Blast from the Past: Book Review – Red Sorghum by Mo Yan

As I mentioned yesterday, I have almost 3,000 posts still up online from various blogs. I thought it might be fun to share some of those. My very fist LiveJournal post was really just – hey look, I have an LJ now. But my second post (big surprise here) was a book review.

Originally posted May 10, 2005 on LiveJournal. Edited May 17, 2016.

Last time I was in need of a new book to read, I decided that instead of going through multiple boxes to find one of the science fiction/fantasy books I have not read yet, I would try one of the many books C and I still have from college that we never bothered to get around to reading while we were in class. (Remind me to keep my sentences shorter in the future.) I grabbed “Red Sorghum” by Mo Yan.

I am still not certain whether or not I liked the book. It was certainly an interesting story, and the writing was engaging. While there were sections that were hard to get through, I never thought of stopping reading the book. However, I never really felt that the story was brought to a conclusion. The book ended, but nothing else did.

The story is told in snipets that jump around in time period from the narrator’s grandparents’ first meeting to his own adulthood. Mostly it concentrates on his father’s and grandfather’s activities in a two to three year period during the Sino-Japanese war that preceded the communist uprising. I think I might have been more satisfied with the story if he had never jumped ahead to his own adulthood. In those very few and brief sections, the narrator mentions things that have happened, but never happen in the book. It just seems like there is so much more story than the one we are told.

The book is extremely violent, and quite graphic in its detail. In most scenes this did not bother me, but in the scenes when the violence involved animals (mules and dogs, mostly), I had a very hard getting through them. This was true even when the violence was dog on dog, or humans defending themselves from feral dogs. I do not know if this is a comment on society or on me.

I cannot say whether or not I would recommend this book. Some of my issues with it may very well be cultural. If you are interested in Chinese history and/or want to read one of the modern Chinese classics, then I say read it. It will not bore you. If you are looking for a fun read to get you through the commute or something, it probably will not satisfy you, as you will left with more questions than answers.

If anyone out there has also read this book and would like to comment, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Book: Red Sorghum
Author: Mo Yan
Translator: Howard Goldblatt
Amazon.com Price: $10.50
Bought for a class at UNR taught by Dr. Hugh Shapiro