superborb

First, I'm just going to point you to Erin's much funnier and more thorough review.

The premise of the story is Shen Jianguo, a just-graduated PhD student of Ideological and Political Communication, is in search of a job! He answers a Mysterious Teaching Ad and finds himself teaching some unusual students (ghosts! They're obviously ghosts!!). Ostensibly a danmei, the love interest, Ning Tiance, shows up and is obviously an exorcist!

This is even better than ISMM as a first novel to read in Chinese, as it relies much less on references for the joke, and uses relatively straightforward prose. Also the vocab can mostly be found in a dictionary, though I guess I have MDZS to thank for me knowing 乱葬岗 (burial mounds) in advance. Useful daily life vocab in other words. (There was actually useful vocab like 同妻/同夫 for beard.) And if you don't know Chinese or want to check against a translation, GREAT NEWS, the E. Danglars translation is one of the best fan translations I've ever encountered.

As usual, I'll start with the good. The shenanigans while SJG was oblivious to ghosts and just powering through being all "THE RIGHTEOUS WAY": hilarious. (Since the main text is through SJG's eyes, I did rely on the author's notes to understand some of the double meanings, but I may not have been paying enough attention.) I also really enjoyed the varied and interesting backstories on some of the ghosts! Even though they obviously had sad lives, the SJG POV spares you from the brunt of it: while he's not unsympathetic to those problems, he's very optimistic. The matter-of-fact acceptance of his homosexuality and how his friendship with his (male) college friend, Xia Jin, are portrayed are also top notch.

The novel is hyperfocused on the ghosts' emotional barriers to moving on, and doesn't go beyond this scope. (i.e. bringing crimes to the attention of the authorities is sufficient redress etc.) However, that's clearly not in the intended scope of a lighter novel. I felt like I would have enjoyed more ghost backstories or more development of NTC? OTOH, the author was clearly ready to wrap up by the end, since the chapters get really short, so maybe dragging it on longer would not have been fun. Indeed, the first three extras, that are a retelling of the novel from the POV of NTC are largely boring. To me, the ending is simultaneously a little slow AND too short as a result, since not much new was happening but also words had to explain how it was wrapping up?

In short, I'd recommend this as a fun light novel, with great shenanigans, unreliable (oblivious?) narrator, and a charming protag.

In other news, I'm so pleased that danmei book club has finished a SECOND BOOK, go us! I'm not sure if we'll do another, since a 4 ch/wk pace is... really too slow for a longer novel? But if you're potentially interested, shoot me a message! We're considering other short-ish light novels.