The Membranes

So this is a novella about Momo, a dermal care technician whose work is in touching and manipulating and penetrating skin, and who has a complicated relationships with intimacy and her mother, choosing to live and work alone, feeling abandoned and forgotten. Above her, there is sea and she dreams about breaching the surface; nations and corporations have been rebuilt underwater, the ozone layer so depleted that existence on land is no longer possible for non-mechanised forms of life. Brands and media conglomerates shape the undersea reality, while androids and cyborgs work in their factories and fight in their wars on the surface. It's a surreal & claustrophobic premise, to be trapped in a sequence of bubbles whose membranes you want desperately to break & whose destruction would kill you, from your personhood, to your skin, to the walls of your home, to your corporate function, to the surface of the water overhead. And as the novella progresses, the given understanding of these barriers, these membranes, shifts. 

I think this is a genuinely brilliant piece of speculative fiction, & specifically a brilliant work of defamiliarisation, where the experience of having a body, of being a consciousness in a body, & of bodily autonomy and transformation is made weird & new, not only by the context but by the shape of the narrative, the startling, jolting movements it makes. I was paying more attention to that element, & the v interesting treatment of sexuality & gender that came of it, than to what Chi was doing with labour exploitation & technology & capital, but I would love to come back & re-read in the future!

Very glad to have the final critical essay by the translator to help me sort through my scrambled thoughts after finishing, and very glad that this work has been translated into English -- it's weird and grim and brilliant, & I think will stick with me.

Wow,  I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book so much. Originally published in Taiwan in 1995 and now translated into English, I feel like it has aged so well, and oftentimes more progressive than so much of the literature that is published now.
We follow the story of Momo (coincidentally my favourite Nepali food so that was an added plus!) and her life in 2100 where all beings live underwater. 
There are plenty of twists that occur and there are themes of queerness, friendship, mother/daughter dynamics, climate change and so much more.
This was a fun, absorbing read and even though it was onlya short read (~136 pages) I feel it managed to tackle a lot of different concepts.

This is the weirdest book I've read in a while. I really hated some parts and liked others for the originality and foresight, which is impressive for a book written in 1996. 

There were a couple of chapters that were an infodump from beginning to end. The majority of the world building was completely irrelevant to the story, and the creepy, uncomfortable sex scenes also felt unnecessary. Of course, the fact that something was off with Momo's story and that she's an unreliable narrator becomes obvious only after you find out what's really going on.

I enjoyed the concept explored and the twist, but I think the writing style really did a disservice to the story.

Let’s talk about the many applications of membranes: for one they visibly keep the sea out of the underwater city, but they also invisibly filter one’s perspective of the world. The dermal layer that Momo applies to the skin of her clients is a tangible layer, but when this layer is scanned, the experience of the person that scans the skin is very much intangible.

It is the year 2100. Humans have moved to underwater cities to protect themselves from the power of the sun. Intermezzos explain in some detail how this happened, including the political and economical aspects of the transformation. In 1995, Chi Ta-wei predicted our failure at solving the environmental issues that we are facing. There is still reason to rejoice: apparently, humans succeeded at finding an answer to other pressing debates. In Membranes, one’s identity and gender are very fluid: it is something you can change anytime. I should mention that the author teaches about queer theory and disability at a university in Taiwan.

The main character, Momo, fights a constant battle with herself. She has a job reliant on intimacy and yet shuns intimacy in her private life. She wonders whom her body belongs to; is it to medicine, your job, yourself, or a partner? When you read about the memory skin she puts on her clients’ skin and later uses as a virtual reality experience for all senses, you’ll fully understand her thoughts about these subjects. Do take some time to think about that one finger that she surgically replaces… and imagine that you are living like a canary locked inside a beautiful cage.

The narrative is quite distant without any suspense. The Membranes doesn’t focus on worldbuilding but instead focuses on the meaning of identity and the value of life. What role do memories and experiences play in this? In an interesting afterword, the translator Ari Larissa Heinrich sheds more light on the background of the story. She also mentions that the author says this book is like a cyborg body. 

I’d like to add my comparison to this: although the main character Momo is named after a peach that fell from a tree, she looks more like a canary released from a bird cage. This book is literally food for thought. 

The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei shows a future in which intimacy, experiences, and identity are fluid. Though in the end, the membranes still keep everything in its rightful place. I recommend this book to people who like sci-fi and dystopian novels, and to whoever loves stories that make you think rather than feel immersed.

Note: trigger warnings for non-consensual gender reassignment and child molestation

Originally published in China back in 1995, Chi Ta-Wei’s novella The Membranes is a complicated story about what it is to be alive, to be human, and to what the freedom to live as one wants truly means. The dystopian world created almost 30 years ago touches on a lot of what is happening today and translator Ari Larissa Heinrich did an incredible job bringing this complex story to English readers.

I know very little about what the queer cultures (or lack there of in some cases) are like in the majority of Asian countries, but I know that it tends to be frowned upon at the very least and criminalised at the most. The fact that this was published in 1995 was so mind blowing to me given what little I’ve heard about censorship rules. Books have been criminalised and banned for far less than the blatantly queer content that fills the pages of this novella. Topics such as lesbian/wlw relationships and gender reassignment surprised me but it was fascinating to read them knowing it came from a Taiwanese writer.

While slightly triggering to me as a trans person, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to picking up a finished copy upon release.

I read The Membranes (膜) in both Chinese and English with one immediately following another, at first scene-by-scene, and as the story picked up pace, chapter-by-chapter. Both versions have very similar feels, and I am amazed at Heinrich keeping the translation so atmospherically close to the Chinese writing. There were a few differences here and there, whether to fit the English language, the present time (this work was originally published in 1995/1996), or simply because Heinrich felt that these fit their translation better, I am not sure, but I love a lot of Heinrich’s decisions. Also, from my understanding of the Chinese original, there were minor misinterpretations and overlooking some of Chi’s deliberate word choices, but fortunately these did not affect the overall picture.

The story follows a thirty-year-old aesthetician Momo as she reunites with her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in twenty years since she recovered from a major surgery. Throughout the story, bits and bits of information is slowly revealed, and we learn about Momo’s past as she learns it herself. The Membranes is a disturbing read that questions perceptions, experiences, reality, gender, and sexuality within the thin volume of 136 pages.

As a language nerd, I love Chi’s play on Momo’s name. Meaning peach (桃, momo) in Japanese, the fruit has a gay connotation (no, not because of CMBYN) since “peach sharing” (分桃, fēntáo) is a story between an ancient emperor and his male lover. “Momo” also means quiet in Chinese (默默, mòmò), which Heinrich aptly translated as “murmur.” In a way, she is also the namesake of the book, since The Membranes (note that the word also starts with the letter “M”) was titled 膜 (mó) in Chinese. There are a lot of words that begin with “M” in this sci-fi set in year 2100 underwater T City (“T City” often means Taipei in Taiwanese sci-fi): Megahard (a dig on Microsoft), memory, mirror, master, etc., all closely related to Momo’s mysterious life. 

There are no human male characters in The Membranes and most characters are casually queer—trans, sapphic, achillean, etc., with almost everyone being Taiwanese, one Japanese, and one Indian. The main storyline isn’t focused on sapphic identities—I cannot even be sure if Momo is sapphic—but this novella is queer to the core. It is almost unbelievable that this was written in 1995 by a twenty-three-year-old queer Taiwanese man, that he chose to write this sci-fi that explores sexuality between women and also touches upon female masturbation.

The Membranes raises a lot of questions that is extremely relevant in the current world, even though it was written back when posthumanism wasn’t a widespread concept. When every action is based on previous interactions and socialization, adding technological advancements to the mixture, what is free will? And when perceptions are possibly altered, how does one know what is real and what is not? I recently tried Virtual Reality for the first time, and while the graphics were far from terrifying, it was truly disorienting—if I can be physically somewhere doing nothing yet virtually engaged in activities in another, where am I? Which experience is the real one? What do we trust?

The Membranes is the first Chinese-to-English translated book I have ever read, and I couldn’t have picked a better book. This 1995 Taiwanese sci-fi with casual queer characters is a short read, but the plot is intense, fast-paced, and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. Way after finishing the story, the questions it posed still linger, surely to haunt me for a long time to come.

Wow, this book was quite the trip! In the beginning, I was very confused and kept having to reread passages for comprehension, which dampened my enjoyment. But as details were revealed, I found myself getting hooked, and by the end I was absolutely SHOOK!

This book made me uncomfortable at times and includes some graphic descriptions. All the characters are morally questionable. But dang, this book touches on so many topics and is perfect for hours of discussion. I’m so amazed that this was written in 1995; Chi Ta-Wei was truly ahead of his time.

There is a lot to take away from from this short novel. It is clear that Chi is confident in his themes and message and that is clear in Heinrich's translation. For a book like this, the addition of Heinrich's short essay at the end was a wonderful addition. It gave helpful insight into the themes and issues within the book and Chi's perspective and contribution as a queer Taiwanese man. I hope more publishers will consider including these kinds of translator notes/pieces in translated works they publish. 

At times disturbing, The Membranes is deftly explores the self, gender. sexuality, and relationships as we slowly learn about who Momo is as a person and her past. While I did have some apprehensions regarding reading about these issues from the perspective of a male writer, I think had someone given me this book and told me a woman wrote I would not have been able to tell the difference. Despite being written in the 90s, The Membranes still feels current and relevant. It is a work I hope to see discussed in queer circles when it is released. 

I plan on purchasing my own copy upon release in June.

Thank you Netgalley and Columbia University Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Chi Ta-wei's The Membranes, from what I've learned, is considered a queer sci-fi classic from Taiwanese literature. I was in awe to find so much representation and complexity in such a short book, especially for a work that was written in 1996. 

While I can't speak for the accuracy of the translation, I find the way it was interpreted was mesmerizing. Researches were done, efforts were made. Kudos to the translator. I was amazed by how the author perceived the future of humanity, here it stretched from many aspects: environment, healthcare, economy, race, sexuality, etc. Many years have gone by, some predictions were proven to be false, but they weren't without based facts. The queer visibility was the highlight of this book IMO. For a dated work, it seemed unbelievable to tell you that the rep precedes many beloved LGBTQ+ books in the recent time, but it does. 

Compliments aside, there were many details that didn't sit right with me while reading this. Most of them were to do with Momo's upbringing, or her Mother's decisions (if you read it, you'll get it), because I don't see how it was necessary to be portrayed here. As questionable as it was, the later revelation made this even more confusing to me. And on another note, I wished the book had stopped using the term "a dear friendship" to describe "lesbian moms." 

TL;DR: A very interesting take on the future society with zero (0) cishets, but you might be uncomfortable with some details.

Thank you, Netgalley, for this digital ARC. The opinions expressed within this review are my own and unbiased.

Androids, cyborgs, and laserdiscs! Oh my!

Taiwanese queer science fiction from the 90s? Sign me up! I was thrilled to receive this review copy from Netgalley and I was not disappointed. This novel kept me enraptured from page one. I was fascinated with Momo, the main character, and wanted to understand the strange world she lived in. First we are treated to what seems to be a portrait of a life in the late twenty first century in which the human race has been forced to live at the bottom of the sea. The pollution and climate change that lead to this situation are sadly believable, as is the picture of Momo's life that we are initially given. Of course there is a twist, which I will not spoil. Highly, highly recommended.

It's 2100, the Earth is basically on fire, and most of humanity has moved to cities on the bottom of the ocean. Rich people can have cyborg copies of themselves or their children created, organic robots that are an almost perfect copy, so that when the person or child falls ill they can take the required organ or body part from that cyborg.

Momo, our main character, is a thirty year old Chinese woman, living in one of these underwater cities. She is the daughter of the CEO of an ebook and software magnate called MegaHard (and yes, MicroSoft also still exists). Momo doesn't like her mother, she feels she has been abandoned by her. Momo spends most of her days as a skincare and massage therapists - in fact, she's one of the very best. She can apply an extremely thin layer of a membrane over a client's skin, supposedly for extra protection, so thin the client instantly forgets it's there. Next time they visit Momo, she carefully removes the membrane - turns out the membrane is a recording device, and Momo can play back those recordings on her computer.

That's only really the starting setup of the story. Momo isn't a character who is easy to like - she's a bit of an indie literature cliche, the younggirl who seems devoid of emotion and is averse to social contact (the book was written in the '90s). And the story pootles along, until there is a big TWIST, which I genuinely didn't see coming.

The book is a quick, easy read, but I do think the storytelling could've been handled more interestingly, with a more active role for Momo. The aformentioned twist is interesting, but then that's pretty much it, nothing is really done with this new information.

The book includes a lengthy, interesting essay by translator Ari Larissa Heinrich, that explores the cultural and historical context of the book.

The Membranes” by Chi Ta-Wei (Taiwan, 1995) is a mind-blowing book. Described as queer speculative fiction, is the dystopian story of Momo. She’s a skin-treatment technician in the XXII century, when after devastating the environment, humanity has moved to the bottom of the sea. She is estranged from her mother, a successful executive at a global publisher (we are all into ebooks then btw), and misses her childhood friend, Andy, who was an android (sort of a humanoid robot). 

There are lots to think about in this book on gender. If your parents raised you as a girl though it was not your assigned gender at birth and then submitted you to gender reassignment surgery before you’re even conscious about it, thus you never had a chance to create your own gender identity, are you still transgender? Isn’t it the same otherwise? When we never had the chance to create our own gender identity and something other than cis has never been an option? Is it also violence having gender imposed on us ? How much our gender identity is conscious? 

And who are you as a person? Is that the sum of your body parts or is it solely how you see yourself? What makes us “us”? 

I also found it incredibly interesting (and loved it) how the normative sexual/romantic relationships are queer. Being in a heterosexual relationship is an statistical rarity. There’s only one male character with a super minor role and he’s basically a hedonistic creep. I loved that particularly since the author is male. This is a world where women are the dominant force, the “default option”. Isn’t that something?

Half of the book goes pretty slowly as the reader is stuck in Momo’s mind, and lives through her loneliness and anxiety. But then there’s a major plot twist and everything is turned on it’s head. It’s just pretty amazing for a lack of a better word. 

I have NEVER read anything like it, and I sure hope that @columbiauniversitypress translates more of his work because I don’t think I can get enough of his mind-bending fiction.

This dystopian sci-fi book was a thought provoking look at memories and connection. 

This book is not one telling a linear, clear story, but forcing your to confront yourself and think about topics you might not otherwise consider. It tackles queerness, identity, connection, and the idea of boundaries (or membranes) that keep you safe but also keep you distanced. 

Moma is a main character that is hard to know, but her questionable choices lead to consequences that you are unable to look away from. This book isn't for everyone, but if you want an end-of-the world almost dream-like mind bender, look no further. 

Thank you Netgalley for this ebook arc in exchange for an honest review.

Well, this was certainly an interesting book.

I became interested in The Membranes upon finding out that it was a queer SFF book by a Taiwanese author and, after reading it, I am glad that I found this book, however, I'm not too sure exactly how I feel about it.

The Membranes is hard to describe, but the thing that stood out to me most about this book was the ideas and concepts it presented. Everything in this book was so weird and original and I really enjoyed getting to explore this world. Where this book didn't necessarily draw me in, though, was with... most other things. Because it was so short and idea-focused, the characters and plot felt a little lacking. I can't speak to how the translation compares to the original, but the writing in this book was also rather mediocre. There wasn't anything I didn't like about this book, it's just that nothing aside from the worldbuilding/concepts stood out to me.

Regardless, I still think it's a worthy read if you're into sci-fi books that heavily focus on concepts, or if, like me, you just want to read more translated Taiwanese literature.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for giving me an ARC!

I... am astounded by the power of the reveal in this book. It feels so sudden but makes everything else in the novel feel so clear. And makes the repetition make sense, since that was one of my few complaints about it.  Like I think most of my "issues" I had while reading make so much sense once you finally finish it and everything finally clicks into place. So if you are not enjoying it, I recommend you just finish it because everything will make sense. 

This was trippy and scifi in the ways that I love. While still feeling very focused on our main character. This was simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming. I honestly can't tell you anything more without spoiling the plot, so just read the synopsis and you'll know if you want to read it. 

I did not LOVE this, but I did really like it and can see myself rereading it in the future. Also we love to support queer authors, especially queer men. And we love to support translated works! 

While there are essays in the back that ask on why/how this should be called a queer work, I think it should not only because of the author's own identity but also I think the fact that the work is not overly explicit in its queerness only makes it more queer. In fact the overarching  questioning of the main character and their past and identity adds to the queerness.

Unexpected! It took me a little effort to get into this, because the writing felt a little stilted (due to the fact that it’s a translation, perhaps? I don’t know), but once I grasped the story, I was amazed over and over that it was written 25 years ago, with some concepts feeling very modern. There’s a touch of cli-fi about it, as most humans now live under the ocean. There are also a lot of interesting medical/biological and transhumanist concepts, as well as some thoughts about identity. The central theme is the relationship between a mother and a daughter, with a touching (I felt) twist.

Read for: The other-worldliness of it all, an exploration of queerness, and some questions about what it means to be human. Also definitely read because it is something that is not out of the Western canon (thank God), although there are numerous Western cultural references.

✨🌟 8.5 out of 10 🌟✨
Wow. This book is hard to review.

Keywords: novella, scifi, dystopia, near future(?), climate crisis, family drama, cyberpunk(???), gender and sexuality, english translation
Trigger warning: non-consensual gender reassignment (medical reason),  child sexual abuse(?)
Rep: LGBT (transgender? wlw relationship, queer figurants), poc (Taiwanese, Japanese, Indian)

REVIEW
The Membranes is scifi novella written by a queer Taiwanese in 1995. It tells about Momo and her estranged mother whom she hate yet also yearned for in underwater society of near future earth. The story mostly revolved around loneliness, sexuality, and family while explored the speculative elements like technological advances, free will, and consciousness.

The good:
- An ok worldbuilding
The story is set in year 2100 where earth surface is not habitable and people migrated to underwater cities. The worldbuilding is not unique but I like how it meld and provide important plot point in the story. Sometimes the worldbuilding feels infodumpy but it finally made sense in the end. There's also talks about climate crisis awareness and discussion about tech morality. And I think it's pretty cool how the novella is written far years ago but the author predicted some tech that came true nowadays.

- Interesting takes about woman exploring sexuality
I like how the book delved about our main character exploring her body and sexuality. It is originally published when such topic is frowned upon. Not to mention almost all of the characters in this book are queer.

- Mindblowing
This is what I like the most from this novella. It has such a great unexpected plot that my mind was blown. I like how the plot slowly reveal there's something wrong throughout the book and yet we're still amazed in the end.

What I don't like:
- Some scenes made me uncomfortable
There are parts that I think disturbing and uncomfortable to read, especially regarding the trigger warning I mentioned before. The circumstance is a bit vague and up to interpretation so I can't comment much on the topics. To be honest if those scenes doesnt exist I would have rate this way higher.

Recommended for fans of scifi lit and those looking for short read that's not too heavy but still substantial. 

Thank you Netgalley for lending me the arc of this book in exchange of honest review.

A really prescient and heart-wrenching book. I wonder what it would’ve been like to read this when it first came out in 1995 and return to it now to see how much of the world Chi Ta-wei envisioned has come true.

But it’s not just the intrigue and familiarity of the dystopia—the story is also very engaging and full of emotion. There were two plot points where I literally gasped out loud (if you’ve read it, you know what they are). At the end, I sat and re-read the last few pages, letting the feeling sink in. 

I haven’t read very much queer speculative fiction yet, but I think The Membranes uses metaphor to explore queer themes in a really incisive way. It’s also very beautifully translated, both in terms of language and perspective. It didn’t feel translated at all and I’d love to read both Chi Ta-wei and Ari Larissa Heinrich again.

(This copy did have some formatting errors that were a little distracting—numbers in the middle of sentences, the first letter of each chapter being out of place, footnote issues, and possibly unintentional line breaks.)

An interesting Eastern novel with many messages appropriate for our troubled times. I would gladly read more translations from this author's work.