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A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers | 
 enlarge | Author: Xiaolu Guo
Publisher: Anchor
Category: EBooks
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $4.66
You Save: $9.29 (67%)
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 19445
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
ASIN: B001AL662E
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers heralds the American debut of a remarkably gifted young writer.
Twenty-three-year-old Zhuang, the daughter of shoe factory owners in rural China, has come to London to study English. She calls herself Z because English people can't pronounce her name, but she's no better at their language. Set loose to find her way through a confusion of cultural gaffes and grammatical mishaps, she winds up lodging with a Chinese family and thinks she might as well not have left home. But then she meets an English man who changes everything. From the moment he smiles at her, she enters a new world of sex, freedom, and self-discovery. But she also realizes that, in the West, "love" does not always mean the same as in China, and that you can learn all the words in the English language and still not understand your lover.
Drawing on her diaries from when she first arrived in the UK, Xiaolu Guo winningly writes the story in steadily improving English grammar and vocabulary. Freshly humorous, sexy, and poignant, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is an utterly original novel about language, identity, and the cultural divide.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Good things come in small packages September 18, 2008
The brain of Spain (Baltimore)
This was indeed a very thought provoking book. The style was very convincing and also unusual. Ultimately it was a sad book, perhaps An Innocents Abroad for the 21st Century'
 Fascinating 5-star read July 23, 2008
armchairinterviews.com (Minnesota)
Xiaolu Guo is a native of China and has published several books there. This is her first novel written in English and was published hardcover in 2007, now paperback. She now divides her time between Beijing and London.
Like the author, the novel's main character, Zhuang Xiao Qiao, is a young Chinese woman who spends a year in London to study English. The story is told as a series of journal/diary entries that are in part written to her British lover, a man she meets in a movie theater. In a rather unusual way, she moves in with him after misunderstanding the phrase, "be my guest." She refers to "you" as this man.
At the beginning of the book, the writing is stilted, incorrect and confusing- just exactly the way a non-native speaker would likely think and write in her new language. She keeps a dictionary at hand all of the time and constantly looks up new words and definitions. She also as an insatiable curiosity and asks many questions. As the book progresses so does the sentence structure and Zhuang's understanding of English and Western culture.
Guo's re-creation of language learning is fascinating. The character of Zhuang is both naive and wise. She shares her most personal thoughts and actions and readily explores the difficulties inherent in living in a new country with a new language. Zhuang also takes some time to travel by Euro-pass railroad through France, Germany, Spain and Portugal. Her impressions of these countries and the people she meets also offer a different perspective on Chinese culture.
However, this is not a book for every reader. I enjoyed it, but must note that there is a lot of very explicit sexual activity and talk in the novel. While it works with the context of the book, I'm sure it would be a turn-off for some readers.
Armchair Interviews says: Heed this reviewer's specific comments; otherwise a 5-star read.
Loved it! July 23, 2008
pupucat (Minnesota on my way to California)
Highly recommend this wonderful, sweet, insightful and beautiful book. Don't let the beginning of the book put you off. It gets so much better closer to the end as Z grows and becomes stronger. Her clever use of broken English is not just a gimmick but really adds a lot to the story. I got this book from the library, but will definitely go out and buy a copy to keep on my bookshelf.
 Some romances never last, especially these with cultural differences May 21, 2008
Katja Kaygin (Hamburg, Germany)
The protagonist in this book is called shortly Z, because she has an unmentionable name such as Zhuang Xiao Quiao. Probably the author Xiaolu Guo knows pretty well what she has written about, because also her name is not easy to spell. Z is 23 when she came over from Beijing in China to London in the UK. She can't speak any English and she has never been to the West before. Therefor the book starts in pretty dreadful English and every chapter has a specific heading such as in a dictionary. There are very funny scenes in the book for example when Z arrives in London: "Sign in front of queue say: ALIEN and NON ALIEN. I am alien, like Hollywood films Alien, I live in another planet, with funny looking and strange language." I found it funny because I nearly had the same thoughts about that word alien when I was pretty young and flying over to England for the first time.
Learning English, Z discovers more and more strange things in the English language, for example the gender definition (Everyone must do his best), which she comments (in her bad English): Always talking about mans, no womans. And Z has problems living in London: The weather is bad, she can't understand much and there is no-one in this country she knows. It doesn't take long and she falls in love with a very complicated guy, who is in his 40ies, who's job it is to deliver goods with a white van, he is trying to be a bit of an artist by making wax sculptures, who is living in Hackney (Greater London) and who used to be homosexuell before this relationship. At the beginning it starts as every relationship in a very happy way: They are both intoxicated by love and make love everywhere and at any time. But slowly the struggle starts. Whereas Z wants to make plans for a future together, he wants to be on his own, depending on no-one. So it comes to a point, while Z leaves London for a few weeks for an Interail tour on Europe. What I really found a shame was, that Z never made any contact with interesting women on her journey. It seemed that her life was completely determined by men. I found it a pitty because the protagonist didn't enjoy the Interail journey at all. After coming back to England the struggle starts again...
Nevertheless the book is very sad in the end, but also many things in Europe have been observed with the eyes of a foreigner and therefor it is a very wise and often funny book and it is worth reading it.
"The loneliness comes to me in certain hours everyday" May 10, 2008
Linda Bulger (Avon, Maine)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Zhuang, a young girl from a manufacturing town on the South China Sea, is sent to England to learn the language so she can further the interests of her family's business. She records her progress in the notebook that is this novel - words, impressions, incomprehensions, loneliness. Each chapter starts with a dictionary definition. The book begins in severely broken English - "Is unbelievabal, I arriving in London, `Heathlow Airport'..." -- with observations of the city and the people around her, and progresses to more abstract themes as the writer's English improves.
Zhuang gives up her name because English people cannot pronounce it, calling herself Z, and boards with a Chinese family. In her second month of diaspora she meets a man in a cinema and moves in with him. Twenty years her senior, a bisexual drifter and artist, subject to depression and averse to commitment, he seems an unlikely object of her love and passion.
As Z becomes more proficient in her new language the book offers insight into her cultural point of view. Finding her lover selfish, Z observes that the Chinese are not encouraged to use the word "self" since it is the antithesis of collectivism and the self is the enemy of the communist party. On a holiday to Wales the profound silence saps her: "It doesn't matter if one speaks Chinese or English here; it doesn't matter if one is mute or deaf. Language is not important anymore. Only the simple physical existence matters in the nature."
I found the beginning of the book hard to read because the neophyte English doesn't allow enough depth of expression. As the language develops, Z's alienation is beautifully displayed though she defines herself somewhat narrowly in terms of her love for the English artist (who is never named for us). As evocative as this book is, it feels a bit limited by the author's self-imposed "language barrier."
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is, I believe, Xiaolu Guo's first novel in English, written while she was acquiring the language. She is a film-maker and has two published novels in Chinese. I wish I could read them and discover all that she has to say when allowing herself a full range of expression. I'm sure she will write more books in English, and I look forward to reading them.
Linda Bulger, 2008
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