ELSEWHERE
Yan Ge

I really struggled to get through these stories and unfortunately, this was a DNF for me.

DNF at around 15%

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the advanced copy!

ELSEWHERE...⭐️⭐️⭐️

The stunning cover of this book is what initially drew me to it, as well as my desire to read more short stories. Rating short story collections is always hard because some stories can be total hits, while others are complete misses, all within the same book. While some of the stories I really liked, there were quite a few I struggled to get through and finished the book feeling overall mediocre. Based on the couple of stories I loved I would definitely try something from this author again.

I adored Yan Ge's other book, Strange Beasts of China. The magical realism and short story-esque way of telling that novel was enrapturing. So when I heard Elsewhere was coming, I was immediately intrigued. I put in a request on Netgalley as soon as I saw it was available. However, when I began to read Elsewhere it didn't give me the same energy I was hoping for. I kept going through the stories but each left me more and more disinterested. After months of it sitting on my 'currently reading' shelf (but no actual reading happening) I decided to officially throw in the towel. This collection just isn't for me.
I'll still keep an eye out for any future translations of Yan Ge's work though. Perhaps something else will bring me the same joy Strange Beasts did

I was drawn to Elsewhere by its beautiful book cover and description. Ultimately, I didn't love this collection of short stories, but I do feel that the writer is very talented and creative. My favorite story was How I Fell in Love with the Well-Documented Life of Alex Whelan. There were some interesting twists in some of the stories that I didn't see coming, so I enjoyed that aspect. I think the main issue for me was not connecting or caring about some of the main characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Elsewhere is a short story collection covering a wide range of topics and themes. The writing is wonderfully addictive. Some stories hit more than others. My favorites were No Time to Write and How I Fell in Love With the Well-Documented Life of Alex Whelan. I feel like this is a collection where I could read over and over again and it get more from it. I look forward to reading more from Yan Ge.

(Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.)

‘Elsewhere’ … “Oh baby, this is nowhere. Wish I was somewhere, over you.” Those long forgotten lyrics are from Roxy Music’s titled album ‘Flesh + Blood.’ The lyrics came storming back to me and stayed on REPEAT in my head because I read Yan Ge’s Elsewhere. After reading Elswhere, the pun of the album title became apparent too.

If you like your literature content filled with the dark side of humanity and laced with gore and death lurking at every turn, and you want to experience it unfiltered through irritatingly nonchalant and vapid narrators, this book is for you. ‘Elsewhere’ will make vegans and vegetarians rejoice in their dietary choices. That said, Yan Ge’s stories are exquisitely written and each one is carefully crafted with complex themes. Ge’s writing is so engaging that the reader will keep turning the page to see what happens next. ‘Elsewhere’ spans time from the 21st century and goes all the way back to the time of Confucius. Yan Ge delivers a very real, even surreal, experience of the respective time period in each story.

‘Hai’ highlights the wary and scheming scholars of Confucianism; ‘Mother Tongue’ explores Chinese identity through the eyes of young Chinese nationals in the 21st century; ‘How I fell in love with the well documented life of Alex Whelan’- the most enjoyable and light-hearted of all the stories - shows how far FB obsession can go in a lonely person and, yes, death shows up there, too; In ‘No time to write’ a feckless young man named Cliona declares, ‘I worship randomness’ and authors a 10-page prose on how his bulimia and his deteriorating mental state are affecting his relationships; ‘Free Wandering’ is surreal tale of magic realism where a zombie discovers how to live again; ‘Stockholm’ shows a new mother with constantly lactating breasts who craves adult experiences beyond parenting but takes the time to laugh at a closeted gay man’s secret while showing one’s nether regions to her best friend; ‘When traveling in summer’ takes place over several months in China in 1095, when a retired minister who is sentenced to death by the Emperor has to find a way to save himself, those he loves, and his estate; ‘Shooting a elephant’ is about a wistful Chinese newly wed living in Dublin with her Irish husband who, while bemoaning her lost honeymoon and recovering from a miscarriage, discovers she likes reading George Orwell; and, ‘The little house’ is a voyeuristic look at amoral Chinese free thinkers who enjoy cannibalism and free love (who knew?). Yet, the underlying theme throughout the book is disappointment and that is why this book is disappointing, especially the characters’ names.

This collection, to be published on July 11th, 2023 tells different stories, in different voices, with a common thread of ‘otherness’ throughout each piece. While the title of the collection is “Elsewhere”, the feeling of being outside looking in on characters who are outside of their community, their time and place, and even themselves is a consistent theme. Each story was driven from one specific perspective, and that character moved through their own story like they didn’t quite fit. This off-balance characterization left me feeling off balanced as well.

Positives: The feeling of disconnect was appealing. The feeling of being ‘not quite right” or “not quite there” is one that I sometimes feel in my own life, and I see others move through that mindset as well, so reading stories about disconnected people was interesting and reaffirming, that the natural state for people is to not have a natural state.

Wish List: The very thing that I loved about the stories was the thing that I wish were different. I loved the theme but I got tired of feeling off balance and removed from a grounded perspective over and over again. I suspect though, that this was the point so it's my own personal hangup and not a comment on the excellence of the stories. I have also never read a collection of short stories on my e-reader. Typically, when I read short stories, I put a slip of paper at the end of the story so I have a ‘size-estimate’, and I didn’t realize before this read, how much I depended on that slip as a pacing device. I might have felt less off-balance if I’d been reading a physical book.

As always, I appreciate the opportunity afforded me to have an early read by netgalley.com and Scribner Books. The opinions in this review are expressly those of ButIDigressBookClub and are intended for use by my followers and friends when choosing their next book. #butidigress #butidigressbookclub #elsewhere #netgalley #scribnerbooks @scribnerbooks

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Publishing Review 7/8/2023
4 Stars / 5 Stars

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Scribner for giving me the opportunity to read this collection early!

While I am not always a fan of short story collections, I absolutely loved this one. I savored each story as I slowly worked my way through the book. Each story, while seemingly unconnected, culminate in a poignant and unnameable feeling at its conclusion. If you are one that tends to reach for literary fiction that contains an imperceptible thread that you don’t realize was a thread at all until you reach the ending, then you need to pick this one up.

Elsewhere is a powerful story collection. I liked the strong writing and themes of loss and finding your place. The women in the stories were coping with connection as well.

2023 isn't even halfway over, and already this book has secured a spot on the list of this year's top reads. Ge's English-language debut is a collection of nine stories that transports the reader across cultures, genres, and times. What the stories share in common is a hint of playfulness; Ge is particularly adept at capturing the often haphazard nature of relationships. If I had to choose my favorite story, it would be "Hai." This last--and I believe, longest--story is a surreal tale of scheming and political intrigue in imperial China. Surely not every reader's cup of tea, but definitely a great way to end with a bang.

I really enjoyed these stories—Yan Ge has such a deft hand at constructing fully realized characters in so few words. I’m such a sucker for stories about disconnected women and a lot of these hit that sweet spot for me.

There are two historical stories that took me quite a bit of time to get into, and even once I started vibing with them I still liked them much less than the modern stories. Despite that, this is overall a great collection and Yan Ge remains an author to watch for me.

Typically I'm not a big fan of short stories, but I really enjoyed the nine that make up Yan Ge's book Elsewhere. Each features fully realized and memorable characters with the shared theme of connection and loss. Whether it's a woman trying to come to terms with a traumatic honeymoon trip to Burma or a young woman delving into the life of a man she'd briefly met and whose burgeoning relationship formed after his death., Ge's work is powerful and thoughtful. Elsewhere will be published by Scribner in July 2023.

An English-speaking woman at a Chengdu pub, a foreigner they call her, asks Pigeon how it feels to be a Chinese woman. She doesn’t answer but later tells her mother about the exchange, asking for her personal interpretation. The mother reflects a moment before saying that she suppose she never saw herself as a Chinese woman. She can only tell Pigeon how she feels about being a woman. This simple exchange encapsulates an important counterpoint of this short story collection, which highlights a pervasive tendency to stratification based on superficial cues of somethingness. Even Pigeon does this. She lashes out at a bartender for speaking in Chinese because, she says, it is her language not his.

Pigeon’s mother reflects on this question as she is in bed, dying, one month remaining before her sojourn on this planet ends. It gains more poignancy from that. The time when social fictions no longer hold meaning. We are reduced to humans in bodies of skin and bone and not some compartment in which our physical features or language place us.

Ge is a gift to the readers. Her voice has a unique feel for which I cannot find words to describe. I can only say that I didn’t want this reading experience to end.

A strong collection of stories. This author seems to have a unique voice and vision, and I admire her imagination. Nicely done.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!