Black Snow

by Liu Heng, Howard Goldblatt (Translator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802133892
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	04/08/1994
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	802,651
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

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. )

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Author of the novella upon which the award-winning movie Red Sorghum is based, Liu Heng is one of the new voices in Chinese literature who dares to explore the sights and sounds of Chinese lives previously barred from literary representation. In contrast to the worldly, romanticized characters and outrageously daring actions of his previous work, Liu here presents a character who dies a slow death in reform-era China. Hardly loved by anybody but his adoptive mother, the orphan Li Huiquan fights feelings of dejection during adolescence but ends up in a reform labor camp. When he is released, he is determined to live a straight life by becoming a street vendor, but he ends up being deeply disappointed by the corruption of the so-called entrepreneurs around him and the mock sophistication of the pop singer he worships. Li Huiquan decides to commit suicide only to be pummeled to death by a couple of teenage robbers. A good introduction to the emergent Chinese literature, this book is recommended for libraries that collect serious fiction.-- Cherry W. Li, Los Angeles

Library Journal