A Lover's Discourse Audiobook By Xiaolu Guo cover art

A Lover's Discourse

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A Lover's Discourse

By: Xiaolu Guo
Narrated by: Cindy Kay
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About this listen

"I don't believe in love at first sight."

I was taken aback. I thought we were definitely in love at first sight.

"What do you mean? Wasn't it clear the moment you picked the elderflowers by the park and we looked at each other? Or was it in that book club?"

You gave me a damp smile, as if my confusion proved that you were right.

A Chinese woman moves from Beijing to London for a doctoral program - and to begin a new life - just as the Brexit campaign reaches a fever pitch. Isolated and lonely in a Britain increasingly hostile to foreigners, she meets a landscape architect and the two begin to build a life together.

A Lover's Discourse is an exploration of romantic love told through fragments of conversations between the two lovers. Playing with language and the cultural differences that her narrator encounters as she settles into life in post-Brexit-vote Britain, the lovers must navigate their differences and their romance, whether on their unmoored houseboat or in a cramped and stifling apartment in east London.

Suffused with a wonderful sense of humor, this intimate and tender novel asks what it means to make a home and a family in a new land.

©2020 Xiaolu Guo (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Contemporary Contemporary Romance Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Women's Fiction World Literature Witty
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What a sophisticated story

There’s so much under the surface here, with the circling repetition of language, the adaptation of the Chinese narrator to the UK, and the exploration of love and the building of a relationship — also achieved by circling and returning and repetition, and of course by adapting.

I listened to this book, though I also have the print version, which perhaps is better to read because of the creative way it’s laid out, where the play with language is more explicit. But I did thoroughly enjoy the audio. The only reason for the four stars instead of five for performance is that the voice of the man sounds British when he’s supposed to be Australian. But that’s a minor quibble. Highly recommended!

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