Even in the underworld
Old Ji still brews wine.
But Bai is not down there yet,
So who do you sell it to?
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The clenched pace induced by the clipped sentences, the pages of panting tension after rather languid novel; it makes the heart race.
This draws a subtle line across The Wolf Border, carving out a space of high literature within a compelling novel. Rachel sees as the reader sees. She constructs—her fear palpable—a dramatic scenario from nothing. What is writing, what is reading, other than that self-same creation? Both are visions wrought by solely by ink.
It isn’t that the action or plot or characters are new or unique; they aren’t. What’s new is the acknowledgement—the anticipation—of how audiences will interact with the conventions of the mystery genre, and how Magpie Murders leans into those conventions to make something new.
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I AM ERROR elucidates the functional, physical aspects of the Famicom and applies that knowledge onto the end product; it is why Mario looks the way he looks, or moves the way he moves; why the bushes and clouds in Super Mario Bros. are made from the same tiles.
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Writ large, this beneficial-to-me contract-breaking underlies the inherent incompatibility of capitalism with the decency; it shows that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is a crock of shit designed to justify self-service, that cost benefit analyses are soulless and destructive. They thrive only because they are easily automated, a danger to society that bolsters a palatable vision of capital accumulation: a simple—and repulsive—way to keep score in an immeasurable and vast existence.
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This idea—of struggling to have an internal identity that is recognized by society and the world—is not a concept that I, as a white American male, have ever had to consider. I can be whatever I choose, because I am the Western global default; I don’t have to battle against a prebuilt stereotype. There are no modifying racial or ethnic verb prefixes when you’re talking about white Americans.
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In fiction, authors need to be subtle. In reality, people aren’t. At all. So they do all sorts of mind-bendingly stupid things that no work of fiction would be able to pull off without being ridiculed
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At no point did I ever want to stop reading, however, because each paragraph unlocks another piece of a grand mosaic that eventually leads to a more vivid mental image of current China.
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