Customer Reviews

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out: A Novel

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What a great book. I have been reading a lot of books on 20th century China, both fiction and non-fiction, and this is one of my favorites. Not many writers take on the tumultuous events of the Communist era from a rural perspective, but this book does just that. Northeast Gaomi Township is full of characters, fully fleshed out characters, whose stories are followed through a period of over 50 years. Much of the book is very funny, especially when the narrator is one of the animal reincarnations Of Ximen Nao (he returns as a donkey, an ox, a pig, and a dog) commenting on the foibles of humans and the many reforms of the Mao era. The pig farming part of the book alone is worth the price of admission. The one confusing part of the book is the use of multiple narrators. At first I was sometimes not sure of who was talking, but as the book progressed and I got to know the characters better, that became much less of a problem. One interesting aspect of the book is the author inserting himself as a character in the story, and a not too pleasant one at that. Amazingly, the book gets rather sad and rhapsodic at the end, but from this author nothing is unexpected. I plan to read some of his other books. Highly recommended.

This book is written masterfully and encompasses a half century with sorrow and wit. Mo Yan is brilliant and the world he creates is both real and fantastical, while never settling for sentiment or fabulism. The only complaint I have about this book is the number of typos, which ranged from missed periods to misspelled words to forgetting page breaks between voices. I imagine Arcade Publishing is to blame and would hope they would take more time with an author whose work will probably win him the Nobel Prize.

I can't say enough about "Life and Death..." It will rank among my very favorite novels ever: Rushdie's "Midnight's Children"; Helprin's "Winter's Tale"; Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita". Each of these has a certain "fantasy"/"magical realism" element to it that for me adds tremendously to the fun of reading.

But each (with perhaps exception of "Winter's...") is also a pretty incisive look at the society and politics of its particular time and place. "Life and Death..." is a neat way to get an inside perspective of post-WWII China. And each is also a "ripping yarn": the plot lines are fast and fascinating; the drama intense. But the intense drama does not preclude humour: some parts of "Life and Death..." are very funny, in particular those parts in which the author, Mo Yan, makes wicked fun of his own character in the book. We get "comic relief" with a neat literary trick all for the price of one.

Another aspect that amazed me about the book is Yan's ability to keep each "reincarnation" as powerful as the preceding ones. Readers afraid to dive into the book for its length should just get with it: they will be getting 5 exceptional, unique stories, each with its own tremendous charm and each completely original.

If I have a very small quibble it has to do with the characterizations. Very few of the "supporting cast" are quite fully developed. But as if to compensate each reincarnation is wonderfully accomplished with each animal having its own, unique personality, and, especilly, attitudes (many of which quite funny)

All in all one of my best reads ever. I am very happy to have "discovered" Mo Yan and will look forward to his other works

You have to keep in mind that this work was not necessarily meant for the Western mindset. It is a marvelous look at how China changed through recent history and it is told in one of the most inventive ways I have ever seen. If you have strong views on how religion, reincarnation, sexuality, or relationships should be in your mind, you may have trouble understanding. This book, for us Westerners, could open your eyes to how others live and how our ridged sense of morality does not fairly translate else ware. It is also intensely spiritual. If you want to expand your knowledge of the human condition, buy this. Peace to you.

Have you ever read a book that you really really didn't enjoy, but felt compelled to finish? I considered Mo Yan's "Garlic Ballads" one of the most searingly gut-wrenching novels I had ever read, offering an unforgettable portrait of rural poverty, which was compassionate without being at all melodramatic. So after seeing many glowing reviews of his latest novel in numerous esteemed publications, I couldn't wait to read Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out.

It's a clever concept: describing the development of a rural community during the tumultuous changes in China from 1949 through the late 1990s, through the eyes of animals who are the successive reincarnations of a prominent villager. Yet somehow Mo Yan's stark, unemotional style (which worked so well in conveying the drab poverty in his earlier novel), combined with his attempt at magical realism, just made this book a struggle to read. His attempts at self-deprecating humor by making himself, under his real name, one of the characters whom the others regard as a buffoon, is cloying at first, but one gets used to it. While he does a brilliant job at imagining the point of view and character development of a donkey and a pig, the lengthy sections about the ox and especially the dog felt contrived at times. About halfway through the novel I realized I'd lost interest, purely because the writing style was wearing me out. Yet I couldn't put it aside. I had an indescribable urge to finish the experience. From then on it was a struggle, reading 50 to 100 pages at a time, then taking a break to read something else, then back to this book.

This is a novel I am very glad to have read, but didn't really enjoy the act of reading it.

A good book and an excellent study of rural China in its dramatic last half of the 20th Century. It's a good read and a good story, but it also meanders and bogs down at times. I'd recommend it, but at times, "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out" was wearing me out.

By the time I finished Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out, I felt pretty worn around the edges myself by the ups and downs and all arounds suffered by the five reincarnations of the one being who serves as one of two narrators in this most imaginative story.

It so happens that the reincarnations of Ximen Nao coincide with Mao's rise, the subsequent campaigns by the government to advance China, and the turn of the millennium. These events are viewed and portrayed through the eyes of the many characters who populate Ximen's small village, which by coincidence is also Mo Yan's hometown. It's also of interest that Mo Yan appears as a character in the events, ranging from initiatives to push collective agriculture and the disastrous smelting experiment (during which individual families were required to smelt steel in their backyards) to the cultural revolution and push to turn China into a capitalist giant.

Confession: I put the book down for a few hours with the intent of not finishing it during the cultural revolution phase. From a westerner's perspective - mine - that was a blood bath as only Asia can do blood baths. The narrative didn't capture that and I couldn't understand why the cultural revolution was soft pedaled. But after some reflection, I realized that the text was viewing the upheaval through the perspectives of the characters, as were all the developments that swept through China at the time. These are characters, who similar to real people, got out of bed each morning and did what real people did. They earned a living, in an effort to put food on the table and a roof over the head. Larger interests including pursuing a mate, or falling in love. Some go so far as pursuing political power at the local and regional levels.

The characters adapt, especially politically, as circumstances require. All but one of the village join the collective farm, and when that splinters they are swept up in subsequent movements.

The effect on me was that by the end, I felt worn out, too.

And that's in keeping with this very Buddhist novel. The reader early on is forewarned in the epigraph from the Buddha: Transmigration wearies owing to mundane desires/Few desires and inaction bring peace to the mind.

The experiences of the last 60 years in the PRC from the anarchic internal point of view of a mordant observer and participant. Think Lawrence Sterne and Mark Twain, reporting on a developing peasant society.

Ximen Nao considered himself to be a good and decent man, but nobody listened to him anyway and soon he found himself being tortured and ultimately "burnt to a crisp." Nobody ever said life was fair, but when the good Lord Yama decided to send him back to earth as a lowly donkey Nao just not could believe it! A donkey of all things ... Just what was Lord Yama thinking? Worse yet he found himself to be the property of Lan Lian, his former servant and foster son. Things went from bad to worse when he figured out that Lan Lian had not only taken his wife, but had impregnated her. Heehaw

Mo Yan, prolific and controversial Chinese writer, spins a fantastical yarn of the reincarnation woes of Ximen Nao in his latest book, Life and Death are Wearing Me Out. After Blackie the donkey is killed by a starving mob he then is thrown back on earth as Ximen ox. There was "instant recognition" when Lan Lian bought him in the market. Troubles began to mount as Lan continues to refuse to join the People's Commune. Jinlong and Baoteng, Ximen Nao's children have left the family home to join up and fingers point to the only holdouts, Lan Lian and brother Jiefang, who want to be independent farmers. If Nao thought being Ximen Donkey was bad, he'd have to think again because the situation was only getting worse by the minute. What next? This reincarnation stuff was really wearing him out., but he would come back again and again and again. Lord Yama certainly wasn't doing him any favors.

This book was an amazing commentary on Chinese life and I did enjoy the changing perspective of the life of Ximen Nao when he was reincarnated into various animal life forms, however, after a while I did find the story line becoming fairly tedious to wade through. The translator, Howard Goldblatt, did an excellent job of making the characters come alive, an extremely difficult task. This book would be of interest primarily to those interested in Chinese literature and those who would be interested in a `between the lines' Chinese history.