The Invisibility Cloak, by Ge Fei

Translated by Canaan Morse

(2012, translated 2016)

(Novella)

Ge’s hero is Mr. Cui, a skilled and principled craftsperson who lives in Beijing. Cui is a man who has suffered many losses. He rightly laments that one of the consequences of his nation’s rush to industrialization and embrace of Socialism with Chinese characteristics is that his country has blackened the name of the craftsperson and almost totally eradicated the artisanal class. The state trains him as a tailor, someone who could build a man a full suit from a bolt of fabric and thread, but he has a special affinity for electronics. His late father owned a radio repair shop. He learns to repair televisions, all manner of light machinery, and in the end, he finds that his true joy rests in designing and building increasingly expensive custom-made hi-fi systems. He finds himself making money hand over fist in the late 80s and 90s, but then the market for high-end sound systems plateaus. Now and then a childhood friend who made his fortune in manufacturing sportswear still manages to send him a customer with deep pockets, but our hero is in financial straits. Cui married the woman of his dreams, the classically beautiful and emotionally vacant Yufen, and though she left years ago, he still obsesses over her and lives his days in extreme isolation.  His mother has died and he lives with her sister and her husband. The latter is tired of his presence in their home and concoct increasingly outlandish schemes to drive him out. Unfortunately, the hero is so smitten by beautiful music and his worship of the perfect sound that he can not find his way to leaving his small but convenient room. At this point, his old friend introduces him to Ding Caichen, a man who is clearly a major player in organized crime. Ding is surrounded by an air of mystery and menace–he is even rumored to possess an invisibility cloak that has helped him escape more than one life-or-death situation. Ding hires Cui to construct the best sound system in the world, a challenge that inspires Cui to take a phenomenal financial risk. The author’s portrayal of his star-crossed hero is genuinely human: Cui is a bit of a chump, but for all of his faults he is quite endearing. Ge also presents us with a China where the elite live in gated compounds and the average citizen struggles to make ends meet in sub-standard and unhealthy housing, a world where Confucianism has been replaced with dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself competition. The Invisibility Cloak is a sharp-tongued, hilarious send-up of class, audiophiles, materialism, corruption, love, and the never-ending quest for beauty.

“Who knew that such a beautiful place could be hidden away in the suburbs of Beijing! As I wound down the narrow mountain road, a feeling of awe washed over me, as well as feelings of sorrow and resentment for being excluded. You can’t help but admire the sense of smell the wealthy possess. Even at the edges of a foul, trash-infested city, they always find a way to hunt down the last patches of pristine territory and claim them as their own.”