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Notes of a Crocodile

Qiu Miaojin,

Bonnie Huie (Translator)

3.76 · Rating details · 917 ratings · 162 reviews

Set in the post-martial-law era of late 1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile depicts the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, Qiu Miaojin's cult classic novel is a postmodern pastiche of ...more

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Paperback, 242 pages

Published May 2nd 2017 by NYRB Classics (first published May 11th 1994)

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· 917 ratings · 162 reviews

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Jan 01, 2019 Michael rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, 2018

My full review, as well as my other thoughts on reading, can be found on my blog.

A coming-of-age story set in Taipei during the late eighties, Notes of a Crocodile follows an eclectic bunch of queer college students as they enter their first serious relationships and come to terms with their sexuality and gender identity in a vehemently homophobic milieu. The novel, narrated by the lesbian protagonist Lazi, is divided into eight loosely chronological notebooks, each of which consists of a ...more

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Jan 07, 2017 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Recommended to Jenny (Reading Envy) by: http://www.elle.com/culture/books/g29...

Shelves: read2017, reviewcopy, ebooks, nyrb, translated, around-the-world, location-china, location-taiwan

It's so interesting to be reviewing this book of lgbt fiction from Taiwan on the same day that Taiwan's top court rules in favor of gay marriage, the first place in Asia to do so. When Qiu Miaojin was alive (she committed suicide at age 26 in 1995), times were different. Being a lesbian was a bit like being a crocodile in human skin (or vice versa), or so the metaphor goes... I think. Am I the one being too literal in my metaphorical interpretation or is it really that direct?

The writing is a ...more

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Aug 17, 2019 Rachel rated it liked it

Shelves: lgbt, 2019, east-asia, own, in-translation, wit

An occasional pitfall of reading literature from a country other than your own is that you aren’t approaching it with the necessary cultural framework to make it comprehensible. This isn’t always the case, of course; some stories are more universal than others, and some books do a better job of contextualizing the relevant sociopolitical elements. But in Notes of a Crocodile, a book about a group of queer students in Taiwan in the late 80s, I felt desperately out of my depth, and I felt like so An occasional pitfall of reading literature from a country other than your own is that you aren’t approaching it with the necessary cultural framework to make it comprehensible. This isn’t always the case, of course; some stories are more universal than others, and some books do a better job of contextualizing the relevant sociopolitical elements. But in Notes of a Crocodile, a book about a group of queer students in Taiwan in the late 80s, I felt desperately out of my depth, and I felt like so many of my attempts to engage with this book were met with stony silence on Qiu Miaojin’s part. But I want to stress that this isn’t a fault of the book itself. I can imagine for the right reader that a book like this would be sensational. Personally I felt like I was missing references and subtleties that a Taiwanese reader (and especially a queer Taiwanese reader) would easily pick up on. I'm glad to have read this book and grappled with it as best I could, but this wasn't the easiest or most comfortable reading experience for me.

Narrated by a nameless protagonist, nicknamed Lazi, Notes of a Crocodile chronicles the trials of a group of queer students living in late 1980s Taipei. It's also punctuated by a series of interludes which imagine that the country have been invaded by humanlike crocodiles; a clear metaphor for a society that sees queerness as an epidemic. (The homophobic obsession of early 1990s Taiwanese media with homosexuality is explained in a little more detail in this LA Review of Books review by Ari Larissa Heinrich, who has translated Miaojin in the past.)

This book is light on plot, and whatever plot does happen usually happens off-page and is narrated to the reader much later; instead the focus is on the internal. To me Lazi felt more like an embodiment of what it means to be queer in Taiwan than an established character in her own right - while we learn almost nothing about her past or her personhood, pages and pages are devoted to philosophizing about what it means to be a woman who loves other women; what it means for your sexuality to be interpreted as a political statement. To me the philosophy ranged from stimulating to repetitive, occasionally too mired in intertextuality to drive any particular point home. This result is a rather rambling meditation that again, I tried to engage with - occasionally successfully, occasionally not.

My other main takeaway from this is is that I think I would have appreciated this book more if I'd read it in my early twenties; I hate to sound callous but the sheer amount of self-destruction in these pages did become tiresome after a while. This book never lets up from its relentless angst and self-absorption, and the whole thing is of course shadowed by the tragedy of Qiu Miaojin's suicide at age 26. I ultimately think this is worth a read, but I think I find Qiu Miaojin herself more intriguing than this particular book. ...more

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Sep 13, 2017 Khashayar Mohammadi rated it liked it

Shelves: lgbtq, asian-lit

More like 3.5

I absolutely loved the bleak Romance and the endless self-loathing; BUT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND why the book was split into so many notebooks, each jumping back and forth in the story's timeline, each containing short chapters with abrupt endings and awkward transitions.

The fragmented narrative did not serve any particular purpose in the unfolding of the story, which made me question the very reason why the chapters were Pulp-fictioned together to form a patchwork novel that might have ...more

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May 27, 2017 Jerrie (redwritinghood) rated it liked it

This book provides a very introspective look into the life of a college student who seems to suffer from depression and a lot of guilt over her sexuality. She struggles over her love for a woman who is very unreliable and is tormented by this. In the way of the very young, she can often come across as whiny or melodramatic. Still, this was an interesting look at how homosexual students in Taiwan in the late 80s dealt with societal pressures.

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May 05, 2019 Inderjit Sanghera rated it it was amazing

The narrator's melancholic narrative is presented via a series of vignettes; some satirical, some epistolary, some flash-backs and some self-reflections, the narrator's incessant brooding and self-absorption can at times wear thin, with the originality of their style at times being undermined by the streak of fatalism which underlies the narrator's intense feelings of loneliness and isolation.

The narrator is a lesbian who resides in late 1980's Taipei and the novel explores her relationship with ...more

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May 25, 2017 Sara marked it as bailed

Shelves: owned-books

I finally ended up bailing on this one. I tried and tried again, but I think it's just not for me. Perhaps too avant garde for my taste? There were some insightful and beautiful moments, to be sure, but mostly I found it dense with melancholic introspection and weird in an unappealing way.

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Jan 23, 2018 Will Dominique rated it it was ok

Shelves: historical-fiction, translations, chinese, east-asian, wlw, lgbt, characters-protagonists-of-colour, reviewed

I guess I’m one of the few who didn’t get the appeal of this book. I found it repetitive and so boring that i had to force myself to finish it by turning off my wifi—otherwise, I kept checking my phone after every couple of paragraphs, and it seemed like it would never finish. I feel like the majority of this novel was telling instead of showing: the author literally tells readers what each character is like and what their relationship with the protagonist is like (“to me, she was [adjective]”, I guess I’m one of the few who didn’t get the appeal of this book. I found it repetitive and so boring that i had to force myself to finish it by turning off my wifi—otherwise, I kept checking my phone after every couple of paragraphs, and it seemed like it would never finish. I feel like the majority of this novel was telling instead of showing: the author literally tells readers what each character is like and what their relationship with the protagonist is like (“to me, she was [adjective]”, “she was [convoluted or tedious metaphor]”, over and OVER again), and while Miaojin shows snippets of interactions, they are so brief, out of context, and jarring that it feels like there is no live development of any relationships. I feel like I just listened to a 3 hour lecture at school about someone’s personal life whom I didn’t really care about. I had been interested by the blurb, but 75% of the way through the book, I was STILL legitimately waiting to meet the characters it was supposedly about; I was honestly shocked when I realized whom they had been this whole time, as I did /not/ get any sort of impression from most of the characters. This could be due to the translation, maybe; I feel like many of my issues stemmed from the language being unnecessarily wordy and unclear. Like, me not realizing two of the main characters are lesbians until Lazi finally goes and point-blank says “they were in love” seems like a failure to convey a pretty essential aspect of characterization. I did wonder, but I feel like I waited for too long (basically until their last appearances) for that reaffirmation. Same thing goes for Lazi’s self-harm; I honest to god thought all this “burning” was metaphorical and her just being melodramatically “poetic”. This went on even after she talked about her “wounds” and when this guy yelled, “You have to stop hurting yourself!” I thought it was spiritual/emotional because it’s NEVER clear that she’s actually holding a damn lighter or match or any physical object. Lazi never really feels like she occupies physical space; she ends up at different places, in different times, with different people, and it all jumps around without much transition.

At one point, I thought this might be what it would be like if John Green tried to write a lesbian teen angst story for adults. Shfjksjfk

Another thing i noticed is not a single character uses the word “queer” in the entire manuscript, yet apparently (according to the blurb) they’re all queer. Hmm. ...more

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Aug 31, 2017 Subashini rated it really liked it

Shelves: gender-and-sexuality, taipei

Miaojin is able to draw on the particularities of their individual dispositions without making the impossibility of queer relationships, at that precise historical moment in Taiwan, seem like the result of mere problems with individuals. In fact, all of these unhappy queer people in love with people they can’t be with begin to add up to a problem that is more than just personal failings. “I remember back in high school, we were a bunch of misfits, always having fun. There was something going on

...more

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Sep 19, 2017 CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian rated it liked it

Shelves: east-asian, reading-in-colour, lesbian, own, queer, fiction

A melancholic, introspective, dark book about being a queer new adult in 1990s Taipei. It reminded me of THE BELL JAR but also Oscar Wilde. Reading it was a bit like jumping back into grad school. This is a complex, fascinating book ripe for interpretation and historical/cultural analysis. It's the kind of book that I think would grow on me more if I got to talk about it with other lit nerds and if I had a teacher to situate it in its context. But I can appreciate it for what it is, even if it ...more

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Jul 28, 2018 Jo rated it liked it

I think this is one of the books where I can appreciate a lot about it but not necessarily enjoy it although up until Laxi’s relationship with Xiao Fan I was relatively engaged. If this was a novel written in the U.S. or U.K set 2018, the obsessive and self-destructive behavior around relationships by a group of college kids would probably have driven me nuts although I am aware that when I was that age, I probably channeled elements of this at one time or another.

What elevates it though is the I think this is one of the books where I can appreciate a lot about it but not necessarily enjoy it although up until Laxi’s relationship with Xiao Fan I was relatively engaged. If this was a novel written in the U.S. or U.K set 2018, the obsessive and self-destructive behavior around relationships by a group of college kids would probably have driven me nuts although I am aware that when I was that age, I probably channeled elements of this at one time or another.

What elevates it though is the fact these are characters coming to terms with their sexuality at a time when being queer was not generally accepted or understood - although I understand that Taiwan is now one of the most progressive countries in Asia regarding LGBTQ rights. Qiu Miaojin uses the symbol of a crocodile, dressing up in human skin to convey this idea of queerness as something other, as something to be hidden and for others to be both scared and perversely fascinated by. It works as a symbol but still the sections of the book that focused on this were often confusing and interrupted the flow of the overall narrative.

The novel shows how the society of the time was regimented and had high expectations and definitions of success that put further pressure on young people. College gave them the space and distance to shy away from expectations while at the same time leaving them rootless without support or purpose. Shiu Ling makes the remark that while at high school she had several close friends, in her college life she is surrounded by people but has never been so lonely while Laxi locks herself away in an array of different apartments and sleeps to stop from feeling.

Laxi’s relationship with Shui Ling is full of quiet drama and seems to be torture for them both but that with Xiao Fan just becomes endless dialogue rehashing the same points in slightly different ways and I found myself not caring. I cared far more about the friendships Laxi had with Meng Sheng and Chu Kuang, Tun Tun and Zhi Rou which didn’t lead to such self-destructive, apathetic behavior which often felt suffocating to read.

Having said all this, I’m glad I read this as a window in to what it was like to be queer and young in this time and place and I think if she’d lived longer Qiu Miaojin would have been an interesting writer to watch. As it is, it’s hard to read the novel without the awareness of this young author in your mind and therefore see much of it as sadly autobiographical.
...more

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Jul 08, 2018 Melanie (Mel's Bookland Adventures) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book told in 8 notebooks is very reminiscent of the diary of a teenager. Full of angst, frustration, infatuations, self-doubt, exhiliration, downcast moods. Lazi, a Taiwanese teenager/young adult, finds that she is attracted to women, not that easy in 1989 Taiwan. Yet at the same time, her being a lesbian does not make this a difficult coming out story, as someone else in the Read Around the World Book Club said, Lazi happens to be a lesbian, but it is not her only defining characteristic. ...more

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Jan 13, 2019 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: big-white-square

This was incredibly sad.

I read it twice.

Bits:
"Those wrenching eyes, which could lift up the entire skeleton of my being. How I longed for myself to be subsumed into the ocean of her eyes. How the desire, once awakened, would come to scald me at every turn. The scarlet mark of sin and my deep-seated fear of abandonment had given way to the ocean's yearning."

"If we'd been playing it cool like a pair of thieves, it was because our grand heist was drawing near. I anticipated, I schemed, I fretted. I ...more

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Jan 20, 2018 Anna rated it liked it

Shelves: sexuality, chinese-lit, fiction

I picked this novel up at random in the library, knowing nothing about it beyond the blurb. Having read it, I wish there had been an afterword to tell me more about the author and cultural context in which it was written. Without that, I found it atmospheric yet oblique. The format is of a diary or set of reflections written by Lazi, a emotionally turbulent and self-destructive undergraduate student. She’s attracted to women and troubled by it, as her social milieu is implied to be very I picked this novel up at random in the library, knowing nothing about it beyond the blurb. Having read it, I wish there had been an afterword to tell me more about the author and cultural context in which it was written. Without that, I found it atmospheric yet oblique. The format is of a diary or set of reflections written by Lazi, a emotionally turbulent and self-destructive undergraduate student. She’s attracted to women and troubled by it, as her social milieu is implied to be very homophobic. Her friendships and romantic entanglements are all terribly overwrought, which reminded me of the emotional dramas I observed during my own undergraduate years. The chaotic nature of all this drama can become a bit wearing, though. I wanted more context for it, as I have no idea about what late 1980s Taiwan was like. My favourite element of the book was the interjection of allegorical chapters about a crocodile, clearly a metaphor for being queer. These were slyly witty, implying a voyeuristic fascination with and fear of LGBTQ people in popular culture:

From the standpoint of developmental psychologists, crocodiles were an aberrant species. In accordance with their discipline’s understanding of crocodile families, their research indicated distinct differences from humans at every stage of development from birth to puberty as well as in maturity, though details had yet to be ascertained. There was a general consensus, however, that up the age of fourteen, crocodiles a homemade ‘human suit’ before running away from home. While exact causes remained unknown, scholars cited societal attitudes as a factor in crocodile mutation, suggesting that there was no means of preventing an increase in the number of emergent crocodiles, which would ultimately contribute to a broader societal trend toward a full-fledged crocodile ecology and genetic mutation.

Such deadpan chapters provide a striking contrast the very messy reality of Lazi’s life and those of her friends. The three stars I’m giving ‘Notes of a Crocodile’ reflect a lack of contextual knowledge on the part of the reader, rather than the book as such. A translator’s note, or similar, would have been very helpful. ...more

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Sep 29, 2019 Sookie rated it really liked it

Shelves: literary-fiction, translated

Notes of a crocodile isn't just innovative in exploring sexuality but influential in its own regards. Its incredibly sad how the author committed suicide at a very young age of twenty-six.

Set in late eighties, the protagonist Lazi, is a bit self obsessed, mildly depressed, confused and is riding wave of late teen angst. The narrator begins at the start of their college days where she finds a senior attractive. The story moves from there, readers delving into her psyche as she goes about her ...more

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May 02, 2017 Deborah rated it really liked it

Shelves: own, works-in-translation, edelweiss

Those who follow my reviews know that translated fiction is one of my obsessions, so I was delighted to discover NYRB's reissue of the Taiwanese cult classic of queer literature, Notes of a Crocodile. Described by its translator Bonnie Huie as a "survival manual for teenagers, for a certain age when reading the right book can save your life," Notes of a Crocodile nevertheless has much to offer adults, particularly those who are cisgendered.

I must confess to being confused by the book's structure Those who follow my reviews know that translated fiction is one of my obsessions, so I was delighted to discover NYRB's reissue of the Taiwanese cult classic of queer literature, Notes of a Crocodile. Described by its translator Bonnie Huie as a "survival manual for teenagers, for a certain age when reading the right book can save your life," Notes of a Crocodile nevertheless has much to offer adults, particularly those who are cisgendered.

I must confess to being confused by the book's structure for a large chunk of its relatively modest length. Qiu Miaojin moves back and forth between two narratives, with their only connection being thematic. The first story is the one I was expecting from the publisher's description: that of "the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university." The second story provides the novel's title: a crocodile wearing a human suit, à la the dinosaurs in Eric Garcia's Anonymous Rex series, muses on how people vehemently advocate both for and against crocodiles, despite knowing nothing about them and not even realizing that at least one crocodile lives and works among them. At the risk of stating the obvious, the common theme is separation, isolation, and the tendency of some people to make authoritative statements about a group whose experiences they do not share:

In the final analysis, our knowledge and understanding of crocodiles is but a microorganism on a fingernail. But in the customary practice of advanced nations, we will safeguard information within the grip of our metal jaws, holding on as if our lives depended on it.

Sound familiar?

Notes of a Crocodile concludes with a message which should be emblazoned on the blackboard in every classroom in the world, from preschool to university:

The deeper you love, the deeper your compassion grows and the more you realize that the other suffers just as you do. When all is said and done, human civilization is ugly and cruel, and the only thing to do is to raze it to the ground so it becomes visible that kindredness is the one true constant in relationships.

Just imagine the world that might result.

This review was based on a free ARC provided by the publisher. ...more

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Aug 11, 2017 Vivek Tejuja rated it it was amazing

“Notes of a Crocodile” according to me is a lovely title for a book. I say this to establish it right at the beginning and get it out of the way. This was the third book I read in the women in translation month project and I think by far this has been one of the best (I’ve read six in all so far). There is something very reassuring and yet heartbreaking about this book that makes you fall in love with the prose. You realize it is a translation but it doesn’t matter. The effect is as much. It “Notes of a Crocodile” according to me is a lovely title for a book. I say this to establish it right at the beginning and get it out of the way. This was the third book I read in the women in translation month project and I think by far this has been one of the best (I’ve read six in all so far). There is something very reassuring and yet heartbreaking about this book that makes you fall in love with the prose. You realize it is a translation but it doesn’t matter. The effect is as much. It moved me in just the right places.

“Notes of a Crocodile” is about teenagers who are queer misfits and only discovering love, friendship and artistic affiliations in post-martial-law era of Taiwan. They study at one of Taiwan’s prestigious university and come to realize what happens when you love too hard and too strong. The narrator is an anonymous lesbian, nicknamed Lazi who falls in love way too strong with an older woman named Shui Ling and how she turns to her friends for support as she doesn’t see this happening. Her friends are another kettle of fish: a rich kid who has turned criminal, his self-destructive gay lover (is there any other way to be or to love?), an overachiever who is just bored and her girlfriend who is an artist. See what I mean, when I say the book covers the entire spectrum of LGBTQ?

I was fascinated by this read. “Notes of a Crocodile” at one point in the book (major breakthrough by the way) moves from sexual identity to self-realization about love, loss and how the heart breaks. The translation is just right. I think all the nuances of Chinese expressions and words are in place. Bonnie Huie does a wonderful job on this cult classic. What I loved the most while reading this book is the pop culture references thrown in by Qiu. I wish she were around to write some more books. I also remember reading Last Words from Montmartre with such fervor as well. I couldn’t stop reading it and the same happened with “Notes of a Crocodile”. Also, should you want to know more about title, then I am not giving that away. Read the book for that.
...more

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Jan 29, 2018 Sharanya Subramaniam added it

Shelves: to-be-read-again

Trigger warning: Depression.

Well, there are some books that leave an indelible mark on our souls. This is one of those books. It will latch onto your memory and appear nonchalantly throughout your life, to remind you how it made you feel. The raw emotions in this book are just so... hard to digest. Hits you in the gut and kicks you hard, even after you have collapsed.

The story is set in Taiwan in the 1990s, where being queer was still frowned upon. The book describes the story of an unnamed ...more

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May 29, 2017 Morgan rated it liked it

Ahhhhh this book was affecting but almost unrelenting in its self-hatred. i'm not sure i needed to revisit what it felt like to be a depressed, self-harming almost-teen but this book certainly gave that in spades. i liked it and was engrossed, but it was more like something i just had to get through.

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Feb 26, 2015 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Books like this make me thankful that I read Chinese. My gods, the metaphors, the flow, the emotions, and the perceptiveness - I really can't believe Qiu wrote this when she was in college.

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Jun 18, 2017 tortoise dreams rated it really liked it

A young lesbian comes of age in puritan 1980's Taiwan.

Book Review: Notes of a Crocodile is one of a kind, sui generis, and isn't easily described. Our protagonist says it's about "getting a diploma and writing." No, it's not. This posthumous novel covers friendship, university life, emotions, relationships, misfits, literature, homosexuality, emotions, and crocodiles, all occurring in a small, almost claustrophobic orbit. I can't remember the last book that drew me in so completely; every time I A young lesbian comes of age in puritan 1980's Taiwan.

Book Review: Notes of a Crocodile is one of a kind, sui generis, and isn't easily described. Our protagonist says it's about "getting a diploma and writing." No, it's not. This posthumous novel covers friendship, university life, emotions, relationships, misfits, literature, homosexuality, emotions, and crocodiles, all occurring in a small, almost claustrophobic orbit. I can't remember the last book that drew me in so completely; every time I put it down the story kept spinning in my mind until I picked it up again. It's a powerful story.

The narrative is told in a series of school notebooks by our 18 year-old heroine, trying to push her way through youth, sexuality, and love, overthinking, over-intellectualizing, feeling emotions too deeply, being too proud or not proud enough, all the snares of youth. What we do when caught in our first loves. The chapters are periodically interspersed with more surreal and metaphorical short chapters about the crocodiles that invisibly live among us; these chapters provided some needed balance.

Notes of a Crocodile is influenced by Haruki Murakami, who is referenced several times, including his novel Norwegian Wood, by name. But the novel isn't plagiarism or parody; Qiu has made Murakami's style her own. There is the adored female love interest, the somewhat jerky male friend, the almost perfect female friend, the character who runs a bar, references to western literature and music. I don't remember a cat. I think Qiu even teases Murakami a bit when a character says, "Women are beautiful and mysterious, aren't they?"

The one flaw for some readers will be that our protagonist seems to dwell, even wallow in the miseries of her situation, becoming something of a drama teen. The anguish, though well-written, can go on for pages. At times she seems to want to prolong and go deeper into her agonies, rather than try to work through or past them. But while noticeable, I also think it's understandable when one feels unique, separate, rejected, isolated. That's what we do when first exploring love. That's what youth and difference are about. What the drama teen doesn't realize is that we are all (subject to parental perversions, self-doubts, voices in our heads) just putting forth different efforts to appear normal. Some, like our protagonist, make little effort. Although the reader may want to tell the characters to move on with their lives, Qiu accurately captures the turmoil and meltdowns of love, betrayal, and youth. And captures and captures and captures ... for some it will be intense, for others repetitive.

On the other hand, it is beautifully written, with amazing metaphors and concepts, well translated by Bonnie Huie. There were a few points when I wondered if lines were perfectly translated, but given how fantastically difficult Notes of a Crocodile must've been to translate, I'm an ass for even mentioning it. A powerful book that I found easy to identify with and difficult to stop reading. The most compelling book I've read in a long time. [4½★] ...more

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Jun 12, 2018 A rated it it was amazing

Shelves: legbet, adult-fiction, pretty-covers, favorites

This is the most realistic book I’ve ever read. Not because of the things the characters do, though those were also believable, but because the main character’s thought process almost exactly maps a real person’s train of thought. People don’t think in one direction — they loop back on themselves, dwell on things that are objectively meaningless, change their minds constantly, and layer their perceptions with memories of things they’ve done, seen, heard, and read. Lazi thought this way; she ...more

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Jul 31, 2017 rosamund rated it it was ok

Shelves: lgbt

The narrative style of this book is very modern: it is self-referential, satirical and elliptical; but its approach to lesbianism is not. Lazi, the main character, has always known she is a lesbian, but in the repressive world of late 1980s Taiwan, she hates herself and is drawn into depression and despair. I applaud the book for its honest account of these feelings, but it's hard to tell whether the narrative condemns society, for making Lazi feel this way, or condemns Lazi, for being gay. ...more

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May 05, 2017 Kevin Adams rated it it was amazing

As you may have seen from my Goodreads list, I am drawn to the releases by the New York Review Books. What I'm drawn to is the history and unique stories they tell. Some from years ago some from decades ago. Each of the books is unique in its own way and I've never read anything like Notes Of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin. Written in the early 1990's and taking place in in Taipei in the mid to late 1980's, it's the most timely and timeless piece of writing I've ever read. From its devastating ...more

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Jul 17, 2018 tatterpunk rated it really liked it

Shelves: chinese-semester, suicide, queer-as-in-fuck-you

I didn't accept myself. There was no curing the me that had come forth. I'd ingested the poison long ago, and its origins were in the whole of humanity, who'd infected me with their collective chorus. Before I could ever reveal the real me, first I had to remove the label on me that read NEGATED, and tear it up.

FOUR STARS, aka, "will definitely read again."

This book made me feel a lot of things. Not all of them good things.

... I'll be honest, most of them not-good things: frustration, anger, ...more

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Jul 22, 2018 Marie added it

Shelves: around-the-world

I don’t know how I could rate this. The narrative voice feels very fresh, & there are some wonderful passages and observations about life. But overwhelmingly it’s an account of what it is to be deeply depressed. Unrelenting, uncompromising, painfully intimate. Knowing the author’s own story, I can’t help but feel this book is semi-autobiographical, and knowing it was published posthumously, I can’t help but wonder about the circumstances of its publication & how Miaojin would feel about ...more

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Sep 26, 2018 Anna Marie rated it really liked it

Shelves: own, ugly-studies, sickness

tormented queers everywhere ya look

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Jul 16, 2018 Stacey (bookishpursuit) added it

Tough one to rate as it's not a pleasure read.

This book takes fortitude. It is humanly dark and sad. It covers a continuing important topic, "coming out". The protagonist is one of the most tortured people I've experienced in a book. The first 1/3 of the book is really about figuring out what the protagonist, Lazi, is talking about. And, what is the angle of the Crocodile ?

The middle is what I found the most poignant and important. Here she maps out her struggle, and shares her first Tough one to rate as it's not a pleasure read.

This book takes fortitude. It is humanly dark and sad. It covers a continuing important topic, "coming out". The protagonist is one of the most tortured people I've experienced in a book. The first 1/3 of the book is really about figuring out what the protagonist, Lazi, is talking about. And, what is the angle of the Crocodile ?

The middle is what I found the most poignant and important. Here she maps out her struggle, and shares her first unhealthy attraction. In her native country of Taiwan, she thought and felt that cultural expectations and constraints prevented her from being her authentic self. I read slowly through this section describing her pain, and the reasons for her feelings. I feel many of us realize and emphasize on a surface level with the battle some gay people face. But, Qui allows us to look out of someone else's eyes. This was a gift, but it was also terrible!

Qui uses the simile of a crocodile writing its feelings and experiences in notebooks. She uses gay people having to wear a suit of crocodile skin to conform. Unfortunately, the suit doesn't eradicate their feeling of being chased as a rare and odd creature. Their mere existence fascinates and confuses people. What do they eat? Have you seen one? There's an article about Crocodiles, or they're on the news! The description of being a crocodile felt similar to the negative side of being a celebrity who is stalked for every little detail about their lives. People are fascinated, they can't get enough, there's a sense that they aren't normal humans, but are some rare and mysterious animal. It's very sad if a mentally ill person, a gay person, Anyone!, feels so misunderstood and trapped!

The last third of the novel I had a shift of opinion. I really began to believe that Lazi's sexuality was merely one of the many reasons she was an unhappy, tormented person. I thought she was wasn't self-aware, she was immature, had low self esteem, was mental unstable, had dysfunctional relationships, had the feeling she was unloveable, and had the inability to set boundaries. She chose people that were equally as dysfunctional and unhealthy, and the relationships seemed to send her spiraling even deeper into depression, and ultimately closer to suicide. It seemed like she was aware of her poor choices, but didn't know how to change.

The books message of mental illness and suicide is undeniably worth while. Unfortunately, when there was little opportunity to be accepted as a gay person, suicide wasn't uncommon. I hope acceptance and understanding of mental illness and sexual orientation will continue to move forward, and the rate of suicide will continue to decrease. In closing, I can't say I enjoyed the book. I do feel that it's an honor and a gift, albeit a painful one, for someone to share their deepest thoughts and pain, with raw authenticity. Qui was a lesbian living in an unaccepting Taiwan in the 1990's. Unfortunately, her real life story didn't end well. But, her message and lessons in the book will and will continue to educate.
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Mar 01, 2018 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: queer-reads, fiction, in-translation, authors-of-color

Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age novel about a young Taiwanese woman, Lazi. It takes place over the course of her four college years, and primarily concerns her two love affairs with two different women, neither of them healthy or especially happy. Lazi’s sexuality is a source of endless pain for her; she struggles against her desire for women, and is often consumed with self-loathing. It’s a dark read.

Much of the book was told through conversations between Lazi and the women she dates, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age novel about a young Taiwanese woman, Lazi. It takes place over the course of her four college years, and primarily concerns her two love affairs with two different women, neither of them healthy or especially happy. Lazi’s sexuality is a source of endless pain for her; she struggles against her desire for women, and is often consumed with self-loathing. It’s a dark read.

Much of the book was told through conversations between Lazi and the women she dates, as well as between Lazi and her crew of friends–all of them young queer people struggling with self-acceptance, and many of them in abusive and/or exhausting, unstable relationships. There were few scenes, and even less description. The conversations–about the nature of love and suffering, about self-doubt, about feeling alone and wrestling with sexuality–felt somewhat dry. It was hard to picture the characters involved in these intense discussions. There was a lot of telling in this book, which made it feel floaty, to me–like I was drifting along from idea to idea, emotion to emotion, conversation to conversation, never truly present in the character’s lives.

The parts I liked best were the most experimental sections. Woven throughout Lazi’s more straightforward narrative is the story of a crocodile (presumably Lazi herself). Crocodiles are suddenly popping up all over the city, and the public is fascinated by them. They walk around wearing human suits, and they become an immediate news sensation. They are revered and obsessed over, but also objectified and fetishized. This one particular crocodile is lonely, and feels utterly hopeless, convinced she will never find another like her. Everyone is obsessed with crocodiles, and yet she feels alone and often worthless, even among her own kind, whom she meets at secret underground bars and gathering places.

This crocodile story is a beautiful, painful, and insightful metaphor for what it feels like to be an other, and in this case, the specific experience of being marked as an other because of queerness. So often, people marked as “other” are used as symbols, but are profoundly misunderstood and never offered respect. Mainstream culture selects the bits of otherness people find interesting or “exotic” or trendy, and exploits those traits. At the same time, those same people consistently disrespect, harm and perpetrate violence against whatever marginalized communities they claim to be imitating. Imitation becomes fetishization. This leads to dangerous and deeply problematic thinking.

Overall, this novel was full of queer suffering, at times disturbing, and not at all hopeful. I found it hard to access and at the end of it, wasn’t sure what to think. I didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t hate it, either. I almost wish it had been straight-up magical, told entirely from the point of view of the crocodile. It was a lonely but truthful book. As a novel, it did not hold my attention or spark much of anything in my heart, but as something to study and think about, I found it fascinating.

Read my full review here. ...more

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May 09, 2017 M- S__ rated it liked it

This book occupies a unique space in pop cultural history, taking place in that weird transition from Cold War to Dot Com. It's epistolary in a way that interactions really can't be anymore, but it also has this very contemporary emotional sensibility. Or maybe not even contemporary anymore. But definitely 21st century.

This is a lesbian book written in the first gasp for air after a generation of pretty claustrophobic Taiwanese culture. A lot of pop culture follows the lead of culture at the ...more

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About Qiu Miaojin

Qiu Miaojin

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Qiu Miaojin (1969–1995) was one of Taiwan’s most innovative literary modernists, and the country’s most renowned lesbian writer. Her first published story, “Prisoner,” received the Central Daily News Short Story Prize, and her novella Lonely Crowds won the United Literature Association Award. While attending graduate school in Paris, she directed a thirty-minute film called Ghost Carnival, and not ...more