Disorientation, by Elaine Hsieh Chou

That's it, COVID finally got me. So you'll forgive me if I make this very short and without much poetry today. It's a good thing, because I don't really want you to read this book anyway.

Summary

A doctoral student is working for the eighth year in a row on her dissertation. She is pitiful: she eats poorly, gets hives, and has to take pills to sleep because she is too anxious. She's freaking out, because she has to come up with something to say about Xiao Wen-Chou, a rather boring and over-studied Chinese poet. Her supervisor is nagging her to hand in something, and she's really desperate. And then she finds a note written by a stranger that gives her a lead that changes the trajectory of not only her thesis, but of her life.

Impressions

I almost gave up on this book pretty early on, because I'm in school too and the trope of the miserable student with no life bores me. But I kept going, and I ended up finding it pretty promising. It was funny, it was cute, and even a little intriguing.

And then, like several recent books it seems, we fell into sanctimoniousness. The student, it must be said, does not have many opinions of her own, and begins to listen to the speech of a feminist activist of Chinese origin like herself. She becomes aware of the racism towards Chinese people, and realizes that her boyfriend probably has a fetish for Chinese women. She throws everything away (her thesis, her boyfriend, her studies) to do what she feels is morally right. And she's happy forever in a job that's silly but in which she feels useful.

This book entertained me, but I wouldn't go so far as to recommend it.

Here you go for some short and sweet 😉

In English only :