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kangeikoI don't know why I read Mo yan's writing, I honestly don't.
The thing is, I'm not sure I get it. I certainly had a lot of trouble with Republic of Wine, and although Red Sorghum was more accessible, I still had trouble with it. But, given that Shifu was actually a series of short stories, I thought that I'd have a better chance.
Ha! Let's try that again, guv'nor. I've realised that I have no frame of reference for Mo Yan's writing - there is nothing in there for me to grab on to as comprehensible. That doesn't mean that it doesn't punch me in the gut, however. 'Abandoned Child', in particular, was very upsetting indeed, as a father finds an abandoned baby girl in a field and must decide whether to leave her to die or to bring her home. I do wonder if this is because I've actually studied the one-child policy and its implications, and was thus able to extrapolate what some of the unsaid things were - I do know that I certainly couldn't do the same thing for 'Shifu', the main story. 'Shifu' was about an old man who loses his job and has to find another way to earn a living, and, well, I just didn't get it. I couldn't understand his reactions, I couldn't follow his thought processes, there was no common ground between Shifu and myself to allow comprehension on my part. So, that story left me quite cold.
I don't know. Republic of Wine and Red Sorghum both gave me nightmares for reasons I can't quite work out. There wasn't anything overtly terrifying in them, but something about the juxtaposition of images and concepts seriously unsettled me. Shifu was nowhere near as powerful, but that's always a risk with short stories - if it takes the reader a lot time to get into the story, a short story is less likely to have an impact than a novel. That said, 'Abandoned Child' was worth the entirety of the book, IMO, and finishes it off nicely.
So. I'll probably get The Garlic Ballads if I ever see them, but that is also guaranteed to upset me. And, no, I won't know why.
The thing is, I'm not sure I get it. I certainly had a lot of trouble with Republic of Wine, and although Red Sorghum was more accessible, I still had trouble with it. But, given that Shifu was actually a series of short stories, I thought that I'd have a better chance.
Ha! Let's try that again, guv'nor. I've realised that I have no frame of reference for Mo Yan's writing - there is nothing in there for me to grab on to as comprehensible. That doesn't mean that it doesn't punch me in the gut, however. 'Abandoned Child', in particular, was very upsetting indeed, as a father finds an abandoned baby girl in a field and must decide whether to leave her to die or to bring her home. I do wonder if this is because I've actually studied the one-child policy and its implications, and was thus able to extrapolate what some of the unsaid things were - I do know that I certainly couldn't do the same thing for 'Shifu', the main story. 'Shifu' was about an old man who loses his job and has to find another way to earn a living, and, well, I just didn't get it. I couldn't understand his reactions, I couldn't follow his thought processes, there was no common ground between Shifu and myself to allow comprehension on my part. So, that story left me quite cold.
I don't know. Republic of Wine and Red Sorghum both gave me nightmares for reasons I can't quite work out. There wasn't anything overtly terrifying in them, but something about the juxtaposition of images and concepts seriously unsettled me. Shifu was nowhere near as powerful, but that's always a risk with short stories - if it takes the reader a lot time to get into the story, a short story is less likely to have an impact than a novel. That said, 'Abandoned Child' was worth the entirety of the book, IMO, and finishes it off nicely.
So. I'll probably get The Garlic Ballads if I ever see them, but that is also guaranteed to upset me. And, no, I won't know why.