Un bestiario

by Lily Hoang

Un bestiario de Lily Hoang, estadounidense de origen vietnamita, es un libro estructurado como una serie de ensayos que deambulan entre la fábula, el mito, la ciencia y la memoria. Con una narrativa iluminadora y fragmentaria, Hoang conecta los dolorosos accidentes de su vida amorosa y su historia familiar con temas como la identidad racial, la adicción, el feminismo y los cuentos de hadas, todo esto en una búsqueda por comprenderse a sí misma que no desvía la mirada de los rincones más incómodos.

Es fascinante cómo Hoang relata su búsqueda de un modelo de mujer asiática en una cultura donde estos prácticamente no existían, cómo la mujer vietnamita es criada para soportar el dolor, incluso ante la muerte de su hermana, y cómo ella, la hija menor de una familia asiático estadounidense, desarrolla un ansia perfeccionista inagotable. Un bestiario es un libro audaz que nos permite imaginar múltiples futuros para el género de la novela autobiográfica.

“Pocas veces he hallado un libro que se haga cargo de forma tan íntima y exquisita de la ternura, el veneno y el fuego como Un bestiario de Lily Hoang. Este libro ya sería sorprendente como una colección de fragmentos delicadamente forjados. Pero luego, al verlo entretejerse y crear un todo aún más impresionante, me rendí ante él. Lily Hoang escribe como si no tuviera nada que perder y estuviera apostándolo todo”. (Maggie Nelson)

“Estos son ensayos en el más puro sentido de la palabra: pensamiento irrestricto en pleno vuelo”. (Darren Huang)

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction, Memoir, Short Stories, Feminism, Asian American

212 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2016

About the author

Lily Hoang's first book, PARABOLA, won the Chiasmus Press Un-Doing the Novel Contest. She is also the author of the forthcoming novels CHANGING (Fairy Tale Review Press, Dec. 2008) and THE EVOLUTIONARY REVOLUTION (Les Figues Press, 2009-10). She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English & Women's Studies at Saint Mary's College in Indiana."

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

People expect Asian women to submit, to be passive and lifeless and pretty. Lily Hoang skewers that stereotype in her bold essay collection A Bestiary. With fierce prose, she writes about her dead sister and her drug addiction, her parents' ailing bodies and how she never fulfilled their image of a perfect Vietnamese daughter, and her abusive relationships with men. Elements of fairy tale and myth unify the themes of race, friendship, and relational grief and joy that pervade these essays. Hoang experiments with genre in A Bestiary, using lots of fragmentation and blending together memoir and lyric essay and flash fiction to transcend the status quo of creative nonfiction.

Overall, I would recommend A Bestiary to those who want to read a confident, honest collection of writing that defies traditional prose style. Hoang tackles difficult topics of autonomy, need, and feminism with intellect and insight. Portions of her prose took my breath away (the line "... his intelligence attacks my body like a virus filled with desire" literally made me scream in public.) This book will appeal to those who want to read unconventional writing, writing that trades tradition for innovation. I have a lot to learn from Hoang, and I cannot wait to read more of her work.

[Roxane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this is a magnificent book. Personal essays about grief and love and broken people and difficult relationships that are raw and vulnerable but full of steel and intelligence. There is an ongoing meditation on fairy tale and myth, throughout that is also very powerful. This is one of the better essay collections I've ever read.

[Jen Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect for fans of Maggie Nelson. :)

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lily Hoang tackles death, lust, disappointment, pain, parents, fairy tales, and so much more in this virtuoso performance. Her prose moves freely and without fear through these various section and topics. It's all thrillingly electric and alarmingly naked.

[Diego Lovegood · Rating 4 out of 5]

La weá buenaaaaa.

[Patrick Probably DNF · Rating 5 out of 5]

And then a book like this comes along, shattering your expectations, and restoring your faith in contemporary writing. In a single word, perfect.

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unspeakably tender, honest, raw. If you've ever loved a person with an addiction, you know this story -- if you've ever been abused, you know this story -- and yet Hoang tells it in a way that will creep into your heart's cracks and break the whole thing open all over again.

[Benjamín · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro es una sorpresa por dónde se le mire. Me emocionó mucho la manera en que la autora desarma el sueño americano a través de su experiencia personal. Encontré fascinante la manera en que su escritura transita entre el ensayo y la narración puramente literaria, la forma en que estructura el relato para darle forma y sentido al dolor, el cuál tiene protagonismo en este libro que a veces se convierte en un manto de dolor y tristeza. Solo no me gustó el exceso de teoría que había en ciertas partes del relato, pero realmente pasa a ser un detalle en comparación a lo demás.

[D.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This essay already feels too honest, but I'll publish it anyway. I am not worth a nickel of shame." Extraordinarily brilliant both in the literary sense and in the personal sense of what "personal essay" can become. This book may as well be called poetry, because it has that kind of staying power, every sentence a risk worth taking.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gobbled this up on the plane ride home from AWP. Lily! So good.

[Anna Adami]

Lily Hoang steps into scenes just at the place of puncture. She exits quickly, leaving only fragments, never lingering too long in a wound. The fragments interconnect, poetically exploring themes such as abuse, desire, and friendship. Hoang holds a microscope to her dishonesty, doubt, and grief. By doing this, she offers an intimate glimpse into human interiority. Her confessions are not self-indulgent. I see myself in them. For that kinship, I am grateful.

[Vera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Qué personal se siente este libro.

[maeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

not something i would have normally picked up, i was assigned this for class and i ended up loving it. it was intelligent and raw and full of so many little threads. it increasingly becomes more and more personal until you are looking into what feels like her very soul, even if a performative one (because we all are)

[Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up a few years ago from a used bookstore but finally sat down to read this on the bus yesterday. A Bestiary feels in many ways like the Vietnamese American Bluets. Hoang weaves together a fractured narrative of family, addiction, and the mess that often accompanies both through thoughtful blocks of prose. The brief forays that the book makes into the realm of fairy tales and psychological experiments are intriguing, and I found myself drawn to the way that Hoang humanizes even the most complicated of her characters. The speaker maintains a perspective that is at once jaded while also seeming to have a limitless capacity to forgive others for their transgressions.

[Brent Armendinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

In A Bestiary, Lily Hoang actively resists linear chronology – what some may call the end sometimes appears at the beginning, and vice versa, and in the space between, there are spaces, filled with intentionally broken pieces, which weave together topics as wide ranging as family, addiction, sex, feminism, pop culture, obsession, divorce, magic, the practice of writing, and the experience of being the child of immigrants. Her sentences are raw and dynamic, sometimes loose and conversational, sometimes witty and defiant, sometimes deeply vulnerable, sometimes distilled and poetic. Fairy tales often find their way into anecdotes from personal history. She writes, “the forest isn’t something to be overcome. It can’t be overcome, it’s vast and boundless. It’s insurmountable. The most that fairy tale characters can do is make their way through or hide.” And so Hoang refuses to present herself as the hero of her story, focusing instead on what it means to navigate what she calls, in one essay, the swarm. About the swarm, she reminds us: sometimes it carries you, sometimes it consumes you, sometimes it hovers, sometimes it chases you away.

[Ashley T · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I loved how fairy tales were woven throughout, and I appreciate how honest in a lot of ways Hoang was, though I got frustrated with her at times. I found some bits a little inaccessible to me, but I’m still learning what types of poetry-like writing I work well with. I felt similarly in those moments in this book as I did when I read Bluets, but I connected with this book better. I have a hard time getting anything out of the facts-based portions, and the ways in which people approach relationships are hard for me to connect to. However, the less relatable moments of this book did not go on for as long as in Bluets, so I have to say I liked this one better, personally.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

can i give this book ten stars instead? can i give it ALL THE STARS?

[Katherine Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so! A romp, a fugue, a mirror. An epic of grief for her sister and exploration of her relationship with her toxic ex and newer also toxic lover. Her sister’s son battles addiction, her parents struggle with devastating loss and aging bodies and habits, her brother comes out and into himself. “Other Lily” is a paragon of perfection she holds herself up to. Fairy tale and myth feel not like escapism but mystic transcendence. Worship and witness of what could be and of the possible planes of existence and the power of seeing ourselves in them. The white tiger transcends through grief for his beloved wife; Metanoia goddess of missed opportunity holds up her mirror, shows you your reflection. Fragments are so rich and weave together into new realms.

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big slay for transgressive depictions of Asian Americans! I didn't like the fragmented style of the book, but there's a lot of important topics addressed:
- the quiet and oftentimes repressive suffering of Asian Americans
- the desire to appeal to the white male gaze
- self-destruction as a means for self-control, especially with the men Hoang has relationships with
- Asian fetishization, specifically the fetishization of Asian women to be docile trophy wives to white men
- internalized fatphobia
- the impact of representation and the intense yearning for characters like you
- drug use
- adult friendships
- this internal feeling of unbelonging

[Emilie Guan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Although born in the year of the monkey, my dead sister was a real rat. I admire that about her. Sometimes I can be a rodent, too.”

genuinely brilliant essays—rat race might be one of the best nonfiction essays I’ve read in a long long time. such sharp images, language, and ruminations in electric form. hoang writes about family and myth in ways that are associative and breaking and my favorite type of nonfic writing

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that deserves two reads, one right after the other, in order to catch all of the nuance. Written in fragments, it explores addiction, sex, and death and weaves in fairy tales and other stories. It is not an easy read, but a good one.

[Becca Blanco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved most of this!! Such rich poetry/prose/everything. Love a collection that makes you start frantically searching for a pencil lol.

However... some lines/sections did veer a little close to the Rupi Kaur-ness of it all, and those lines definitely took me out of her artistry. But overall, wonderful storytelling.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

These essays fragment, loop, transform and eat their own tails (but in a good way, if that is possible). I loved their connections. Fairy Tales, grief, loss, love, addiction.

[Sam Albala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essay / grief / attraction / addition / loss / love / abuse / myth / fairy tale / conflict / aging / pain / ancestors / differences

[Maxwell Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

i’d recommend this to anybody. definitely cool and I liked the way the thought process worked a lot.

[7\]

“mono no aware cannot be captured in a single moment but must be followed through a span of time”

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

this collection has a piece of my heart

[Ian Mccartney]

I don't read enough poetry to give this a star rating, but I did enjoy it. Bleak and funny and some truly beautiful verse and clever callbacks and I don't read poetry much and have to place critiquing it but to me it seemed really good and I'm glad I read it.

Hastily written on phone, may edit later.

[rob 🍫 · Rating 3 out of 5]

creo que me habría gustado más en inglés:(

[Zimmy W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
There was a lot going on in this book, and some of it seemed interspersed sporadically, and without reason. Overall, though, the author weaved together the story brilliantly and I could appreciate how one thought led to another.
I also really love the title and how it was applied; at first, I felt like there was a drop off in mentions of animals, but then I realized the animal was Harold and Chris and/or her relationships with them. It's incredibly brilliant, and when she mentions actual animals, like rats, you can tell she is starting to feel more like herself and less consumed by their toxic relationships.