Ghost Cities – inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China – follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney’s Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn’ t speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. How is his relocation to one such ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient Emperor creates a thousand doubles of Himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess-playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known Empire is destroyed – then re-created, page by page and book by book, all in the name of love and art? Allegorical and imaginative, Ghost Cities will appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and Italo Calvino.
My Review
Ghost Cities is a deeply satirical novel about the tensions between new and ancient China, the meaning of art, and love. Told through multiple timelines that sweep across imperial China, modern day Sydney and the eerily empty ghost cities of China, Ghost Cities is a delightfully insightful read that had me captivated until the very end.
I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Xiang when he is fired from his job as a translator at the Chinese consulate. To add insult to injury, he becomes a meme called #BadChinese and is plastered all over Chinese social media as a laughing stock. It seems like his luck is turning around when China’s greatest film director, Baby Bao, invites him to go to China to work in the ghost city of Port Man Tou, but things there grow more complicated than ever.
I was fascinated by the historical timelines and felt the temperamental wrath of the emperor was an interesting touch. I loved how the satire creeped in, even during the serious events of this timeline. I would have loved to read more about the sentient mountain but the tale of the emperor’s doubles and its consequences was expertly interweaved with the modern timeline.
This is not a conventional novel and requires a good dash of the suspension of disbelief, but I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.
Thanks to Siang and UQP Books for sending a review copy. I enjoyed it very much!
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