About book A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers (2007)
This story follows “Z”, a newly arrived immigrant from China, beginning with her one year long stay in London, where she will learn English to aid her with her job. This book conveys with precision the utter isolation and loneliness that a human can feel when in a strange place, with no easy way to communicate with another person. It has an air of bleak desperation, especially at the start. Apparently, the novel is based on Xiaolu Guo’s own experiences as a newly arrived immigrant in London, experiences which she recorded, and then transformed into this fictional account. What really compelled me to borrow this book was the way that that Guo set out the thoughts of the protagonist, “Z” (her name is reduced to an initial as Londoners are unable to pronounce her proper name). It was written in the “broken” form of a new English speaker, and as an experiment with form, it was an innovative and effective one. It was so easy to quickly fall into the rhythm of Z’s tentative navigation of the English language, and to see how the words formed from her perspective. “Chinese, we not having grammar. We saying things simple way. No verb-change usage, no tense differences, no gender changes. We bosses of our language. But, English language is boss of English user.”The loneliness of a foreigner was the main and glaring point of this novel. Z’s isolation was almost a tangible grit between the pages. I’m an immigrant, but I was lucky enough to know the language of the country I had immigrated to. I never had to feel self-conscious about the way my tongue could not mould around words properly, or feel like my thoughts could never be understood when I translated them into speech. It’s heart-breaking to be alongside Z, to feel the sense of inferiority that she feels. There are one or two passages in the narrative that are presented as an Editor’s translation, with Z writing in her mother tongue, expressing all the confidence and frustration that only the comfort of a fluent language can allow.“I am sick of speaking English like this. I am sick of writing English like this. I feel as if I am being tied up, as if I am living in a prison. I am scared that I have become a person who is always in a prison. I am scared that I have become a person who is always very aware of talking, speaking, and I have become a person without confidence, because I can’t be me. I have become so small, so tiny, while the English culture surrounding me becomes enormous. It swallows me, and it rapes me. I am dominated by it. I wish I could forget about this vocabulary, these verbs, these tenses, and I wish I could just go back to my own language now. But is my own native language simple enough? I still remember the pain of studying Chinese characters when I was a child at school.Why do we have to study language? Why do we have to forces ourselves to communicate with people? Why is the process of communication so trouble and so painful?” Editor’s translation Guo frames the foreigner’s experience within the potential dangers that pop up around one who appears vulnerable and alone. When Z immediately connects with a stranger at a cinema, their relationship snowballing with speed, I couldn't help feeling apprehensive, worrying on the sidelines like a nervous parent who knows the many ways their child could be taken advantage of. The dangers seemed to double when language provided such a huge obstruction of knowledge. The novel shows the many ways in which language can hinder relationships, but also reveals that there are more powerful forces of understanding between people which can surpass verbal communication. What I was disappointed with, however, was that Guo only chose to demonstrate that message through romantic and/or sexual connections. It was a little unbelievable to me; how many newly traveling women will have immediate (and reciprocated) attraction with three different men in three different countries? And even if they did, aren’t there different types of relationships than the romantic kind that humans experience? In a way this novel equated cultural liberation with sexual liberation, something that I obviously had trouble digesting. It is possible to achieve the former without the latter, or to achieve the latter, and still not acquire the former.In the end, a part of Z is still holding onto the man she fell in love with in London. It is as if he is the rite of passage to her independence that she cannot forget, and my disappointment with the book lies in the fact that her inability to forget that almost eclipses the precious freedom she did acquire. I would definitely recommend this novel, though. It is an eye-opening read that holds nothing back and has a lot to offer; I have no doubt that almost everyone who reads it will take away from it some important life lessons. t
This book sat and waited for me for a very long time. It looked good – and that it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2007 was an excellent sign - and yet I didn’t pick it up. I thought that I knew just what it would hold, just what it would be about before I even read it.The combined forces of my own Clearing The Decks Project and Orange January made me pick up A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers on New Years Day. And I’m very glad.Yes, the story, the themes were very much as I had expected, but reading brought them into my heart and into my mind.“Now.“Beijing time 12 clock midnight.London time 5 clock afternoon.But I at neither time zone. I on airplane”Zhuang Xiaoqiao (called “Z” because people find it difficult to pronounce her name) is a 23-year-old Chinese girl sent to the UK to study English. I wondered if I could cope with Z’s fractured English, but that didn’t worry me for very long at all.The picture painted of Z is perfect: she is naive, and eager to learn, she is always watching and thinking. I was charmed, and I wanted to follow her, to walk beside her into her new life.Her impressions and experiences as she found her feet in London were wonderfully observed, and her use of language illuminated the gulf between Chinese and English in a way that was both beautiful and clever.I was also struck by the bravery of anyone who travels alone to a country with a very different language that they hardly know. A country so different, so far from home. I’m not sure that I could ever be that brave.A chance meeting and a linguistic misunderstanding result in Z much older man, a failed artist, a drifter. In time she falls in love with him.That relationship illustrates wider cultural differences. Attitudes to food, travel, sex, openness, privacy … so many things that go to the very heart of relationships. So many differences, so many things that Z’s dictionary just can’t explain.And it’s one thing to identify differences, but quite another thing to understand everything that those differences mean and to learn to live with them.“But why people need privacy? Why privacy is important? In China, every family live together, grandparents, parents, daughter, son and their relatives too. Eat together and share everything, talk about everything. Privacy make people lonely. Privacy make family fallen apart.” All of the other characters, even her lover, were faintly drawn, emphasising how different and how alone Z was. She clung to her lover and there was no room for others. How I wished she would mix with her fellow students, experience a different life, but no.I still loved her, but at times she infuriated me.How much was character and how much was culture? I really couldn’t say.A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers has is flaws: the use of language is sometimes inconsistent, and the story does drag in places.But it illuminates some wonderful truths as Z navigates through her relationship.“People always say it’s harder to heal a wounded heart than a wounded body. Bullshit. It’s exactly the opposite—a wounded body takes much longer to heal. A wounded heart is nothing but ashes of memories. But the body is everything. The body is blood and veins and cells and nerves. A wounded body is when, after leaving a man you’ve lived with for three years, you curl up on your side of the bed as if there’s still somebody beside you. That is a wounded body: a body that feels connected to someone who is no longer there.” I am so pleased that I have read this book at last: I have met a heroine to cherish, and her has touched my heart and my mind far more that I thought it would.
Do You like book A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers (2007)?
Sometimes when you read a book that makes you laugh and cry all at once and you wonder what kind of a book that is- a good one, I have realized .Xiaolu's book is a poignant ,yet funny tale of a young Chinese girl who arrives in London with shiny eyes and unending reserves of curiosity to learn English.Written in the first person narrative,almost like a diary,the first 100 odd pages almost reads like a chicklit - breezy and funny. As the protagonist, Z tackles English breakfasts,the infamous" English weather" ,dodgy lodgings,intricacies of English grammar and hosts of other "English" things, Xiaolu will enthrall you with her wit and funny observations, all written in deliberately bad English.I fell in love with the protagonist,Z,whose earnestness made the book all the more special for me.Gradually,as Z settles into her life in London and falls in love with a man, the tone changes. What starts off like a borderline chicklit starts getting deeper and more philosophical and you can certainly sense the metamorphosis Z goes through from the wide-eyed carefree foreigner to a self-introspecting ,slightly jaded individual.Understandably, as you progress through the book,you can see the change in Z's language and her grammar.As Z discovers Sex ,love and independence,she struggles to find a balance between her Chinese sensibilities and the expectations of a western civilization.The book took me on a nostalgic trip ,where several years ago I found myself in a strange country,struggling to grapple with my new life and battling strong feelings of "taking the next flight back home". Xiaolu captures this sentiment rather well and Z's loneliness comes across clearly. I absolutely loved the way every chapter started with the meaning of a word that Z encounters- these entries are from the dictionary she carries with her at all times.Overall,a beautiful book that I would recommend to everyone. Towards the end,it might get a little bleak with more philosophical overtones,but on the whole you'll love the journey the book takes you on. 4/5 for Xiaolu's book.
—Bhargavi Balachandran
A love-and-loss/finding-oneself story in which a young Chinese woman comes to London to perfect her English and falls into an unconventional relationship (and living arrangement) with an older bisexual man. Gently amusing in its observations, related in first person by the protagonist, with themes of cultural displacement, self-discovery and sexual awakening running throughout. But the story ultimately made me feel like a bit of a horrible person because the narrator's naivety irritated me more than it charmed me, and although I liked the realistic way in which the life and death of the relationship was depicted, I never cared about it. An easy read with more substance and meaning than most books that would be categorised as such, but, for me, easily forgettable as well.
—Blair
The diary of a 24 year old Chinese woman coming to London to learn English. Written in broken English (which gradually improves) and using a word and its definition as the "hook" for each brief chapter. Some interesting insights into the differences between the two languages (no verb tenses in Chinese) as well as the two cultures, and indeed how language differences perhaps even frame the cultural differences.See another novel of hers: Twenty Fragments of a Revenous Youth: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
—Cecily
