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Overview
In 1989 a remarkable film, Ju Dou, banned in China for depicting adultery, was released to worldwide acclaim and nominated for an Academy Award. The film was adapted from the first novel by Liu Heng, one of China's most important young writers. Black Snow is Liu Heng's second novel, and it will prove to be equally unsettling. Li Huiquan returns to Beijing after serving a three-year sentence in a prison labor camp for his involvement in a juvenile street fight. Both his foster parents, who raised him after he was discovered abandoned in a train station, are dead, and Huiquan is left with nothing but his mother's small life's savings and the attentions of his Auntie Luo, who arranges for his livelihood. Huiquan agrees, with his aunt's urgings, to sell clothing from a peddler's cart. It is joyless, tiring work, and Huiquan can barely contain his disdain for the crowds of people eager to snatch up foreign goods. At night, Huiquan frequents a karaoke bar, where he meets a bearded stranger with connections to the shady world of the black market, a world Huiquan finds both seductive and repulsive. He also meets Zhao Yaqiu, a naive and silly young singer who becomes the object of his overwhelming obsession and the focus of his previously diffuse anxiety. As his surroundings turn increasingly bleak and meaningless, Huiquan's attraction to Yaqiu, who, in his mind, may provide the only connection to the society around him, grows dangerously strong. Black Snow is a stunning psychological portrait of a dissatisfied and emotionally illiterate young man's desperate search for meaning and companionship in the gray world under totalitarianism. It combines the existential angst of writers such as Camus and Sartre with the disaffection of the American urban novels of the 1980s. Liu Heng's voice is one of the first of his generation to be heard outside of China, and this novel offers an extraordinary glimpse into the psyche and life-style of the young generation in contemporary BeSynopsis
Black Snow is the stunning portrait of a dissatisfied and emotionally illiterate young man’s search for meaning and companionship in the gray world of totalitarianism. After serving a three-year sentence in a prison labor camp for his involvement in a juvenile street fight, Li Huiquan returns to Beijing and begins work as a street peddler. At night, he frequents a karaoke bar, where he enters into the shadowy world of the black market and meets a beautiful, naive young singer who becomes the object of his dangerous and overwhelming obsession. Riveting and relentless, Black Snow offers an extraordinary glimpse into the psyche and lifestyle of the young generation in contemporary Beijing.
Publishers Weekly
Despite some fine, unnerving descriptions of violence in contemporary Bei jing, this gritty second novel by the author of Ju Dou ultimately disappoints. Recently released after a three-year detention in a labor camp, 25-year-old Li Huiquan struggles for survival and self-awareness. His peddler's cart, his painful memories and his profoundly misanthropic outlook accompany him as he mulls over his past and tries to find a future in the seedy bars near his house on Spirit Run Street. Simultaneously detesting and yearning for human contact, he becomes obsessed with Zhao Yaqiu, a lounge singer he sets up as his virtuous ideal in a dark world peopled with slippery friends and supposed enemies. However, a relationship with any human being, especially a woman, proves almost impossibly difficult for the intensely bitter Li. While his acerbic misogyny remains largely unexamined, existential questions--about the meaning of life, the definition of happiness, etc.--are endlessly and repetitively discussed, usually in cliches. Heng tends to pontificate--regrettably, since the novel's more engaging sections feature imaginative, telling details and a skillful intermingling of action and dialogue. At its best, Black Snow is a disturbing, richly alive portrait of a disillusioned young man trying to gain control over a chaotic society; at its worst, the narrative is preachy and static. ( Apr. )