It took two weeks to read this first and best-known novel from 2012 Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan is harrowing reading, best read in tandem with something less confronting. It's historical fiction but not as you know it.
In five parts originally published serially in magazines, the fragments of this novel eventually bring together the family history and myths of three generations between 1923 and 1976. It covers the period of brutal Japanese Occupation (1937-1945) and the Chinese Civil War (1927~1950) when the lawlessness was exacerbated by bandits and rival gangs fighting for supremacy amongst themselves.
The narrative isn't chronological but chops and changes across time periods. It's confusing at first (though no more than many a modernist novel) but once the characters, their relationships and the time periods are established it begins to make sense. Narrated in merciless detail by the world-weary survivor, the family's story (though not the novel) begins with a reluctant bride, his grandma. She is being married off to further her peasant father's fortunes, to a man known to have leprosy. She escapes that fate because one of the bearers fancies her and solves the problem with murder. This is the catalyst for a life of violence, and she takes over the running of the distillery which makes red sorghum wine.
She's an interesting character, because on the one hand she's submissive (and has small dainty feet as a nice Chinese girl should have at that time), and on the other she has agency and takes matters into her own hands. She is vulnerable to rape and unwanted pregnancy, but she is smart and decisive. When she inherits the distillery, she speaks to the workers with a charming blend of authority (because she has a higher social status) and humility (because she needs their help). She also has good socialist values, telling them that they are equals and that if they stay with her, they will all share in the money that they make from the wine. But her sense of equality among men doesn't extend to accepting the bearer who made her good fortune possible. In the Chinese-made film, which I watched afterwards, there is a coy scene that implies a consensual relationship among the sorghum stalks, and later a scene depicting a happy family, with mother and child playing amongst the wine tubs while the father looks on with a benign smile — but that's among many liberties taken in the film.
But before long the Japanese arrive and these peasants despite their courage have no chance against superior numbers and weaponry, especially since rival Chinese sabotage their efforts as well. The violence and savagery on all sides is hard to read, and Mo Yan spares the reader nothing.
The Japanese do unspeakable things to the Chinese, and the rival gangs outdo each other in the cruelty of their violence.
The women characters experience horrific brutality: rape, and sadistic deaths.
It's not hard to guess which parts were excised when the book was first published by the People's Liberation Army Publishing House in 1987. Characters discussing the future when the war might be over express a lack of enthusiasm for the Communists, and Five Troubles is keen to have an emperor back:
What would you say if the Communists were in charge?'
Grandad snorted contemptuously out of one nostril.
'How about the Nationalists?'
He snorted out of the other nostril.
'That's what I say. What China needs is an emperor! I've got it all figured out: struggles come and go, long periods of division precede unity and long periods of unity precede division, but the nation always falls into the hands of an emperor. The nation is the emperor's family, the family is the emperor's nation. That's why he governs so benevolently. (p.283)
Later on, Communist leaders let an old man who has earned the name Eighteen Stabs Geng starve outside their gates in the snow.
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Why persist with such an unpleasant book? The first reason is that I had previously read and admired Mo Yan's Radish (2015, translated by Howard Goldblatt, see here) and although that portrayed the extreme hardships of work brigades under Mao, I wasn't expecting Red Sorghum to be as confronting as it turned to be. I continued with it because of Mo Yan's skill in depicting characters whose future I wanted to know. I had only the sketchiest knowledge about this period of Chinese history but even though I had read Women of the Long March (1999), by Lily Xiao Hong Lee & Sue Wiles, read by Stephanie Daniel,I had always wondered how Mao had managed to persuade peasants across the country to down tools and join The Long March.
The second reason is that Nobel Prize. Mo Yan's citation suggests an innovatory style. To clarify what this might mean for the novel, I checked out my 2006 edition 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, but Mo Yan doesn't rate a mention. But Michael Orthofer, in The Complete Guide to Contemporary World Fiction, (Columbia University Press, 2016) has a most informative chapter about the fiction of China...
Among Chinese authors working on the mainland, Mo Yan (b.1955) — a pen name meaning 'don't speak' — was already one of the best-known Chinese writers abroad even before he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize. His novels are ambitious and expansive, as he 'with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary' (as the Nobel commendation expressed it). The creative reach of his work fulfills many of the expectations of contemporary international fiction. He uses and defies convention in a variety of colourful versions of China, grounding several of his novels in the same locale (Northeast Gaomi Township in Shandong) and featuring a character called Mo Yan but also constantly spinning out his stories in new ways. Widely translated even before he received the Nobel Prize, all the English versions of his work were translated by Howard Goldblatt, giving them a welcome consistency. (p.338)
Further reading suggested by Orthofer includes
- Big Breasts and Wide Hips (1996, English 2005)
- Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (2006, English 2008)
- Sandalwood Death (2001, English 2013)
- The Republic of Wine (1992, English 2000)
...but he doesn't mention POW! (2003) which is my one remaining book in the XYZ TBR pile that I am determined to vanquish. This is part of its blurb at Goodreads:
In this novel by the 2012 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Mo Yan, 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.
Hmm. Will I read it? We shall see...
Author: Mo Yan (b 1955)
Title: Red Sorghum (红高粱家族)
Translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt, using the 1988 Taipei Hong-fab Book Co uncut edition
Publisher: Penguin 1993, first published in by the People's Liberation Army Publishing House in 1987.
ISBN: 9780140168549, pbk., 359 pages
Source: Personal library, OpShopFind.
Cross-posted at ANZ LitLovers
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