New York's Thirteen Dreams

Author: He Dan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: Like a dream, with the torment of life and the despair of love, the protagonist of the story, Jia Wen, flees alone to the United States. The foreign scenery does not alleviate his inner pain; the cruelty of survival, the unpredictability of human relationships, and the uncertainties of fate nearly drain Jia Wen's body. The bitterness of wandering and exile compels Jia Wen to constantly question himself: What is love? What is life? Where is his home? The unanswerable fundamental questions leave Jia Wen adrift between reality and fantasy, like Prometheus chained by the gods, unable to break free from his unbearable suffering. In the end, Jia Wen achieves complete awakening: the truth of life does not lie in how much one possesses, but in how much one understands. Thus, Jia Wen breaks free from his confusion and embarks on his journey back to his homeland, as the ending of the story says, tasting the bitterness of life from the clarity of water.
The novel uses the brushwork of prose and a semi-traditional, semi-stream-of-consciousness writing style to interpret the confusion and reflections of people born in the 1970s about life and love.