
Notes of a Crocodile
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Narrated by:
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Jo Mei
A New York Times Editors' Choice
The English-language premiere of Qiu Miaojin's coming-of-age novel about queer teenagers in Taiwan, a cult classic in China and winner of the 1995 China Times Literature Award.
An NYRB Classics Original
Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and major countercultural figure.
Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes a rich kid turned criminal and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover, as well as a bored, mischievous overachiever and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend. Illustrating a process of liberation from the strictures of gender through radical self-inquiry, Notes of a Crocodile is a poignant masterpiece of social defiance by a singular voice in contemporary Chinese literature.
©1994 Qiu Miaojin (P)2017 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















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Better with context
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metaphorical
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It's not very long but it's easy to pick up and put down due to the format of lots of short chapters, in the form of letters and vignettes. I might have enjoyed it more if I'd made time to do longer stretches of listening. But the translation and the narrator make it very easy to get through. While in some ways the shame most of the characters express about their sexuality feels a bit dated to a 21st century urban dwelling American, on the other hand, the conversations characters have abut gender fluidity or refusal to be defined by one specific gender/sexuality, feel really modern. I think a lot of people will relate to the characters' struggle and their frequent sense of despair. That despair is all the more poignant when you realize that the author killed herself at age 26.
Pleasant Surprise
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my opinion
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The heroine of Qiu's roman a clef is “Lazi," which has become the slang-nickname for “gay girl” all over China and Southeast Asia.
The book was translated to English by Bonnie Huie. Jo Mei is a terrific newer VO— she has that 21st century sound, and a deviation from everything people think they know about Chinese heroines. Playful, devastating, and a heartbreak like a thousand cuts.
Heartbreak Like a Thousand Cuts
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Beautiful homosexual exposé set in Taiwan
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I appreciate that this book is very progressive in Taiwan but I don't find it compelling as a Westerner.
Characters were underdeveloped and 2 dimensional
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I disliked the characters, not because of their sexuality, but they were boring, unhappy, depressed and depressing.. Admittedly l, i didn’t read it to the end, but did you find anything in the 2nd half to redeem it?
This won Chinese literary awards?
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