The Invisibility Cloak
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A lightly surreal story of misfortune, menace, and high-end stereo equipment in the cutthroat, capitalistic world of modern China.
An NYRB Classics Original
The hero of The Invisibility Cloak lives in contemporary Beijing—where everyone is doing their best to hustle up the ladder of success while shouldering an ever-growing burden of consumer goods—and he’s a loser. Well into his forties, he’s divorced (and still doting on his ex), childless, and living with his sister (her husband wants him out) in an apartment at the edge of town with a crack in the wall the wind from the north blows through while he gets by, just, by making customized old-fashioned amplifiers for the occasional rich audio-obsessive. He has contempt for his clients and contempt for himself. The only things he really likes are Beethoven and vintage speakers. Then an old friend tips him off about a special job—a little risky but just don’t ask too many questions—and can it really be that this hopeless loser wins?
This provocative and seriously funny exercise in the social fantastic by the brilliantly original Ge Fei, one of China’s finest living writers, is among the most original works of fiction to come out of China in recent years. It is sure to appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and other fabulists of contemporary irreality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fei's first novel to be translated into English, a slight tale about a hapless audiophile, is shot through with an eerie melody. The down-on-his luck protagonist, who constructs bespoke audio systems for Beijing's elite, is divorced from his unfaithful wife and beset by a manipulative sister scheming to evict him. He stoically endures these financial and domestic troubles but inwardly seethes with Dostoyevskian rage. Disdainful of his pretentious, pontificating clients and a ruthlessly competitive society that has seen the "deliberate humiliation of the craftsmen," the hero finds sanctuary in the connoisseurship of his artistically crafted sound equipment and the beautiful strains of music they emit: "I felt as if I had no business enjoying this luxury in such a polluted, chaotic world." His specialized knowledge confers on him "an illusion of hiding in the quietest corner of the deepest place on earth," that is, a kind of pleasurable invisibility. When his only friend sets him up with a sinister client looking to buy the "highest-quality sound system in the world," the craftsman agrees to the immersive project, which introduces him into a shadowy, inscrutable world and a shrouded woman as invisible as he is. Fei, who won the 2015 Mao Dun Literature Prize, is content to let certain mysteries linger, perhaps sharing with his protagonist the belief that "the best attributes of anyone or anything usually reside on the surface." The novel's relentlessly flat tone could frustrate, but amplification isn't always necessary to produce a memorable effect.
Customer Reviews
Strange but totally engrossing
The book is a long monologue by the main character, an audiophile who lives in Beijing, dealing with life problems at a startling level of verisimilitude. You may ask yourself from time to time, 'why am I reading this?’ If, however, you make it through, you may be amazed at what a tour de force this writing is: not a word out of place, no description too long or lacking, a pitch-perfect tone of voice. A steady flow of plot line, with set-ups and surprises. A true, off-beat original, vivid, human, haunting.