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juushikaTitle: The Moon Opera
Author: Bi Feiyu
Translators: Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin
Published: Boston: Houghton Mifflins Harcourt, 2009 (2007)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 117
Total Page Count: 68,768
Text Number: 198
Read For: Winter holiday gift from Lyz /![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sisterite (thank you!)
Short review: Twenty years after her shameful exit from the stage and the closing of the opera, Xiao Yanqiu is given a fresh chance to play the lead role in The Moon Opera. She is incredibly talented, but her late journey back to stardom will be fraught with difficulty and doubt. As short and delicate and the protragonist's life is wild and long, The Moon Opera can be difficult to connect to but still offers a deep story and a fascinating protragonist. I recommend it.
The novel begins with a rocky start: it opens in the troupe leader's point of the view, but the rest of the book takes place from Yanqiu's point of view, and the changes between the two makes it difficult to connect to the protagonist from the start. The storytelling too makes it difficult to connect: the language is sparse and the timeline jumps between events from Yanqiu's past and the progression of the opera, highlighting her mercurial mood and nature along with the key moments of her life. And the book is short, nearly short enough to read in one sitting—and so as soon as it begins, it ends, and the reader has little time to connect to the character or contemplate the story as a whole.
But if he does—if he pauses in his readings, or thinks back upon the book—there's a lot to be had. As changeable as water, flowing, freezing, crashing; with such great skill that she carries the potential of the whole opera within her, Yanqiu is an incredible protagonist. She is faulted, and wild, and incredibly real even as she is magical, and so her journey towards becoming Chang'e—the opera's protagonist—is full of wonder and fear. The sparse language is atmospheric; the jumping timeline allows for perfect detail in each event it features. The book still feels too short, but the brief journey is still wonderful. And best of all, the ending is the book's strongest moment, and so the reader finishes awed and satisfied. This is not the best book I've ever read, but it was a pleasure and I'm glad I had the chance to read it. At only 100 pages, there's no reason not to take a chance on The Moon Opera—I recommend this book.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Bi Feiyu
Translators: Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin
Published: Boston: Houghton Mifflins Harcourt, 2009 (2007)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 117
Total Page Count: 68,768
Text Number: 198
Read For: Winter holiday gift from Lyz /
sisterite (thank you!)Short review: Twenty years after her shameful exit from the stage and the closing of the opera, Xiao Yanqiu is given a fresh chance to play the lead role in The Moon Opera. She is incredibly talented, but her late journey back to stardom will be fraught with difficulty and doubt. As short and delicate and the protragonist's life is wild and long, The Moon Opera can be difficult to connect to but still offers a deep story and a fascinating protragonist. I recommend it.
The novel begins with a rocky start: it opens in the troupe leader's point of the view, but the rest of the book takes place from Yanqiu's point of view, and the changes between the two makes it difficult to connect to the protagonist from the start. The storytelling too makes it difficult to connect: the language is sparse and the timeline jumps between events from Yanqiu's past and the progression of the opera, highlighting her mercurial mood and nature along with the key moments of her life. And the book is short, nearly short enough to read in one sitting—and so as soon as it begins, it ends, and the reader has little time to connect to the character or contemplate the story as a whole.
But if he does—if he pauses in his readings, or thinks back upon the book—there's a lot to be had. As changeable as water, flowing, freezing, crashing; with such great skill that she carries the potential of the whole opera within her, Yanqiu is an incredible protagonist. She is faulted, and wild, and incredibly real even as she is magical, and so her journey towards becoming Chang'e—the opera's protagonist—is full of wonder and fear. The sparse language is atmospheric; the jumping timeline allows for perfect detail in each event it features. The book still feels too short, but the brief journey is still wonderful. And best of all, the ending is the book's strongest moment, and so the reader finishes awed and satisfied. This is not the best book I've ever read, but it was a pleasure and I'm glad I had the chance to read it. At only 100 pages, there's no reason not to take a chance on The Moon Opera—I recommend this book.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
