Featured Reading Guide
Xiaolu Guo
I see myself on a boat, steering far out to sea, to the seas of the Village of Stone , and as the waves grow clearer in my memory, I find myself moving farther away from this enormous city, from these enormous buildings and crowds -Coral and her Frisbee-obsessed boyfriend Red live on the ground floor of a cramped tower block in the megalopolis that is modern-day Beijing. The epitome of disaffected, unfulfilled youth, their already fragile existence is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious fishy package – as the smells of the sea flood her home, Coral is transported back to a traumatic childhood…
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Xiaolu Guo was born in a fishing village in the south of China in 1973. She was awarded an MA in Film from the Beijing Film Academy in 2000 and has worked as a novelist, essayist, screenwriter and filmmaker. Having studied documentary film at the National Film and Television School in London, she now lives in Berkshire and is working on a new novel. Her most recent documentary The Concrete Revolution has been screened at the Raindance Independent Film Festival, the Oxford International Documentary film festival and the New York film festival.
topAbout the Book
I see myself on a boat, steering far out to sea, to the seas of the Village of Stone , and as the waves grow clearer in my memory, I find myself moving farther away from this enormous city, from these enormous buildings and crowds -Coral and her Frisbee-obsessed boyfriend Red live on the ground floor of a cramped tower block in the megalopolis that is modern-day Beijing. The epitome of disaffected, unfulfilled youth, their already fragile existence is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious fishy package – as the smells of the sea flood her home, Coral is transported back to a traumatic childhood dominated by solitude, fear and shame. Born on a boat during a storm, and orphaned soon after, Coral was raised by silent grandparents amongst the stern and superstitious fishermen of the remote Village of Stone. Shunned from birth as a bringer of ill fortune, and exposed to the malevolent, threatening forces of a closed-off society, Coral immersed herself in the minutiae of the landscape around her. At fifteen, she escaped to the big city and shut the door on the darkness of her past. As the narrative darts between the forbidding sprawl of Beijing and the hypnotic rhythms of a tiny coastal village, our narrator struggles to navigate a path through painful and hidden memories of a time spent helpless, cold and alone. But when an old, sick man appears on Coral’s doorstep, the past and present shockingly converge, and she is forced to confront the secrets of her history in order to realise her dreams for the future. Beautifully poetic and lyrical, haunting yet infused with a quiet and gentle humour, Village of Stone is a startling and bewitching novel about memory, loss, and the search for redemption, from one of contemporary China’s freshest voices.
topXiaolu Guo interview/review
Taken from an interview in the South China Morning Post found on Xiaolu’s website www.guoxiaolu.com
- Xiaolu on her childhood in China, living with foster parents
‘They could not afford to feed me and, with my parents away, I was sent to my grandparents…My father was a fisherman who gave up the sea to paint Chinese landscapes. He made money, but he was frowned on as bourgeois during the Cultural Revolution. He then wrote an article about all the propaganda and lies, but was denounced and jailed.
‘In China – then, as now – boys were more important than girls, so my mother [who travelled the country with a dance troupe] took my brother on tour,’ she says. ‘I’ve always had a violent relationship with my mother. When my father was freed, we all moved back together, away from Shi Tang.’
‘It has been a long journey, from the violence, bad memories and emotion of that fishing village to my life now in London and Beijing.’
- Xiaolu on the autobiographical elements of Village of Stone
‘Coral is my double in my real life…My grandfather married a child bride when she was 12. They never loved each other. They lived separate lives under the same roof. He would beat her, but she never once complained. They both suffered. My grandfather committed suicide because he was so poor. I really hated that fishing village.’
Xiaolu on writing Village of Stone ‘It took me three years to write this book…First, it was a love story, between Coral and Red. But no one in China would publish that. So, I set it in the fishing village. But that was just too dark. I needed to grow up and recall the past from the present. That is why I used the eel. It was something organic. Eating the dried eel brought the past back. ‘The eel also signified a past you cannot escape, as it is too difficult to digest…A lot of people are ****ed up because of their bad childhoods. And I thought by getting through this massive eel, eating it every day, people could digest that past, and become strong and healthy. In Chinese culture, the eel symbolises long life. It is good for the body, with very positive characteristics.’
- Xiaolu on China…
‘China is changing quickly…Everyone wants money. It is like the US. The cities are noisy, dirty, full of factories and skyscrapers. It is like they are trying to jump 200 years in 50. There are Starbucks now everywhere. It is scary. Soon there will be nothing left of old China.’
…and on her new novel about her first impressions of the West ‘It will not be as dark,’ she says. ‘It will hopefully be a funny, silly book.’ ‘Here in London…It rained all the time. I now know why people read so many books here in this country. They have to stay inside.’
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Xiaolu says of Coral that she is ‘my double in my real life’. How does the knowledge that Village of Stone is semi-autobiographical influence your reading of the novel?
- Why do you think that Coral is so fascinated by film?
- What do you think of the relationship between Red and Coral? Who do you like best?
- What do you think is the effect of the use of myth in the story?
- Why do you think that the eel was sent to Coral? Do you think that this was a cruel or a kind act?
- Do you find Coral’s tale uplifting?
Other Books by Xiaolu Guo
20 Fragments of a Ravenous…
So I was the 6787th person in Beijing wanting to act in the film and TV ind…
A Concise Chinese-English …
Twenty-three-year-old Zhuang (or Z as she calls herself) arrives in London to…
Lovers in the Age of Indi…
The lovers in the age of indifference are tough romantics from every corner of…
UFO in Her Eyes
Silver Hill Village, 2012. On the twentieth day of the seventh moon Kwok Yun…
Suggested Further Reading
- Good Women of China ~ Xinran
- Sky Burial ~ Xinran
- Wild Swans ~ Jung Chang
- Mao ~ Jung Chang
- Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress ~ Dai Sijie
- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle ~ Haruki Murakami