For the last month or so I’ve been really stressed out at work. When I get into a state like that I tend to look for books that help giving me a new perspective on the situation. That’s how I found Mo Yan’s Life and Death are Wearing Me Out, the story of Ximen Nao, a landlord from Shandong province who is executed by the Communists on New Year’s
Day 1950 and spends the next 50 years being reincarnated as a series of different animals as he attempts to redeem himself and make his way back up the evolutionary ladder to become a human being again.
The hook to this story is Ximen Nao doesn’t drink the mind-erasing soup when leaving the underworld and he can remember his life as a man as well as all previous animals. This comes in handy as Ximen Nao witnesses the rise and evolution of the People’s Republic of China from a feudal society to a government-controlled state to something in between. He also sees the effects these changes have on his former farmhand and his two concubines and their descendants as they try to make their way and fight for their place within the new Communist state.
Mo Yan makes sure that this isn’t only a history lesson or an emotional family drama, the story is also full of humor. It comes courtesy of Ximen Nao’s reactions to his animal attributes and Mo Yan who inserted himself in the story as a butt of many of the village’s jokes and criticism.
The one stressful factor about this book is its length. It clocks in at 540 pages and since it has a large complex cast of characters readers will be frequently stopping trying to keep who is who and who is married to who straight so it’s going to take a typical reader one to two weeks to finish. Translator Howard Goldblatt has included a cast of characters document at the beginning of the book as well as a guide to pinyin pronunciation, but I think only seasoned Mandarin speakers can easily keep the characters’ names straight due to the slight differences in the spellings of their names. Overall though this is a book that will help take you away from life’s stresses for a couple hours of fantasy enjoyment.
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June 28, 2008
4:48 am
Sounds like there’s a lot of room for humor there - the idea of remembering past lives as you reincarnate as various animals could become quite slap stick unless the author cares about his or her characters - looks like there’s no trouble of that happening here.
I’ve been keen to read anything on Chinese history, historical fiction or straight out non-fiction, since I read Yuan Tsang Chen’s book “Return to Middle Kingdom”, which chronicles 3 generations of her husbands family fighting through 3 separate revolutions. It’s a great book for anyone wanting to learn more about the birth of modern China, and because of it I found this blog and your review and will now seek out Mo Yan’s book. Nice one, thanks!
June 28, 2008
4:51 am
[...] also been doing some serious reading again. I finished Chinese novelist Mo Yan’s Life and Death are Wearing Me Out and am now devouring Douglas Coupland’s The Gum Thief. The two novels are different in [...]
June 28, 2008
4:54 am
[...] One More Quick Note Jump to Comments For those of you who didn’t click on the links in my last post, I’ve started to write for Lost Laowai again. You can find my latest post here. [...]
June 28, 2008
5:08 am
Yes there definitely is a lot of humour spaced out in between the pages to make it really enjoyable. Thanks for the recommendation I will check it out.
J.
June 29, 2008
11:33 am
Mo Yan is excellent. I have enjoyed all the books I have read of his. Red Sorghum and the Garlic Ballads are just two of his books that I found exceptional.
The only bad outcome from reading his books might be a little less respect for how Zhang Yimou always changes Mo Yan’s stories to become movies. Night and day really.
June 29, 2008
6:08 pm
John - you do well to populate my “to read” list. Cheers man.
@Sean - Do you know of a director that doesn’t do that? I think the fact of it is, it is a rare literary work that directly translates well to the screen.
July 1, 2008
4:58 pm
This sounds awesome. Some historical insight with entertainment value as well. I just placed an order for a copy. Been itching for something good to read lately.
July 2, 2008
3:55 pm
@Ryan,
While I totally agree, I feel like Zhang Yimou has really gutted the work of Mo Yan to a degree where it is completely unrecognizable.