I Deliver Parcels in Beijing
In place of a conventional narrative, it stalls, circles and meanders ... It lacks even the basic and orienting comforts of linear structure ... At its best, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is hypnotic; at its worst, it is boring — but then, it is about dull and repetitive work, and its own occasional lapses into monotony are apt. Mostly, it is engrossing despite, or because of, its lack of the usual bells and whistles ... Does not glorify the exhausting work of a courier. Hu is candid about the indignities and inconveniences he weathered on the job ... Quietly revolutionary simply because it treats the minutiae of work itself as important.
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Although this book is full of illuminating and often startling detail, it is written in flat, one-note prose that I found uninviting. Its deadpan, faux-naif quality has echoes of Haruki Murakami, but without Murakami’s surreal switchbacks or storytelling power ... For all this book’s fascinating anthropological insights, I was left wondering if its bestselling success in China was the result of an authorial tone, and a cultural context, that has been lost in transit.
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There is no trace of self-pity ... His deadpan humour helps with the tone, to capture the funnier moments of his career ... Like the work, the book is repetitive.
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