PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewLu’s prose is unromantic and unadorned, giving the chapters an ascetic, almost nightmarish quality where the protagonist retreads the same topics ... The funeral crier’s observations are matter-of-fact and naïve, profound in their blankness. This may strike some readers as wry and self-deprecating, and the cultural dissonance as purposefully drawn out. But those more familiar with the dogma of rural China may recognize the smallness of thought, life, ambition and self-image as tragic, not humorous.
