Next, areas to receive gold or silver were covered with a sticky material such as refined red clay or tree sap, over which the metal leaf was laid. Synopsis from the publisher: "Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this blazing debut about one family's queer desires, violent impulses, and buried secrets. K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. I really wanted to love this as the premise sounded so promising - the Goodreads blurb describes the novel as "a lyrical and electrifying novel of migration, queer lineages and girlhood" - but it was too fantastical and bizarre for my liking.

The unicorn became one of the most beloved animals in art of the period, largely due to its connection to Christ. Bestiary is crafted at the scale of epic poetry: origin stories that feel at once gravely older than their years, yet viscerally contemporary. Because medieval Christians understood every element of the world as a manifestation of God, the book largely focused on each animal’s religious meaning. The writing is very poetic at times, very gritty and it’s like the scene is right before your eyes, so at first it was heavily reminiscent of Han Kang’s prose. The storytelling is saturated with surrealism, so much so that the main plot arc is nearly lost in the multiple myths and magical realist fables woven in.

There is a lot of imagery of body parts and bodily fluids, as well as a decent amount of violence and crude language. Selected and with an introduction by the National Book Award Winner Nikki Finney, Bestiary questions what it is that makes us human, that makes us whole. And I’m only scratching the surface, there’s a lot of really strange imagery that, more often than not, didn’t work for me. Family, immigrant, queer, magic realist—none of these tags can quite capture the energy of this startling novel, which is all of those things, yet somehow more.

The format of the story had me feeling lost as well, seeing as the family/immigration narrative was so heavily spliced with fantastical lore. I named every hole-species I knew: wells; wombs; wounds; spots in the wall where my brother stuck his pencil through, thinking the walls would scab on their own, and when they didn’t, he sealed them with his boogers and let them petrify into stone; lakes; seas, which meant most of the world was a hole, which meant I was native to holes, animal burrows, anuses, atlases. So cherished were these vividly imagined beasts, they often “escaped” from manuscripts to inhabit other art works made during the medieval period, and even up to the present day. The character development was limited, and it often felt like a string of disconnected events cobbled together into an incoherent narrative.

Every line of this sensuous, magical-realist marvel-about multiple generations of Taiwanese-American women in Arkansas whose lives are imbued with cultural and familial myth-is utterly alive. If it was to tell a story of immigration, lineage and personal history, I’m not sure if it’s entirely successful. There is something disgustingly magical about this book and it in my bookshelf so I can savor things properly. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. Adam Naming the Animals from Northumberland Bestiary (text in Latin), English, about 1250–1260, artist unknown.

All the while, Daughter is falling for a neighbourhood girl named Ben with mysterious stories of her own. In almost every animal there is some way to connect it to a lesson from the church or a familiar religious story.In Tayal legends, there are four types of animals, the beasts, the humans, the snakes, and the birds. I initially read BESTIARY in ebook format and it didn't help with my reading experience - this format compromised the letters structure and footnotes.

If you're looking for a literary fiction novel that will shock you, then definitely check out Bestiary.From the familiar to the improbable, the gross to the endearing, The Modern Bestiary is a compendium of curious creatures. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish the book and made it about of a quarter into it before I had to stop.