The Banquet Bug

Ligaya Mishan

At a banquet hosted by a drug company, Dan dines on gelatin made of seahorses and bull penises (to boost virility) and frog uterus soup (an aphrodisiac). Like much of The Banquet Bug, the scene works splendidly as farce -- even as it arouses the nagging suspicion that it might not be so far-fetched after all.
— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Yan, whose short fiction was the basis for the movie Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl, offers a pointed critique of capitalism's rise in her native China. A multifaceted mistaken-identity farce, Yan's novel chronicles the adventures of Dan Dong, a laid-off factory worker who wanders into a lavish banquet where journalists are wined and dined and receive "money for your troubles" fees for listening to-and hopefully reporting on-the presentations of corporations and charities. Dan quickly orders business cards that "said he was a reporter from some Internet news site," and hops aboard the banquet gravy train. Yan revels in the absurdity of her premise, and her over-the-top descriptions of banquet fare underscore her outrage at the few who gorge themselves on "animals from remote mountains and forests" while millions starve. The story changes gears, though, when Dan's reportage leads him into a dangerous, far-reaching scandal and he is arrested during a crackdown on "banquet bugs." Yan's concept is clever, but wooden dialogue and some awkward descriptions make it clear that English is not her mother tongue, though this also leads to some seductively nuanced moments ("He smells rather than hears her words carried on her smoky breath") that hint at her enormous potential. (July 11) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Yan's first book to be written in English exposes corruption and scandal in the author's native China. At its center is Dan Dong, an unemployed factory worker living in Beijing and scrimping by with the help of his loyal and loving wife. Sumptuous gourmet offerings tempt Dan to become a "banquet bug"-someone who uses a false identity to eat freely at state-sponsored banquets. While masquerading as a journalist to savor exotic fare like peacock and shark fin, Dan is introduced to distasteful acts of bribery, fraud, and institutionalized brutality and abuse largely victimizing rural residents and women. As time passes, he is reluctantly drawn deeper into endeavors that expose moral decay almost everywhere. Readers will enjoy Yan's juxtaposition of epicurean delights with Dan's experience of dark gruel and canned food beyond expiration. Ultimately, Yan's well-paced novel questions the media's place at the table with corporate and government representatives as much as it finds China's emerging capitalism unappetizing. This book's predictable success, plus Yan's previous achievements with short story collections (e.g., White Snake), demonstrate why Yan is among the few Chinese authors to receive critical acclaim both in the United States and in mainland China. Highly recommended.-Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon Lib., Eugene Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Chinese-born Yan (The Lost Daughter of Happiness, 2001), now living in the U.S. and writing in English, wonderfully imagines the easy-come, easy-go life of an unemployed Beijing factory worker passing for a journalist. Three years before the story's main action, Dan Dong is dismissed from his job at a suburban cannery and installed in makeshift worker-housing with his guileless young wife, Little Plum. He didn't intend to impersonate a journalist when he turned up for a job interview at a five-star hotel, but he's mistakenly directed to a banquet in progress, where he learns that journalists pick up a fee of 200 yuan per event to write about whatever is being promoted. Dan has business cards printed, and is soon a practiced "banquet bug." His enjoyment of these sumptuous meals is marred only by his inability to share them with Little Plum; he hates to think of his adored wife "spending her life as their neighbors do, with so many omissions . . . as if unlived." At a bird-watchers banquet, he witnesses famous artist Ocean Chen react in moral outrage when served peacock; the two men, both from Gansu Province, strike up a friendship. Hard-shelled veteran journalist Happy Gao, believing that unassuming Dan is a seasoned reporter, aims to get in on the action. She takes him to a brothel in exchange for his article on the peacock debacle. While Happy instructs Dan in the art of give-and-take, Ocean Chen acts as his conscience. Constantly asked to write about the plight of other people, Dan uncomfortably comes to realize that the journalist's job is to bring hope, a responsibility our Everyman finds enormous and practically unbearable. After all, Dan is a mere mortal, as the author demonstratesin her delightful, unique voice. A meandering moral journey conveyed through charming characters and surprising events.