Playing for Thrills

by Wang Shuo and Shuo Wang

Book Overview

Follows the investigation into a mysterious, decade-old murder of a possibly imaginary character, as told by the chief suspect in the case. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140269711
• ISBN13: 9780140269710
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Wang Shuo plays the reader for thrills

In Playing for Thrills, Wang Shuo weaves a complex, compelling, and utterly confusing web in which the reader is quickly trapped. The book is neither noir nor surreal, as it is often labelled, but filtered through the hazy lens of alientation and indifference, the reader quickly becomes as defracted as the characters.I hated this book, but found it totally addictive. Wang Shuo is a master storyteller, and like a good film director, cleverly manipulates his audience, and we are always exactly where he wants us to be.The plot is pretty petty and pointless, but the rambling narrative presents the best literary portrait there is of Beijing in the 1980s. It is especially amusing in its scathing portrait of the new semi-rich wheeler-dealer class, in all their tastelessness and self-importance.Wang Shuo is arguably the most critically and commercially successful writer in modern China, and is also an acclaimed screen writer. This book may not provide a sense of his importance, but it will introduce readers to his expertly maneuvered prose.

good view of beyjing and chinese people

Wang Shuo knows Beijing and its citizen and shows they better than anybody else.If you have the chance go and live the ways of the Beijing of Wang Shuo. Maybe you'll find a Fan Yang in your way....

this book won't leave my head

I've read this book now three times, I think, and the spooky, half-explained atmosphere is still permanently ingrained in my brain. I love it! In particular, the scene involving the line "there's something on your body that I know quite well" simply won't leave me alone. =)Note to previous reviewer: Austeresque? That's interesting. I liked Auster's "New York Trilogy" a lot too. I wonder if that's significant.

norman mailer meets paul auster?

despite early plot similarities to mailer's tough guys don't dance it does go elsewhere. it also has auster's psuedo mystery genre thing going, and even feels a little austeresque. makes me think i'm gonna like the new china....

i don't see why folks couldn't follow the plot

certainly there were times when you might lose a thread, but i don't get why people didn't think the plot came together. i find his style a little austerish (paul), in that psuedo-mystery sort of way. after su tong he's now my second favorite chinese writer.........