Yan Lianke

Yan Lianke is one of the great writers to come from China's post-revolutionary generation, and more specifically of the post-reform era. Most of his books either satirize the feverish move toward capitalism or incorporate a magical realism that describe how we deal with the afterlife in absurd settings. "Marrow" is of the latter.

It is a short novella and not a bad introduction to the author, although it lacks the intricacy and depth of his masterpieces "Dream of Ding Village," based on largely true events, and "Lenin's Kisses." "Marrow" is about a woman in search of spouses for her four children, all of whom suffer from mental disabilities. The mother discovers how to "solve" their difficulties and sets about roaming the far-away countryside where they live in order to cure them.

The setting - the fictional Balou countryside - of "Marrow" seems to be a precursor to the setting of "Lenin's Kisses," and in fact the whole story seems to be testing out the premises used in "Lenin's Kisses." Longtime readers of Yan Lianke will enjoy that although this novella lacks the depth of his other works. New readers will get an excellent idea of how Yan Lianke approaches absurdity and get a feel for his style.… (more)

I happened upon ‘The Four Books’ amongst the library’s new acquisitions, then subsequently realised it’s a Man Booker finalist. It deals with the Great Leap Forward, a disastrous attempt at rapid economic transformation instituted by Mao from 1958 to 1961 that resulted in appalling famine. The translator’s note at the beginning comments on the structure of the novel, which ostensibly weaves together extracts from four different documents. I was therefore expecting a quite experimental narrative, so was surprised to find it distinctly linear and coherent. On the other hand, there is an interesting and unusual mixture of symbolism, metaphor, and literalism. The language and imagery of Christianity and Ancient Greek myth are sprinkled throughout. None of the characters are named, rather they are labelled: the Musician, the Author, the Scholar, etc. (Jeff VanderMeer also uses this rhetorical conceit to create atmosphere in [b:Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy|22752442|Area X The Southern Reach Trilogy (Southern Reach, #1-3)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1412547809s/22752442.jpg|42299018].) Yet these labels are all outdated, as the story takes place entirely in a Re-education camp, where these intellectuals have been sent to reform themselves through hard labour. Presiding over this is the Child, a naif who is capable of great cruelty and sympathy, arbitrary sadism and masochism. The prison camp is controlled not by anything so crude as walls and guards, but rather the psychological manipulation of the Child, the physical isolation of the place, and the apparent fact that there is nowhere to escape to. Sisyphus references reinforce the sense that the Re-education camp is hell, or rather a very small outpost of it.

As well as such references, the novel includes excruciating descriptions of the camp’s inhabitants starving to death during the famine. During this part, the Child, his means of control, and all other abstractions recede in the face of the bodily imperative to find food and survive. It is powerfully written, however the most memorable part of the book for me was elsewhere. The Great Leap Forward focused on two commodities: wheat and steel. Rural inhabitants, there for re-education or not, were mobilised en masse to cultivate wheat at absurdly intense levels (competitive _targets were set to get vast amounts from every field) and smelt iron and steel in tiny furnaces (without any proper iron ore supply). My favourite sequence in ‘The Four Books’ describes the Author retreating from the Re-education camp in order to carefully grow wheat with ears ‘the size of corn’ for the Child. This macabre and beautifully written section shows him watering the wheat plants with his blood, allowing them to grow huge. The imagery of crops being literally watered with lifeblood is a powerfully unsubtle metaphor for the Great Leap Forward as a whole.

Given the subject matter, I wouldn’t describe this novel as enjoyable. It paints an excellent picture of the surreal cruelty of the Great Leap Forward, which is the subject of very little literature. Today, the Chinese government still ascribes it to natural disaster and the full death toll remains unknown. Estimates are in the tens of millions. Although the geographical scope of ‘The Four Books’ is very limited, to a secluded and desolate riverside camp, it conveys something of the nationwide scale and toll of events. Given the damning portrayal of party officials (referred to as ‘the higher-ups’), it’s hardly surprising that Lianke failed to find it a publisher in China. Although I didn’t find it as viscerally devastating as Vasily Grossman’s [b:Everything Flows|6646257|Everything Flows|Vasily Grossman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1324052338s/6646257.jpg|728857] (which deals with the USSR’s post-collectivisation famine), I don’t think it was trying to do the same thing. The methods of the Child show the reader how the seeming madness of the Great Leap Forward eventuated in an astute and damning fashion. Lianke explains causes and effects with great clarity and purpose. ‘The Four Books’ is a distinctive, chilling novel.… (more)