麻豆区
Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on April 6, 2019It took me ages to get around to reading this, but I鈥檓 glad I finally did. Choo writes a vivid story set in 19th century Malaya, of a young woman (Li Lan) haunted by the spirit of a man who wishes to marry her. Yes, even after his death. Li Lan, for her part, wants absolutely nothing to do with this afterlife marriage to a ghost, and instead would much prefer to marry the dead man鈥檚 still-living cousin. But unsurprisingly, things aren鈥檛 that simple. The Chinese afterlife, through which Li Lan ends up traversing after an accident leaves her essentially comatose, are full of mystery and intrigue, corruption and complications, and she has to solve the mystery of the hated dead man鈥檚 death before she loses her connection to her living body entirely.
It鈥檚 a story filled with lush detail and fascinating glimpses into an oft-unvisited part of the world and period of history, with a style that reminded me at times of Arthur Golden鈥檚 Memoirs of a Geisha, only with a brilliant supernatural element that never once felt cheesy or over-the-top, supernatural for the sake of being supernatural. It鈥檚 a great piece of literary fiction, and if you鈥檙e into slow-paced steady mysteries and non-Western cultures, this might be one you鈥檒l want to give your time to.
