Brothers

Three quarters of the way through I was ready to put this in my top three books ever. I found the last part of the book disappointing. It didn't really fit and seemed to begin an almost totally new novel. I did, however, love reading every page and look forward to reading Yu Huan's other works. He's a great writer.

Other reviewers provide synopses, but all I can say is how much I loved this story and the characters. If you are on the fence as to whether to buy it or not, my recommendation is obvious. This book truly goes on my list of all-time favorites. Thank you, Yu Hua! Thank you, Baldy Li and Song Gang!

BROTHERS is a modern masterpiece that will be fully appreciated by few Western readers. Written for Chinese eyes and readers, it draws on staples of Chinese comedy (exaggeration, puns, silliness, earthiness), novels (Dream of the Red Chamber) and folklore (Monkey King). The patient reader will harvest from the 600 pages an image of a town and nation in near-chaos but held together by tradition, a population seeking to break from custom and station in life, and individuals facing a destiny center on the alignment of stars. The New York Times review of BROTHERS amplify the frustration a western reader will find in trying to penetrate the text. Yes, the translation doesn't quite do it justice. However, a diligent reader will say, after finishing the novel, "Wow, that was a powerful story." I recommend the book for all those who want to understand China.

I have read all of Yu Hua's works and find them quite engrossing. This work is slightly different then To Live or the Chronicles of a Blood Merchant as it has much more dark humor. As in previous works a historical span seems to be crossed and a family is followed through the upheaval of Chinese history Brothers carries on with absurdities in the charactors that are funny and yet sad, incredible but yet somehow believable.I have always liked Yu Hua's work. I think this one given its length and expanse compares more to some of the recent works by Mo Yan. Between the two of them the complexities and simple joys of contempory Chinese history are illuminated. I highly recommend this book.

BROTHERS is an absolute gem, a picaresque novel and Rabelaisian comedy of the absurd that combines Tom Sawyer and Horatio Alger with Moll Flanders and Fielding's Tom Jones, plus touches of Don Quixote and Anna Karenina. Alternately hilarious and filled with pathos, sometimes touching, other times graphically bawdy and even shockingly violent, peopled by the honest and the unscrupulous, depicting the saintliest of saints and the worst of sinners, Yu Hua's latest book presents a scathing, deeply cynical picture of modern mainland China from the time of the Cultural Revolution to the age of Viagra and plasma televisions. As the title suggests, the story traces the life paths of two stepbrothers who form childhood bonds as close as any pair of full brothers. Devilish, sex-obsessed Li Guang, known throughout his small town of Liu as Baldy Li for his short haircuts, shows promise of being a world-class entrepreneur from an early age. In the book's opening pages, he is caught red-handed in the town latrine peeking at women's bottoms from beneath the wall separating men from women. Before being caught, he succeeds spectacularly by viewing the comely posterior of the town's young beauty, Lin Hong. He soon parlays this shameful feat into 56 bowls of house special noodles, one from each Liu town male eager to hear his detailed description of the heavenly sight. As he eventually learns, Baldy Li has unintentionally followed in his natural father's path, one that led to his father's ignominious and gruesome end in that same latrine while trying to achieve the same objective. Song Gang, Baldy Li's more restrained and better educated stepbrother, is the handsome, shy, and sensitive son of Song Fanping. The first third of the book, originally published in China as a separate book in its own right, traces the boys' childhood during the horrific years of the Cultural Revolution. This section of BROTHERS is mostly brutal and tragic, but it lays out the formation of Baldy Li's and Song Gang's incredibly tight bond that, despite enormous ups and downs, becomes a lifelong mutual devotion to one another. As Part Two begins, the boys have been orphaned as a consequence of Song Fanping's tragic slaughter by his own townspeople and their mother Li Lan's steadily declining health. Baldy Li matures into a brutish and not particularly handsome young man, while Song Gang grows as tall, strong, and good-looking as Song Fanping before him. Baldy desires the hand of Lin Hong in marriage and uses Song Gang in ways reminiscent of Cyrano de Bergerac, but events (and love) unfold in ways Baldy Li never anticipates. At the same time, Baldy experiences his first business success in spectacular fashion as the manager of the Good Works Factory, a public charity operation staffed by "two cripples, three idiots, four blind men, and five deaf men" making cardboard boxes. His capitalist credentials established, Baldy Li moves on, an irresistible force who builds a full-scale business