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Last Words from Montmartre
Last Words from Montmartre | Qiu Miaojin
13 posts | 5 read | 1 reading | 12 to read
An NYRB Classics Original When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young womentheir sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qius genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the authors own suicide note. The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and gendersuntil the genderless character Zo appears, and the narrators spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishimas Confessions of a Mask, Goethes The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Chas Dicte, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.
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GatheringBooks
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Book that #BeginsWith #Final - because “last” also constitutes final - to a certain degree? Hehe. I try.
Some of my recent potential #NYRBBookClub loot from Half Price Books here in Concord, California. 💕

Eggs ❤️😅📚 2y
Leftcoastzen 👍👏 2y
LeahBergen Ahhh, perfect for our “club”. 😊 2y
48 likes3 comments
review
Billypar
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Pickpick

Is it really possible that I'm the first person on Litsy to give this a pick? The discussion around this will inevitably involve the overlap between the author and the main character- the former's suicide shortly after the novel's completion and the latter's frequent references to imminent suicide as she addresses, in many of these letters, the lover who spurned her. 👇

Billypar But what's remarkable to me is how this is the first hand account of someone in the throes of romantic devastation, rather than looking back after time as gone by. Raw, visceral heartbreak in a fragmented burst of artistic frenzy- an amazing work in spite of the tragic circumstances surrounding it. #LitWorld2018GB (Taiwan) @GatheringBooks 6y
saresmoore I stacked this before I even saw the second part of your excellent review! 6y
Leftcoastzen That is an “oh wow “review ! 6y
See All 11 Comments
Billypar @saresmoore @Leftcoastzen If you can read this in 2 or 3 sittings, I would recommend it- my only regret ias breaking it up so much- definitely one that demands your full attention. 6y
GatheringBooks awesome!! i love it already!!! 6y
BarbaraBB Excellent review! 6y
batsy Great review. I've been meaning to read this since I loved Notes of a Crocodile but also putting it off because I think it'll be a heavy read. 6y
batsy Also, I love the pic! 6y
Billypar @GatheringBooks I have you to thank for reading this- when I was putting my initial list of potentials for LitWorld2018 challenge I came across Maojin's other novel - Notes on a Crocodile, but recognized the author when I saw this at a bookstore. So, thank you for that! 6y
Billypar @BarbaraBB Thanks! 🙂 6y
Billypar @batsy Thanks! Yeah, it doesn't get any heavier than this, so you should be in the right reading mood. I'm definitely looking forward to NOAC. And re: the pic- weekend getaway on the NY-Canadian border so got to make the most of the St. Lawrence River while I have it 😎🏞️ 6y
33 likes3 stack adds11 comments
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Bertha_Mason

The protagonist just wrote to his ex-girlfriend, Xu, that her breaking up with him constituted raping him. I think we're done here. #yikes

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Bertha_Mason
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Jeezus, he SENDS his ex-girlfriend these letters. No means no, for fuck's sake.
Run, Xu, run for your life. 😨😱

ephemeralwaltz Oh dear... 6y
6 likes1 comment
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Bertha_Mason

I was wondering why the protagonist was so presumptuous, arrogant, and totally insufferable, and then I read the introduction and realized he was a straight guy (I default to reading first-person protagonists as women or girls, and it doesn't help that this one's name is Zoë).

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Bertha_Mason
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I bought two new ebooks to reward myself for dragging my crampy, bleeding carcass to class today.

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asoftskeleton
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We‘re not exempt from the world‘s injury, so we are doomed to suffer spiritual illness over time.

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MicheleinPhilly
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#ReadJanuary #BooksByAsianWriters I have had this on my #TBR since it was released but have always set it aside because I just know that it is going to wreck me. 😭

49 likes2 stack adds
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dalkeyarchiveintern
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<3 !!!

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dalkeyarchiveintern
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have been ready since 570 BCE honestly