Fiction'Xiaolu Guo's first novel in (deliberately bad) English is a romantic comedy about two lovers who don't speak each other's language," reads the jacket flap. To define A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers as a "romantic comedy" constitutes false advertising.
This is, rather, a novel about the death of romance. The Chinese narrator, Zhuang, notes in her pidgin English that "[ the word] Romance not to be found in my Concise Chinese-English Dictionary". Nor is this novel a comedy, black or otherwise. The title, too, is something of a misnomer, as it is a diary, not a dictionary. But don't let the plethora of bum steers put you off. Underneath all the cuteness is a very serious novel indeed.
Twenty-three year old Zhuang (or Z as she calls herself - Westerners cannot pronounce her name) arrives in London to spend a year learning English. Once removed from the context of her culture, she suffers an intense homesickness rendering her lonely and vulnerable: "I longing for smile from man, longing for smile even only remaining several seconds." She has the misfortune to fall for a 44-year-old emotional cripple who starves her of the affection and protection she craves.
EACH CHAPTER BEGINS with a dictionary definition which functions as a tip-off to the reader. The novel is agile in this regard - we are alerted to warning signs to which Zhuang seems oblivious. Thus, the chapter describing the Englishman's past (he is unnamed) is entitled "Drifter". Zhuang doesn't grasp the meaning the author intends. "Drifter like fishing boat?" she wonders. "Drifter goes fishing on a fishing boat?" No, drifter as in lost soul.
When the Englishman says, "Be my guest," Zhuang misinterprets it as in invitation to move in. He doesn't want her there, but is too paralysed by depression to ask her to leave. He does not abuse Zhuang so much as neglect her. She endures his moods, his criticisms, his cryptic pseudo-artistic utterances.
There's a pair of them in it. British and Chinese cultures are evenly critiqued. When the Englishman tries to go Dutch on a meal, Zhuang retorts: "Of course you have to pay. You are the man. If I pay too, then why I need to be with you?" Independence, financial or emotional, is an alien concept.
The Western cult of independence, however, is depicted as having fractured the family unit with stark results - the aforementioned "drifting": "A family doesn't live with together therefore the intimate insides of a family disappeared. Maybe that why Westerners much more separated, lonely." Guo, using pidgin English, says more about the malaise of alienation at the heart of British society than many of its native novelists manage with the full lexicon at their command. "Why a house, or a home, is a boring thing?" Zhuang asks the Englishman. "Because . . ." he begins, but cannot come up with an answer.
The constrictions of the diary format coupled with the use of limited English shackle the novel to an extent. Events are not dramatised so much as recounted. The voice of Zhuang, however, apart from the occasional lapse into disingenuousness, is affecting and convincing. For a novel that starts out trading on its cuteness ("sorry of my english", reads the faux-handwritten note prefacing the prologue), it enters some seriously bleak and brave terrain.
THE ENGLISHMAN, CITING the importance of independence, packs Zhuang off Inter-railing alone, despite her protests. She experiences profound displacement as she wanders around European capitals. Her need for human contact becomes extreme and self-destructive, culminating with her having sex with a mendicant because she isn't sure how to tell him to stop: "'But no plugging in. Please.' I don't know how to say that. And I am suddenly scared by what we are doing: 'No. I don't want that . . .'. But he couldn't control himself anymore."
Whether she been raped or not is left to the reader to decide. Zhuang herself is shockingly acceptant of her fate, so disorientated (in the literal sense of having lost the compass of the Orient) is she by then. The encounter ends in an abortion clinic. There is simply no one to rescue, guide or protect Zhuang, certainly not her lover in this novel about the failure of love. This is a troubling, humane, and emotionally provocative novel which possesses the unusual quality of forcing the reader to think.
Claire Kilroy's second novel, Tenderwire, has been shortlisted for the 2007 Irish Novel of the Year Award. She will be reading at the Shanghai International Literary Festival on March 11th
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers By Xiaolu Guo Chatto & Windus, 354pp. £12.99
