Every story in《绿毛水怪》includes elements of magical realism and most of the stories are similar to fables where the story ends with a lesson. I do not particularly like the stories except the title story. In the rest of the stories, the main characters are often male and some are rather misogynistic. Not being able to relate with the main characters likely resulted in me disliking the stories as a whole. Some of the stories also reminded me of works I read in Chinese class like 鲁迅's 阿Q正传. 阿Q正传 features a character that represents people that are excluded from society and some of the stories in 《绿毛水怪》include these kind of characters as well. Maybe the author wanted to shed light on this group of people that exist in society but seeing him use the template just made me feel slightly revulsed.
I enjoyed the title story so much when I first finished it. I loved the characters and the plot and how magical realism was incorporated into the story. I remember thinking to myself that stories like this must be the reason why 王小波 was recommended by so many. But after《绿毛水怪》, I can't say I liked the rest of stories as much. The only aspect of the ensuing stories that stood out to me was how I disliked them. It's not that the first story was written really well that it undermined the other pieces but that I didn't like the other stories in the first place.
Even though I disliked most of the stories, I continued to read the collection because of a few reasons: (a) It's a short story collection.
Short stories are easy to follow along for readers like me who do not have a ton of time to sit down behind a book. The level of complexity the author can go to with the plot and characters in a short story is limited. This makes it easier to remember what happened and continue reading the book after putting the book down for a few days. I can also finish each story fairly quickly which makes the reading process much more rewarding than that novel you need 4+ hours to finish.
(b) I experienced disgust, etc., but not boredom.
My creative writing teacher mentioned that all emotions that the author evokes in the reader is acceptable except boredom. I felt digust at times reading the stories but it didn't stop me from reading because the stories were engaging. In a story called "变形记", the magical realism is implemented in such a random way that it felt ridiculous and I laughed out loud.
(c) I wanted to read the last story.
As the committed reader I am, of course I searched up background information about 《绿毛水怪》before I started reading it. As I browsed the Internet, I came across reviews of the collection and many readers liked the first story and the last story. So, after I discovered how I disliked the ensuing stories, I decided to finish the collection because I thought the last story must be as compelling as the first story.
I was wrong though.
If you read this far, it must be because my writing is engaging (jk! thanks for reading my messy review XD).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.