- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd; New edition edition (1 May 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099451670
- ISBN-13: 978-0099451679
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 860,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Observer
‘His idiom has the spiralling invention and mytho-maniacal quality of much world literature of a high order, from Vargas Llosa to Rushdie’
San Francisco Chronicle
‘Brilliant, lyrical and intoxicating’
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mo Yan's most famous book is set during the Japanese occupation of China during the 1930s, and deals with the disintegration of a family (and a rural society) caught up in the fighting. It's a very strong story with a dreamlike quality - simultaneously horrifically violent and hauntingly beautiful. It is an inventively structured book, remarkable in particular for the integration of human and natural themes. Not only for Sinophiles, this is a remarkable book from a great writer.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I still retain vivid memories of Zhang Yi Mou's film adaptation of this novel, one of the earliest in a wave of new cinema to come out of China beginning in the late 1980s that included 'Yellow Earth', 'Raise the Red Lantern', 'Farewell My Concubine' and 'Not One Less'. All of the colour and imagery, blood and death that were unforgettable on screen are directly inspired by Mo Yan's bold, earthy, visceral writing, prose that is entirely appropriate for this engrossing, larger-than-life epic tale of three generations of a family living in China's north-eastern Shangdong Province.
In the early stages of the novel, Mo Yan intertwines events surrounding the meeting of his grandparents in the early 1920s with the conflicts and atrocities of the Sino-Japanese war in the late 1930s. As the novel progresses, Mo Yan fills in the details of the amazing lives of his parents and grandparents during the turbulent years of civil unrest under the quarrelsome warlords. Interestingly, Mo Yan sometimes gives brief one or two sentence summaries of events that occur later in the novel: surprisingly these do not diminish suspense for the reader and thereby detract from the telling of the story, but rather succeed as a stylistic literary device. Mo Yan embellishes the historical narrative with magical flourishes based on Chinese myth and legend though, except for one section in which a pack of dogs take on anthropomorphic qualities, these touches are not overdone and the realistic, historical basis of the tale is not compromised. The language and violence in Red Sorghum perfectly capture the strength of anti-Japanese fervour in China at the time, feelings that resonate to this day. Furthermore, by bringing this tale of three generations up to recent times, Mo Yan is able to offer some interesting conjecture on the inverse relationship between human values and material wealth. All in all, Red Sorghum is a compelling, blood-curdling epic that thoroughly entertains whilst giving insights into modern Chinese history.
Format:Paperback
A novel of great intensity, takes the reader for a trip through China in the 1930s. This is the time of the Japanese occupation, and book continues through the first years of the Communist regime.
It is a novel but it will ring a bell with those who have studied the history of that period. Very graphic prose, and horrifying narration of the cruelty of that war. You don't get the strategic vision of the war here, but the local realities that affected everyday life. There are also sublime episodes of deep humanity. Not an easy read, not recommended for anyone of fragile character but one of the best books to get to the soul of China.
It is a novel but it will ring a bell with those who have studied the history of that period. Very graphic prose, and horrifying narration of the cruelty of that war. You don't get the strategic vision of the war here, but the local realities that affected everyday life. There are also sublime episodes of deep humanity. Not an easy read, not recommended for anyone of fragile character but one of the best books to get to the soul of China.
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