Land of Big Numbers

8vo, hardcover in dj, Land of Big Numbers is a collection of ten short stories about characters who live in, or have emigrated from, present-day China. The collection reminds me of other favorite short-story collections: James Joyce's The Dubliners; William Maxwell's All the Days and Nights; Edward P. Jones' Lost in the City and All Aunt Hagar's Children; Wendell Berry's That Distant Land; Jhumpa Lahiri's The Interpreter of Maladies. This collection reminds me of those collections not because it is similar to them in style, but because, like them, it paints a picture of an entire society simply by telling the stories of everyday characters living out everyday lives in that society. Some of the stories struck me as somber, telling the stories of marginalized and anonymous characters living on the fringes of a society predominantly dedicated to "progress" in the form of economic development and the accumulation of wealth. In that sense, the stories say as much about life in America as about life in China. What nevertheless makes the stories delightful is the finesse and felicity with which the author writes and the compassion with which she portrays her protagonists. One example is "New Fruit," which tells the story of qiguo, a mysterious and delicious new fruit that brings all who taste it a promise of hope and happiness that does not last. My favorite example is "Flying Machine," which tells the story of Cao Cao, an old farmer who constructs an airplane from spare parts but whose real triumph is his never-ending drive to rearrange old things into new things and to transform humble things into magnificent things. May we all live our lives as Cao Cao lives his!