roddy Posted April 2, 2008 at 02:54 PM Report Share Posted April 2, 2008 at 02:54 PM I've been reading a bit about Yan Lianke and it looks like his stuff might be quite interesting. He's had a few books banned, a few published, and admits to censoring what he writes in order to get it published. The description of Serve the People didn't really interest me - desecration of revolutionary images, sex, yawn - but he's won a couple of prestigious awards so I thought I might give his short stories a look. Anyone read any or got any advice on where to start? I was going to look at 年月日, a short story collection which won the Lu Xun award in 2000. Here's a Wikipedia link for you, just because I can, and more on ESWN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhwj Posted April 5, 2008 at 06:26 AM Report Share Posted April 5, 2008 at 06:26 AM I've only read his long stuff, I'm afraid. He himself considers Serve the People a minor work. Banning does weird things to aesthetic standards. But the novel 受活 is great fun and does interesting things with local culture and extensive footnotes. He's not universally praised, however. A couple of years ago I was talking to Fan Wen 范稳, author of bestselling novels about foreigners in western Sichuan and Tibet, and he didn't consider Yan Lianke a real writer, just someone who was playing with words. Tell us how his short stuff turns out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted April 6, 2008 at 01:27 PM Author Report Share Posted April 6, 2008 at 01:27 PM 年月日 was out of stock on amazon.cn, so ended up ordering 受活 - will see how I get on with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted April 9, 2008 at 07:10 AM Author Report Share Posted April 9, 2008 at 07:10 AM 收活 turned up today - a quick flick through seems quite promising, there's some interesting stuff in the footnotes. Not sure when I'll get to it as 三体 was in the same delivery, which is much more tempting, and I've also (and don't ask me how, I don't know) ended up reading a chunk of 曾子墨's autobiography. She's started to really irritate me, but I'm far enough in I think I might just finish out of bloody-mindedness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted April 30, 2008 at 06:43 AM Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2008 at 06:43 AM About a third of the way through, really enjoying it. The village scenes are great fun, without turning anyone into comedy peasants - or for that matter comedy cripples, the back story of the village and how 茅枝婆 ended up there (just finished the footnote on 入社) is keeping me interested, and I suspect there's going to be a whole load of enjoyment to be had from the 茅枝婆 / 县长 conflict. Also loving the writing - I find the village comes across very vividly and some of the images - a man dressed up being like southern bananas on a northern date tree; post-snowfall trees holding great white umbrellas - are arresting. The dialogue is also well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted May 28, 2008 at 03:52 AM Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2008 at 03:52 AM Finished this over the last couple of days, after having set it aside for a couple of weeks for no good reason. Overall really enjoyed it, definitely worth the read. I was kind of disappointed with the way that 茅枝婆 and 刘县长 both had their stories end separately, rather than in some kind of showdown. Loved 刘县长's character and personality cult though. What to read now, what to read now. Perhaps a nice magazine, with pictures and short articles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted January 1, 2013 at 08:29 PM Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2013 at 08:29 PM Bit of a bump, but I happened to notice the Kindle edition of Cindy Carter's translation of Yan's Dream of Ding Village on Amazon.co.uk* for the very reasonable price of no pounds and 99 pence. *Sorry if you don't live in .co.uk. And that's an affiliate link, I'm trying to figure out if people ever buy stuff from links on here. The answer so far is "no." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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