Elsewhere: 'Wonderful writing' Sarah Hall

Product Information

In The Little House, our characters are dealing with the fallout of a massive earthquake, still dealing with the reverberations, unsettled, questioning what's a dream and what's real with a reference to Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream. Precise, surreal and emotionally devastating —the stories in Elsewhere leap between continents and centuries with a fierceness and confidence that makes their abiding loneliness and sense of longing all the more affecting." —Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days After they left the table, I took out my book and began to read. The TV was on in the next room, and Sister Du and the waitresses were watching the news, weeping. The second story, "Shooting an Elephant", is about a Chinese-born young woman's life as a newly wed in Ireland, dealing with the consequences of a recent miscarriage and trying to find herself in the predominantly white environment. An interesting glimpse into the emotional struggles she is subject to, and a revealing study of modern dejection, with the main character not dissimilar to those found in Sally Rooney or Naoise Dolan's works. Throughout her career, Yan has demonstrated a remarkable ability to navigate different cultural contexts and languages, resulting in a body of work that is as diverse as it is compelling. Her stories, whether set in ancient China or modern-day New York, are marked by their sharp wit, emotional depth, and keen insights into the human condition. With “Elsewhere,” Yan continues to push the boundaries of storytelling, offering readers a unique and captivating exploration of identity, displacement, and the complexities of human emotions. (Image credit: Goodreads) Overview of ‘Elsewhere’

When Travelling in the Summer’ was the first of the stories I really liked. It had a good premise and an interesting cast of characters that all related to each other in interesting ways. Not only this, but it came to a satisfying but not overwrought conclusion. It was definitely more of a traditional story structurally than the others, and I think this is also why it stood out to me. It knew what it wanted to do, then executed it well. My favourite of the collection was definitely the final story, ‘Hai’. Really, for the same reasons as for above, but doubly so. Everything ‘When Travelling in the Summer’ did well, ‘Hai’ did even better, and spent more time doing it. The writing here was also the best of among all the stories (and it had been very good throughout), with some fantastic dialogue especially. I’ll be honest, if Yan Ge hadn’t put out this as a collection of short stories, but had instead put this out as a novella alone, I would have been just as happy.We walked to the Little House. The buses hadn’t been running since the twelfth and there were no taxis. Small Bamboo had smoked three cigarettes by the time he finally remembered to offer me one. I told him I didn’t smoke. That night, nobody could sleep. We went into Young Li’s tent and sat down in the living room. It was surreally spacious, furnished with a pair of ivory four-seater leather sofas, one white armchair, and a cream chaise longue. There was even a bookshelf. Only the similarities that I could find throughout and crossing all the stories are the themes which champion art and literature specifically in writing as most of the characters were authors, writers and poets, and they also discussed certain book titles and poems; discuss displacement and self-identities as the characters all discussed their dispositions and individualities; as well as the position of language in determining one’s true meaning and deliverance. He smiled shyly. “Vertical and Chilly are having sex in my tent. Shall we go to Vertical’s tent and have sex as well★” A middle-aged woman in a red floral dress looked me up and down. “You seem like a smart kid,” she said. “You should write poems.”

But the idea of blended identities runs through Ge’s book that we’re meeting to discuss. Elsewhere is the best sort of debut – one that isn’t the author’s first book. Ge has been a successful author of literary fiction in Chinese since her first book was published in 2003 when she was still a teenager. She makes a living from it. “It’s kind of like a miracle,” she says. Elsewhere, a deeply eclectic collection of stories, is the first book she has written in English. Luminous and beguiling… Yan is a deft and engaging storyteller, with a proclivity for dramatic revelations… Yan’s rare versatility and inventiveness keeps the narrative continuously surprising. … Strange Beasts transfixes you like a vivid dream, offering glimpses of the waking world contorted into uncanny forms.” My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Advance Praise

What’s consistent…is an abiding sense of lightness, even when the characters are melancholy or lost….The pleasure of traveling ‘elsewhere,’ as in reading this singular book, is in wandering.” — Wall Street Journal She looked around the table. “How about the soup★ I can get you some soup without offal,” she said. The sunken square was brimming with tents, of various sizes and spectacular styles, their colors spanning the full visible spectrum. Small Bamboo pointed at the building at the far end of the square and told me the Little House was on that corner. We descended into the square and wove our way through it. The tents were clustered closely together and cast shadows over one another. People sat outside, eating, chatting, bartering. Vendors elbowed past with their baskets, selling food, magazines, T-shirts, and cosmetics. Kids chased one another, laughing. We steered through, Small Bamboo nodding at acquaintances and friends. Ahead of us, I saw a gigantic scarlet tent. It looked like a castle. Yan Ge explores human connections and disruptions in this ethereal collection… Here and elsewhere, Yan combines dry and subtle humor with her evocative lyrical style. These stories brim with intelligence." — Publishers Weekly Not long,” Old Stone said. “But we might surprise ourselves—this morning, a search team dug out a man who’d been buried for more than seventy-two hours, still alive.”