(no subject)

[flemmings]

I don't read chicklit, which sounds to me like a chewing gum, or romance novels either, so I'm not sure what chicklit and romance novels read like. But my current book, Song of the Silk Road by Minmei Yip, is proving not quite the travelogue/ mystery the cover advertised, and full of what I expect the other two genres to contain ie slightly airhead heroine who attracts and beds hunky men wherever she goes. Beds in detail, as when doing it naked in the desert: '...more sand had come between his fiery desire and my deep, mysterious valley' which doesn't prevent full-on coupling a few sentences later without a whisper of an ouch. Oh, and as nekonexus said about someone else, one must mentally erase every third (or fourth or fifth) adjective, or go mad. They're all pillow words anyway: two /impeccably dressed/ attorneys in a /posh / law firm located in one of the /most expensive districts/ in Manhattan.'

The owner of the fiery desire is the Hunk ex Machina who rescues her from the Chinese police when she deliberately falls atop a terra cotta warrior down in his trench:

I kept racking my brains while staring at the warrior as if he were my eternal and only love... Suddenly, as if pushed by some mysterious force, I slipped and fell against my 'lover.' With a will of its own, my hand reached to scrape a tiny piece from the terracotta soldier, then swiftly put it inside my jeans pocket.

Somehow this is not what I expect from someone who was born in China, got a Ph.d from the Sorbonne, and taught in Hong Kong. I should have read the acknowledgments: "(her husband) Geoffrey's love and support are like an oasis in the desert-- nurturing and protective amidst the infinite mystery of life. I feel a perfect balance of yin and yang in my life because of him.'

Oh dear.

Comments

[incandescens]

Definitely oh dear. Edge away quietly and don't make eye contact.

[chomiji]

Wow, I praise your intestinal fortitude for being able to keep reading!

I don't read chicklit or romance either. Yet I enjoy reading reviews of romances. It makes no sense, even to myself.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

I avoid books like that!!

because you said terracotta soldier .... ^_^

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

(http://pics.livejournal.com/i_am_zan/pic/000b7f2g/)

I salute you that you read it (all?)

Have a good weekend dear.

Re: because you said terracotta soldier .... ^_^

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Must admit, the terracotta warriors are damn' good looking.

[unearthly-calm.livejournal.com]

'(her husband) Geoffrey's love and support are like an oasis in the desert-- nurturing and protective amidst the infinite mystery of life. I feel a perfect balance of yin and yang in my life because of him.'

AUGH.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The thing is that the China-born Chinese I know *never* do this New Agey yin-yang thing, which is why I can't quite believe she's doing it. She writes about the physical China like someone who knows it, but when it gets to the mhh spiritual side of things, I suppose, she sounds like a well-read but ditzy American.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

She is most definitely not born in China, with a non-pingying name like Minmei Yip. There are enough Chinese artistic types floating around in the west sprouting fluffy yin-yang nonsense, but even the fluffiest I have met would rather get their fingernails pulled before writing that in the acknowledments.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

My fault. It's Mingmei, hanzi to be found on her webpage here (http://www.mingmeiyip.com/moreabout.html). She's legit but... I dunno. Off somehow.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

The last name. That's hongkongese. She doesn't really say that she's born in China, just that her father's from Beijing. What it reads like to me is that she's one of these upper class hongkongese who had an mostly Western education and see Chinese culture as exotic as the anyone in the west. A really different breed altogether.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. The dustjacket of the book said 'born in China' which is retroactively true if she's HK. The westernness was what threw me, and the colloquial command of English.