Name: Braised Pork
ISBN: 9781529112160

AN. YU

Braised Pork

tianna

Parts of her, like seeds, have been planted on this earth and grown into shoots, flowers, trees, day by day. The roots have dug deep into the soil and will continue to extend, for as long as you and I can imagine. 

An Yu

*A STYLIST BEST BOOK OF 2020* One autumn morning after breakfast, when she finds her husband dead in the bathtub, Jia Jia's life changes in ways she could never have imagined... 'So elegant and poised, so tuned to the great mysteries of love and loss. Braised Pork is a major debut' -- John Freeman One morning in autumn, just after breakfast, Jia Jia finds her husband dead in the bathtub of their Beijing apartment. Next to him is a piece of folded paper, a sketch of a strange creature from his dream. He has left her no other sign. Young, alone, and with many unanswered questions, Jia Jia sets out to discover what this this mysterious clue might mean. From the high-rises to the hidden bars of contemporary Beijing, she crosses paths with people who call the city home, including someone who may be able to offer her the love she had long thought impossible. Her journey takes her to the high plains of Tibet, and even to a shadowy, watery otherworld, a place she both yearns for and fears. Cinematic, dreamlike and very beautiful, Braised Pork is an exploration of myth-making, loss, and a world beyond words, and of a young woman's search deep into her past in order to arrive at her future. 'Bold yet understated, Braised Pork is the debut of a supremely confident and gifted writer' Katie Kitamura 'What a singular, slippery, transfixing novel this is. An Yu achieves a hypnotizing emotional clarity as she takes her narrator ever further from a stifling life in Beijing into a watery realm unlike any I've read before.' Idra Novey 'This exquisite novel is many things: a detective story in which the real object of pursuit is how one makes meaning of a sometimes ineffable existence; a meditation on the talismanic power of art and the indefatigability of the human spirit; and a many-faceted, perfectly cut gem of psychological portraiture set in well-wrought sentences burnished to a gorgeous luster. The emotions in this book keep pace with you, shadowing you with a quiet intensity, until in the last stretch they overtake you completely.' Matthew Thomas

Eva Ströberg

Braised Pork got nothing to do with the book, well it did a little, but I guess I started the book on a wrong foot, so I wasn't enjoying it thoroughly.

The story is about a widow, whose husband committed suicide in their luxurious apartment in the business district in Beijing. The husband's family cut her off from the fortune, so she was only left with the apartment (that she could hardly sell) and a meager sum of money from the husband. She ended up wasting her days at the nearby bar and eventually hooked up with the bartender, but there was something about the fish-man drawing that the husband drew before he died that nagged her mind.

I feel like the author was trying to so hard to be like Murakami, but ended miserably. While Murakami's strange tales were enticing and inviting readers to read more, here I just wanted to put down the book more than twice, but I kept reading for the sake of finishing this book.

Some stories were dragged and pointless imho and by the time I finally finished the last page, I exhaled, that was quite hard. So, two stars from me

Ditipriya Acharya

This book would have been a definite five star read if the resolution didn’t feel like the author had written herself into a corner and was grasping at straws to find a way out.

interesting story about dealing with grief, but the ending felt a lil rushed for me 

geri chan 

Cait🪼

This was far more poetic and touching than I'd expected, and I adored every page.

Interesting and surreal novel (in a Murakami vein, just go with it) I savoured slowly as I didn't want to finish it. Loved it.

雪 xue

mm unfortunately did not love the last third of the book—pages and pages of exposition that attempt to explain the meaning of the fish man and the world of water, which felt underwhelming and forced. the dialogue was also quite cheesy (can’t find the exact lines so this is paraphrasing): “that’s hope, isn’t it?” and “do you believe in fate?” i was hoping this book would touch on the chinese root-seeking movement and the cultural hollowness of the narrator’s generation because she goes to lhasa (i thought it was a reference to the zheng jun song 回到拉萨, and two characters commented on how this era of art, music & film is mechanical and void of meaning) but nope it was just about women feeling trapped like fish in a bowl. i left feeling unfulfilled. however leo is a g 👍

This book had me on the edge of my seat, but I’m not sure I understood what the resolution was. 

Nicki

I enjoyed the writing a lot, but I don't know how I feel about the story itself.

Ada 

I actually found this to be a very fast read, having finished 90% of it in one sitting. I thought it was very poetic and symbolic, there are definitely several quotes I will remember from it. 
I don’t agree with the perspective that the title did not tie in the story, or with the fact that supposedly we don’t ultimately know what happens. It is quite customary for Asian authors to adopt this mysterious and elusive style that is open for interpretation. I personally thought that ‘braised pork’ could be a metaphor for anything from the thread back to one’s true essence to the unachievable normality of the day-to-day life. Might also be interpreted as a bad omen, which would make sense given the many superstitions present in the Chinese culture. In any case, I feel like I learnt more about the culture overall from the book, and in translation, I was here for the vibes more than for an extremely intricate plot. 
Would have been 5 stars, but I personally would have preferred a tad more zing/sparkle/etc. for the mystical aspect involved. I was very excited when it was first introduced, but felt like it could have received a deeper analysis and played a larger part in the story. 
Overall I definitely recommend this if you’re into more open interpretation literary pieces. Cheers!

jiaqi kang

** spoiler alert **
           enchanting, incredible, mesmerising first half
extremely disappointing second half full of really quite uncomfortably uncritical portrayals of tibet as primitive, timeless (i.e. out of time, never modern), and a backdrop for beijingers to figure out their hypercapitalist ennui. i kept hoping that the world of water would help to unravel this very reductive and racist framework that jia jia and co. have about tibet, but it didn't really happen... she really Found Herself In The Himalayas With The Ethnics huh.

Kwan Ann Tan

Really enjoyed it. Everything was so evocative and vivid- it's a really touching story of family, art, and trying to find your way in the world after loss.

Alexia

This book took me by surprise. When I started reading it, I thought it was going to be the average contemporary novel about grief and self-discovery that I always enjoy reading, but then it shifted into magical realism as a means of allegory to something else, which I hadn't expected. At first, I felt confused and it took me some days to pick it back up, but when I did return to the story, it gripped me and didn't let me go until the end. This book won't be for everybody, but it will be loved by reader who like magical —an almost mythical— elements interwoven in a story that is both contemporary and literary. 

I'd like to thank Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"One autumn morning, Jia Jia walks into the bathroom of her lavish Beijing apartment to find her husband dead. One minute she was breakfasting with him and packing for an upcoming trip, the next, she finds him motionless in their bathtub. Like something out of a dream, next to the tub Jia Jia discovers a pencil sketch of a strange watery figure, an image that swims into Jia Jia's mind and won't leave. The mysterious drawing launches Jia Jia on an odyssey across contemporary Beijing, from its high-rise apartments to its hidden bars, as her path crosses some of the people who call the city home, including a jaded bartender who may be able to offer her the kind of love she had long thought impossible. Jia Jia's journey takes her to the high plains of Tibet, and even to a shadowy, watery otherworld, a place she both yearns and fears to go. An atmospheric and cinematic evocation of middle-class urban China, An Yu's Braised Pork explores the intimate strangeness of grief, the indelible mysteries of unseen worlds, and the self-discovery of a newly empowered young woman"--

Carolina Lopes

Anyaconda

This won't be for everyone. Braised pork is very metaphorical with lots of space for guessing and interpreting.
We also have quite a lot of open ends and strands of the story. Nonetheless it was an interesting read and I want to paint/sketch my own fishman for some weird reason. Don't we all love some good mystery/mysticism?
Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC.

'An Yu writes beautifully about loneliness, the experience of isolation, and the possibility of human connection, however fragile. Braised Pork is mesmerising' -- Rosie Price, author of What Red Was One autumn morning in Beijing, just after breakfast, Jia Jia's life changes for ever. After the sudden loss of her husband, the young artist sets out on a journey from a hidden jazz and whiskey bar, via a strange and dreamlike world of water, to the high plains of Tibet. Along the way, she crosses paths with people experiencing losses of their own, including someone who may be able to offer her the love she had long thought impossible. Cinematic and delicately beautiful, Braised Pork is an exploration of myth-making, connection, a world beyond words, and of a young woman's search deep into her past, in order to arrive at her future. **A STYLIST BEST BOOK OF 2020**

Braised Pork

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