the fox wife by yangsze choo
Revenge is a terrible dish to consume. It eats one from the inside out, no matter what they say about it being best served cold. As the Chinese saying goes, "When a gentleman takes his vengeance, ten years is not too late." But you and I know that chilled food inevitably leads to an upset stomach.
I was delighted to read the fox wife by yangsze choo. I read it in bits and pieces over the brain-mushiest time of year, but I was absolutely captivated by it.
set in northern china in the 1900s, it's a story that is rooted in traditional folklore and intersects with the human world... and is then wrapped in a detective narrative, with a dab of motherhood, grief, and romance.
split into two perspectives, the story follows snow and bao on their respective quests. bao is a detective on a mission to uncover the identity of a beautiful woman found dead in a doorway; snow is on a journey to seek vengeance for her lost daughter. their stories are surrounded by legends of foxes, and together they weave a gorgeous story that connects across time and space.
the writing is simple and sharp (I would expect no less from a book tethered to fox spirits), with a clever wit about it. it's dry and distant... yet deeply emotional. the setting is unfamiliar to probably most of us (manchuria in the 1900s?), but the behaviors of these human characters resonate across cultures...
"My wife has been possessed by a fox." These are the first words Mr. Wang utters when Bao arrives for their meeting. Bao is taken aback, but perhaps this is how the wealthy behave — as though everyone should be aware of their problems.
there's something about this book that weirdly reminds me of terrace house, this japanese reality show where a bunch of young people live in a shared house and often brush up against each other as they try to make their way in the world... sometimes the cast goes through interpersonal conflict, and they work through the conflict on-screen – like, they analyze their behaviors and explain their feelings to each other, and it's so uncommon to see this kind of self-awareness and conflict resolution play out live that you almost watch the show with a fascination – it's like, what facet of the universal human experience will we shine a light on next?
in a way, the fox wife gives me that feeling... there's sort of this intellectual observation of humans through the eyes of foxes... I don't know – maybe it's just that this book takes you out of your experience and puts you into someone else's really well. or maybe it just makes you really aware of little facets of the human experience that you might otherwise take for granted. this book says the quiet thing out loud, a lot.
I was silent for a while. Each of those tales features a missing wife or child.
Kuro said, "I wrote and rewrote them for myself."
"With happy endings?"
"I believe a literary critic called it a 'forlorn and wistful collection.'"
"I never would have imagined you to have such a poetic soul."
"I was very sad without you," he said simply.
this was originally on my romancelandia fall syllabus, and it was not "HR", but it was historical romance, if you know what I mean. I loved it so much. it's a book that really made me enjoy being a reader.