit will give him enough to buy a small courtyard for himself to live in.

What elevates this novel is the ordinary man quality, the sense we have of a human fleck bobbing on a wind-tossed sea over which he has no control. The bad things that happen are outside of his control, and though he makes plans and efforts to extricate himself, there is a certain inexorable flow to his outcomes.

This novel is not especially dark, though it has delicious elements of horror and mystery. We become genuinely terrified when a mysterious wealthy stranger offers to buy the "best sound system in the world," but who exudes a hard inflexibility and sense of ferocity when challenged...or when asked to pay. There is some evidence that he has done damage to those that oppose him.

Who wears the invisibility cloak in this novel? Cui tells us that

"In the 1990s, Mou Qishan, the celebrity tycoon, was a household name in Beijing. He liked calligraphy, climbing mountains, and hanging out with female movie stars—all an open secret. Other rumors, however, told of his eccentric and often unpredictable behavior. The wildest story I heard was that he could show up at any event unseen because he wore an invisibility cloak…"

When Mou died, Cui bought a pair of hexagonal Autograph speakers from Mou’s estate. He used them to construct the “best sound system in the world.” It could be the invisibility cloak passed from person to person with ownership of the speakers.

When Cui’s childhood friend Jiang Songping played a joke on Horsewhip Xu, an old man in his neighborhood, Cui had a personal revelation:

"...the best attributes of anyone or anything usually reside on the surface, which is where, in fact, all of us live out our lives. Everyone has an inner life, but it’s best if we leave it alone. For as soon as you poke a hole through that paper window, most of what’s inside simply won’t hold up to scrutiny."

What do we take from this? If you are wearing the invisibility cloak, you not only cannot be seen, there isn’t much worth seeing? It does seems as though once ownership of the Autograph speakers changed hands, the “freed man,” as it were, becomes once again visible, and able to express himself “on the surface,” without us having to look through “the hole in the paper window” to their inner thoughts.

One of the more intriguing things Ge does in this novel is debunk the integrity of Jiang Songping, Cui’s best and only friend, and he does it using a pomegranate. Jiang Songping was a clever boy, but Cui’s mother could see right away he was going to be the kind of person who owned people. Jiang had a way of sounding authoritative, even when he spoke rubbish. All of us come under his spell to some degree when he states categorically that all pomegranates, no matter how big or how long they've grown, contain the exact same number of seeds, 365 to be exact. Our eyes pop a bit with this news, for who has ever actually counted pomegranate seeds, and who could dispute this entrancing fact? Later, we learn with the chagrin we share with Cui’s sister that, in fact, Jiang lied on this occasion, and perhaps on many others.

One of the more poignant moments in the book was when Cui returned to the neighborhood where he grew up and discovered it much changed:

"Human memory really is unreliable. I could clearly remember this alley being long, wide, submerged in green shade or sprinkled with white locust flowers, and nowhere near as cramped and seedy as it looked that day…As I sat on the stoop and surveyed the cluttered street under the setting sun, I felt vaguely alienated from everything."

Not all change is good...but memory is unreliable.

This is a delightful addition to the canon coming out of China today, having none of the syrupy schmaltz that earlier, more severely censored works demonstrated. Terrific translation by Canaan Morse, and many thanks to NYRB for picking this one out to share with us. Kudos to all on this one. ...more

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Mar 17, 2017 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: nyrb-classics, music, chinese

Contains a plot outline which may constitute spoiling.

You fall in love in a shoe store but your mother warns against a marriage. You marry anyhow. Your mother, terminally ill, waits out her sickness until your wife runs away with the shop manager. You fix his stereo anyhow. Your sister kicks you out of your apartment, but not before she tries to set you up with some androgynous divorcée. You fix the divorcée's stereo anyhow. Your best friend turns out to be a real shit, but not before he sets yo ...more

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May 13, 2017 L.S. Popovich rated it it was amazing

Shelves: comedy, 5-star, rare-gems, chinese-language

This was one of my favorite modern Chinese novels. Instead of dealing with the horrors of war and destruction of families and bureaucracies, as in Mo Yan and Yan Lianke's works, this was a breath of fresh air. It read much more like Japanese fiction in its depiction of an everyday narrator, tasked with his very specific struggles. It was well-polished and informative, as regards the high-end audio business. The author's style possessed the charm of Murakami's early works without as many pop refe ...more

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Nov 13, 2016 Caroline added it

Wonderful. Beautiful writing about the value of art and the integrity of artists in bad times. Also about the impossibility of understanding what can cause people we thought were family and friends to turn against us. Finding companionship in unexpected places. Dedication. Humor. Fear. A fine book to read now.

I would give this story of a middle aged man who barely scrapes by in Beijing by building very high quality tube based audio systems for occasional wealthy customers four stars; I'm ponder ...more

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Dec 18, 2016 Reid rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literature-classics, 5-stars, lol, 2016, review, crime, fiction, horror-ghost-supernatural, favorites-2016

PS: For me, a much more enjoyable updated and realistic version of Stoner. They love their work, but the world relentlessly does not love them back. Cue the violins.

Excellent novel. I read this a 2nd time, and I like it a lot. It's got everything. There are quips and lines that are very funny. There's a good simple plot, great writing and great translation. Good social themes, and some provocative philosophical thoughts. And an original protagonist with a great narrated voice, but a story that's PS: For me, a much more enjoyable updated and realistic version of Stoner. They love their work, but the world relentlessly does not love them back. Cue the violins.

Excellent novel. I read this a 2nd time, and I like it a lot. It's got everything. There are quips and lines that are very funny. There's a good simple plot, great writing and great translation. Good social themes, and some provocative philosophical thoughts. And an original protagonist with a great narrated voice, but a story that's ambiguous enough to never quite be sure what the author is intending to mean. It's a bit of a horror story, and a smidgen of crime noir, but mostly the story of a traditionally principled guy, divorced and in his 40's, in modern Beijing struggling against poverty, singledom, and a ruthless society with everyone focused on making money, and to hell with friendship and family. Although he sticks to his principles of compassion and justice, he's also a fairly passive player in his own life, allowing fate to create his future. Almost everything that can go wrong does go wrong, but somehow our man keeps trudging through, barely hoping for something better, often straddling the line of giving up. The forces are against him, and he's not exactly one to fight back, naively believing that he's in his own little enclosed utopia within the brethren society of audiophiles. But, he has faith in his mother's wisdom, that a certain level of happiness will suddenly arrive at his door step in the form of Woman, but she's nothing he'd ever imagine, in dreams or nightmares.

The author is great at providing glimpses or references to future happenings, but you won't know it until you finish the book. There is mystery, there is violence, and there's a lovable loser to root for. The novel reminded me a bit of Wonderful Fool by Shusako Endo, also a tale of a naive innocent hero in a criminal world, but this book is funnier, deeper, and more realistic.

The question becomes, is the protagonist some type of hero, or worthy of scorn or ridicule? To the extent that he's invisible to his friends, family and society, is that perhaps beneficial in a corrupt world, or has he given up too much? The balancing act between the stoical elder wisdom of traditional Chinese society and the modern capitalist revolution now occurring is a bit diabolical. Fate, or corruption? Principles, or profits? Ruthlessness, or compassion? These are the issues the hero battles, and who's to say what's best for him? Yet, maybe the resolution is even simpler, to just be true to oneself.

Hate to compare the two, but, yes, this could be compared a bit to Murakami. Ge includes a lot of references to classical music, and they seem even more incorporated and significant to this audiophile's character than much of what's in the few Murakami books I've read. And I'm a bit inspired to start listening now to some good classical stuff. The case builds and builds until the main character finally reveals, that yeah, he's a Mozart fan first and foremost. Plenty of references to look up on youtube, if you want, I only did one, probably because the book is so good by itself. One other reminder of Murakami was a scene of a man and woman simultaneously yet separately gazing at the sky, as in 1Q84, with romantic overtones.

Include me as a Ge Fei fan. This book will stay with me, yet I'd still say it leaves you fairly light hearted. As the author says, ambiguity, the lack of clarity, isn't necessarily a bad thing, and maybe something modern man has to incorporate into our view of modernity.

Some further thoughts and questions: (view spoiler)[
There's lots of foreshadowing, and the woman at the end uses the same phrase as the misdirected text. Makes one wonder whether she was pulling any strings, whether she had a hand in the java jump!

Lots of references to crosshatching and knives and cleavers, and invisibility.

Even in the end he makes perhaps a decision that may feel right but may be awfully limiting and an acceptance of those limitations. The author rides sort of a line between representing the narrator is a principled fellow/hero and a schmuck. The narrator also promotes ambiguity and lack of clarity as things he doesn't have the time or energy to try to overcome.

Is the author saying this is life, no one-sided obvious view or heroic style? Or is he trying to ridicule the narrator? I think in part it's a statement of modernity, too much information as the Police sing about, too much for mere mortals to deal with unless we sweep the ambiguities under the rug and go for simple solutions, which obviously causes problems. Of course there's fate, or trying to make your own way, but even the gangster can't fight the greater forces above him, as she says toward the end.

The misdirected text is directing someone or a small group of people to a bridge. Maybe the gangster drops from a bridge as opposed to a highrise, as related by the woman. She has no sympathy for the gangster, maybe she was the puppeteer, and maybe she has reeled in the narrator in a diabolical scheme. Or maybe the gangster has acted out of guilt and set up the two knowing they'd be good together.

Hard to say whether the narrator "grows" or not. His first wife choice was made apparently on a superficial level, and he didn't think much about the 2nd "wife" either, however he does have more in common, apparently, with the 2nd woman. Hard to say whether he's giving up and just choosing what's in front of him, or whether it's truly a good choice for him. He does wind up with a child, and an apparently decent woman with similar tastes and love for music. Is the narrator smart or dumb, wise or a simpleton, or a tossed ship looking for shelter? What's the author's view?

And maybe there's a difference culturally, between this character in that society, and the same guy if he was in a democracy, where there's some idea of having a bit more say or control in the direction of things, including oneself and one's future. Or maybe there's no difference at all.

Is the cloak actually the societal veil that's hiding all these tougher choices, allowing the pretension that we have more control than we actually do? Society hiding the ugly parts of itself, promoting a sales job, and pressuring people not to recognize the deeper layers of truth, or the ambiguities behind the veil of simplicities? (hide spoiler)] ...more

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Oct 20, 2019 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: in-translation, fiction, 中国, nyrb-classics

**SPOILERS**

3.5 rounded down

A slippery novel set in contemporary China which defies categorisation. A divorced Beijing man in his 40s who repairs stereos is bumbling through life, encountering misfortune after misfortune - his beautiful wife leaves him, his mother dies, his sister wants to boot him out of her house. A bit of a loser who is down on his luck, our protagonist then comes across a mysterious man who wants to buy “the best sound system in the world”... and from here on in things get r ...more

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Sep 28, 2020 J.M. Hushour rated it really liked it

"Everyone has an inner life, but it's best if we leave it alone."

Ge has only recently entered the translation canon which is good, for this novel, at least, is a refreshing, quiet, and mysterious little story that readers of Chinese fiction will welcome for not being self-consciously obsessed with the last 50 years of Chinese history. Indeed, there is little of political note here, thank Zarquon. Instead, we are served up the story of Mr. Cui, an audio maniac who designs perfect stereo systems f ...more

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Feb 12, 2017 Sofia rated it really liked it

Shelves: eagerly-read, br, 2017, shorts-anthologies

I really enjoyed reading this. It gave me a view of Beijing which is rare for me. I usually just get smoggy pictures on the news.

Fei leaves us to interpret what we are reading so what I'm writing here is my interpretation with one eye closed and one eye open as per his recommendation for a 'beautiful fucking life'.

Fei dabbles with the concept of how beauty, wealth, success all come at a price, they do not exist in a vacuum and they are carnivorous in their need for admiration, attention. What is ...more

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May 04, 2018 Zak rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

This novel is a real gem. Introspective and honest in an understated, unassuming way. There were rare moments of humour which were perfectly timed. I was totally absorbed in the story of this "loser" from beginning to end. If fiction reflects the author, which further reflects the society which the author inhabits, I believe it has also given me additional precious insight on the general Chinese psyche. [Final rating: 4.5*] ...more

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Oct 08, 2018 Nate D rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2018, china, nyrb

Unexpected rapid spin across contemporary Beijing society through the lens of high-end stereo world, portraying the relatively mundane with a noir-tinged sense of intrigue. Sense of place, especially, comes through strongly.

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Oct 03, 2016 Christine rated it really liked it

Shelves: poc-unclear-hero-or-heroine, literature-china

Oct 2016 NYRB Club Selection

Talk about reading a book about life, this is it. If all of Ge Fei's work is like this, he deserves the Nobel.

One story about man's life and his desire for something, is actually a brilliant comment about most lived. ...more

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Aug 25, 2017 jo ianni rated it it was amazing

Shelves: next

I'm not sure anyone will enjoy this book the way I enjoyed this book --- I'm sorry if anyone reads this off my rating ...more

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Mar 26, 2018 John rated it it was amazing

Superb friend recommendation. The main story follows a middle-aged divorced man who cobbles together a living by installing high-end sound systems for China's new rich. The plot revolves around his imminent loss of housing. Not exactly blockbuster material, but through the protagonist's disaffected, sardonic but very lucid perceptions, I felt vividly immersed in the contemporary Chinese experience. Savored the many rich, odd, unexpected details, and the almost casual brilliance with which the au ...more

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Apr 19, 2017 Paul Secor rated it liked it

Shelves: music-music-music

For years, I've had a voyeuristic fascination with the world of audiophiles - folks who are constantly changing their audio systems or tinkering with the equipment they have in order to improve the sounds they hear. In the end, I decided that wasn't a world I wanted to live in. I love music too much to want to add a neurosis (I probably already have enough of those already) to something I love even more than reading.
The audiophile world can be fascinating, though, and that's the main reason I b ...more

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May 15, 2016 Mengfei Chen rated it really liked it

Maybe it's because I live in and love Beijing, but I loved reading this book and recognizing the places, the hutongs, DZM, Maliandao....more than that this book, its audiophile protagonist and the Beijing it is set in feel modern and humane. Also, excellent translation. ...more

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Aug 27, 2018 Aaron Arnold rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2018

An easy little slice-of-life novel, with an understated style and a straightforward plot. Cui is a nerdy audiophile engineer who lives at his sister's house in Beijing while he deals with the emotional fallout from his divorce, trying to make a big enough sale to get out of her house while dodging her attempts to set him up with new girls. The desire of someone who feels trapped to escape by making one last big score is perfectly relatable, but if I could sum it up in a phrase, the novel is real An easy little slice-of-life novel, with an understated style and a straightforward plot. Cui is a nerdy audiophile engineer who lives at his sister's house in Beijing while he deals with the emotional fallout from his divorce, trying to make a big enough sale to get out of her house while dodging her attempts to set him up with new girls. The desire of someone who feels trapped to escape by making one last big score is perfectly relatable, but if I could sum it up in a phrase, the novel is really about how tenuous your sense of place in the world can be; your relationships, your personal history, your job, where you live, everything. You thought you had a solid marriage and then surprise!; you thought you had a stable living environment and then your sister says take a hike; you thought you could count on your friend until friendship becomes a one-way street; you thought that you were a part of a certain kind of society but then "all that is solid melts into air", in the famous phrase.

To that end, there are constant reminders of how social mores shifted from Communist solidarity to capitalist individualism in the post-Xiaoping era, along the lines of "we used to be poor, but at least we were all poor together!", so this is one of those novels where a book jacket-type description like "explores the changes that wealth has brought to Chinese society" is perfectly appropriate. A Westerner might satirize this view as "under Communism you were guaranteed nothing, but at least you were guaranteed!", but many Chinese really do have nostalgia for those days, as weird as that might seem. Part of that might be due to the intellectual class that Fei spends some time skewering. There's plenty of intellectuals droning on about the proper evaluation of historical figures like the Dowager Empress; Fei obviously doesn't trust their abilities to lead the country, although it's not clear what he does trust. This is also a fun read from an audiophile perspective: poor Cui puts all this work into building top-of-the-line audio rigs for rich idiots who only listen to garbage instead of the pieces he likes, and I recommend listening to all the music mentioned in the book. Even if you don't think that a traditional Chinese opera titled "The Red Detachment of Women" is up your alley (and it is not always an easy listen), often Fei/Cui's selections are excellent. ...more

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Jul 21, 2018 freckledbibliophile rated it really liked it

I’m no audiophile but I relished this book. Cui, a man married a beautiful young lady, even after his mom warned him not to. The marriage ends in divorce. Cui, has a distant kinship with his sister and deplores her husband. His clients, he doesn’t truly care for. The one friend, he did have throughout the narration ends. One of his clients sticks him for half the money for his work and he ends up marrying and having a child with the adult female who resides in the mans home when he gets the nerv ...more

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Nov 19, 2016 Hubert rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, asian-interest, politics-economics, history, international-writers-book-club

This short novella features a main character somewhat down in life; he works as a fixer-upper of audio equipment for the nouveau riche in modern China. Beset by forces of China's new capitalism, a sister (and brother-in-law) who thinks little of him, and a less-than-honest childhood friend, by the end of the book he comes to terms with himself and begins to generate more emotional connectivity with those around him.

Some have compared Ge with Murakami; I find Murakami more about the supernatural, ...more

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Jul 14, 2017 Q rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novels

I loved this! Every moment was so vivid and compelling, as was every character - Cui Lihua and her oafish husband, the callous Jiang Songping, the quietly sly Yufen and Cui's mother's perception of her, the poor Meizhu, the subtly cruel Ding Caichen and his secretive widow, the earnest Cui himself who thumbs his nose at the pretensions of everyone else and never quite escapes his own righteousness. This was a rich, funny, and concise sketch of the personalities in contemporary urban Chinese soci ...more

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Nov 23, 2016 Peter Landau rated it really liked it

THE INVISIBILITY CLOAK by Ge Fei is what a friend called loser literature. The author, well-known in his native China and translated into English for the first time with this novel, sketches out a narrator who fits the bill: cuckolded and then divorced by his attractive wife, thrown out of his sister’s apartment, an electronics nerd who best connects with the stereo equipment he builds for wealthy audiophiles. The short book follows his minor misadventures and subtly builds to something weirder, ...more

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Dec 26, 2016 June rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, mystery, thriller, china

The writing is in a style of oral storytelling (full of Beijing slang). I was compelled to read (as if listen to), non-stop, Cui's seemingly passive narration, sad, funny, haunting.
Everyone (except protagonist Cui) in the book wears a cloak to hide the true nature unseen by readers and even Cui himself up to certain points where the plot develops.
I was lost in the coined modern phrases on classical music and audio technology (perhaps English version will clarify), nevertheless captivated by the ...more

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Dec 21, 2017 David Lutes rated it really liked it

This is an exceptional novel. I am very happy to find Fei and hope to read more. This story of an audio system builder in Beijing is a fantastic exploration of beauty, craft, family relations, and love. Cui is a bit of a sad sack, but we pull for him to break away from his shackles of money, love, and devotion to a dying industry. This is an enjoyable and provocative read.

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Jun 06, 2020 Marc Gerstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-fiction

Cui, the protagonist of this delightful novella, appreciates finer things in life and has some talent. He’s a very skilled audio technician who builds and repairs top-notch sound systems capable of pleasing the most discriminating audiophiles. But there’s an expression borrowed from football that applies to guys lie Cui: He consistently “out-kicks his coverage.” (For non-football fans, this refers to a punter who kicks a ball to the other team but kicks it so far and so hard, his teammates, who ...more

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Jul 15, 2018 Daniel Polansky added it

Shelves: nyrb-classics, fiction

Lost beneath a lot of the sanctimonious leftist polemics about reading writers outside of the old canon is that it’s actually really fun on its own merits to get a glimpse of a foreign life, or really just to be wading through a different set of cultural signifiers and thoughts. This short, strange, comic novel of an aging stereo salesman, a loser in the new China, is not on its own merits particularly spectacular. There’s a lot of that thing you often see in books translated from Chinese where ...more

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Jul 17, 2020 Contejm rated it really liked it

I enjoyed this book for a few reasons. I love a book that teaches me about a world I am unfamiliar with in an accessible way, and this certainly does this not only because it is set in China and clearly the setting is integral to the plot and character development, but also because it dives into the world of audiophiles obsessed with sound quality and Classical music. Comparisons to Stoner by Williams are certainly warranted, though I will say I prefer Stoner of the two. I won't spoil the ending ...more

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Nov 22, 2020 Ciaran Monaghan rated it liked it

I can understand the Murakami comparisons for this book. There is an isolated, slightly detached male protagonist who ends up in a slightly otherworldly situation, which ends in a strange yet vaguely happy way. It is not a carbon copy, however. It is funnier than most of the Murakami I've read and it also offers a bit more social commentary than I have noticed in his work. This story opens a window on to the super-rich in Beijing, who have no interest in music or audio but want to buy a new expe ...more

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Mar 12, 2019 Rupert rated it really liked it

Not only a glimpse into a China rarely seen, but also a plot that revolves around audiophile music systems.

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Jan 27, 2017 Adam Calhoun rated it it was amazing

"But how could a mafioso be forced to commit suicide?" I continued.
"It only goes to show," she said, "that there are forces in this society more terrifying than the mafia."

The Invisibility Cloak is a book about the the forces in society that are more terrifying than the mafia. This is the Chinese generation that grew up after Communism destroyed society's traditions; this is the Chinese generation that has to reckon with the benefits and ills of capitalism.

The main character is someone out of an ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 Clayton rated it really liked it

A sad-sack audio-technician in a crap-sack corner of New China scrapes by building speaker systems for wealthy audiophiles. The customers with good taste tend to be snobbish intellectuals; the easy-going ones tend to be businessmen with atrocious tastes. Mr. Cui fills pages with comic riffs on both types, but with business as bad as it is, he keeps it to himself. Mostly. His family is eager to kick him out of his house in order to sell it, and a childhood friend is increasingly suspicious of thi ...more

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Apr 03, 2020 Nick rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, relationships, teens-n-up, very_thought_provoking, philosophy, weird, china, music

The Invisibility Cloak is an interesting, short, translated novel from 21st century China full of interesting characters. It follows Mr. Cui, an audiophile and custom-amplifier builder, as he struggles in modern Beijing, with dips into his past. Overall, I see Cloak as fairly light and different than my usual read, with themes of wealth and power, hypocrisy, critiques of academic intellectuals and the wealthy, western classical music, modern vs historical Chinese society, drama, and acceptance.
The Invisibility Cloak is an interesting, short, translated novel from 21st century China full of interesting characters. It follows Mr. Cui, an audiophile and custom-amplifier builder, as he struggles in modern Beijing, with dips into his past. Overall, I see Cloak as fairly light and different than my usual read, with themes of wealth and power, hypocrisy, critiques of academic intellectuals and the wealthy, western classical music, modern vs historical Chinese society, drama, and acceptance. You can gleam a bit of Chinese life and culture from the pages, grimace, ponder a bit, and laugh now and then. Occasionally the drama, tension, or emotion ramp up pretty high, but the novel is, overall, subdued.

4.1 Stars

Notes and Analysis (spoilers>
(view spoiler)[
- The introduction is interesting. Mr. Cui deals with his mostly ignorant customers, focusing on a professor who engages in intellectual foo-fa conversation (which the narrator critiques). The same professor is used to end the book, with Mr. Cui upgrading the Prof's amplifier (against Cui's advice) and finally losing it on the Prof after his hypocrisy, prattling, and nonsense becomes too much, telling him:

"If you could just stop nitpicking and dissecting every little thing, if you could learn to keep one eye closed and one eye open, and quit worrying about everything and everybody, you might discover that life is actually pretty fucking beautiful. Am I right?" - pgs 125-126

What else is going on here? Well, "Am I right?" is an expression the professor constantly appends to his sentences, which Cui finds very annoying. It also reflects Cui's newfound understanding of life, thus -- "am I right" can refer to his practising what he preaches. "Keep one eye closed and one eye open, quit worrying, etc." seems to relate to Cui's own experiences, where things somehow tend to work out in the end if you stop worrying and just accept. It can also relate to how he ended up living with the ex (something: girlfriend, hostage, lover, wife -- we don't know) of possibly-deceased (but apparently living, we don't know for sure) possible gangster Ding Caichen (the mysterious client from the back of the novel). Ding ordered Cui to make him the best audio system in the world, which Cui spent his last yuan assembling. Ding ended up being a very odd and interesting character ('Satie' chapter), but he also seemed to have killed himself without paying Cui the massive sum still owing on the stereo, leaving Cui in a position of getting kicked out of his apartment by his own sister and her gross husband, and not having anywhere to go or the money he needs to buy the place he wants out on a farm. He appears totally screwed, and starts freaking out, but then Ding Caichen's mysterious widow/lover/whatever, who was previously 'invisible' to Cui (with only traces of her in the house), who hides and then reveals a horribly-disfigured face, takes Cui in, and they end up living together in Ding's large and luxurious place, and have a daughter. So: put an Invisibility Cloak on things I guess -- cover up half the stuff or much of the stuff, one eye open, one eye closed. When Cui loses it at the professor, he is also yelling for himself. He has learned to let things go and accept things, unlike in the beginning of the novel:

"...his whole exhausting argument angered me. Why did his words have such an effect? What he said made me feel ashamed, like someone had just dug up my family's grave; I wanted to step forward and argue the point." - pg 9

The 'Invisibility Cloak' can also relate to the woman wearing or not wearing scarves and things to hide her face, to people in Cui's life not seeing beyond themselves and their own selfish needs (perhaps Cui himself as well) and also to Cui and others in his tiny, dying profession of audiophile, western classical-music-obsessed custom audio guys:

"The vast majority of people in today's society seem totally oblivious to our existence. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives us a good reason to look down on them, while finding dark corners in which to live self-sufficient, invisible lives." - pg 10

It is mentioned earlier in the text too, specifically, yet in passing if I recall...

- Cui's trade, a lot of which involves vacuum tube amplifiers, is a dying one.

- Chapter Two brings up Cui's beautiful ex-wife, Yufen, who he obsessed about for long after she left. She was "easy-come, easy-go", and his mother tried to warn him from the start that someday she would indeed go.

- Page 37: "I don't know why, but I felt an incredible sadness" -- Cui feels this deep level of sadness because he has come to his, sadly, best friend Jiang Songping asking for help yet again. His friend is much richer than him, and Cui feels he has asked for handouts from him for years and is ashamed. Songping is also very much aware of the power and inequality he controls in the relationship, and treats Cui relatively-poorly.

- Chapter Four, 'The Shortwave Radio' is an interesting look into Cui's childhood, growing up with a father who built radios and died at his table on the job
- A lil' philosophy, pg 51: "...I had come to a personal realization: the best attributes of anyone or anything usually reside on the surface, which is where, in fact, all of us live out our lives. Everyone has an inner life, but it's best if we leave it alone. For as soon as you poke a hole through that paper window, most of what's inside simply won't stand up to scrutiny."
- Similarly, on pg 64, Jiang Songping told Cui: "Familial love... was basically just a thin sheet of ice floating on open water. As long as you didn't poke it with a stick or throw a stone on it, it would stay unbroken. But as soon as you put a foot down to test its strength, it would shatter."

- Pg 53: characters tend to be rash, impulsive and dramatic -- like Jiang Songping, or quiet and reserved

- Ding Caichen is a pretty interesting character
- Pgs 86-87: "You can't help but admire the sense of smell the wealthy possess. Even at the edges of a foul, trash-infested city, they always find a way to hunt down the last patches of pristine territory and claim them as their own."

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About Ge Fei

Ge Fei

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Ge Fei (Chinese: 格非; pinyin: Gé Fēi; Wade–Giles: Ke Fei, born 1964), pen-name for Liu Yong (刘勇), is a notable contemporary Chinese author whose works were prominent during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ge Fei was considered one of the preeminent experimental writers during that period, and he is currently a professor of literature at Tsinghua University.

His most prominent work is the novel 人面桃花, ...more

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“The best attributes of anyone or anything usually reside on the surface, which is where, in fact, all of us live out our lives. Everyone has an inner life, but it's best if we leave it alone. For as soon as you poke a hole through that paper window, most of what's inside simply won't stand up to scrutiny.” — 4 likes

“Do you mind if I contribute my thoughts to this one? If you could just stop nitpicking and dissecting every little thing, if you could learn to keep one eye closed and one eye open, and quit worrying about everything, you might discover life is pretty fucking beautiful. Am I right?” — 3 likes

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