THE EDGE magazine | Book reviews | Wang Shuo

Playing for Thrills
Wang Shuo
No Exit paperback, 325 pages, £6.99
Review by Gerald Houghton (1997)

The narrator of Playing For Thrills falls under investigation for a decade-old murder when his former friend finally fetches up, beheaded. The problem is not that he has to clear his name, but that he has to satisfy himself whether or not he was responsible. Friends give contradictory evidence, and the girl he was supposedly hooked-up with at the time cannot be found.

Despite its Day-Glo colours and ludicrous comparisons to John Woo, Shuo’s novel has far more in common with the films of Wong Kar-Wai than anything in that tiresome two-(ham)fisted oeuvre. French cinema, especially the likes of Kassovitz’s La Haine, tells us more about the boastful Beijing underclass Shuo paints than our own notions of contemporary China.

But lest you imagine that Playing for Thrills is all simple flip-hip disaffection, the book finds echoes in Kafka-like nightmare and dream sequences reminiscent of Haruki Murakami. And finally, before we collapse under the weight of references, the looming end cannot help but remind us of literary gamester James Sallis. The book is a quest not for answers (there are precious few) but identity. The narrative pull is not towards resolution and revelation for, as someone concludes, ‘At most we can put off the inevitable for a while’.

This is far from being the simple crimer the cover suggests. Playing for Thrills is an engagingly sophisticated animal and, as such, a major new feather in No Exit’s ambitious cap. •

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