Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth is just that. Definately a enjoyable read. This is a quick read. This book relays the story of FenFang, a young woman in Beijing. This 167 page book is a small fleeting glimpse into the classic "coming of age" storyline. Each chapter is very brief and enough to grab your interest and does leave you wanting to know more. The reference to the "Heavenly Bastard in the Sky" grabbed my attention and made me contemplate this characters relation to other people, to her community. I couldn't help but enjoy the reference, being quite unconventional. This book moves quick and is truly "fragments." In the authors acknowledgement, at the end of the book she comments on how this book came to exist through several changes. The first was to translate it to English and capture the raw "slangy Chinese" girl's words and actions. The second was the author's own feelings about the book reading it ten years after she wrote it. She found that she "didn't agree with the young woman who had written it. Her vision of the world had changed, along with Beijing and the whole of China." The author felt she needed to rework each sentence because she did not see things the same anymore. I'd have enjoyed reading it before any changes were made. It is raw, it is real and it is a very enjoyable read, but again, I was left wanting more. Don't let this deter you from reading this book, though. It's an interesting perspective in a not so perfect world.

Fenfang Wang is one of China's millions of "liudong renkou," the "floating population" of migrant peasants leaving their birthplaces for the big cities. However, instead of heading from the sweet potato fields of her Ginger Hill Village home to the factories of southeastern China, she travels northward to Beijing to find her fortune. Instead, she finds menial jobs cleaning toilets, fabricating tin cans, and working as an usher (and living) in a cinema until one day, she fills out an application to be a movie extra for Beijing Film Studios. Over the succeeding years, she accumulates an array of non-speaking movie roles as an extra, roles for characters that are as just as invisible in the movies as she has been in her real life - scared girl in police chase, female number three hundred, woman waiting on the platform, bored waitress, and the like. Fenfang's career provides little more than the backdrop for her real story. In the twenty short chapters that constitute the "fragments" of the book's title, she encapsulates the experiences of minimally educated Chinese villagers who have migrated to the large cities to find work and, for some, their place in modern life. She struggles to find work, changing jobs and residences and even cell phone numbers frequently. She shops when she makes occasional money, but she also experiences dry spells where her cupboards are bare. She forms relationships with men - one with a fellow countryman named Xiaolin (a verbal play on Shaolin, the martial arts school?), another with an Englishman named Ben - but they lack depth or permanence. Everything is Fenfang's life is a conflict of extremes, pulling her first one way, then another - education, career, village versus city life, relationships. Throughout her story, Fenfang's one constant and confidant is a television scriptwriter named Huizi. He is Fenfang's anchor, but he is also a phantom, appearing more as a disembodied guide than as an actual presence. Part philosopher, part quoter of ancient Chinese poetry, part censored scriptwriter for films that will never be produced, Huizi's influence leads Fenfang into writing a movie script of her own that plays a significant role in the book. Huizi also serves as Fenfang's father figure and life coach. "Never look back to the past," he advises her, and "never reget." Most important, Huizi reminds Fenfang, "You must take care of your life." Thus it is that Fenfang begins her story as a 21-year-old and ends it as a 17-year-old back in the sweet potato fields of Ginger Hill Village, but with an immensely matured, independent perspective. Guo's literary style is direct and unadorned, creating an introspective voice for her protagonist that is simultaneously observational, confessional, and pleasurably colloquial. For example, Fenfang's favorite expression of surprise or dismay, "Heavenly Bastard in the Sky," conveys a sarcastic secularism while still hearkening to the Buddhist Chinese belief in a sky full of gods. Even

Take a look at the cover of Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. Isn't it gorgeous? I think the cover drew me to this book more than anything else. Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth is written in a very interesting style. It is basically a series of vignettes, glimpses into Fenfang's life. This fragmentation actually allows for a simpler storytelling; there is no need to fill in the gaps with unnecessary details. The reader gets a straightforward telling of Fenfang's life in Beijing. Perhaps the most interesting part of this book is the glimpse it provides of modern day China. It is hard for many of us to imagine living under a Communist regime. What is it like to live there? How do that many people live side-by-side? Fenfang's story provides us some answers to these ubiquitous questions and is really worth reading just for this aspect of it. Though the novel is very short, it is best read slowly. Reading a fragment or two and then putting the book down for awhile allows the reader to reflect on Fenfang's life, on her innocence compared with the lack thereof in the Beijing that surrounds her. Though there is a lack of urgency to propel the story forward, Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth is still a rewarding glimpse into life in modern-day China.

This book offers fascinating glimpses into a young woman's life in Beijing. The "fragmented" storytelling style perfectly captures how fragments of memories bubble up in the mind like noodles in a pot, but it's never confusing. It leaves you hungry for more.

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth is the story of young Fenfang's journey away from the sweet potato fields of her village and into life as a twenty something in modern day Beijing. Fenfang works as a film extra among other jobs. There she meets Xiaolin an Assistant to the Producer. Though there isn't much actual romance between them they live together with his family for several years. She also befriends an American student named Ben and his cast of friends. I really enjoying seeing the world through Fenfang's eyes be it her use of the phrase "Heavenly Bastard in the Sky" to the cockroaches in her apartment to her film script outline of "The Seven Reincarnations of Hao An" to the Old Hens in her apartment watching her every move. Fenfang's is a quiet story and for that I truly enjoy it. I don't believe I have ever read anything quite like this before, it's a beautiful portrait of what it's like to be a young woman in modern day China. It's funny, exciting and a little bit sad. This book is literally told in twenty small atmospheric fragments. I really like how each fragment has a descriptive title. There are also small black and white pictures sprinkled throughout the book. The dust jacket art is just beautiful. I really can't think of a more beautifully designed book and cover.