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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Moving Story of a Family's Struggles During Mao's Era, March 19, 2005
Blood is certainly one of the most graphic and potent of literary symbols: a life-sustaining fluid, a product of injury or death, a signal of feminine fertility and virginity, a salable commodity, a gift of life via transfusion, and a genetic and metaphorical bond among children, parents, their extended families, and prospective descendants. Each of these meanings plays a significant role in CHRONICLE OF A BLOOD MERCHANT, Yu Hua's harrowing tale of one father's relentless efforts to survive and provide for his family under the most difficult of circumstances.
Set in a small town in mainland China, CHRONICLE OF A BLOOD MERCHANT follows three decades in the life of Xu Sanguan, a cocoon deliverer in a local silk factory, as he marries Xu Yulan, fathers three children (more of less named One, Two, and Three), learns that he has been cuckolded, is in turn unfaithful to his own wife, and helps his family survive the Cultural Revolution, ruinous famines, the "sending down" of two sons to the countryside, and the critical illness of his oldest son, the one he has long known is not his own. Along the way, Xu Sanguan learns to sell his blood at a local hospital as a way to raise emergency funds. Symbolically, of course, Yu Hua is portraying the burdens and hypocrisies of a system in which the lowly and honest can only barely survive by resorting to the extreme measure of selling their energy, their strength, and in some cases, their very lives.
This novel works for several reasons. First, the language is simple and direct, almost choppy and childish at times, a reflection of its uneducated protagonists. Second, the author has created a small cast of characters whose fates are inextricably linked to one another, and among whom actions both good and bad eventually create unplanned or unintended consequences. In particular, the relationship between Xu Sanguan, Xu Yulan, their son Yile, Yile's blood father He Xiaoyong, and He's wife, creates a series of alternating and humorous interdependencies. Third, Yu Hua has skillfully recreated the peasant atmosphere of Chinese village life, complete with gossiping and public lamentations, traditions and superstitions, the importance of connections (guanxi, as the Chinese call it) with higher-ups, and horrific misinformation about human health and personal care.
Finally, CHRONICLE OF A DEATH MERCHANT is a story of fatherly devotion and filial piety. Xu Sanguan is so devoted to his family that he nearly sacrifices his own life to ensure theirs. The last fifty pages describe Xu Sanguan's horrifying physical descent to the edge of death, slowly yet so inevitably that I wanted to shout at him to stop. I was reminded of the similar, sick to the stomach sense of dread I felt watching Morgan Spurlock's SUPER SIZE ME. Curiously, one is about eating and intake, while Xu Sanguan's danger arises from the blood he is selling to raise money.
While I would not classify this book as one of China's great novels, CHRONICLE OF A DEATH MERCHANT is an engaging story, sometimes sad and sometimes humorous, filled with memorable characters. Perhaps more important, it offers a biting critique of an ineffectual and often capricious government system, told from the viewpoint of those who understood it least and suffered at its unfeeling hands the most. Intentionally or otherwise, Yu Hua traces the roots of a rampant blood-selling practice in China's poorest provinces that has created an epidemic of HIV and AIDS cases. This is a book well worth reading for anyone interested in Mao's era, in China's current day HIV health crisis, or simply in a heroic family saga.
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15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lost in Translation, May 3, 2004
I really wanted to like this book, as I had liked Yu Hua's "To Live" so well, but something about this book is uncomfortable. The language is choppy and void of emotion. As this book is popular in China, and Yu Hua is revered as one of China's finest modern, popular writers, I am guessing that the translation is just not that good. If you can read Chinese, I would recommend reading this book in its original language, "Xu Sanguan Mai Xie Ji" This is the story of Xu Sanguan, and his struggles to make ends meet when life deals him a blow. Whenever he is in a need of money, he sells his blood. There is something to say here about the dire poverty and desperation of Chinese peasants under Mao; about the HIV crisis that is threatening to develop in China; and about the selling of one's soul to make a buck. Of these three themes, only the third is alluded to. And in the context of 1950s-1970s China, that theme doesn't even seem to make much sense. Instead, "Chronicle of a Blood Merchant" is just THERE...that's about the only way I can put it. As for the translation, the language is so active and choppy that it is hard to relate to the characters. Here is a typical passage..."Each and every time he sold his blood was for you. Every ren he made selling blood he spent on you. You were raised on his blood...You three seem to have forgotten all about that. Then there was the time Erle was sent to work in the countryside. Your dad sold blood not once but twice." etc. For such a rant, it's a tremendously unexciting, repetitive speech. And with so much punctuation (read: period, never an exclamation point), it's hard to feel the character's emotions. Also, while it may be a verbatim translation, the English is awkward...using slang (i.e. "snot-nosed brats", "kids")where proper terms would be much more appropriate makes the English just completely unnatural and stilted. There are times where i can see a glimmer of the real Yu Hua...passages where repitition is not boring, but touching, where simplicity is not unemotional, but jarring...in other words, the Yu Hua that wrote "To Live." I am pretty sure the translator has done a disservice to Yu Hua here. One merit...the book is FAST, mainly because the language is absurdly simple. You can probably read all 250 plus pages in a few hours. And it's an okay story, even if it does read like something I could probably write myself. I'd skip this one. Read "To Live" instead.
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13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book from China, October 30, 2003
By A Customer
This is the best book I've ever read. Yu Hua is a master literary craftsman. His books have been bestsellers in China for more than a decade and have been translated into many languages. Now, finally his Chronicle of a Blood Merchant appears in English for the first time along with his first novel, To Live. The story chronicles the vicissitudes of an ordinary Chinese man living a life of quiet - and not so quiet - desperation. He struggles to overcome his chronic poverty by selling his blood to the local hospital, enabling him to overcome one finacial crisis after another. The story sweeps the reader away and drops him right smack into the middle of the Chinese countryside. We not only see the intricacies of Chinese society but the genesis of China's modern AIDS crisis. A masterful tour de force - 5 stars!
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