This story has all the hallmarks of a dystopian novel as it describes a period of environment collapse with widespread starvation and political turmoil. It's also a utopian story because it's about a dubious attempt to build a refuge to sustain the lives of select humans and animals. Zhang's potent descriptions successfully evoke both these genres, but it's more about highlighting the inequalities and moral conundrums which already exist in our society. The unnamed narrator describes a time in her life when the world was in turmoil while she was turning thirty. She's an American whose Chinese mother emigrated to the States, but found herself stuck in the United Kingdom after the borders closed when a crop killing smog covered the world. As a trained chef, she must work with dwindling ingredients and finds her chances of returning to the US are unlikely given the debt she's accrued. However, she finds an opportunity to work in a newly formed country for the elite on an Italian mountain top where the altitude allows rare access to the sun. As it turns out, her employment is less about her cooking skills and more about her profile. She's led into a scheme where the wealthy bargain to hoard/preserve what's left of the environment. This is an imaginative drama which challenges notions of hunger and nourishment in a world of hierarchies.
It's ironic that as soon as she arrives at this new country with access to a plentiful larder of ingredients she completely loses her appetite. So much so that it needs to be written into her contract that she needs to maintain a certain level of weight for her health. Being presented with a bounty of choice, she questions what she really desires. The narrator also engages in an affair with the sinister founder's entrepreneurial daughter whose appetite is voracious. Though it appears that this underdog has lucked out in landing somewhere that can sustain all her needs (including keeping wilful cat) this employment comes with many compromises. She ominously states at one point that “It has always been easy to disappear as an Asian woman.” Her experiences raise issues regarding how much we're willing to minimise ourselves and kowtow to power in order to survive when what really sustains us may be something very different.
Zhang has an evocative way of giving a sinister tone to what should be an idyllic setting. The narrator observes how “the sun mashed yellow against the edge of another relentlessly beautiful day”. Equally, the bountiful amount of fine and rare ingredients she works with comes to feel less delectable and more nauseating. It's a creative way to confound the senses and make the reader question what's really desirable. Sometimes the lyricism of Zhang's prose can obfuscate the action of the story so I'd feel confused about what's actually happening both in the immediate scene and in the wider world. However, the overall impression is impactful. When you step back it also appears less like fantasy and more like reality since the rich relish dining on rare ingredients or indulge in consuming the last of a certain breed. Equally, the less fortunate subsist on tasteless mass-manufactured staples. The narrator asserts that “Real food is whatever cooks are proud to make.” Surviving in a world of brash inequality with dignity is in some ways the greatest challenge and I enjoyed following this character's dramatic journey.
