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My South Seas Sleeping Beauty: A Tale of Memory and Longing
My South Seas Sleeping Beauty is a captivating coming-of-age tale set in the magical jungles of Borneo. Told through the vivid recollections of a Chinese-Malay youth, the novel recounts the life of Su Qi, a troubled, sensitive son of a wealthy family, and exemplifies the imaginative range of one of Taiwan's most innovative writers.
"There were all sorts of stories about how my younger sister died," Su Qi begins, hinting at the power of memory to bend and refract truth. Yet whichever the real story may be, the fact is that the death of Su Qi's sister created an irrevocable rift in Su Qi's family, driving his father into the arms of aboriginal women and his mother into a world of her own invention.
In an effort to escape the oppression of home, Su Qi loses himself in the surrounding jungle, full of Communist guerillas and strange tropical fauna. The jungle further blurs the line between fantasy and reality for Su Qi, until he meets Chunxi, the beautiful, frail daughter of his father's best friend. Chunxi is an oasis of kindness and honesty in an otherwise cruel and evasive world, but after a bizarre accident, Chunxi falls into a deep coma, and Su Qui flees to Taiwan.
In college Su Qi meets Keyi, a vivacious siren who helps Su Qi forget not only his violent past but also the colorful tales of his youth. When a family member dies, however, Su Qi is pulled back to the jungles of Borneo where he begins to unravel the secrets of his family's past-a story stranger than any fairy tale-and learns that his cherished dream of awakening his beloved Chunxi may be more than just a fantasy.
Influenced by the lyricism of William Faulkner and the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, My South Seas Sleeping Beauty is a deeply evocative exploration of sexuality and identity and a masterful reworking of Chinese and Western myth. Valerie Jaffee's careful translation retains all the tone and detail of the original work and provides rare access to a new and exciting generation of Chinese writers born in Southeast Asia.
"There were all sorts of stories about how my younger sister died," Su Qi begins, hinting at the power of memory to bend and refract truth. Yet whichever the real story may be, the fact is that the death of Su Qi's sister created an irrevocable rift in Su Qi's family, driving his father into the arms of aboriginal women and his mother into a world of her own invention.
In an effort to escape the oppression of home, Su Qi loses himself in the surrounding jungle, full of Communist guerillas and strange tropical fauna. The jungle further blurs the line between fantasy and reality for Su Qi, until he meets Chunxi, the beautiful, frail daughter of his father's best friend. Chunxi is an oasis of kindness and honesty in an otherwise cruel and evasive world, but after a bizarre accident, Chunxi falls into a deep coma, and Su Qui flees to Taiwan.
In college Su Qi meets Keyi, a vivacious siren who helps Su Qi forget not only his violent past but also the colorful tales of his youth. When a family member dies, however, Su Qi is pulled back to the jungles of Borneo where he begins to unravel the secrets of his family's past-a story stranger than any fairy tale-and learns that his cherished dream of awakening his beloved Chunxi may be more than just a fantasy.
Influenced by the lyricism of William Faulkner and the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, My South Seas Sleeping Beauty is a deeply evocative exploration of sexuality and identity and a masterful reworking of Chinese and Western myth. Valerie Jaffee's careful translation retains all the tone and detail of the original work and provides rare access to a new and exciting generation of Chinese writers born in Southeast Asia.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 11, 2022
My South Seas Sleeping Beauty might well be one of the best novels I've read this year: carrying with it slight vibes of William Faulkner and his Quentin in its traumatised and (mildly) depressed student-narrator, weaving a complex and chronologically disjointed tale of pain, love, trauma, and a complex family to rival literature's most famous, Zhang Guixing's novel is absolutely one to remember. In three parts, we travel from a jungle-adjacent house of dysfunction and decadence into the Taipei of students and back again; we meet an array of fascinating characters and an even larger collection of images and symbols; and finally, reveal the story we barely knew we were reading. It is a difficult book to summarise. It is the story of Su Qi remembering parts of his childhood and adolescence, as well as a particular episode of his student life, telling through this the - highly disturbing, psychologically painful and dark, decadent and traumatising, yet also tender and loving - story of his family, of himself, of his first love(s), and finally of how all of the strange elements that made his childhood and life came to be.
I immensely enjoyed both the carnivalesque-meets-depressed atmosphere of the novel, and particularly the prose through which it is conveyed (at least in the translated version accessible to me). Most importantly, however, I feel that I am inadequately prepared to write a coherent review, so let me list a number of things that make this novel the masterpiece it is for me: it weaves themes of nature, colonisation and migration; it is a meditation on family and friendship and love; it draws a most unique atmosphere as impenetrable as the jungle itself; it blends Freudian images to a degree that should be a problem and yet adds a unique twist to this already unnerving narrative; it teems of feminist issues (reminding me of James Joyce's A Portrait of an Artist - but unlike Joyce, Zhang actually gives us fleshed-out and disambiguated women in the end); it throws Christian religious imagery into this crazy jungle of sex; it lends itself to thoughts and analyses as winding and complex as the mother's garden.
I immensely enjoyed both the carnivalesque-meets-depressed atmosphere of the novel, and particularly the prose through which it is conveyed (at least in the translated version accessible to me). Most importantly, however, I feel that I am inadequately prepared to write a coherent review, so let me list a number of things that make this novel the masterpiece it is for me: it weaves themes of nature, colonisation and migration; it is a meditation on family and friendship and love; it draws a most unique atmosphere as impenetrable as the jungle itself; it blends Freudian images to a degree that should be a problem and yet adds a unique twist to this already unnerving narrative; it teems of feminist issues (reminding me of James Joyce's A Portrait of an Artist - but unlike Joyce, Zhang actually gives us fleshed-out and disambiguated women in the end); it throws Christian religious imagery into this crazy jungle of sex; it lends itself to thoughts and analyses as winding and complex as the mother's garden.
April 4, 2023
This was really well-written and attention-grabbing, and I think it'll stick out in my mind for a long time. The unreliable narration is exceptionally well done. But so much of the book is focused on misogyny in a way that starts to be meaningful but doesn't quite get fully realized... content-wise I'm not sure I would recommend reading it.
June 23, 2025
3.5
there was a twist at the end, which was. an odd choice
probably there's a metaphor in the that, theee certainly was in the mc's parent's relationship, the garden, the father's habits, etc, but I'll leave that work to some one else
a valuable work but. modern isn't quite the right work for the works in this series in the present day
there was a twist at the end, which was. an odd choice
probably there's a metaphor in the that, theee certainly was in the mc's parent's relationship, the garden, the father's habits, etc, but I'll leave that work to some one else
a valuable work but. modern isn't quite the right work for the works in this series in the present day
October 13, 2024
It was ok, wasnt sure if it was fiction or nonfiction
There's an oedipus thing going on
There's an oedipus thing going on
March 24, 2025
read for uni and will be writing an essay about it, one of the more interesting books of the module but that’s not saying a lot, decent enough
October 30, 2025
lowkey weird and why does he call his new girlfriend his old girlfriend’s name?
January 5, 2011
The fictional narrative reveals the fluidity of identity which is constantly being reformed by revisited memories. Childhood memories take on new significance when the hero realizes an important secret regarding his true love. Political tensions between communist China, Taiwanese, and other natives enrich the fecund garden plot of the characters sharing the same household and living different lives through memory and goals. For such a simple read, there is a lot going on in the text.
October 15, 2014
This book has a lot of layers and symbols that make it interesting, but it was too psychologically disturbing for me to enjoy it. It's a well written book, but I found it disturbing in a way that made it hard to read. Other people may appreciate it more. All sorts of trigger warnings, mostly for animal cruelty ans sexual assault. There are so many different layers and twists to the story, so it's very rich, but I personally couldn't get over the disturbing aspects.
August 27, 2012
Beutifully written and enjoyable read. I read it slower than most books because I wanted to savor the words but also to contemplate on the symbols. There was a lot of them in this book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews