leaving a star everytime i think about this book ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆leaving a star everytime i think about this book ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆...more
if gay people communicated, 99% of this book wouldn't have happened btw.if gay people communicated, 99% of this book wouldn't have happened btw....more
— I would give up this entire world for a single breath to leave your lips again. And then she watched the boy she loved doom the world she had swor
— I would give up this entire world for a single breath to leave your lips again. And then she watched the boy she loved doom the world she had sworn to protect.
Brilliantly written, Darker by Four follows Rui, Zizi, and Yiran while a disaster in the underworld unfolds and melds dangerously into the real one. All I can say is "read this book please?"
It was being one with the world, and the world was just the two of them, and they were one, the missing pieces of one soul filled by the other.
Darker by Four proves to be a good book. A book can only be enjoyable if it has a good plot, good romance, good characters, originality, and creativity etc. Even then, perhaps, it doesn't make it a good book. It needs substance, a certain level of reality: something that triggers thought. Perhaps not a mirror, but a dirty puddle on a crowded street, a muddled reflection of yourself among dozens of unknown faces, but a reflection nevertheless.
We’re only trying to survive, like all other living organisms. What makes it wrong? Aren’t you doing the same? Aren’t you training to survive? It’s the law of nature—eat or be eaten.
While Darker by Four has all the elements that make it enjoyable, it also offers that muddled reflection of our own world, and perhaps the realization that our world isn’t so clear as we thought it to be.
Because this is how it feels when your elders turn their backs, when institutions fall from grace, when the world moves on even as you’re standing still, when something you believe in turns out to be a lie. Because you’re no longer a child, and you’re realizing the world you live in operates in shades of gray. Sometimes, there isn’t a right or a wrong—there’s only doing the best you can in spite of the odds stacked up against you and forgiving yourself when you fall short.
— a note on language .ᐟ (it’s never “a note” on language— it’s a whole 10 page thesis.)
The brilliance of June CL Tan needs to be seriously studied under a microscope: she is so ridiculously clever and if you don’t believe me, read the author’s note. Using English to give Chinese words a double meaning is one thing, but also integrating it into the story so now it has 3 possible interpretations is another.
We begin with the title: Darker by Four . As Tan explains in her author's note, tetraphobia isn’t uncommon in Chinese communities. Four in Mandarin is 四, and death/die in Mandarin is 死. 死 can act as both a noun or a verb: death or dying. However, past/present/future tenses are also not strictly defined in a single character: it's the characters around them that define when they belong. So do we read Darker by Four as Darker by Death or Darker by Dying? Or maybe we pull the connections from the story, from the character Four.
Moving onto the chapter titles, more specifically the first and the last: Five Four and Five Three, Five Four. As Tan also explained, the English gives the Chinese a double meaning, but in context with the story: there are actually more meanings that can be extracted.
Starting with the first chapter, Five Four. A direct read-aloud can change the shapes of the words into 无死 or 我死. In English, we get no death or I die. But a combination of the two languages reveals a third, easier translation: 无 Four or without Four, which is exactly what the story centers on. Even then, the other interpretations also fit into the themes of the story.
Moving onto the last chapter, Five Three, Five Four. A direct translation bears no meaning: 五三，五四; however, if you give the characters a voice, then we have a different story. 我散，我死；无散，无死 ；我生，我死；无生，无死 are the options that Tan offers: I split, I die; No split, No death; I live, I die; No life, No death. All of these interpretations and every single possibility, every combination matches with the conclusion, not so final but not so temporary. There is separation; there is life; there is death. There isn’t separation; there isn’t life; there isn’t death. In retrospect, the entire story can be told with those four words: Five Three, Five Four. The possibilities? Eight in total, including my own interpretations, are all somewhat true but still somewhat false.
Tan treats language with extreme care. The only way they make sense is in that very context. These exact words, only paired with this story, to someone who understands the translations. In just 4 words, the story is unraveled....more
— Shut up. You’re not special; you’re a dime a dozen.
Touching grass is not enough anymore: you have to make it into a smoothie preferably matcha
— Shut up. You’re not special; you’re a dime a dozen.
Touching grass is not enough anymore: you have to make it into a smoothie preferably matcha strawberry flavored, and serve it in a glass cup with heart-shaped ice cubes. Yellowface is a slap to the face not only because it has you muttering a slur of obscenities under your breath but also because at the end of the day, it's a play about us--and maybe we really suck. It forces us to reflect on ourselves, the writing industry as a whole, and the harrowing effects of social media.
— The living can’t appear and disappear at will. The living can’t haunt you at every turn.
While Kuang not-so-subtly shoves the question "Who gets to tell stories?", I also hear "Should a reviewer, an author, a reader, etc even be allowed to form an opinion?" throughout the whole novel. Well, yes. Of course, we have the right to have opinions but what makes our opinion morally right? It's not your identity: a reviewer criticizing a novel about Chinese folklore/history etc. as a Chinese American doesn't mean all your critiques are sound nor does an LGBTQ+ writer penning a sapphics novel doesn't mean they'll perfectly reflect a WLW relationship. A book is just a story that an author shares. Nevertheless, it still carries the weight of someone's life.Sometimes, we are too willing to shred that life. Sometimes, the author doesn't love or even know the life they're trying to tell. Sometimes, the author is carrying their own weight. Sometimes, the body is stolen. Sometimes, all or none. But here's the thing. We never know.
— Make sure they remember us.” He nods, determined. “Yes. Make sure they remember us.
There is absolutely nothing remotely likable about June (or anyone in this book quite honestly and that's the point!) but I was right there in those pages, only a step away from getting jumped by #stantwt. Yes, June needs to drink that grass matcha smoothie, but she also raises some interesting points.
— I’ve entertained occasionally the question of what literary redemption might look like.
What does an apology look like? Netizens are the knife that doesn't stop cutting. If you apologize, there's probably a flaw with your wording, something that seems insincere; your timing, a bit too soon; or maybe you. And then all of a sudden, you aren't even apologizing because you're genuinely sorry: you're apologizing to be viewed as an acceptable member of society again, defeating the entire purpose of an apology. What does that say about society, about groupthink, about cancel culture, if this is the pressure that is seemingly enforced onto people if they want to say "sorry?" At the end of the day, is the idea of social redemption just another social construct? Apologies come in many forms, but at the end of the day, the verbal/written apology feels less for those impacted but the flawed. And Yellowface reads like an apology, meant for under the bed but instead given to the sun, maybe a chance of reflection or maybe a way to grow.
The art of this is the fact that it demands the truth to seemingly unanswerable questions from you. It drives you into a spiral of questions, one upon the other, all of them somehow leading to "Who are you?"
And I guess not everyone likes being suffocated with an identity crisis through a book--so maybe try pancakes instead? ...more