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Reading is a lot like life
Everyone in the PRC has their stories about the Cultural Revolution. It's unavoidable, given the incomparable scope of the upheaval. If they didn't live through it themselves, they have the accounts of their family and family friends. From the point of view of the average American, these stories are all incredible. They are also, after a while, much alike. I've read enough of them by now that as I soon as I see the words "during the Cultural Revolution" on the blurb for a book, my eyes glaze over and I slip it back onto the shelf.
So if I'd know that Su Tong's 河岸 (The boat to redemption) covered the period 1966-1977, I never would've picked it up. But not only was that information kept from me in what I read about it, it was concealed in the text itself until fairly late in the game. Hidden in plain view, really. I'm sure the average Chinese reader can chronologise the events almost exactly based entirely on the political slogans worked into the dialogue. To me, however, they just sounded Maoist. So all I really had to go on were the frequent mentioned of Chiang Kai-shek, which revealed the setting to be sometime after 1949 and before the General's death in 1975.
It's not that politics are entirely absent from the novel, it's just that the focus is so entirely on how they play out in a very restricted milieu that major turning points--such as the death of Mao--are never even mentioned. I found that extremely refreshing. The protagonists are so relentlessly oblivious to politics that it's a wonder they survive. Their status as boat people acts as a mysterious shield against the consequences of upsetting the landbound authorities.
Naturally, it's ripe with allegory and symbolism. The fact that many of the characters are so apolitical and reactive is itself a commentary on the futility of trying to whether the reversals of policy and administrative chaos of the period. One of the reviews I peeped at described the book as "picaresque", but I think that's an overstatement. There definitely is an arc to the story, it just isn't as complete or as evident as in other superficially similar novels. Su is still fascinated with the ways people are horrible to each other but also (moreso than I recall from reading Rice) with the ways they develop ties of affection.
But what really carried me through this book was the humour. Su has an ear for vulgar dialogue; every interaction involves a harangue, and some of the insults and imprecations had me laughing out loud. The narrator is sensitive, but not too much, and has an impetuous streak that undermines him at every turn. No matter what, he cannot stop paying for the crimes of his father, and he develops a debilitating fascination with a woman who's just as haughty and shortsighted as he is.
From that, I went right to Kawabata's 雪国 (Snow country in Seidensticker's translation). Fittingly, I chose to put off reading it until there was snow on the ground and finished it this afternoon, just as it began to melt a bit. Here the allegorical nature of the setting is much more explicit, and might have grown ponderous if the text weren't so short. The economy is amazing; entire scenes are sketched with a few deft sentences. Once or twice this left me confused for a few pages (notably at the beginning of Part 2) but in general it was very effective.
Now I've moved on to Dai Sijie's Par une nuit où la lune ne s'est pas levée (Once on a moonless night), but I'm not sure I'll stick with it. For starters, it breaks my rule of not reading something in translation when I know the language well enough to read the original. And he's kicked off with one of my least favourite opening gambits ever: a brief frame story leading to the introduction of a character ("from another age", predictably) who is the mouthpiece for an exposition dump delivered in implausible circumstances (in this case, on a tramcar) in a ridiculously literary style. (At one point, a historical figure's name is even followed by birth and death dates!) I know basically nothing about the narrator and so far his account is an unconvincing mélanage of dry history, precious fantasy, and salacious palace gossip. But, hey, there's a pomo twist coming up apparently, so I guess I'll hold on until then or until something else shinier catches my eye.
So if I'd know that Su Tong's 河岸 (The boat to redemption) covered the period 1966-1977, I never would've picked it up. But not only was that information kept from me in what I read about it, it was concealed in the text itself until fairly late in the game. Hidden in plain view, really. I'm sure the average Chinese reader can chronologise the events almost exactly based entirely on the political slogans worked into the dialogue. To me, however, they just sounded Maoist. So all I really had to go on were the frequent mentioned of Chiang Kai-shek, which revealed the setting to be sometime after 1949 and before the General's death in 1975.
It's not that politics are entirely absent from the novel, it's just that the focus is so entirely on how they play out in a very restricted milieu that major turning points--such as the death of Mao--are never even mentioned. I found that extremely refreshing. The protagonists are so relentlessly oblivious to politics that it's a wonder they survive. Their status as boat people acts as a mysterious shield against the consequences of upsetting the landbound authorities.
Naturally, it's ripe with allegory and symbolism. The fact that many of the characters are so apolitical and reactive is itself a commentary on the futility of trying to whether the reversals of policy and administrative chaos of the period. One of the reviews I peeped at described the book as "picaresque", but I think that's an overstatement. There definitely is an arc to the story, it just isn't as complete or as evident as in other superficially similar novels. Su is still fascinated with the ways people are horrible to each other but also (moreso than I recall from reading Rice) with the ways they develop ties of affection.
But what really carried me through this book was the humour. Su has an ear for vulgar dialogue; every interaction involves a harangue, and some of the insults and imprecations had me laughing out loud. The narrator is sensitive, but not too much, and has an impetuous streak that undermines him at every turn. No matter what, he cannot stop paying for the crimes of his father, and he develops a debilitating fascination with a woman who's just as haughty and shortsighted as he is.
From that, I went right to Kawabata's 雪国 (Snow country in Seidensticker's translation). Fittingly, I chose to put off reading it until there was snow on the ground and finished it this afternoon, just as it began to melt a bit. Here the allegorical nature of the setting is much more explicit, and might have grown ponderous if the text weren't so short. The economy is amazing; entire scenes are sketched with a few deft sentences. Once or twice this left me confused for a few pages (notably at the beginning of Part 2) but in general it was very effective.
Now I've moved on to Dai Sijie's Par une nuit où la lune ne s'est pas levée (Once on a moonless night), but I'm not sure I'll stick with it. For starters, it breaks my rule of not reading something in translation when I know the language well enough to read the original. And he's kicked off with one of my least favourite opening gambits ever: a brief frame story leading to the introduction of a character ("from another age", predictably) who is the mouthpiece for an exposition dump delivered in implausible circumstances (in this case, on a tramcar) in a ridiculously literary style. (At one point, a historical figure's name is even followed by birth and death dates!) I know basically nothing about the narrator and so far his account is an unconvincing mélanage of dry history, precious fantasy, and salacious palace gossip. But, hey, there's a pomo twist coming up apparently, so I guess I'll hold on until then or until something else shinier catches my eye.