Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.