Salt Fish Girl

By far, one of my favorite top 5 queer sci-fi reads. Highly recommend!

I was happy that my creative writing teacher assigned this title to read. Larissa Lai creates a highly possible vision of the future and mixes it with traditional Chinese motivs.

Weird as f R I c k lol

Weird but the story sticks with u.

Exciting and fun to read. The mythological aspect behind the novel is interesting and kept me reading. It follows the life of two young women in love, one the being Nu Wa and her lover. The novel also follows Miranda and her life in the year 2044. Her experiences with her father as a tax collector and the REALworld. Salt Fish Girl is a page turner. It incorporates several myths and fairy tails and incorporates them into a sci-fi world.

Larissa Lai's Salt Fish Girl was introduced to me in a lit course about cyberpunk and while it didn't feel like it was quite of that world, it is definitely speculative and I'm not sure what else you could accurately call it. It is of its own kind. Much like the protagonist. Miranda is conceived almost miraculously by elderly parents--even more miraculous when you consider that they seem to have never been intimate before this time, an apparent marriage of convenience. She is born in troubled times, in a troubled family, but a sort of internal stability. She is followed by the scent of durian--a smell that gets described in different ways so though I haven't ever actually encountered it I feel I'd be able to pick it out in a crowd. Lai never allows this to be an exoticism and even resists making the smell something pleasant: Miranda stinks to other people. This is something that shifts in how it affects her as she grows up, and in adolescence it even seems to fade, but the fact remains: durian smells and she smells of durian. I loved how the novel never tried to make appealing the earthiness of it--the creation legend beginning talks of the smells of mud without glamor, and the bizarre reality it ends with is still full of tactile details that do not flinch. Miranda's story does not really start just with the durian-fueled conception, because this is not a straightforward dystopian rebellion story. Miranda dreams of another lifetime, and in her era this is a sign of a disease that might kill her by drowning. Because she may walk into the sea, like others before her. Her other lifetimes include one of an occupied Asian city, where her previous incarnation leaves her beloved "Salt Fish Girl" to chase a fascinating foreign woman. Miranda recognizes Salt Fish Girl in a young woman she meets, but again in the course of the story chases something else. Miranda is not really trying to explore her own origins, but gets caught up in it. The narrative is not a neat hero's journey--it plays much more along the dream-logic of mythology and fabulism. It begins, in every lifetime, with a birth and it ends with one. The story is that whoever it is that the story is about is living, and will continue to, making messy mistakes. In a world that changes but is frequently hostile to her, as a woman, as a lesbian, as a member of a diaspora in a corporate commodity world. This was a weird book, unabashedly so. It's speculative, though it may not be cyberpunk. And it does some things with identity and mythology that don't obey the rules of genre fiction in a way that feels very natural to its protagonist and its themes.

this is undecidedly one of the best books i have ever read. it's a sci-fi, fantasy, critical social commentary, poetry, and product of the postmodern. calling this an 'asian book' or a 'woman's book' limits its scope and depth, a book that delves into memory, both personal and historical. it is also a creative challenge to conventional discussions on immigration and geographic/cultural displacement by exposing the power dynamics in the process. at the same time, however, the circular setup of the novel, the watery motifs, and gendered violence situates the book within women's experiences. salt fish girl is also laden with loss, denial, forgetting and abandonment that is a common thread in an asian diasporic experience. larissa lai's poetic and lucid writing style fits so well with the fantastical yet tactile tone of the book. it is dream-like and yet feels intensely real. a delightful find.

Lai proves herself as one of the greatest Canadian writers. Salt Fish Girl is a wonderful, fascinating story about two Asian women -one a shapeshifter and the other obsessed with scent and her dead mother- who lived in very different times, but are somehow related. The story will truly capture you and you will not be able to drop the book until you finish it.

Kinda hard to follow at first, but once you get a feel of the story it draws you right in. To be honest I expected a different kind of story from the descriptions on the internet etc. but it was a very nice change from the regular lesbian romance stories. Romance in this book is present, but does not overshadow all the other topics. Nicely balanced and overall a time well spent.

Das Buch ist durchaus interessant, aber auch sehr schwerfällig. Mir hat es nicht sehr gut gefallen, es hat aber durchaus stilistischen und literarischen Wert. Kann man auf jeden Fall mal gelesen haben!

Nu Wa is a deity who creates human beings, chooses to become one of them and then falls in love with a girl who sells salt fish at the market. Miranda is a young girl living in the 2040s, born with a strange affliction: her skin smells of durian, a fruit. Both narrative threads wander through time, from early 20th century China to a dystopian near future, to say nothing of the Island of Mist and Forgetfulness. The blurring of the genres, between fantasy and dystopia, also offers many aspects to reflect upon, particularly about love, loss and identity. Its slow pace really gives time to Lai to explore her characters, their world and the love story. It is a journey of self discovery and an interesting study of what it is to be human, steeped in Chinese mythology.