![]() ![]() He does come across a house that's to his liking, and he comes up with a plan to raise the funds to purchase it: his prized possessions are two very valuable Autograph-speakers - in the divorce, his wife got the apartment and he got the speakers, and he maintains that was a fair split - and now he's willing to part with them, as part of a super-sound-system package he's willing to offer to one Ding Caichen, one of China's new super-rich, who lives in a well-protected estate outside Beijing. The Invisibility Cloak plods along fairly uneventfully.Ĭui is annoyed by his situation, but comes across as the type that takes things as they come and figures something will work out, one way or another. His father, who died when he was young, had worked in a radio tube factory and then, after getting laid off, would repair radios at home his son seems to have followed in that not very ambitious but tinkering-obsessed fold. Not that he thinks most of his customers, with their terrible musical taste, can really appreciate his work. With even his friend Jiang Songping unwilling to help him out, about the only one he has left to turn to is his dead mother.Ĭui is an audiophile, earning his living by putting together sound-systems - specifically: building tube amplifiers. ![]() Past mid-life, he's finding himself almost entirely unmoored - whereby his sister's strong-arm efforts to hook him up with someone (like, immediately) also aren't particularly helpful. Cui.ĭivorced, nearing fifty, he now finds himself being not so gently nudged out of his home by his sister and, especially, brother in law. The Invisibility Cloak is narrated by Mr. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. ![]() Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. In these ways the writer can smuggle vital truths past the censors." - Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal (.) Ge Fei offers a wry example for Chinese novelists hoping to follow a more cautious path than Yan Lianke has: Don’t call attention to yourself master the tools of allusion, metaphor and silence. "The novel’s relentlessly flat tone could frustrate, but amplification isn’t always necessary to produce a memorable effect." - Publishers Weekly. ![]() General information | review summaries | our review | links | about the authorī+ : solid, laid-back novel of slice of modern China It is sure to appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and other fabulists of contemporary irreality.Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs. This provocative and seriously funny exercise in the social fantastic by the brilliantly original Ge Fei, one of China’s finest living writers, is among the most original works of fiction to come out of China in recent years. Then an old friend tips him off about a special job-a little risky but just don’t ask too many questions-and can it really be that this hopeless loser wins? The only things he really likes are Beethoven and vintage speakers. He has contempt for his clients and contempt for himself. Well into his forties, he’s divorced (and still doting on his ex), childless, and living with his sister (her husband wants him out) in an apartment at the edge of town with a crack in the wall the wind from the north blows through while he gets by, just, by making customized old-fashioned amplifiers for the occasional rich audio-obsessive. The hero of The Invisibility Cloak lives in contemporary Beijing-where everyone is doing their best to hustle up the ladder of success while shouldering an ever-growing burden of consumer goods-and he’s a loser. ![]()
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