Mo Yan

Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature!

He's my favorite author and he's had Nobel hype for years. It's so exciting that he finally won!

The first book of his that I read was Red Sorghum. It was assigned for a Chinese Literature in Translation course. I was only auditing the class and could only read part of it before I had to turn my attention elsewhere. But, I liked it so much that I went back and finished it after the semester was over.

The movie Red Sorghum dramatises the first part of the novel. The opening scenes of Happy Times are based on one of the short stories in Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh.

The Garlic Ballads is my favorite book by him.

I prefer is earlier stuff to his later stuff. The shorter works are tighter and more accessible. His later works seem like a Nobel bid, but are still very good. Overall his writing is marked by a visceral lushness that I'm not used to seeing from Chinese prose, which is usually sparse in its descriptions. Many of his works are touched by a magic realism that brings to mind Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

AND! When writing up this blog post I see that many of his works are available for FREE for Amazon Prime members through the lending library and many are priced at bargain prices to own the Kindle version. Take advantage while you can, especially of the three titles I mentioned in this post.


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In the Shadow of History

I like the idea of blogging with music, so we're going to start doing that. Now, when I link to a song, it's through Napster, which is now 100% legit. The song is free and you don't need to log into anything to listen to it. The way it's legit is that you can only listen 3 times (to each song) before it asks you to buy that particular track.

Today's song is... We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel.

Also, I'm now allowed to officially announce that I'm part of the Cybils awesomeness that is once again happening this year. I'm helping with the Middle Grade/ Young Adult non-fiction. Nominations start on October 1st, so start thinking and then get over there!!!!

Also, I'm hanging out at Geek Buffet today blogging about the morals of Communist Kitsch Chic.

And now, a book. It's one of those ones for grown-up type people.

Big Breasts & Wide Hips: A Novel by Mo Yan

Now, to preface this, I have to say that Mo Yan is my favorite author. Hands down. His depictions of Modern China are wonderful and his language is lush. So lush, especially when compared to most other Chinese prose. I almost puked Red Sorghum reading the scenes in when the Japanese invaded. I could taste the garlic while reading The Garlic Ballads.

Not everything he writes gets translated, so a new Mo Yan novel is to be savored. To the point where I've owned this for a few years now and never read it. It just sat on the shelf, waiting. Waiting for a time when I could pick it up and read it slowly and fully enjoy it.

Now, it was a perfectly fine book. But not one of his best, leaving it a bit of a disappointment.

The story is of the Shangguan family, who live in Northeast Gaomi Country in Shandong Province (almost all of Mo Yan's works take place here).

Shangguan Jintong is the only boy in a family of 9 sisters. He's obsessed with breasts, particularly those of his mother-- he isn't fully weaned until around the age of 17. This novel tracks the family through the 20th century-- a pretty tumultuous time in Chinese history. Unlike most historical novels, history isn't a main character--it's just a small part of the background noise, with a few exceptions. Because of this, I'm wondering how much sense parts of it will make to people not acquainted in modern Chinese history. The section leading up to WWII and going through the success of the Communist Revolution is confusing at best. Now, it was confusing to those who lived through it, too, but...

According to the introduction, Mo Yan wanted to write a story feauturing strong female characters. Now, most of his work features strong female characters and, outside the character of Mother, I'm not entirely sure this one does. Many of the sisters are introduced and then disappear. Many are not well fleshed out and I wouldn't call all of them strong by any means.

Now, if this had been by anyone else besides Mo Yan, I'd be much more enthusiastic about it, but I expected more of him.

Now, to eagerly await the March release of Life and Death are Wearing Me Out. In the meantime, if you haven't read his work yet, pick up a copy of Red Sorghum-- you won't be disappointed.