Mending Bodies

by Hon Lai-chu, Jacqueline Leung (Translator)

In dystopian Hong Kong, a new government program incentivizes physical conjoinment between individuals through a painful and disruptive surgery, promising personal fulfillment and a reduced cost of living. Hon Lai Chu’s unnamed narrator is broke and knee-deep in her dissertation on the subject, critical but increasingly unmoored by the implications—and the possibilities. Surely it is better for society to give up your autonomy if it means taking fewer resources, as the conjoined do, right?

Hon Lai Chu, one of the foremost writers working in Hong Kong today, sets her characters loose in a macabre reality animated by sketchy institutions and characters with elusive motivations. Politically and socially allegorical, Mending Bodies, translated by Jacqueline Leung, challenges our safe understandings of people, bodies, and governments.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Dystopia, Literary Fiction, China, Horror, Translated Fiction

209 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2010

About the author

Hon Lai Chu was born and raised in Hong Kong, where she currently resides, and is the author of several novels, including Mending Bodies and The Border of Centrifugation, as well as a recent book of short stories, Lost Caves. With Dorothy Tse, she co-authored the 2012 short story collection A Dictionary of Two Cities, which won the Hong Kong Book Prize in 2013. In 2004, she was awarded the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature (Fiction) for her short story collection Silent Creature. Her 2006 novel Kite Family, first published as a novella, won the New Writer’s Novella first prize from Taiwan’s Unitas Literary Association; the extended version was selected as one of 2008’s Books of the Year by the China Times in Taiwan. Andrea Lingenfelter’s English translation of Hon Lai Chu’s The Kite Family was published in 2015.

Reviews

[Jillian B · Rating 5 out of 5]

The government of a dystopian Hong Kong passes the Conjoinment Act, encouraging people to literally attach their body to that of another person, often a near stranger. It says humans were not meant to be alone and will find greater fulfillment as part of a pair. It also offers practical benefits, like guaranteed jobs for conjoined partners of employed people. Critics say the government is just trying to fuel the economy (there’s a huge market for clothes, furniture and cars designed for conjoined pairs) or worse, keep people too distracted to dissent. Our main character is a student working on a dissertation about conjoinment, who ends up going through the procedure herself…and then questions whether that was the right decision.

I ate this book up. The prose is straightforward and yet beautiful. There’s an absurdist feel to the narrative, and yet the main character’s interiority lends it a sense of authenticity. The themes kept me thinking about the story long after reading it. I definitely recommend it to readers who loved the quiet dystopia of The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and the offbeat tone of Earthlings by Sakaya Murata.

I’m so glad I read this one, and I need more of you to read it so we can talk about it!

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a copy of this book.

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘—some people went to the hospital and got a new face, some left the town where they were born and never went back, and some threw large pieces of furniture out the window one by one, smashing cars and the heads of strangers. “To me, sleep disorders are just types of self-regulation,” I said.’

Spectacular prose with so much to offer. A wild biblio-trip this was, to say the least. Definitely giving — (vibes akin to) Yorgos Yanthimos’ film, ‘The Lobster’ only with the elements and bits of the absurd, surrealism and grotesque amped up a thousand times more/further — horrifically, frighteningly brilliant — freakishly mind-blowing. Perhaps (I should ‘say’) more dystopian than ‘surreal’, but all in all this was undoubtedly fantastic. Fuller rtc later maybe?

‘—my eyes dried like the shriveled wings of a dead moth. Then I heard her voice — “There’s no need to be afraid—everyone must experience loss through necessary sacrifice. This is how we make this place better, to guarantee our lives. You don’t need to worry that it’s a bad decision, because it’s not a decision, but an obligation. Everyone else our age has already experienced loss, whether or not they can bear it. What right do we have to demand that we live as our whole selves?” I don’t know when I stopped hearing her; I probably fell back asleep before her last sentence—.’

‘I was reminded of the dog May used to have—May’s apartment was in a building where dogs were prohibited, so she had to tie her dog to its cage in the kitchen and teach it to guard its mouth so that it never barked and attracted the attention of prying neighbors. May told me that countless birds and pets lived in that building, and to survive, all of them had learned to silence their voices and hide away their bodies.’

‘My heart was cut out and transplanted into a woman’s body. My right arm was preserved and sent to my aunt, who paired it with her left arm and put them in a blue brocade box with desiccants—I left the muscles around my chest for Lok, but most of them were chopped off by the surgeon performing our separation and thrown out with other surgical waste. The remaining bones and flesh, steeped in a bottle of tea-colored solution, were given to my mother. Whenever her relatives and friends visited, saw the bottle, and gave their polite condolences, my mother would sigh and say, “It’s better to have a boy if you want children. Boys are stronger—have a daughter, and this is all that’s going to be left of her.’

“Which one of my selves should I tame, and how?” I asked her.
“Which one do you wish to kill?” she asked me.
“Which one of them deserves to die?” I asked back.’

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv)]

i got rejected for the ARC but that's okay because I'm stubborn and it actually just makes me want to read this MORE

[Alix · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the story and prose, but a lot of this book went over my head. It was sometimes hard to decipher what the author was trying to say through her metaphors and stories. I also struggled at times with the narrator’s actions. She was clearly searching for a deeper understanding of herself, but the journey was often profoundly sad. The idea of conjoinment, in particular, felt incredibly bleak to me.

Much of the book explores themes of identity and personhood, without offering any clear-cut answers. While it’s categorized as sci-fi, it definitely reads more like literary fiction. Overall, I was intrigued by parts of this book, but I struggled to grasp other parts. Maybe, like the main character’s dissertation, it was just a bit too theoretical for me.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting ideas here, and the translation is better than for The Kite Family. But I have similar reservations with the writing and treatment.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Political allegory about a dystopian Hong Kong where government exerts extreme control over people's bodies in the name of the greater good for society. Well written and convincing.

[Annie Dubnicka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise but mind-bending, deeply disturbing but oddly beautiful. So much depth within a limited set of characters.

At the outset of the book, I expected it to be mainly political commentary. The book is set in a city in which people are encouraged and incentivized to surgically conjoin their bodies with another person for economic, environmental, and supposedly psychosocial reasons.

As the book progresses, and as the narrator’s opinions and actions develop, the story explores the concepts of selfhood through an evolving landscape of interpersonal relationships; independence and interdependence that accompanies merging two bodies— or two lives— together; and decision-making as a product of constrained choice within a given social and political landscape.

This story was equally thought-provoking and emotionally stirring; both magnetic and repulsive. I already expect that I will want to reread this.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book left me feeling like I wasn’t quite smart enough to fully grasp what it was trying to say. The writing is beautiful and there are some interesting ideas, but a lot of it went over my head. The metaphors were dense and abstract, and I felt like I was missing the deeper meaning behind the narrator’s actions. I think readers who enjoy more metaphorical and philosophical writing will get more out of it than I did.

[Bob Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4 stars. I liked the concept was a little meh on the execution. I was expecting a character whose full purpose in the novel was to undergo and experience the mending while navigating existing in a world where mending is required. And it's that to an extent, but our narrator doesn't experience it first hand until after a slow walk to it. The novel is more like a meditation on a couple of things: 1) mostly, on the phenomena of conjoined twins as told through the narrator's dissertation; 2) the mending of her aunt (?) and, later, herself. The writing was solid, the narrative flowed, jumping as it did between her life and her paper but it didn't excite me all that much.

After mending with her partner, the logistics of it were sort of glossed over or minimized. Like, if you have a whole other person attached to you, there will be some adjustment, there will be long days and weeks of learning to walk together, to use your arms and hands in a symbiotic way. She said they were attached at the chest but does that mean face to face? Are they in a perpetual hug? Her aunt (?--I'm forgetting if it was even her aunt) had to lose an arm when she got attached, but we're never told if our narrator had to lose any body parts--I presume not. Then she talks about their different schedules, the need for privacy, and how this is accomplished by taking sleeping pills. Ah, it crumbles the more I think about this part of the book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mending Bodies explored what it looks like to coalesce with other humans, ultimately merging physical bodies and the subsequent effects it has on identity, society and self.

Will we receive ultimate life fulfillment when experiencing life as a conjoined pair? I think this hits on a point even greater than coupling up with others, than cohabitation, or even codependency but the ultimate bleakness in which conjoining is a government initiative.

[lids :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

really neat premise, the ending made me go :/

[stephanie udzielak · Rating 4 out of 5]

what an ending! i was a bit confused ngl but wow

[Cristina O'Hanlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so hauntingly beautiful. I read this after going to an event with the author and translator at lost city books, and hearing them talk about the process of translating this book into english (15 years after it was originally published) was super interesting - the prose throughout a lot of the book is pretty abstract/strange and as I read it, it was cool to think about what a feat it was for the the translator and author to bring such a unique tone to life in english. Idk how to explain what this is about but like every couple pages there was a passage that made me want to put my head through a wall (in a good way) - highly recommend.

[Shelby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm kind of between 3 and 3.5 on this one. It was very interesting in a bummer kind of way. Lots of government control over people's bodies and decisions. Societal pressure to conform. I feel like there are several lenses through which you can look at this book. It had me thinking about the societal pressure that exists for marriage. It's just not for everyone. And the government has no place in any of these decisions. I don't know, this is difficult to write a review about but I'd enjoy a verbal discussion about it. Bottom line for me: it's okay to be an individual, it's okay to be single and pursue whatever you want in life.

I was intrigued by all the reviews saying this book went over their heads or they were too dumb to get it. I don't think it's that inaccessible.

Also, I'm confused. It says this book has 240 pages but mine ended at 209. No idea if I got a defective copy, it's the same ISBN as this listing.

[Biblibio · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid 3-star read, maybe closer to 3.5, Mending Bodies is without a doubt an interesting book, but it felt a lot less interesting than it seemed to be aiming to be. I was hesitant to pick up the book because of the use of the phrase "body horror" on the back cover (of the US English edition, at least), but it's very much not a horror novel and even as a work of "sci-fi" or dystopian fiction or whatever, it's pretty low-key and at times even tame. It feels like it's trying to quietly shift the reader's thinking, rather than blast forward with its message and ideas. This means that it's generally pretty mild, but also that it just... doesn't do all that much. Thoughtful, but not mind-bending, I suppose? I have a feeling this one won't last very long in my memory, but we'll see...

[Dree · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weird dystopian future Hong Kong. The government is encouraging citizens to undergo a new surgical procedure, conjoinment, when two people are stitched/joined together. This is not a marriage (and marriage is not discussed--but is this an allergory for marriage?)--this is two separate people who learn to walk together, to sleep at slightly off schedules just for a bit of quiet privacy, to work seperate schedules as needed since obviously both have to be in the same place at the same time.

It's weird and I have so many questions, but the back of the book describes it as a political allegory. My questions don't need to be answered, as things (science, etc) not making exact sense don’t matter in an allegory or in the future.

Our narrator is a student studying conjoinment--and then decides to undergo the procedure. She finds her match in Lok. But after the procedure she is very unhappy, and he does not seem happy himself. She wonders why the government encourages this--is it really "to use less resources" as implied, or is it actually to use more, as conjoinment stimulates the economy. Conjoined couples need new clothing, new furniture, special cars, etc.

This would be such a fascinating book to read in a book club--I would love to discuss this in a group.

[Em Herndon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Body horror is really interesting as a genre, but this book did it especially well. Pretty PG considering what it was describing which I enjoyed. I spent a lot of the book just wrapping my head around where bodies would be conjoined (what organs would touch, how would the skin stretch, etc) which I found very fun. Definitely difficult to have to think deeply about how much autonomy we have over our own bodies and what we are willing to part with. Maybe everything, maybe nothing.

[mali · Rating 3 out of 5]

a fascinating and morbid concept, i enjoyed exploring the “what ifs” of a society that believes that conjoinment surgery will achieve fulfillment for everyone who undergoes such a procedure.

a shame that most of this novel’s idea is buried by slightly surreal and kooky subplots

[Kaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this because it felt Cronenbergian but almost immediately picked up on the One Country, Two Systems/One China allusions. There were some interesting reflexions on autonomy, agency, free will, dependence, and self, but the academic bits made it unclear if this was actually based on something factual or still fully fictitious. It’s like Hon was going for Breezy Bolaño.

[Julia Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful descriptions of horrifying concepts.

[Aaron Bisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can now confidently call my favorite genre “weird body stuff”

[Kathy Denker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dystopian Hong Kong, government initiatives to partner people. Disturbing but interesting.

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mending Bodies by Hon Lai-Chu, translated from Chinese by Jacqueline Leung, has a lot of interesting possibilities. In a parallel Hong Kong, it's incentivized to agree to a conjoinment surgery, becoming sewn to another person. In theory, this is for ecological and social reasons, but in reality, it seems to be about the economy as well as a a drive to undercut the impact of an individual and their ideas, emotions, and independence. The narrator doesn't want to go under the knife, but the people and institutions around her seem to push her into doing so as she works on a dissertation about the human fascination with conjoined twins throughout history.

I thought this book was fascinating, and its concepts asked a lot of questions that can translate to real-world issues of autonomy and assimilation, particularly when it comes to Hong Kong and its complicated relationship with China and its government. The narrator has to ask herself what she's willing to sacrifice for what people insist is "the greater good"—her dissertation? her sleep? her friendships? People pressure her into the decision. People who get conjoined and demand separation are seen as selfish; people who resist the surgery are warned that soon, it will be too late, they'll lose their window where their body is elastic enough to adapt. The novel sometimes lost me in its side plots of strangeness, from the dubiously forward professor to the lying sleep therapist, but the more I think about the novel, the more I'm intrigued by its many questions, and overall, I think it was a successful and weird sf that I'll be thinking about for quite a while.

Content warnings for mild body horror, suicide.

[Quinn Olivadotti Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Body horror story of my dreams. The whole time however, I found I was perpetually asking why citizens agreed to the procedure. There wasn’t enough contextual information regarding the society’s state of failure. Leaving out such details does contribute to the sort of hazy feel of the read, but I wanted to see how the author would justify such an interesting solution to collapse. The booming job market being a driving force of the universal acceptance is only partially explanatory. This is the type of book I need to read again to fully get my grips on it and the nitty gritty justifications. I am obsessed with the concept and the execution. Adore!

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

“…I grew to understand that in certain states of existence, to live was really just another form of death.” I get it, but I am a visual reader and there were some parts that are particularly absurd to imagine and fiction at all. It’s heavy on the metaphors but still, how are you going to move, sleep and carry another person’s body when you are conjoined at the chest? I very much enjoyed learning about conjoint twins and the history of that mutation. The narrative is dry and dystopian, very similar to the ideas of Sayaka Murata for the future.
“Everyone has an unspeakable struggle that is strictly their own, a burden that cannot be shared or lifted by others.”
It reads quickly, because it’s short, but the main character was very flat and clinical, I couldn’t connect with her. There are more questions than answers and the ending wasn’t satisfying for me. 3.5 stars

[gio · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like the strong theming and ideas got lost in the plot. There's a lot to notice about this novel, starting from the concept at its core, but the plot is rather confusing and meandering, in a way that makes it feel too disjointed. The questions the book raises about autonomy and assimilation (related to the individual but also the nation, considering that the author is from HK the political angle is impossible to miss) are fascinating, but their development didn't truly work out for me, hence the low-ish rating.

[Madeleine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise and lots of good social commentary/symbolism, but the prose and plot pacing was too dreamlike for me

[Eya · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I grew to understand that in certain states of existence, to live was really just another form of death.”

Mending Bodies is one of the strangest books I’ve read in a while. The premise is unsettling wherein the government passes a law called the “Conjoinment Act” that allows two completely different people to be surgically attached. It’s a wild, uncomfortable idea, and honestly, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The book grabbed me right away with its dark, eerie tone and original concept. I love when a story challenges me, and this one definitely did. But I also struggled at times. Some of the deeper themes and metaphors felt a little too abstract, and there were scenes and narratives that felt slow or just hard to follow.

What really stayed with me, though, were the reflective lines scattered throughout, moments that made me pause and think, long after I’d turned the page. Here are just a few that stuck with me:

“No one could ever know if reality is just a mirage, refracted from the fragments of many other illusions.”

“Life is stagnant and meaningless if we don’t discover even the slightest change in ourselves each day.”

“Every sleep is, in fact, a temporary death. Only after experiencing these short deaths over and over can we acclimatize to the various conditions of our existence.”

Still, I have to give it credit, it kept me turning the pages. Even when I didn’t fully understand it, I wanted to see where it was going. It’s not a light or easy read, but it’s one that sticks with you. If you're into weird, thought-provoking dystopias that make you squirm and think, this one might be worth checking out.

[Maren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up randomly in a bookstore and the synopsis really intrigued me.

set in a world where conjoinment of two people, often initially strangers, is encouraged and prioritized we meet our main character who is writing a dissertation on the history of conjoined people.

there were a few strange side plots that kinda confused me; the weird professor, and the lying sleep therapist (who ends up being the person she becomes conjoined to).

I definitely think the more I think about this novel and see more discourse on it, the bigger impact it’ll have. it’s very allegorical and one of the main themes I took from it is how people tend to lose themselves in a partnership and how that affects their dreams, career, and friendships.

my main qualm with the story is that I feel like a fair amount of books that are trying to make a point or statement tend to create a lot of distance between the reader and the characters when I think closeness of the two is the key to having an impact — emotionally and mentally. if these characters had felt more real and human, I think the allegory would have affected me much more and the story would have stuck with me more than it has.

very interesting plot and I enjoyed the writing!

[Sterling Secor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the type of sci-fi I love. A "what if" that changes a specific element of our world and describes how humanity would react from there. The question in this novel is "what if there was such a thing as conjoinment surgery?"

This novel follows our narrator as she researches and ultimately gets conjoinment surgery for her dissertation. Conjoinment surgery is encouraged by the government as a way to cut costs for housing, feeding, etc. and they offer privileges to those that are conjoined.

This novel is written partly as our narrator's story and partly as the dissertation she's working on. Through her dissertation, the writer is able to weave in some of the history of conjoined twins, which I enjoyed immensely. Overall, this is fascinating and well-written sci-fi novel that I recommend for fans of the genre.