Braised Pork
Braised PorkAn Yu

Braised Pork (2020)

An Yu

Creators: Mixed

"One autumn morning, Jia Jia walks into the bathroom of her lavish Beijing apartment to find her husband dead. One minute she was breakfasting with him and packing for an upcoming trip, the next, she finds him motionless in their bathtub. Like something out of a dream, next to the tub Jia Jia discovers a pencil sketch of a strange watery figure, an image that swims into Jia Jia's mind and won't leave. The mysterious drawing launches Jia Jia on an odyssey across contemporary Beijing, from its high-rise apartments to its hidden bars, as her path crosses some of the people who call the city home, including a jaded bartender who may be able to offer her the kind of love she had long thought impossible. Jia Jia's journey takes her to the high plains of Tibet, and even to a shadowy, watery otherworld, a place she both yearns and fears to go. An atmospheric and cinematic evocation of middle-class urban China, An Yu's Braised Pork explores the intimate strangeness of grief, the indelible mysteries of unseen worlds, and the self-discovery of a newly empowered young woman"--

ISBN:
9780802148711
Length:
240 pages

Genres: literary fiction

Lists: …

Reviews2

Liked

So I just finished Braised Pork I’ve very badly painted my nails but they look absolutely terrible and I really enjoyed this one as well I’m kind of sad I haven't got another Pisces book to read because so far they are absolutely banging them out I won't say much more than what I said when we got halfway through which was that she had dated a guy or not dated but like kind of dated a guy in the city she lives in and the fishman had not yet reappeared it's a little short book but I really enjoyed it so I’m gonna have to leave you guys here and catch up when my books arrive because I want to read the next one but they aren't here yet because past Sophie did not make good decisions about which books to order first so I’m gonna need to read something else in the interim.

Review 1 of 2

Similar books

Marieke Lucas RijneveldWINNER OF THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE A stark and gripping tale of childhood grief from one of the most exciting new voices in Dutch literature Ten-year-old Jas lives with her strictly religious parents and her siblings on a dairy farm where waste and frivolity are akin to sin. Despite the dreary routine of their days, Jas has a unique way of experiencing her world: her face soft like cheese under her mother’s hands; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads in the village; the sound of “blush words” that aren’t in the Bible. One icy morning, the disciplined rhythm of her family’s life is ruptured by a tragic accident, and Jas is convinced she is to blame. As her parents’ suffering makes them increasingly distant, Jas and her siblings develop a curiosity about death that leads them into disturbing rituals and fantasies. Cocooned in her red winter coat, Jas dreams of “the other side” and of salvation, not knowing where this dreaming will finally lead her. A bestseller in the Netherlands, Lucas Rijneveld’s radical debut novel The Discomfort of Evening offers readers a rare vision of rural and religious life in the Netherlands. In it, he asks: In the absence of comfort and care, what can the mind of a child invent to protect itself? And what happens when that is not enough? With stunning psychological acuity and images of haunting, violent beauty, Rijneveld has created a captivating world of language unlike any other.

Why?

What made the match, strongest first

  • Liked by creators8 reviews
  • Also literary fiction77%
  • 2 creators reacted alike21%
  • Similar descriptions2%