Suncranes and Other Stories

This is a survey of Mongolian short stories from the 20th century, reflecting that country's passage from nomadic theocracy to socialist "paradise" to post-communist urban democracy. The stories are arranged mostly chronologically, illustrating the changes in society.

The stories cover a wide range of styles, from pastoral slices-of-life to existential internal monologues, and while one can see similarities to Russian and East Asian literature, these are something different, in my non-expert experience.

I can't speak to the quality of the translation, but the English is fluid and evocative. The translator also provides an introduction that provides context and background, as well as biographies of the authors.

Most importantly, the stories are fun to read. Several are quite memorable, and all are at least of the quality of what the New Yorker publishes.

I pride myself of being curious and always ready to try new things, especially when it comes in short fiction (probably because I feel that I don’t commit too much time and energy if it’s bound to be over in 25 pages). But perhaps I am now getting to my limits. Talking about treading out of my comfort zone, this short story collection has been really challenging and puzzling.

I don’t think it’s the editor / translator’s fault, but I found very little to relate in any of those short stories. Wickhamsmith tries to give a large overview of the diversity of Mongolian writing throughout the 20th century, and he does it quite well in 27 stories that are very diverse in topics as in style. The English translation reads effortlessly, and there’s a useful glossary on Mongolian terms, but I could understand most of it from the context anyway. We get a bit of poetic / allegoric, a creepy ghost story, some love stories, some about family relationships… There’s also a very useful postface on each author and his/her context, but I really would have preferred to have it in a preface as most of the book felt like jumping in the pool feet first without really knowing how to swim.

I could say that I know nothing about Mongolia but that would be lying. The extent of my knowledge comes from my Asian studies and a summer internship program in 1997 where I was supposed to be churning out reports on Mongolia, but on that fateful summer Hong Kong returned to Mainland China and the Asian financial crisis hit many (other) Asian countries and my interest went far away from Mongolia. My understanding is that from the Chinese point of view, Mongolia is the poor hillbilly neighbor, although in historical terms the countries’ fate were intertwined (Genghis Khan was from Mongolia and Mongol dynasties rules over China for centuries) – and in economical terms, Mongolia depends very much on China. That I knew, but I had somehow missed the part where Mongolia had been heavily influenced by the Soviet Union, its other powerful neighbor.

That is why many stories in the beginning of the collection lean heavily on the socialist realist vein, and are clearly influenced by the later Russian literature. It’s hard to get passionate nowadays about stories speaking of production quotas and five-years-plan, although having read the equivalent Maoist stories I could get my bearing, if not my enthusiasm.

I was favorably impressed by the importance of nature in many of those stories. Pastoral nomadism is shown in its beauty and its hardships equally, and that’s the part I enjoyed the most. Other stories didn’t resonate with me at all, and I could not even get what I was reading. But again, this is entirely my fault. So this collection is a hit-and-miss for me, but I don’t regret trying.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for review consideration.