I reviewed this novel a couple months back, and will be using it in my “Translation & World Literature” class later this spring as part of our six-title “Best Translated Book” class rumble. And I personally think it could win.

Anyway, here’s a bit of my review:

Pow! consists of a story within a story: in the present, Xiaotong is relating to a monk his life story, while witnessing a host of very surreal events糖心传媒攁 meat celebration gone awry and ending with bunches of dead ostriches, a man boning 41 women in a row, etc.糖心传媒攚ith the goal of confessing in order to become a monk. By contrast, the story he tells of growing up in Slaughterhouse Village, where his dad runs away with the town floozy, and the village leader teaches everyone to maximize profits by pumping their meat full of water and formaldehyde, is much more realistic . . . sort of.

I don糖心传媒檛 want to spoil too much for readers, but the core plot of Pow! is a rather tragic and disturbing story involving Xiaotong糖心传媒檚 parents and their relationship to village leader, Lao Lan. Told in a straightforward, realistic fashion, it would resemble a soap opera, filled with eating contests, battling egos, poverty, sex, and death. Oh, and meat.

The brilliance of this novel糖心传媒攁nd the reason it deserves comparisons to so many great authors糖心传媒攊s the way in which this tragic story is filtered through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy. (Granted, Xiaotong is a 20-something when he糖心传媒檚 telling the monk his life story, but his mind has never really progressed, and his myth-making is more like a pre-teen than a fully-formed adult.) As a result, the story gets pulled and twisted out of shape, and what is 糖心传媒渞eal糖心传媒� becomes a lot less certain糖心传媒攅specially when Xiaotong keeps insisting on his story糖心传媒檚 veracity:

“Wise Monk, where I come from people call children who boast and lie a lot 糖心传媒楶owboys,糖心传媒� but every word in what I糖心传媒檓 telling you is the unvarnished truth.”

Uh-huh.

It糖心传媒檚 not like an unreliable narrator is anything new in literature, and post-Nabokov, it糖心传媒檚 almost second-nature as a reader to try and see through to what a narrator isn糖心传媒檛 saying to really get what糖心传媒檚 going on. But I really like the way in which these two narratives糖心传媒攐ne which centers around the construction of a 糖心传媒淢eat God糖心传媒� statue (presumably made in honor of Xiaotong) and functions in a sort of timeless, surreal zone; one that centers around Xiaotong糖心传媒檚 adventures and war with Lao Lan, and is filled with boasts and impossible feats (a 12-year-old eating 5lbs of meat, the firing of 41 mortar shells) transforming Xiaotong糖心传媒檚 life into something much grander than it really is.

It’s not like Mo Yan needs more recognition after winning the Nobel Prize, but I would like him to get some recognition as a literary writer instead of as a Chinese writer simply because the first puts the emphasis on his wild narrative stylings and the latter makes his works and position as a writer all about politics. And that sucks.

Since I don’t feel qualified to comment on any of that—other than to say censorship is bad, but stances falling in gray areas are intellectually intriguing to me, and that I hope to read more of his works in the not-too-distant future—I’m going to try and focus on the book’s structure and its inherent trickiness, beginning with what made me really want to read this particular Mo Yan book—the jacket copy.

This might seem like a digression, but bear with me. First off, here’s a bit from the copy for The Garlic Ballads, one of Mo Yan’s most admired works:

Banned in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, this epic novel by one of China’s leading writers portrays a people driven to smash the rigid confines of their ancient traditions. [. . .] The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government encourages them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as easy as they believed. [. . .] The Garlic Ballads is a powerful vision of life under the heel of an inflexible and uncaring government. It is also a delicate story of love and the struggle to maintain that love int he face of overwhelming obstacles.

OK, fine. Sounds like it’ll be pretty social-realist, anti-government, rural, and commonplace. Now, check Pow!:

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 through this tale of sharp hatchets, bat water, and a rusty Second World War-mortar, we can’t help but laugh. Reminiscent of the dark masters of European absurdism like G眉nter Grass, Witold Gombrowicz, or Jakov Lind, Mo Yan’s Pow! is a comic masterpiece.

Jakov Lind?! Comic?! That’s not what I would’ve guessed given the copy found on The Garlic Ballads (or any of his other previous works). Obviously, if I’m going to choose a work to start with, it’ll be the one name-checking Gombrowicz and an Open Letter author . . . That said, opening Pow!, I still expected to encounter a much more conventional novel than, say, Ferdydurke.

On the one hand, that’s sort of true . . . Pow! consists of a story within a story: in the present, Xiaotong is relating to a monk his life story, while witnessing a host of very surreal events—a meat celebration gone awry and ending with bunches of dead ostriches, a man boning 41 women in a row, etc.—with the goal of confessing in order to become a monk. By contrast, the story he tells of growing up in Slaughterhouse Village, where his dad runs away with the town floozy, and the village leader teaches everyone to maximize profits by pumping their meat full of water and formaldehyde, is much more realistic . . . sort of.

I don’t want to spoil too much for readers, but the core plot of Pow! is a rather tragic and disturbing story involving Xiaotong’s parents and their relationship to village leader, Lao Lan. Told in a straightforward, realistic fashion, it would resemble a soap opera, filled with eating contests, battling egos, poverty, sex, and death. Oh, and meat.

The brilliance of this novel—and the reason it deserves comparisons to so many great authors—is the way in which this tragic story is filtered through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy. (Granted, Xiaotong is a 20-something when he’s telling the monk his life story, but his mind has never really progressed, and his myth-making is more like a pre-teen than a fully-formed adult.) As a result, the story gets pulled and twisted out of shape, and what is “real” becomes a lot less certain—especially when Xiaotong keeps insisting on his story’s veracity:

Wise Monk, where I come from people call children who boast and lie a lot ‘Powboys,’ but every word in what I’m telling you is the unvarnished truth.

Uh-huh.

It’s not like an unreliable narrator is anything new in literature, and post-Nabokov, it’s almost second-nature as a reader to try and see through to what a narrator isn’t saying to really get what’s going on. But I really like the way in which these two narratives—one which centers around the construction of a “Meat God” statue (presumably made in honor of Xiaotong) and functions in a sort of timeless, surreal zone; one that centers around Xiaotong’s adventures and war with Lao Lan, and is filled with boasts and impossible feats (a 12-year-old eating 5lbs of meat, the firing of 41 mortar shells) transforming Xiaotong’s life into something much grander than it really is.

In terms of the translation, Howard Goldblatt is one of the best. He’s translated a ton of Chinese books, including all of Mo Yan’s earlier works. The book reads remarkably well in English—it’s by turns lyrical, funny, and vulgar. (The number of “Fuck your old woman!” type statements in here is remarkable and AWESOME.)

The thing that I’m really curious about, from a translation perspective, is the number of adages and sayings in this book. They pop up on most every page,

‘People aren’t mountains, they can change . . .’ Mother’s face grew red as she struggled to hold on to her temper.

‘Except it’s easier to change the course of a river than a person’s nature.’ Mother’s cousin was intent on making things hard for her.

Sun Changsheng was the one who snapped first. ‘That’s enough!’ he growled at his wife. ‘If your mouth itches, rub it against the wall. You fart three times for every time you kowtow. Your good deeds don’t make up for your bad behaviour.” [. . .]

I’m planning on using this book in my spring class, and having my class mark down as many of these as they can find, but trust me, there are hundreds. Which interests me, because I wonder how literal they are compared to the Chinese (the one about a horse not grazing backwards is one of my favorites), or how much Goldblatt changed them to convey the same proverb quality in English.

Aside from a hundred-page section that gets bogged down in meat desiring, meat eating, and meat everything, this is a really fun and enjoyable book to read—one that raises interesting narrative questions at the very end when, quite literally, everything explodes.

Here’s the opening:

The first book by recent Nobel Laureate, Mo Yan, to come out in English translation, Pow! is guaranteed to get a lot of attention, especially considering the recent hubbub about his relationship to the Chinese Communist Party, to censorship, to the plight of fellow writer Liu Xiaobo. A lot of reviewers will scrutinize Pow! and its relationship to governmental power—on the one hand, doing what village leader Lao Lan wants really improves one’s status, on the other, it leads directly to tragedy—and will likely focus on the relationship between this novel, first published in China in 2012, and his earlier work.

Since I don’t feel qualified to comment on any of that—other than to say censorship is bad, but stances falling in gray areas are intellectually intriguing to me, and that I hope to read more of his works in the not-too-distant future—I’m going to try and focus on the book’s structure and its inherent trickiness, beginning with what made me really want to read this particular Mo Yan book—the jacket copy.

This might seem like a digression, but bear with me. First off, here’s a bit from the copy for The Garlic Ballads, one of Mo Yan’s most admired works:

“Banned in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, this epic novel by one of China’s leading writers portrays a people driven to smash the rigid confines of their ancient traditions. [. . .] The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government encourages them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as easy as they believed. [. . .] The Garlic Ballads is a powerful vision of life under the heel of an inflexible and uncaring government. It is also a delicate story of love and the struggle to maintain that love int he face of overwhelming obstacles.”

OK, fine. Sounds like it’ll be pretty social-realist, anti-government, rural, and commonplace. Now, check Pow!:

“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 through this tale of sharp hatchets, bat water, and a rusty Second World War-mortar, we can’t help but laugh. Reminiscent of the dark masters of European absurdism like G眉nter Grass, Witold Gombrowicz, or Jakov Lind, Mo Yan’s Pow! is a comic masterpiece.”

Jakov Lind?! Comic?! That’s not what I would’ve guessed given the copy found on The Garlic Ballads (or any of his other previous works). Obviously, if I’m going to choose a work to start with, it’ll be the one name-checking Gombrowicz and an Open Letter author . . . That said, opening Pow!, I still expected to encounter a much more conventional novel than, say, Ferdydurke.

Click here to read the full thing.

Self-Control, S忙terbakken糖心传媒檚 follow-up to Siamese, centers around Andreas Feldt, a middle-aged man who, filled with an intense and unknowable sense of desperation, is driven to test the validity of his existence and its influence on others around him. The novel opens with Feldt sharing a meal with one of his two estranged daughters. During this encounter, without 糖心传媒渢he slightest notion of an appropriate thing to say,糖心传媒� Feldt inexplicably claims that he is divorcing his wife. This lie seemingly has no effect upon the daughter, but it has a profound impact on Andreas. Confused and disoriented by his own lie, as well as by his daughter糖心传媒檚 indifference to the news, Feldt wanders back out into the world, engaging in a series of encounters with acquaintances, family members, and strangers in which he aggressively tries to exercise influence, if not control, over the lives of others糖心传媒攁nd over his own life.

At the heart of Self-Control is Feldt糖心传媒檚 pervasive repression. We never learn precisely what he is repressing, but its traumatic nature is betrayed by his preoccupation with a missing girl whose disappearance is continually mentioned in the headlines. Feldt clearly identifies with her disappearance糖心传媒攑erhaps with her invisibility, perhaps merely with the tragedy of her likely fate糖心传媒攁nd in fact it is the only conduit through which he seems able to experience his world. Toward everything else he is stubbornly reticent.

Feldt糖心传媒檚 outbursts, then, are unpredictable, violent and ultimately impotent, serving only to make him increasingly aware of his own powerlessness. There are only two options Feldt seems to recognize: he can either fully identify with intolerable despair, the cause of which he refuses to locate, or he can resign himself to invisibility. The novel糖心传媒檚 big reveal糖心传媒攖he only piece of information that matters, in a way, to the novel and its narrator糖心传媒攊s withheld until its final words, but the revelation does not provide clarity or resolution; quite to the contrary, the book糖心传媒檚 ending complicates Feldt糖心传媒檚 choice, along with all that we have come to understand about him.

In stylistic counterpoint to Siamese, the prose in Self-Control is intentionally flat, featureless. The novel is essentially unquotable, its slow narrative an often painfully meticulous depiction of the very smallest operations of Feldt糖心传媒檚 consciousness, most of which he糖心传媒檚 unwilling to acknowledge, and of the suffering he experiences in avoiding pain. Like a Cassavetes film, Self-Control unfolds scene by scene with characters trying desperately to express forces inside them that they cannot account for, or, in Feldt糖心传媒檚 case, even acknowledge. S忙terbakken糖心传媒檚 ambiguous characters change with every page; they refuse easy patterns of behavior that would make them too recognizable, too untrue. They are often repugnant, but S忙terbakken saw such honesty as part of the duty of art and literature.

And one of my personal favorite reviews,

Although Shishkin糖心传媒檚 prodigious talent has been recognized for many years in his native Russia, as well as in Germany and France, until now English readers have only had access to 糖心传媒淭he Half-Belt Overcoat.糖心传媒� That story, translated by Leo Shtutin, appeared in the Read Russia! anthology published earlier this year, and was, to my mind, easily the best in the collection. Maidenhair more than lives up to its promise; beautifully translated by Marian Schwartz, it is a fierce book from a sharp and generous mind.

There are, roughly, three narrative lines which structure the novel: in one, a nameless interpreter (Shishkin糖心传媒檚 alter-ego), who works with asylum seekers in Switzerland, writes letters to his absent son, 糖心传媒淣ebuchadnezzasaurus.糖心传媒� In another, two voices of unknown or unstable identity engage in a series of questions and answers. In the last, a Russian singer named Bella Dmitrievna records her life, and most of the twentieth century, in diaries which the interpreter will eventually read when he attempts to write her biography. With these three strands, Maidenhair weaves its tangled braid, although contained within it are also a dizzying array of historical digressions, philosophical preoccupations, parables, letters, jokes, and literary allusions.

I hesitate to describe the book as 糖心传媒渦niversal糖心传媒� lest this imply that its themes, or its treatment of them, are banal; they are not. On the contrary, they are wonderfully inventive. So when I say that Maidenhair is universal, I mean that it wants to constitute a universe 糖心传媒� or perhaps a map of the universe that is the same size as the universe itself. [. . .]

Shishkin has been described as the heir apparent of the great Russian novelists, and indeed, there are times when he seems to have taken the best from each of them. From Tolstoy he has inherited a sense for the epic; from Dostoevsky, spiritual acuity and a social conscience. He takes Nabokov糖心传媒檚 remarkable linguistic flexibility but none of his arrogance; like Chekhov, he looks on humanity with humor and compassion. Shishkin糖心传媒檚 Baroque turns of phrases seem written out of necessity and joy rather than pretention; he respects his readers, he delights in language, and he does not need to show off.

In the fourteen-page Author糖心传媒檚 Afterward to his Selected Poems, Xi Chuan references or quotes from Tolstoy, Yang Lian, the Zhuangzi, the Indian social theorist Ashis Nandy, Eileen Chang, Leo Strauss, C.T. Hsia, Jonathan Spence, Milan Kundera, Li Bai, Czeslaw Milosz, the 20th-century sociologist Fei Xiaotong, ancient philosopher Han Feizi, Mao Zedong, Foucault, Tang dynasty literati Han Yu, and Goethe. This is not a poet who can be accused of parochialism. Yet Xi Chuan wears his erudition lightly, at least in the context of his verse. This is not to say that the poems do not give a sense of a formidable intellect behind them糖心传媒攖hey do糖心传媒攂ut what is striking in the poems is less Xi Chuan糖心传媒檚 breadth of reference than his sense of humor, his humanity, and his attention to the smallest details of ordinary life, ranging from bodily functions to rats to the way drizzle soaks through socks.

Xi Chuan was born in 1963, just after the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward, and was a small child during Mao糖心传媒檚 Cultural Revolution. Lucky and talented enough to be one of the few children able to go to school at the time, he later went on to major in English at Beijing University. As translator Lucas Klein explains in his exemplary Translator糖心传媒檚 Introduction, in the spring of 1989 Xi Chuan lost two close poet friends, Hai Zi and Luo Yihe, both of whom were also Beijing University students. Following on the heels of that trauma were the events in Tiananmen, which Xi Chuan participated in and suffered from. The pain of his friends糖心传媒� deaths and the disillusionment he experienced after the government crackdown discouraged him from writing for nearly two years. When he resumed, his style had changed considerably from the Imagist Western-influenced Obscure Poetry exemplified by poets such as Bei Dao, Duo Duo, and Yang Lian. He moved toward a more philosophical and less lyrical prose poetry that contrasts with his earlier shorter, often nature-inspired work. His most recent poems play with ideas of paradox, inheritance, and the past, present, and future of civilization.

These are large themes, and Xi Chuan knows how to write large poems to encompass them. [. . .]

But Klein糖心传媒檚 ear rarely fails him. He captures both the music and slightly anachronistic feel of the original Chinese in the early poem 糖心传媒淚n the Mountains糖心传媒�: 糖心传媒淒usk congeals over the hungry cliff / excess dusk presses onto my tent / sunlight walks by on stones.糖心传媒� Xi Chuan abandoned this youthful style, and Klein糖心传媒攁 scholar of contemporary and Tang dynasty literature糖心传媒攏ot only keenly identifies this and other more subtle shifts, but also manages to convey the changes convincingly, allowing the reader to come away with a sense of the arc of Xi Chuan糖心传媒檚 artistic development. He comes up with lines that resound beautifully: 糖心传媒渓ook to life糖心传媒檚 last station / when the long-deceased song passes on again and red Persian asters / assemble in the distance like a chorus of birds.糖心传媒� The sound play of 糖心传媒渓ife糖心传媒檚 last station糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渟ong passes on糖心传媒� moving to 糖心传媒淧ersian asters糖心传媒� to 糖心传媒渂irds糖心传媒� builds a lovely alliterative scene that in sheer beauty momentarily surpasses the music of the original. So much is sacrificed in translation that a translator must identify and seize these fortuities wherever he can, and time and again Klein does exactly that. Xi Chuan糖心传媒檚 verse could not have been better served in English.

The announcement on October 11 that Chinese writer Mo Yan had won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature was met with delight in some quarters and despair in others. The hand-wringers have focused on Mo Yan糖心传媒檚 politics糖心传媒攐r rather their perception of Mo Yan糖心传媒檚 lack of political consciousness糖心传媒攁nd talk about this has dominated editorial pages in the West, rather than talk about his art. In recent weeks, the 2009 Nobel Literature Prize winner, Romanian author Herta Mueller, characterized Mo Yan as a Communist Party hack and called the award 糖心传媒渁 catastrophe.糖心传媒�

Mo Yan糖心传媒檚 politics are somewhat oblique, by design, and a read of his most recently translated novel, Pow!, shows that comments like Mueller糖心传媒檚 are wide of the mark. Shot through with politics and history and translated by the masterful Howard Goldblatt, Pow! adds to the growing list of Mo Yan糖心传媒檚 rollicking and ribald novels available in English糖心传媒攁ll translated by Goldblatt, who has championed Mo Yan糖心传媒檚 work for decades and continues to do the author great justice in his earthy and vivid translations. [. . .]

Part fable, part fictionalized autobiography, Pow! is told from the point of view of the not altogether reliable Luo Xiaotong and hinges on the transformation of his home village from a farming community to Slaughterhouse Village. There糖心传媒檚 more money in meat than in crops, and the entire village has found new prosperity as a center for the killing and butchering of animals from the surrounding countryside. The narrator糖心传媒檚 father, Luo Tong, is as famed for his ability to judge the weight of livestock just by looking at them as he is for his incorruptibility糖心传媒攈e refuses any and all gifts from livestock sellers, even something as trifling as a cigarette. He shows less self-control in sexual matters, however, and a good portion of the novel details the privations suffered by the narrator after his father runs off with another woman, the sexually supercharged Aunty Wild Mule, a favorite consort of village headman, Lao Lan. Luo Tong and Lao Lan糖心传媒檚 rivalry over Aunty Wild Mule is an ongoing source of conflict in the novel. [. . .]

If this book isn糖心传媒檛 a social and political critique, I don糖心传媒檛 know what is. The narrator is a child in a man糖心传媒檚 body, sexually frustrated, powerless, and poor. Who糖心传媒檚 on top in this society? Corrupt village heads and Party officials with their Audi A6s and Remy Martin cognac. The peasants get rich feeding the unseemly appetites of China糖心传媒檚 new urban bourgeoisie with bogus and sometimes toxic products, while the countryside itself turns into an abattoir. This is the Reform Era and these are the Party bosses who have guided it. In case we miss the point, the narrator states: 糖心传媒淯gly, snot-nosed, grime-covered children, who are kicked about like mangy dogs糖心传媒� are more likely than attractive and happy children to grow up to be 糖心传媒渢hugs, armed robbers, high officials or senior military officers.糖心传媒� If China糖心传媒檚 leaders and low-lifes are drawn from the same pool, what hope is there?

And what of Xiaotong, the common man? He糖心传媒檚 impotent. Pow! reaches its climax in a fantasy act of vengeance in which Xiaotong fires 41 shells at Lao Lan. Xiaotong lays waste to the village and slaughterhouse, but after each salvo Lao Lan emerges, Rasputin-like, virtually unscathed, until the very end. Lao Lan is a scion of the gentry who ran the village in dynastic times, and the narrator stresses this continuity. If Lao Lan exemplifies official corruption (and hence much of what糖心传媒檚 wrong with the Chinese Communist Party), then official corruption will be hard to eradicate, at least not without destroying much of the country with it. It糖心传媒檚 not clear from this book whether Mo Yan thinks that would be such a great loss.

The books of the Argentine writer Sergio Chejfec defy easy classification, but we can say that he writes for walkers: those for whom each step signifies something both taken/found and lost/forgotten. He writes about wanderers: those for whom destinations are rarely known, where every recognized face and remembered story proves too heavy with significance, slipping the grip of its proper naming. This is especially true of his recently translated novel, The Planets. Originally published in Spanish in 1999, Chejfec糖心传媒檚 meditation on friendship, loss, and memory defies easy summation. This is fitting, for these also inform the fluid bounds of reality lived and described by his characters. Here, dreams are recited alongside the real events they anticipate and/or create; characters from dreams slide into the parables of protagonists; and iconic females blur within the slippages between vowels (e.g., Lesa/Sela) and consonants (e.g., Marta/Mirta). The Planets, in short, is a strange novel. It is made stranger still by the absence of its principle character, known only by the narrated memories of others, the enigmatic, nearly nameless M. This strangeness is fitting, then, for each story told about or by him is born of a gap糖心传媒攂etween dream and reality, past and present, cause and effect糖心传媒攁nd manifests the trauma of his absence.

To read The Planets is not so much to implant oneself within its narrated world as it is to discover oneself in this world糖心传媒檚 orbit. Whereas in Chejfec糖心传媒檚 English-language debut, My Two Worlds, the reader is invited into not merely the narrator糖心传媒檚 world but his very perception of it, The Planets is distinguished by the ambivalence of its intimacy糖心传媒攖he holding of its reader at arm糖心传媒檚 length, in an abeyant proximity. The result is a work less immediately familiar than foreign. In a time where the pace of life has hastened to an informational blur糖心传媒攖he world at our keyboarded fingertips and on our cable televisions, with so much available knowledge that we now question its purported power糖心传媒攊t is precisely Chejfec糖心传媒檚 ability to inhabit the immediacy of both known and unknown, common and strange, that makes his work so timely.

The immediacy of the familiar and the foreign informs, as well, the friendship between the narrator and M, the ponderous duo at the core of The Planets. Remaining nameless糖心传媒斕切拇綔M for Miguel, or Mauricio; it could also be M for Daniel since, as we know, any name at all can reside behind letters糖心传媒澨切拇綌they navigate Buenos Aires as though on a dual trajectory. Not merely inseparable in the banal way many childhood friends are described, they considered themselves so linked that the identity of one was unthinkable without the other. In recognition of this they exchange photographs, whereupon 糖心传媒淢糖心传媒檚 photo糖心传媒� accurately describes both the photo of himself and the one given to him by the narrator (and vice versa). Being and identity, they muse, are not steady-state givens, to hoard behind the closed doors of one糖心传媒檚 consciousness. They are, rather, intermittent occurrences, dependent on, if not wholly determined by, the perspective of those who bear witness.

There are also great pieces on and worth checking out, among many others. So be sure to read and support QC however you can—it’s one of the greatest literary resources out there.

Today, over at there’s an essay by Bishan Samaddar about the book.

I have little knowledge of Chinese literature. Much like Salman Rushdie, who confessed on Facebook that Mo Yan糖心传媒檚 Red Sorghum has been lying unread on his bookshelf for ages, I have not had much inclination to pick up Chinese books. Few are available in good English translations. Only when Seagull Books, the publishing house I work for, decided to bring out an English translation of Mo Yan糖心传媒檚 new novel POW! did I dive into this phantasmagoria.

In POW! Mo Yan writes in the voice of a child. The narrator is adult, he has decided to become a Buddhist monk, but his childhood has not left him. He recounts his experience of childhood to a certain silent Wise Monk in a ruined temple; his story flows uncontrollably. 糖心传媒榁erbal diarrhea糖心传媒�, that disgusting clich茅 that I have always hated, now begins to make sense. Make no mistake about it糖心传媒攖he flow in POW! is not just verbal. Having mostly read very middle-class-friendly books, where even the most passionate sex is prettified and lifted above the dailiness of life, POW! is most disconcerting in its obsession with the physical and the vulgar. The brutal genius of Mo Yan lies not just in making you identify with characters and situations as all great literature does but also in his refusal to omit the minutest, ugliest, most embarrassing detail of any experience. The ugliness makes the experience eerily intimate:

The old woman hobbled up to me, took a piece of turnip from her mouth and stuffed it into mine. That was sort of revolting, I don糖心传媒檛 deny it. But thoughts of how pigeons exchange food turned revulsion into intimacy. I was reminded of something that had occurred in the past. It was back when my father had gone off to the northeast and Mother and I were surviving by dealing in scrap. We were taking a break at a roadside stall. . . . A blind couple with a chubby, fair-skinned baby were eating at the stall. The baby, obviously hungry, was crying. The woman, hearing my mother糖心传媒檚 voice, asked if she would feed the baby. So Mother took the baby from her and a hard biscuit from the man, which she chewed into pulp before feeding him mouth to mouth. . . . I swallowed the turnip the old woman had put in my mouth and suddenly felt sharp-eyed and clear-headed.

The whole essay is interesting, but here are a few more clips that grabbed my attention:

Mo Yan is fixated on orifices. Sex, urinating, defecating aside, there is endless eating. The narrator tells us that he has had an impoverished childhood, bereft of meat, in a village famous for its meat-processing plant. There is hardly anything that is not eaten in this novel糖心传媒攃hicken, duck, sheep, goat, dog, pig, cow, horse, donkey, ostrich. [. . .]

The pitch of life depicted in POW! is all too familiar to us Indians糖心传媒攖here is eating, and there is vomiting; love and fornication, but also peeing and farting; passionate embraces but also the foulest of abuses; and the impossibly crude sentimental longing that one feels for one糖心传媒檚 family. We often try not to notice the most physical aspects of this life but without them that life is pathetically incomplete.

Reading POW! I realized that the crucial thing about life is its irrationality. In a world saturated with Western narratives in which everything happens for a reason, Mo Yan is freedom. His characters have motives that are totally unfounded in reason; they are led to immense violence as well as complete renunciation in a world that we would hate to see as real but, unfortunately, is entirely real. Mo Yan has none of the fanciful flights that you encounter in Gabriel Garcia Marquez; he is a dark but hilarious continuing slapstick, a bawdy and bloody Buster Keaton. His fiction pushes its way up like grain through parched soil. And it does so only because the tale needs to be told.

Definitely check out and then buy the book. I hear it’s being fast-tracked and could be available as early as the end of next month.