No one and nothing may be trusted in Five Spice Street, the first of Can Xue’s full-length novels to be translated into English.
In the neighborhood where the story is set—a three-mile-long street actually—nothing is certain.
There is no one truth.
Doubt overshadows everything.
In this story, a dissonant chorus of voices argues, interrupts, disrupts, contradicts, and gossips, forcing everything into flux.
Static, distortion, and noise rule here.
As “the writer” suggests:
The crowds on Five Spice Street always had to think everything through every which way: they never reached a verdict lightly, and would never give up on a riddle just because they were temporarily stumped: they had to give it hard thought; if they couldn’t solve it, they would keep their eyes open.
Sometimes, a small matter could trigger their thoughts for a long time, and another small matter could suddenly enlighten them.