Zhang, Jenny. Sour Heart. New York: Lenny, and imprint of Random House. 2017
This one it makes sense that there are so few quotes, I noticed that reading it. It was a really beautiful book; it taught me that ugly prose can be beautiful when it’s strung together right. Structural, not elemental. I guess the way to offset sentimentality. Makes me want to write about vulgar shit. Read this—and Chee, and Harbach like I was inhaling it, but especially this. Herzog is not the same.
- (7) “‘What makes you happy makes Mommy happy,’ she would always say to me, sometimes in Chinese, which I wasn’t so good at, but I tried for her and for my father, ands hen I couldn’t, I would answer them in English, which I also wasn’t so good at, but it was understood that while I could still improve in either language, my parents could not, they were on a road to nowhere, the wall was right up against them, so it was up to me to get really good, it was up to me to shine and that scared me because I wanted to stay behind with them, I didn’t want to go further than they could go.”
- (209) “He was the official ambassador to Britain, Belgium, Germany, and Italy. he spoke eight languages. Switched back and forth between them in conversation. The ladies went mad for him, especially when he spoke in Italian. There was a statue erected in his honor in a small public park in Wenzhou. Of course all those states have sine been destroyed but you can’t destroy our pride. These are our origins. Our people traversed the globe. They lived for adventure. They were most at home when they were away.”