A Yi

A Yi's crime confessional is interesting not only for its modernization of classics such as Crime and Punishment but its glimpse in the commercialization of the special economic zones in China and the psychological impact on Chinese urban youth. The book is narrated by a young man who plans, executes, and then is punished for murder. The first person narrative and emphasis on observation and societal relationships works because of the Chinese setting. The narrator's performance under the show more eyes of the traditional judicial system, within family ties, and in society as a whole make not just for interesting crime writing but an interesting observation on the pressure traditional Chinese values are under as a result of internal and external pressures. A strong work that only loses so wit and power through translation which is not to say the translation is bad but rather something is always altered between languages. A fun, disturbing and telling read. show less

A Yi’s A Perfect Crime is one of those novels that is certain to draw comparisons to Crime and Punishment or American Psycho. As a first person narrative by a killer who kills for reasons other than greed, love, jealousy or any of the other simple motivations that give us comfort, it falls into that small collection of books that feature murderers whose crimes are presumed to reflect the alienating forces of society.

None of these stories would be interesting if narrated by investigators or show more any third party. Their intensity and their attraction lie in the conceit that we are entering the mind of a murderer, seeing why they do what they do. In this, I think A Yi is perhaps more successful than either Dostoyevsky or Bret Easton Ellis because despite the efforts of the Chinese courts to impose reason on this murder, he really allows it to be about nothing other than boredom and the thrill of being a murderer. This nameless killer has no moral theory to justify his act, he is just bored.

Like many unpopular high school kids, A Yi’s murderer assuages his feelings of rejection and loneliness with contempt. Who would want to be friends with those people anyway? He is bored, he wants more from life, excitement, the thrill of the chase, so he resolves to kill Kong Jie, the one classmate who is friendly and sympathetic. He argues there is a purity in choosing her, because she is such a good person. That may be a self aggrandizing explanation as it is more likely she was the only person he could persuade to come to his home.

And of course he kills her, goes on the run and is terribly frustrated by the incompetence of the police efforts to capture him. At times, it seems almost farcical. Where is the thrill when no one is close to catching him? He even goes to the police station to charge his phone. Eventually, with diligent efforts on his part, he is caught, there is a trial and there we see the desperate efforts by those who represent society as a whole to find a reason for the murder. This is all too human. We do not want to accept that people kill for the thrill of it. We want there to be some childhood trauma, some slight, some need, some reason, no matter how tenuous. We want to know why.

A Perfect Crime is a Chinese novel by a Beijing writer and it is his first work to be translated and published in English. In some ways it seems quaint, this need by the police and the court to understand the motivation, their shock and revulsion that someone would murder out of boredom. Here in the United States, we are inured to that kind of perpetrator. Leopold and Loeb were shocking but that’s eighty years ago. When our narrator is disappointed there is a bigger wanted poster for a man who killed seventeen people, he sounds just like most of the far too long list of killers who kill for excitement and celebrity. They are common as dirt.

This is one of those books that is written with a fast, propulsive prose that keeps you reading. For all its grim subject matter and brutality, there are moments of with and humor, even a bit of slapstick when the killer, fleeing police does a classic “he went that away” sort of misdirection. It is short, which makes it something you can finish in one bite if you have a couple hours to read. That is good, because it is discomfiting to be in the head of someone so callous and enraged. The narrator is observant of people, seems to have a keen insight at times. He is interesting even while being morally repugnant.

I cannot say I enjoyed A Perfect Crime, but I don’t think A Yi wrote it for anyone to enjoy. It is a book that asks us to think about society, about why we produce these monsters. Given the rate at which we do it here in the US, it’s a good question.

A Perfect Crime was provided by LibraryThing which holds a monthly drawing for review copies of recent releases.

http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/04/10/a-perfect-crime-by-a-yi/ show less

The mystery in this modern Chinese morality tale is not ‘whodunit’. We share the killer’s perspective as he plans and enacts bloody murder and a subsequent escape. No mystery there. Instead, the mystery is ‘whydunit’. Why would a young man choose to obliterate a friendly classmate, effectively ending both their lives in violent cruelty?

This slim novel is far removed from a conventional crime-thriller. Instead it’s an examination of motive, an attempt to understand the show more incomprehensible collapse of morality in 21st century society.

So, no mystery – but plenty of plot as the youthful killer goes on the run. We share his encounters with the sordid side of small town citizens. His essentially empty internal existence is echoed in the everyday examples of corruption and callousness which he encounters at each turn. Can the system bring him to justice? Who will be held responsible for his crimes? Indeed, who is responsible for his crimes?

It’s deeply unsettling stuff which challenges the standard conventions of the crime genre. You can read ‘A Perfect Crime’ simply at its superficial level, but there’s much more going on in its murky depths. What initially appears to be a psychological investigation into a single sociopath has far broader relevance to China's recent political, societal, familial and economic upheavals. This isn't a book about one unhinged individual: it's a book about a society that's fraying at the seams...

The text does suffer from the odd editing glitch here and there, but these rarely interrupt the flow.

A perfect novel for readers who enjoy explicit, challenging literary fiction. But don’t expect the ending to deliver tidy resolutions – this is a story which provokes many more questions than it answers.

8/10
There's a longer review of this book at:-
https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/a-perfect-crime/ show less

A Perfect Crime by A Yi delves into the troubled mind of a psychopath attempting to find meaning in a society he considers dehumanizing. The story begins as he concludes his only course of action is to commit the perfect murder. The existential crisis presented is similar to Crime and Punishment, and the like, but darker. It is a genuinely creepy and disturbing book. Despite that creepiness, it is hard to put down.
The book occasionally suffers from being a translation from the original show more Chinese, but Yi’s voice still comes through. He writes about a world of where technology is a “whore” that lures us to believe that meaningfulness is defined by the time spent on the news cycle. His wry observations of the absurd recall Vonnegut.
I want to thank Library Thing Early Reviews and Point Blank Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book. Disclaimer: The publisher gave me an advanced copy in exchange for this review. show less