June 1, 2021
Two decades after its original publication in China and a dozen years after its publication in Taiwan, this novel by acclaimed author Yan (The Day the Sun Died) has now been translated into English. Set during China's Cultural Revolution, the story follows Gao Aijun, an ambitious member of the Communist Party who has hopes of rising in the ranks and gaining prestige. He marries Guizhi (the daughter of New China's 1st Party Secretary), whom he is not otherwise attracted to, and dutifully fathers a son with her. But he soon finds himself drawn to the more like-minded Hongmei, his married female counterrevolutionary counterpart, who herself has a daughter. Aijun and Hongmei eventually begin a heated, risky love affair, even going so far as to dig a tunnel beneath and between their homes to create an underground nuptial chamber. Filled with snippets of political propaganda, Yan's book displays the degree of risk one may be willing to undertake, and the hardships one may endure, when striving to overcome oppression with hopes of personal gain. It's a story of lust and greed, with a degree of tediousness in the repetition and number of passages about Aijun and Hongmei's desire for each other, as well as all the political references. The plot is far-fetched at times; at others, it's horrifyingly realistic with violence. VERDICT Though not for general readers, this is a must-read for those familiar with Yan's writing. His liberal use of double entendre may also appeal to readers interested in historical fiction about this period of China's history.--Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from April 15, 2021
Chinese novelist Yan sets aside the "mythorealism" of books past to deliver a gritty, memorable story of love in a time of choler. Revisiting his The Four Books (2015), Yan takes us to a mountain village where just about everyone is descended from the Confucian scholars known as the Cheng Brothers, to whom a temple is dedicated. Gao Aijun, one young man outside the Cheng clan, has returned to Chenggang after serving in the army just in time for the Cultural Revolution. Married into the local Communist Party chief's family--"it was precisely because he was Party secretary that I married his daughter," he admits--Gao is a man on the make; he also confesses to harboring a desire to kill his wife. His bad behavior builds when he falls in love at first sight with a beautiful outsider who is married to the local schoolteacher, Cheng Qingdong, who "appeared very cultured and intellectual and looked as though he were about to be swept away by the revolution." Wooing her with a timely pitch--"Hongmei, let's pursue revolution together"--Gao goes about waging a war on the village leadership and, as Mao commanded, destroying the monuments of old, serving his own interests even as he carries on the affair. The two make love where they can, even inside a tomb where "the smell of death and decay mixed with the scent of damp straw," unappealingly enough, even as, one by one, those who stand in their way disappear from the scene. Hongmei isn't quite Lady Macbeth, but she still spurs Gao to commit more crimes so that, "when half of this town government is yours, we won't have to sneak around like thieves anymore." Their revolutionary ardor dims a touch when they run afoul of bigger party bosses, however, and Yan's study of power and class struggle becomes, in the end, a near-classic tragedy with the subtlest of nods to his version of magical realism. Admirers of Yan's work won't be disappointed with this turn to straightforward narrative.
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May 15, 2021
In China, notes Yan's Anglophone enabler-of-choice Rojas, there exists "a literary subgenre known as 'revolution plus love, ' which was popular . . . in the late 1920s and 1930s." Always rather subversive, Yan (Three Brothers, 2020) transplants this subgenre into the turbulence of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) to showcase "the erotics of revolutionary activism" as exemplified by an impossible love story. Gao Aijun has spent the last 20 months of military service digging a tunnel through the mountains. While returning to his home village, he encounters Xia Hongmei sitting on the train tracks. In admiration, she asks Aijun for an article of clothing, and then, unbidden, bares her red-painted toenails and opens her pink blouse for his viewing pleasure. If not love, then certainly lust-at-first-sight ensues. Despite marriages (and children) with others, their all-consuming affair translates to impassioned revolutionary fervor that leads to suicide, madness, unimagined power, and horrific downfall. In between, the lovers' boldness galvanizes their radical (albeit, not quite clear) demands for change. Yan's signature biting wit creates another indelible work of bittersweet humor and sociopolitical insight.
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