I had the pleasure of reading a best-selling novel, The Fox Wife, by Yangsze Choo. Published by Henry Holt and Company, NY, NY, 2024.
I found it to be intriguing from the first page. The setting for this novel is the early 1900s in Manchuria, China. Her writing describes the atmosphere of the cities and countryside of a culture I am not familiar with. Yet I felt a part of the scenes, reading her descriptions of medicine shops, gardens, prepared meals, and grassland, which I experienced through her illustrative words.
The chapters alternate between two characters, Snow and Boa, who intertwine the mystery of folklore and history into a beautiful tale of loss, revenge, forgiveness, and finding love again. Choo has integrated myth and realism. Snow is a woman and a fox spirit, while Bao is an older man who works as a private investigator. They are both searching for answers to their losses: a child, a shadow, a friend, and truth.
Sometimes I was unsure if Snow was a woman, a fox spirit, or a fox; her true identity remains mysterious throughout until the end. Bao, on the other hand, struggles with his childhood memories of fox shrines, a friend whom he loved, and the truth behind his investigation.
According to Choo, the old Chinese tales of foxes became widely accepted in Chinese literature and culture. It was believed that foxes were capable of shape-shifting into humans, and in The Fox Wife, Choo has written the possibility of this phenomenon in a convincing and plausible way.
Yangsze Choo’s writing is beautiful, and by that I mean she writes with vivid descriptions of the medicine shop, passageways made for bound feet (the culture behind the practice of breaking the arches of young girls), the buying and selling of women (at any age), the disrespect towards females, the value of first born males, the devaluation of daughters born, relationships with legal wives, and the offspring of concubines.
Choo’s use of simile gives strength to her visual imagery and depictions. As I read, I enjoyed her comparisons and looked forward to the next one I found. Here are a few examples Choo wrote: On her finger was a ring of pale white jade, like a nugget of mutton fat or describing a turned-down mouth like the pinch marks from tofu pressed and drained in a cloth, or how Choo compares a cook's cheeks to soft dough. Several unexpected similes enhance the reader's understanding of the scenes throughout her book.
Yangzse Choo’s novel is more than a story; it is the evolution of a legacy steeped in folklore, rooted in the tradition and history of Manchuria. Not just the deepening of fox spirits taking human form, but also the history of the foxes, their love, loss, and relationships, let alone their interrelationships with humans. Are they fantasy, or can they change the outcome of the situations they are in? Do they experience love and sorrow?
You will need to read this book to determine whether or not you believe the foxes are real, believe in their existence as beings who feel, cry, and seek revenge. If you do read The Fox Wife, please let me know your thoughts.
