Self-published in 1935 by Chinese émigré and literary trickster Tsiang, whose wildly original novels withered in the shadow of Pearl Buck’s more commercially palatable Orientalism, this raucous proletarian satire is delightfully disarming. Thumbing his nose at the earnest social realism fashionable among leftist authors of the day, Tsiang (1899–1971) relates the progress of his bourgeois everyman Mr. Nut toward class-consciousness in a bracing, declarative style with an antic irreverence all its own. Questioning his allegiance to Mr. System’s pitiless capitalism, the down-at-heels Nut mulls the gangsterism of Mr. Wiseguy and the revolutionary zeal of Miss Stubborn, before conceiving the bold piece of suicidal agitprop referenced in the title.
VERDICT Redolent of the creative and political ferment of Depression-era New York, this transgressive mashup of Karl and Groucho Marx resurrects a marginalized Asian American provocateur far fresher and more entertaining than most of his contemporaries. A revelation.
Comment Policy:
Comment should not be empty !!!