Mo Yan: Pow!

[Liam]

*From the Amazon blurb:

"A benign old monk listens to a prospective novice's tale of depravity, violence, and carnivorous excess while a nice little family drama--in which nearly everyone dies--unfurls. But in this tale of sharp hatchets, bad water, and a rusty WWII mortar, we can't help but laugh.

Reminiscent of the novels of dark masters of European absurdism like Günter Grass, Witold Gombrowicz, or Jakov Lind, Mo Yan's Pow! is a comic masterpiece.

In this bizarre romp through the Chinese countryside, the author treats us to a cornucopia of cooked animal flesh--ostrich, camel, donkey, dog, as well as the more common varieties. As his dual narratives merge and feather into one another, each informing and illuminating the other, Yan probes the character and lifestyle of modern China.

Displaying his many talents, as fabulist, storyteller, scatologist, master of allusion and cliché, and more, Pow! carries the reader along quickly, hungrily, and giddily, up until its surprising dénouement.

Yan has been called one of the great novelists of modern Chinese literature and the New York Times Book Review has hailed his work as harsh and gritty, raunchy and funny. He writes big, sometimes mystifying, sometimes infuriating, but always entertaining novels--and Pow! is no exception."

[Dante Amaral]

There are two different attitudes toward Modern Chinese Literature. One is that Chinese literature is flourishing and growing and moving toward a positive future with various writers publishing large quantities of characteristic works representing modern China in all-round, all-respect and all-considerate perspectives; the other is quite negative and cynical in saying that there's no literature in modern China for the reasons: a. the reformation of Chinese language--abolishing the ancient language and adopting the standardized Chinese language which many foreigners are learning--has created an irreparable rupture between the ancient (or classice) Chinese literature and the modern. It makes the language lose the brevity and rhythmical beauty as well as the esoteric attributes and profundity that those old words had carried. The reformation of language or the commonizaton of it is aimed at the popularity and easy accessibility among ordinary people (very possible for the purpose of government's control over them); b. Many books are similar in their themes which will include corruption in politics and loss of morality in society, which come up to take large part of the content, turning the books into mere propaganda for another version of unrealistic or desperate political aspirations. While the subject or the humanity appears to be reduced or diminished by the social or political constructs. The books become a stack of (usually unsophisticated) statements rather than actual pieces of writings.

Back to Mo Yan. I liked his pen name. In Chinese, it means "don't speak", "hold thy tongue" or "say no more." Therefore, I tried to read him a little bit, but those book titles with political implications and deliberate mythical allusions discourage me greatly. I can't remember which book I have chosen that time but I do remember casting the book away for the impossibility to continue to read those nagging and obviously forced-in words. Modern Chinese writers don't care or even know how to use proper words in proper places, and they have to enforce their ideas rather than putting them out easily with careful artistry.

I haven't seen any English translation of his works. It might be different in translation, I would not know. It is ridiculous to say he's Chinese Kafka.

D.

[Liam]

I can't remember which book I have chosen that time but I do remember casting the book away for the impossibility to continue to read those nagging and obviously forced-in words.

So what do you think of Mo Yan's winning the Nobel Prize, D? And what is the general sentiment in China at the moment? Are your countrymen proud or indifferent, or something else entirely?

[Rhoda]

I'd second D's comment. Mo's "political implications and deliberate mythical allusions" repel me too. As to his winning the prize, it is sorrowful to see that people are more concerned with the prize than the works or literature.

[Hamlet]

There are two different attitudes toward Modern Chinese Literature. One is that Chinese literature is flourishing and growing and moving toward a positive future with various writers publishing large quantities of characteristic works representing modern China in all-round, all-respect and all-considerate perspectives; the other is quite negative and cynical in saying that there's no literature in modern China for the reasons: a. the reformation of Chinese language--abolishing the ancient language and adopting the standardized Chinese language which many foreigners are learning--has created an irreparable rupture between the ancient (or classice) Chinese literature and the modern. It makes the language lose the brevity and rhythmical beauty as well as the esoteric attributes and profundity that those old words had carried. The reformation of language or the commonizaton of it is aimed at the popularity and easy accessibility among ordinary people (very possible for the purpose of government's control over them); b. Many books are similar in their themes which will include corruption in politics and loss of morality in society, which come up to take large part of the content, turning the books into mere propaganda for another version of unrealistic or desperate political aspirations. While the subject or the humanity appears to be reduced or diminished by the social or political constructs. The books become a stack of (usually unsophisticated) statements rather than actual pieces of writings.

Back to Mo Yan. I liked his pen name. In Chinese, it means "don't speak", "hold thy tongue" or "say no more." Therefore, I tried to read him a little bit, but those book titles with political implications and deliberate mythical allusions discourage me greatly. I can't remember which book I have chosen that time but I do remember casting the book away for the impossibility to continue to read those nagging and obviously forced-in words. Modern Chinese writers don't care or even know how to use proper words in proper places, and they have to enforce their ideas rather than putting them out easily with careful artistry.

I haven't seen any English translation of his works. It might be different in translation, I would not know. It is ridiculous to say he's Chinese Kafka.

D.

Is this an inevitable problem of one big joined up country where it's desirable to have everybody being able to understand everybody else, despite what it might do to the culture and language at a local level?

We've listened to a few TV/radio debates over here recently about this topic, and with respect to the Chinese languages, you hear about debates in China on the sheer number of symbols to learn alone and the time it takes to acquire them mentally, and of course the desirability of "reducing" those symbols to aid clarity?

... but as we say, you can tend to throw out the baby with the bathwater sometimes, if you're not too careful. This is desirable perhaps from an economic perspective, but culturally??

I've also come across (quite by chance) similar 'cultural' damage debates concerning many other countries, in the USA, everybody is endlessly circulating/moving with their jobs, especially city to city... so an effect or consequence is that the local dialects are being watereds down slowly and will ultimately be lost...

By chance...just ordered a book from Amazon about France, "The Discovery of France", essentially about the history of France as a nation of many different peoples and dialects which more or less had a centralised Parisian model imposed upon it.

Unless I'm imagining it, there seems to be a current trend and steady growth towards smaller areas, provinces, counties, what-have-yous who are seeking out their old identities in c21.

Post-finanacial crisis, there have also been predictions of Spain breaking up, i believe, into its various disparate and large regions.

It seems exaggerated, but perhaps not entirely impossible.

We've had Scottish and Welsh independence debates over here recently, and things have happened of course, and where I am, some folks regard the next village as foreigners and the seagulls as impositioning miscreants, who should get back to the bloody sea!

Less fish in the sea, so we get seagulls coming inland aplenty now, squawking away...

...just as we all do on here!