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The Boat To Redemption (2009)

by Su Tong(Favorite Author)

3.08 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

038561344X (ISBN13: 9780385613446)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Doubleday

review 1: Several Chinese novels I have read lately exhibit what I can only somewhat uncharitably call "teenage sexuality," although this may unfairly characterize the teenagers among us. I do not wish to go into this too explicitly, but will only suggest that we might draw a distinction between Yu Hua's "Brothers," with its somewhat tittering focus upon female genitalia, and Su Tong's "The Boat to Redemption," with its fascination with the peculiarities of the male equivalent. Gosh, a whole new way of classifying novels! I don't offer these observations as some religious prude: all its sexual rowdiness notwithstanding, I would happily go back to reread the "notorious" classical novel Jin ping mei (sometimes translated as "Golden Lotus"). It is the tone of these recent novels th... moreat bothers me and makes me wonder into what strangely arrested psychosexual state contemporary Chinese writers have fallen and why. Enough of that. I did eventually get over the sexual bumps, so to speak, to enjoy portions of Su Tong's work, which is well-translated by the always excellent Howard Goldblatt. Moreover, the last pages of this novel, in which the young narrator, who certainly holds the all-time "novel record" for low self-esteem (this gets tiresome too), finally redeems himself and his father by stealing a stone memorial to a fallen martyr who may or may not be their ancestor. Are the good moments sufficient to make reading these 360 pages? That depends on how fast you read. Since I'm a slightly slower than average reader, I'll grant it two stars.
review 2: Wow...I really had to struggle to finish this! I think because it was narrated by a young man who was obsessed with a woman and talked about his erections all the time...ALL THE TIME! I would have given up on it except I had already read 200 pages or so, hoping that something would happen or would change, but nothing did. This book was nominated for a Man Booker Prize, which is a big deal in the English language arena; I guess it was nominated by a man. less

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