Can Xue

[Trevor]

Can Xue (1953 - )

Can Xue is a Chinese author.

Though I see in Wikipedia that quite a bit of her work is not translated. She has written three novels, fifty novellas, and 120 short stories.

Bibliography of Works in English

- Five Spice Street (五香街 1988; novel)
- Dialogues in Paradise (1989; stories)
- Old Floating Cloud (1991; two novellas)
- The Embroidered Shoes (1997; stories)
- The Last Lover (最后的情人 2005; novel)
- Blue Light in the Sky & Other Stories (2006; stories)
- Vertical Motion (2011; stories)

(dates are English publication as the collections were compiled for English publication)

[Paul]

From the BTBA thread but worth adding here.

The Last Lover, the only of her books I have read, left me feeling a little inadequate as a reader. Doesn't help when you read interviews with the author saying most readers aren't up to her level:

"Reading my fiction requires a certain creativity. This particular way of reading has to be more than just gazing at the accepted meanings of the text on a literal level, because you are reading messages sent out by the soul, and your reading is awakening your soul into communication with the author's...Most of my readers stop at the level of “dream reading,” which is still a conventional way of reading."

[David]

I see that the above list (from six years ago) does not include Frontier. Perhaps other more recent works. I just purchased Frontier and Vertical Motion from Open Letter using their WIT discount. This is an author I've not read before.

[Lark]

Frontier changed my life.

[David]

Hopefully for the better.

[Lark]

David wrote: "Hopefully for the better."

yes, sorry to be so cryptic and laconic--the prose in this particular novel taught me something about how to read. It had a quality so beautiful and ephemeral that I wanted to keep quoting sentences, but I couldn't, because what came immediately before and after the sentence I loved was just as beautiful and just as important, and a sentence taken out of its context would die. It helped with the denseness of the prose that I read it in a group with many other people willing to let go of expectations and plow through with me.

[Lee]

Reading more Can Xue is on my to-do list so I’ve followed your example David and ordered those as well. I’ve only read I Live in the Slums: Stories, published 2020.

[Marc]

Have only read three short stories of hers that were put out in Purple Perilla, but I'm pretty sure I purchased Frontier during 2021's WITmonth (it could even be 2020, but I'm not willing to face that kind of fact right now). I didn't love the short stories, but found them intriguing (enough to still be looking forward to Frontier.

[Stacia]

I read Five Spice Street a couple of years ago & I must be one of her readers that is not up to her standards for understanding her work.

It was ok; while some parts were great, others were an exercise & even a chore at times.

I'm always curious to read comments from people who read & love her work & I wonder why I am having a hard time parsing her. Maybe you will eventually help me reach an "a-ha" moment in regard to her text. I may have to give her another try (though I feel a little wary of doing so).

Looking forward to reading your comments on Frontier (&/or other works).

[Tommi]

I love Love in the New Millennium (and Can Xue herself loved my review by getting in touch) and I Live in the Slums, and will be reading Barefoot Doctor: A Novel when it’s published in September. Someone I follow has already given it five stars, it seems.

These comments are making me want to purchase some of her backlist soon. I once ordered a bunch of her earlier books, but the order got cancelled, and I never tried another store. I should.

[Lark]

Stacia fwiw I found Five Spice Street one-note, and eventually quite boring. Something about Frontier hit me very differently, I think because the visual information Can Xue provides is often thrillingly beautiful. The story flow still has a schizophrenic where-is-this-going feel but I didn't mind, because of the pictures the story was making in my head.

[Jin]

lark wrote: "David wrote: "Hopefully for the better."

yes, sorry to be so cryptic and laconic--the prose in this particular novel taught me something about how to read. It had a quality so beautiful and epheme..."

I assume you read the English translation? The translator is a big factor. I haven't read this one in particular, but Can Xue isn't for me, at least in Chinese. I think Mo Yan's English translations are better than his Chinese originals as well. Just my personal opinion though.

[Lark]

Jin, I'm reading in English.

My copies of Five Spice Street and Frontier were both translated by the same team: Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.

They also translated my copy of I Live in the Slums.

My copy of Love in the New Millenium was translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen.

[WndyJW]

I’m curious about Can Xue, but have been turned off by reports of her being difficult and read arrogant about her being difficult to read.
For her fans is there a good title to start with and a preferred translator?

[David]

The two I just purchased from Open Letter Vertical Motion and Frontier) were both translated by Gernant and Chen. I'm hoping they will be a good introduction; both seem to have been GR reviews than some of her other work but there could be a lot of reasons for that.

[David]

Lee wrote: "Reading more Can Xue is on my to-do list so I’ve followed your example David and ordered those as well."

I might start these once I've finished the Booker longlist. I would like to get caught up on some of the backlist for several authors I've never read before.

[WndyJW]

My TBR is so long I’m not thinking of adding anything now.

[Michel]

Another new translation coming out this fall through Sublunary Editions is a novella, Mystery Train.

[LindaJ^]

The only Can Xue I've managed to read was Frontier and, unlike Lark, it did not change my life. It frustrated me to no end.

[Lark]

LindaJ^ wrote: "The only Can Xue I've managed to read was Frontier and, unlike Lark, it did not change my life. It frustrated me to no end."

I'm certain I only got through it at all because I made my way accompanied by intrepid fellow travelers into that jungle of prose. It was a group read a few years ago in Newest Literary Fiction. I feel that way about quite a few books, that I could make my way through just because I had company here on Goodreads. Some of the others are Chronicle of a Murdered House, Radiant Terminus, Fever Dream, Klara and the Sun, Red Pill...actually there are a lot of them. Thank you everybody.

[David]

David wrote: "I see that the above list (from six years ago) does not include Frontier. Perhaps other more recent works. I just purchased Frontier and Vertical Motion from Open Letter using their WIT discount. This is an author I've not read before."

I started Vertical Motion last night and gobbled it up. I don't know what I was expecting but this really clicked for me. On the surface, these stories reminded me of Cursed Bunny with vivid imagery and use of absurdity. But where Chung's work uses horror and grotesque imagery to comment on feminist themes, Xue really leans into absurdity and disorientation to comment on disempowerment. None of the stories has a climax or resolution, which is probably why almost no one gives it 5 stars, and there are often plot holes or unexplained plot twists that further the disorientation. It's not that the stories lack meaning but the meaning is withheld from the reader.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who's read this collection.

[Tommi]

Happy to hear. I’m yet to read Vertical Motion, so cannot comment, but recently checked it from the university library – along with a half a dozen other works from her. I just finished the first one of those, Old Floating Cloud, which was my first novellas from her, having only read a novel and a short story collection before. It was just as good as the other books, maybe a tad more nihilistic than Love or Slums. There’s just something special and radically different in her work, not fulfilling readerly expectations and just letting her subconscious paint these dream-like images and scenarios. But the stories do cohere in terms of themes and motifs, and quite beautifully so in e.g. Yellow Mud Street.

[David]

Tommi wrote: "There’s just something special and radically different in her work, not fulfilling readerly expectations and just letting her subconscious paint these dream-like images and scenarios. But the stories do cohere in terms of themes and motifs"

That's a great summary of her work. What else of hers did you check out from the library?

[Tommi]

Finally getting back to you David, I was working abroad last week and travelling takes its toll... I have these lined up next:

Vertical Motion
Blue Light in the Sky & Other Stories
Five Spice Street

I’m indecisive as to which one to pick next. I might even opt for Blue Light, as I haven’t seen much discussion about it anywhere, but we shall see. I’m eager to read at least one of them before the new one, Barefoot Doctor, reaches here.

[Will]

I'm a huge fan of Can Xue--she's one of my favorite writers. She didn't click with me right away, though. I always liked the idea of her work and could appreciate the sheer creativity in her stories, but for a while actually reading her work was drudgery. I'm not sure what changed, but when I reread some stories in Vertical Motion I thought they were genius and ever since then I've been obsessed with her work.

I don't think you can really passively read her work, or, if you do, you won't get it. I find I get the most out of her books when I actively interpret and imagine what's happening, what certain events and symbols could mean, etc, and then in turn think what those might mean to me (but ymmv).

Also, I don't blame those who are put off by her arrogant statements, but I've always read them as a self-defense/a way to advocate for her work when few others would. Here's a quote about the reception of her work in the 80s in China from an essay on Five Spice Street:

Her oblique, nightmarish fictions had quickly gained notoriety, and once it became known that a woman was writing behind the pseudonym, criticism had turned personal. The author was said to be too individualistic, or simply too deranged, for significant achievement; her work was called neurotic and scopophilic, “the delirium of a paranoid woman.”

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