Chaos and All That: An Irreverent Novel

by Liu Sola

Book Overview

This brilliant little novel, set against the backdrop of post-Mao China, juxtaposes recollections of childhood, pet ownership, and marriage with discussions of art, sex, and murder, weaving together an absurdist tapestry that is the inner life of the novel's felicitously named protagonist, Huang Haha. Subversive, iconoclastic, and wholly irreverent.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 082481651X
• ISBN13: 9780824816513
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Length: 134 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A brief novel, but a good one.

What's particularly interesting about Chaos And All That is how Sola Liu takes a wickedly humorous approach to describe growing up during China's Cultural Revolution, which is unlike anything I've ever read about that period.

An excellent short novel

The entire novel is only 126 pages long, and there's numerous short poems and snippets of songs interspersed throughout. The story itself is filled with that brutal rawness that defines modern literature. No fainting flowers or blushing virgins on these pages. The story follows two women: one a college student and the other a character in a novel the college student is writing. Both characters describe their lives in China during the cultural revolution, and the college student adds in thoughts about her life at a university in Europe. Even though politics and the surrounding culture(s) are integral to this story, at it's core are women. Women dealing with each other, relationships, children, sex, family expectations, pets, school, government, and life in a mad and (sometimes) dangerous world.

Revealing.

This is an excellent little book. Not for the squeamish. It's half in-your-face reality and half poetic silliness. I liked it. Not unlike Catcher in the Rye.