Notes of a Crocodile
By Qiu Miaojin, Bonnie Huie (Translator)
Publication Year: 2017 (originally published in Chinese in 1994)
Type: Fiction
Genre: contemporary, romance, LGBTQ
Read on 2019-04-23
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2019 Reading Survey ➞
★★☆☆☆
I really wanted to like this book but I couldn’t get past the awful translation...Maybe one day I will attempt reading it in Chinese to confirm my suspicions, but essentially I felt that the potential beauty and poignancy of the different written forms on display were totally bankrupted by the writing - which in this case is on the translator. The dialogue in the main story about closeted queer college students is atrocious, so unnatural with the weirdest choice of outdated niche slang that takes you completely out of the setting of 1980s Taiwan. The first person narration by Lazi is meandering and verbose to little effect - I came away from entire passages contemplating love and lesbianism with absolutely nothing. And believe me I tried very hard to get into the head of this tragic lesbian I really did. The allegorical “crocodile” interludes, in the hands a more adept writer, could’ve been phenomenal and a poetic complement to the slice-of-life main story. In this case, I was mostly confused and unable to distinguish which story I was in and what even was happening re: the crocodiles narratively or symbolically.
The other main thing I didn’t like about this is no one’s fault and very much about my own privilege. I was very very annoyed by the actions and attitudes of pretty much all the characters re: love and relationships. Lazi seems to throw herself at women - I mean just literally slingshot her beating heart - and then spends the rest of these latent lesbian relations being avoidant and distant and non-communicative but complaining about heartbreak and betrayal all the while. I can understand that this is the author’s truth and an experience of debilitating heteronormativity/lack of queer vocabulary or culture that I can’t really fathom. But, being who I am, I was still tearing my hair out reading it.
I did enjoy some passages on bisexuality and one bit at the end where Lazi seemingly (but very abruptly and randomly) realizes how wrong she has been in her approach to love. But this otherwise could’ve been a 1 star.
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