Review: The Stolen Bicycle

The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-Yi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-Yi was recommended to me by a friend a few years ago.  This was pre-COVID times when a year actually had a reliable, set value.  You could still measure time with it.  Now, not so much.  That is my very long way of telling you it took me a very, long time to read this book.  By now my friend has probably forgotten why they recommended this book to me in the first place.  I'm going to speculate it was for one of the following reasons:  

The book is mainly set in Taiwan and intersperses Taiwanese, Japanese, and Mandarin along with history of those countries.  My friend and I both speak Chinese, so that would be a good reason.  It did bring back a lot of memories.  

The second possibility is the bicycle reverence.   The main character collects and restores bicycles.  Almost every character's story relates to at least one bicycle.  Bicycles, as the title suggests, are the bond that holds the story together.  I've been known to love my bicycles.  I still have my first bikes.  Having my favorite bike stolen was devastating.  It had been to several countries with me.  Parts worn out and replaced because I didn't want to give it up.  Then, it was gone much like the titular bicycle.  

The third reason might be the elephant and other animals.  Although if that was the reason, it is questionable as some really terrible things happen with many of the animals and my friend knows I can't stomach that, even a little bit.  I had to skim, skim, skim to avoid the horror.  I do love elephants though and this reminded me of my own experiences with them.  Elephants always seem to like me.  

Maybe it was none of those reasons, but if any of that sounds interesting to you, you might want to pick up this book.

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