Red Sorghum
Text
Red Sorghum [the novel] Study Guide
Mo Yan. Red Sorghum: A Family Saga. Trans. Howard Goldblatt. 1993 Viking Penguin. New York: Penguin-Viking, 1994. This novel began as a short story published in 1986, so well received that it later was expanded into five chapters and published as “a family saga” in 1987, by the People’s Liberation Army Publishing House, Beijing. It was also made into a film, released under the English title Red Sorghum, in 1987, directed by Zhang Yimou. http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/asianfilm/china/zhang.html At the publisher’s request, Mo Yan added further episodes and published the novel in its entirety in 1989. Translator Howard Goldblatt is editor of Modern Chinese Literature and professor at University of Colorado; his translation of Red Sorghum was partially funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. At Mo Yan’s request, Goldblatt’s translation was based on Taipei Hong-fan Book Co., 1988 Chinese edition Hung kao liang chia tsu, which restores cuts made in the 1987 mainland Chinese edition. Also by MO YAN & available in English translation: T’ien-t’ang suan t’ai chih ko. The Garlic Ballads (also trans. as Song of Wild Garlic). Trans Howard Goldblatt. 1995, Viking Penguin. NewYork: Penguin, 1996. Literary-Biography & Critical Commentary Mo Yan (b. 1956 in Shandong province, People’s Republic of China) is a member of the cultural affairs department of People’s Liberation Army (PLA). He is the author of four novels, several novellas, and many short stories; and winner of many national literary prizes. Mo Yan has been judged one of China’s “most innovative and creative novelists in recent years” (Li). In an interview reported by Peter Li, Mo Yan describes how he came to write Red Sorghum. He joined the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) in 1976, and was admitted to the literature department of the PLA College of Literature and Arts in 1984. There he studied military fiction written since “the liberation,” but became “disgusted with it.” Under the dictates of the Cultural Revolution, writers were required to “write about gigantic events and projects, as well as very positive and very negative characters. All of it was fake.” Mo Yan’s writing soon underwent a “drastic change”: “…I wanted to explore new modes of expression.” Jeffrey Kinkley, of St. John’s University in New York, calls Mo Yan a young, defiantly experimental writer, and his story takes a modernist track, interweaving past and present fragments of a main plot and several subplots into a slightly mystifying yet cinematic and classically suspenseful grand narrative—cinematic because of his mesmerizing red symbolism: red sorghum (the original color the crop, modern hybrids are colorless), red blood, red sunsets, red bridal veils, red wine. In Red Sorghum, Mo Yan portrays the “brutal realities of war, which had not be portrayed before”; he “spare[s] us none of the brutalities of war, which the other writers have sanitized from their works in order to show the revolutionary ideals of a just war” (Li). The key characters of Red Sorghum “do not consider themselves to be part of any organized fighting force, nor do they consider themselves to be fighting on the side of righteousness . . . . In fact, even their very survival from day to day is in question. For these fighters there is no PLA, no Communist Party, no Chairman Mao. They fight to survive, they fight for their land, their native soil (xiangtu). To be a hero is to fight the Japanese” (Li). In this novel, “even a local bandit can become a hero,” “local home-grown ruffians like Command Yu and Detachment Leader Leng . . . become the heroes of Red Sorghum” (Li). The “hit and miss” of guerrilla warfare fought on Gaomi sorghum fields is “quite different from the battle founds by the PLA” in earlier Communist socialist realist novels; we no longer find a “totally devoted, selfless soldier lead[ing] a heroic attack…without suffering a wound.” Instead, Red Sorghum presents “a lot of blood and gore. One’s own men are hit as frequently, if not more so, as those of the enemy and in the same horrible way” (Li). And the victory of the Battle of Black Water Bridge is costly and short-lived. Six days later, the Japanese viciously counterattack, kill hundreds of villagers, and torch the village before withdrawing. Another key decision Mo Yan made was to write of the place where he grew up, “Gaomi County,” because “I had a deep understanding of its history, customs, and habits.” The novel is “authentic” in reflecting “the attitudes and actions of a large majority of the Chinese people who live in the rural areas. The themes of internecine fighting, differences of opinion, the interplay of local personalities, gender relationships, intergenerational conflicts all make Red Sorghum an unusual and interesting work, as do the local customs and habits of the Gaomi district in Shandong” (Li). Gaomi is a contradictory place, evincing mixed love-hate emotions. “But this is the soil to which the people are attached, and where life-giving crops of red sorghum are planted each year. The people depend on the sorghum for their livelihood, and it is synonymous with life itself” (Li). A third inspiration for writing Red Sorghum was that “I had heard many stories that were orally transmitted in my district”: When the peasants took breaks from their work in the fields, the older people would sit on a rock and begin telling tales. Someone might say that in 1937, it was at this very spot that the Japanese killed, or that so and so had been killed by a bullet that ran through his stomach, making a big hole in it. The following day, another person might retell the same tale differently, and so on. Every time the tale was told, something was added. The more times the tale was told, the richer it became. The images became more and more colorful. Gradually, history became myth. From this oral and enriching form of storytelling, Mo Yan’s Chinese kind of “magical realism,” reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia), was born. According to Kinkley, magical realism is evidenced in the mythic proportions of Mo Yan’s tale, its fantastic plot, and its rapturous imagery of “’crushed and broken sorghum,' ‘sorghum corpses,’ ‘sorghum everywhere…crying bitterly.’” From the point of view of a subjective first-person narrator, colorful and dynamic characters come to life. Marxist “socialist realism,” requiring larger-than-life heroes glorified for fighting the just revolutionary cause, gives way to “psychological exploration” of complex characters, with complicated commitments “to family and children and other humanitarian concerns” before nationalist ideals, present new forms of heroism (Li). Peter Li identifies Grandmother Dai [called simply Nine by her family] as the true heroine of Red Sorghum: a casualty of war, she emerges as “the most interesting and colorful character in the novel and the protagonist who links the entire story together.” Her heroism stems from “a strength of character and integrity that defies [the usual heroic] physical characteristics” such as “exploits of strength and courage” (Li). Sources: Kinkley, Jeffrey C. “World Literature in Review.” Rev. of Mo Yan. Red Sorghum: A Novel of China. Trans. Howard Goldblatt. New York: Viking 1993. World Literature Today 68.2 (Spring 1994): 428-429. Rpt. Ebscohost Academic Search Elite, Article No. 9407292714. Li, Peter. “War and Modernity in Chinese Military Fiction.” Society 34.5 (July/August 1997): 77+(13pp). Rpt. Ebscohost Academic Search Elite, Article No. 9707130302. Characters GRANDDAD = COMMANDER YU = YU ZHAN’AO [Yu = family name; Zhan’ao = personal name]. Born to a poor family ca. 1899, Yu Zhan’ao’s history is violent and varied. As a young bearer for the Wedding and Funeral Service Company, he first meets Grandma and falls in love with her. He helps run the family sorghum wine distillery, becomes a bandit leader [AKA: men who eat “fistcakes,” see ch. 1.5 p. 47], later joins the Iron Society, and leads the ambush on the Japanese invaders at the “famous battle” of Black Water River. GRANDMA = DAI FENGLIAN, or Little NINE [Dai = family name; Fenglian = personal name; little Nine = childhood name] . At 6, her mother begins binding her feet; the painful process produces “three-inch golden lotuses” (ch. 1.5, p. 40), which contribute to Nine’s fame as a regional beauty. At 16, Grandma is betrothed by her father to Shan Bianlang, leper son of Shan Tingxiu, (ch. 1.5, p. 39). One of the bearers of her bridal sedan is Yu Zhan’ao (Grandfather): their attraction to each other catalyzes a chain reaction: Zhan’ao saves her from a bandit, rapes her three days later in the sorghum fields, kills the Shan father and his leprous son (her new husband), and thereby positions Grandma, the young widow, to become the rich new owner of the Shan sorgham wine distillery. “UNCLE ARHAT” LIU: initially works for Shan family distillery, and, after the Shans’ untimely deaths, he continues as Grandma’s foreman of the family sorghum winery. Rumors that “he had affair with my grandma” are not supported by “hard evidence” (ch. 1.2, p. 14). Beloved friend and caretaker of young Douguan (“Father”). Later, in 1938, during the building of the Jiao-Ping Highway, Uncle Arhat is conscripted for the road building, rebels and attacks Grandma’s two black mules (see ch. 1.3, pp. 14-24), and then is caught, skinned alive, and mutilated by Sun Five (village hog butcher) before the whole village (see ch. 1.4, pp. 33-37), on the orders of the Japanese invaders (ch. 1.2, p. 14). FATHER = DOUGUAN: son of (first) Grandma and Grandfather Commander Yu. NARRATOR [unnamed “I” who tells the story] son of Douguan, and grandson of Grandma and Commander Yu. Narrator returns “to Northeast Gaomi Township to compile a family chronicle, focusing on the “famous battle” of Black Water River (ch.1.2, p. 13). COMMANDER YU’S 40 GUERRILLA TROOPS, who fought the “famous battle” at Black Water River (ch.1.2, p. 13) against the Japanese in 1939 “Uncle” Wang Wenyi, whose children were killed in a Japanese bombing, and whose wife is killed by the Japanese during the ambush at Black Water River bridge (ch. 1.7, pp. 65-66). Adjutant Ren – see description: ch. 1.6, p. 53; after he forces Commander Yu to execute Big Tooth Yu. Adjutant Ren is the original owner of the Browning pistol. Mute: also “one of Commander Yu’s old bandit friends, a greenwood hero who had eaten fistcakes in the sorghum field,” and who limps from a “prenatal injury” (ch. 1.1, p. 11) Fang Six and Fang Seven, brothers “Buglar” Liu Sishan - “another of Commander Yu’s longtime buddies, dating back from when he was a sedan bearer and Liu was a funeral musician” (ch. 1.4, p. 25). “POCKY” LENG – AKA: DETACHMENT LEADER LENG: Commander Yu [Granddad] is enraged when Leng and his men fail to show up on time for the ambush of the Japanese where the Jiao-Ping Highway crosses the Black Water River bridge. When Detachment Leader Leng does show up, he and his men take most of the munitions and leave the village defenseless (ch. 1.9). During the Chinese anti-Japanese resistance, “Pocky” Leng’s detachment; the Jiao-Gao Regiment, led by “Little Foot” Jiang”; and Commander Yu and the Iron Society often fight among themselves over scarce armaments and power in the county. “LITTLE FOOT” JIANG, leader of the JIAO-GAO REGIMENT, which will later attack the Iron Society at Grandma’s belated funeral. Both these groups are in turn attacked by “Pocky” Leng’s detachment at the Black Water River Dike. Then all three guerrilla groups are attacked by their common enemy, the Japanese (Ch. 4.4, 4.9). OTHER INHABITANTS OF NORTHEAST GAOMI TOWNSHIP & Environs OLD WOMAN = “CLAY POT” = “LAME WOMAN LIU” is one of the few villagers who survive the Japanese invasion and village massacre. Afterwards, she takes care of Commander Yu, Douguan, and “Mother.” Years later, she will sing the glorious history of Grandma Dai Fenglian and tell Uncle Arhat’s story for the Narrator. The “woman Liu” is added to the family scroll (ch. 4.5, p. 270). Shan Tingxiu [Shan = family name; Tingxiu = personal name]: Owner of a famous regional distillery of “high-quality white [sorghum] wine and “one of Northeast Gaomi Township’s richest men” (ch. 1.5, p. 39). He arranges the marriage of his son Shan Bianlang, who has leprosy, to GRANDMA. The Shans, father and son, are later murdered by YU ZHAN’AO [=GRANDFATHER]. Great-Granddad DAI (the village silversmith) and Great-Grandma DAI: the greedy parents of Grandma “Nine.” Beauty, a teenaged friend of Grandma, is killed by a lightning strike, rumored to be heaven’s revenge for her greed for causing the death of an abandoned baby named Road Joy. Sun Five, the village hog butcher, is forced by the Japanese to skin Uncle Arhat alive in front of the whole village. Afterwards, Sun Five goes insane. Nine Dreams Cao = Magistrate Cao, Gaomi County magistrate in the 1920s, whom Grandma declares to be her “foster dad” when she repudiates her own father (Great-Granddad). Also known as Shoe Sole Cao the Second for his favorite punishment, he wages war against the county’s “three scourges”: “banditry, opium, and gambling” (ch. 2.5, pp. 112-113). Later he sets a trap for Granddad’s bandits outside Jinan City. Master Yan Luogu, one of Magistrate Cao’s men. Nine Monkeys Shan, the village chief and another of Magistrate Cao’s men. Spotted Neck, a notorious bandit in the early 1920s--“the golden days of banditry in Northeast Gaomi Township” (Ch. 4.5, p. 277)—whose gang kidnaps Grandma for ransom. Later Granddad exacts revenge and himself becomes a bandit leader. Lingzi: a young woman, rumored to be in love with Adjutant Ren, and who is raped by Big Tooth Yu (ch. 1.6, p. 52-54). Big Tooth Yu, uncle of Commander Yu, who helped raise him: after Big Tooth Yu rapes Lingzi, Adjutant Ren demands that he be executed, and Commander Yu reluctantly orders Mute to shoot his uncle (ch. 1.5, pp. 56-57). PASSION, later 2ND GRANDMA, who works for Grandma at the sorghum wine distillery until she and Granddad become lovers and they move to another village, Saltwater Gap. 2nd Grandma suffers from possession by a weasel, later is gang-raped by the Japanese invaders (ca. 1937), and goes insane. Little Auntie, named Xiangguan, is the 5-year-old daughter of Passion [2nd Grandma] and Granddad [Commander Yu]. She is killed by the Japanese in ca. 1937. Other Survivors [besides “the woman Liu,” Douguan, & Commander Yu] of the Mid-Autumn Festival Massacre by the Japanese: “MOTHER” [of the Narrator], named Beauty, whose parents hide her and her little brother Harmony is a well during the Japanese invasion. Harmony dies, but she is rescued by Douguan [“Father”], and will later marry him. Wang Guang, Dezhi, Guo Yang [AKA “Gimpy”], Blind Eye (in addition to “old woman Liu,” Commander Yu, Douguan, and “Mother”). Douguan leads them in battle against the corpse eating dogs. Blackie, Green, and Red: the family dogs who become rival leaders of the “crazed” pack of corpse-eating dogs left masterless after the massacre. MEMBERS OF THE “IRON SOCIETY” Black Eye, leader of the Iron Society. After Granddad and Passion [2nd Grandma] leave her, Grandma lives with Black Eye for a time in Saltwater Gap. Seeking revenge, Granddad fights Black Eye to a draw on the bank of the Salty Water River. Five Troubles, a handsome young Iron Society soldier, talks Commander Yu [Granddad] and Douguan into joining the Iron Society to continue fighting the Japanese (ca. 1940), and supports Granddad in becoming undisputed leader of the Iron Society. Settings NORTHEAST GAOMI TOWNSHIP, Shandong Province, Northern China Fertile, productive black soil, “and the people who tilled it were especially decent, strong-willed, and ambitious” (ch. 1.1; p. 9) SORGHUM fields, the lifeblood of the township, at their height forming dense fields separating the village from the Black Water River. SORGHUM WINE DISTILLERY becomes Grandma’s after the original owners, the Shans, are murdered. The wine is renowned because of the “family secret” (ch. 2.1). The family home is later destroyed when the Japanese invaders torch the village (ch. 3.2, p. 181). TOAD HOLLOW: on the road through the sorghum fields, the site of the hold-up of Grandma’s wedding party and, 3 days later, where “Grandma and Granddad exchanged their love” and Douguan is conceived (ch. 1.8, p. 71). BLACK WATER RIVER, running near the village and through the sorghum: site of the ambush and “famous battle” of late Autumn, 1939. JIAO-PING HIGHWAY: a forced-labor construction project of the Japanese invaders (1938), running across the Black Water River along the sorghum fields of Northeast Gaomi Township. WHITE HORSE MOUNTAIN: “an enormous rock formation on the northern edge of the plain” Red Sorghum [the novel] Chronology [under construction]: URL: http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/RedSorghum/redsorgchron.htm Red Sorghum [the novel] Study Guide [under construction]: URL: http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/RedSorghum/redsorghum.htm Top of this page URL of this webpage: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/redsorghum.htm Online HUM 210 Course Resources: Syllabus Course Plan Assignments Student Writing Asian Film Asian Links: India China Japan Asian Timelines: India China Japan Epic Genre & Mahabharata Cora's Home Page | Site Map | Current Schedule | Cora's Classes more Student Writing | COCC Links If you're interested in other world literatures and cultures, visit these course websites: Hum 211 - Culture and Literature of Africa Eng 109 - Western World Literatures (late 18th-late 20th centuries) [../../../footer.htm]
Red Sorghum: A Search for Roots
Red Sorghum (1987 China 91 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Xi’an Film Studio Prod: Dir: Zhang Yimou Scr: Chen Jianyu, Zhu Wei based on the books by Mo Yan Phot: Gu Changwei Ed: Du Yuan Art Dir: Yang Gang Mus: Zhao Jiping Cast: Gong Li, Jiang Wen, Ji Cun-Hua, Teng Rujun My thinking about culture begins the moment it is in ruins. – Chen Kaige Zhang Yimou has been hailed as the most creative and outstanding filmmaker of the Fifth Generation. Zhang and his compatriot Fifth Generation filmmakers (such as Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang) were the first post-Cultural Revolution graduates from the Beijing Film Academy (graduating in 1982 this class was labelled the Fifth Generation). They were largely responsible for bringing international recognition to Mainland Chinese films. Prior to the emergence of the Fifth Generation, Chinese cinema was dominated by the production of propagandist films. The Fifth Generation filmmakers challenged the existing system both indirectly and directly; in order to evade censorship, these directors employed the clever use of allegory, symbol and metaphor. In so doing, the Fifth Generation filmmakers have been applauded for their hauntingly beautiful, culturally rich and multi-layered cinematographical language. Red Sorghum made in 1987 was the first film that Zhang directed. His second film Ju Dou (1990) won numerous prestigious international awards such as the 1990 Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, the Golden Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival and Best Film at the 1990 New York Film Festival. Ju Dou was also the first Chinese film to be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, at the 1990 Academy Awards. Zhang’s third film, Raise the Red Lantern (1991) won five prizes at the 1991 Venice Film Festival, and was also nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 1992 Academy Awards. Paul Clark, a scholar on Chinese film, writes that the images of China in Fifth Generation films “reflect a profoundly ambivalent nationalism”. This is understandable considering the historical and cultural milieu from which the Fifth Generation filmmakers emerged. This profoundly ambivalent nationalism manifested itself in many of their films including Red Sorghum. Red Sorghum can be aptly described as a film involved in a deep questioning and searching for roots. The film’s concentrated focus on folk culture tells a story – or even a “legend”, as the film itself suggests – of the narrator’s grandparents. The narrator’s obvious Chinese background but anonymous identity seems to imply and encourage a universal, grass roots questioning of the Chinese heritage. The narrator is, in fact, not even sure of who his grandfather is, nevertheless, he likes to believe that it is the character of Grandpa (Jiang Wen), who was one of Jiu’er or Grandma’s (Gong Li) bridal sedan-bearers. Inherent in how this story or legend is constructed is a deep questioning of China’s roots – who and how did our (Chinese) ancestors come about? This questioning of China’s roots and origins is also illustrated in the metaphor of the sorghum – how did the sorghum come to grow in this area (the Northeast of China)? The narrator tells us that no one knows and that it simply grew wildly and naturally. The film’s focus on folk culture repudiates or questions the refined and sophisticated notions of Chinese culture; awakening us to more primal instincts. Red Sorghum‘s return to grass roots seems to also be a celebration of the carnal. The film invokes many ideas of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the carnival; essentially a return to basic biological needs such as eating, drinking, defecating, making love and rearing children. From the start of the film, the body and bodily functions are depicted in the unabashed shots of the sedan-bearers’ naked, sweat-soaked and dust-covered torsos as they teasingly, but vigorously, jostle the bridal palanquin. And throughout the film, the men are shown in various states of undress in their labours; for example, in the wine-brewing scene, the men are only clad in loin-cloths, and are warned of Jiu’er’s approaching presence, and hence are being called to appropriately cover themselves. The scenes of the invocation of the wine god succinctly encapsulate the celebration of the carnal as the characters of the film overtly evoke the Nietzschean celebration of the Dionysian spirit. The semi-nude men displaying their raw masculinity get drunk in the worship of the wine god and chant: If you drink our wine, You’ll breathe well and you won’t cough; If you drink our wine, You’ll be well and your mouth won’t smell bad… If you drink our wine, You won’t kow-tow to the emperor… But the crudest example of the celebration of the carnal would be Grandpa pissing into the wine vats; which curiously produces the best wine the winery has ever made. It clearly exemplifies Grandpa’s virility. The raw masculinity portrayed in Red Sorghum is a sharp contrast to the traditional (even effeminate) Chinese image of the refined, cultivated and intellectual man that is very much associated with the Imperial Examinations of the feudal system of China. Red Sorghum promulgates a search for roots deeper and more genuine than those of traditional imperial China, as the chant defiantly resonates: “If you drink our wine, you won’t kow-tow to the emperor!” This sharp attack on traditions is not only seen in the seemingly ludic chant above; but more poignantly in the allegory of the leprous winery owner, who represents China’s obsolete feudal and patriarchal system – which is depicted as impotent and ineffective. The acerbic criticism is made when we find out that Jiu’er is forced into marriage to a leprous winery owner in exchange for a mule – Jiu’er daringly questions her father’s love and even denounces him for such a cruel and callous act. Refusing to be subjected to her ill fate, Jiu’er is only armed with a pair of scissors to guard her dignity; fortunately, the consummation of the marriage never occurs and the leprous winery owner mysteriously dies. The narrator believes that Grandpa is responsible for the death. Jiu’er instead gives herself to Grandpa, who carries her off into the sorghum field and makes a bed out of wild sorghum for her – this is where the narrator’s father is believed to have been conceived. The film blatantly criticises the ineffectual and repressive feudal and patriarchal system of China, boldly awakening and beckoning us to the real and genuine realities of our feelings and primal instincts. The search for roots can also be seen in the landscape represented in the film. Previously, Chinese filmmakers have represented China through the quintessentially southern landscape of water, trees, cultivated fields and cosy settlement. Red Sorghum, however, defies this tradition and is set in the rough northeast Gaomi Township, where Mo Yan, the author of the novel Red Sorghum, comes from. Contrastingly different from the south, Mo Yan describes the northeast as “the most beautiful and repulsive, most unusual and most common, most sacred and most corrupt, most heroic and most bastardly, hardest-drinking and hardest-loving place in the world…” Zhang has purposefully chosen this harsh environment for the film, challenging the traditional outlook and established notions of China’s roots. One of the most memorable images in Red Sorghum is found in the last sequence of the film, where we see the mud-caked half-naked bodies of Grandpa and the narrator’s father amongst the corpses. After plotting an ambush and eradicating the Japanese troops, Grandpa and his son (the father of the narrator) are the sole survivors at the end of the film – both these characters’ actual names are never revealed and we are introduced to them simply, almost generically as the nameless narrator’s father and Grandpa, symbolic representations of the Chinese people. The closing images of mud-covered naked bodies and swaying wild sorghum – with folk songs sung as tributes to Jiu’er and the primal beating of the drum – tell us that the characters’ survival and the survival of the Chinese people depend on their ability to shake off the shackles of repression of Chinese culture and return to grass roots.
Red Sorghum - discussion
Join LibraryThing to post. This topic is currently marked as "dormant"—the last message is more than 90 days old. You can revive it by posting a reply. 1StevenTXNov 30, 2012, 9:46am Top This thread is for reviews and discussion of Mo Yan's novel Red Sorghum: A Novel of China. Please flag your post with the word "SPOILERS" if appropriate. 2rebeccanycDec 1, 2012, 8:28am Top Here is the review I posted on my reading threads and the book page. At the end of this grim book, which jumps back and forth in time but mainly focuses on the period just before and during the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Shandong area (and more) of China, the essentially contemporary narrator, who has barely intruded himself into the story, mourns the loss of the past, as epitomized by the now hybrid sorghum covering the area where his family used to live. As I stand amid the dense hybrid sorghum, I think of surpassingly beautiful scenes that will never again appear. In the deep autumn of the eighth month under a high, magnificently clear sky, the land is covered by sorghum that forms a glittering sea of blood. If the autumn rains are heavy, the fields turn into a swampy sea, the red tips of sorghum rising above the muddy yellow water, appealing stubbornly to the blue sky above. When the sun comes out, the surface of the sea shimmers, and heaven and earth are painted with extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily majestic colors." pp. 385-359 Although, as here, Mo Yan beautifully captures the magnificence of the natural world, as well as (elsewhere) the animals that inhabit it, the preceding 358 pages tell a story of trickery, rivalry, violence, and atrocities that show the depths of what human beings are capable of. Essentially, the narrator is telling the story of his grandparents and his father; throughout the novel they are referred to as Granddad, Grandma, Father, Little Auntie, Second Grandma, etc., so the reader is always aware of the family connections, even though the narrator is largely invisible. The reader first encounters Father as a teenager in 1939, about to follow his father, Granddad, a leader of one of several private armies in the area, into battle against the Japanese invaders, and ultimately also against some of the other armed groups . But soon the story flashes back to Grandma's journey as a teenaged girl to the man she is being forced to marry, rumored to be a leper like his father. The story of how she falls in love with Grandpa instead (he is one of the men carrying her traditional sedan chair to her new husband's home, although also sometimes a bandit) and what ensues, leading her to become the owner and manager of a prospering sorghum wine distillery, is both funny and violent. As the novel continues, it jumps back in forth in time, and includes the stories of a variety of other characters; the reader has to pay attention to keep track of who's who and when events are happening. Throughout the novel, Mo Yan illustrates Chinese village life in the era of warring bandits, which includes both horrifying and humorous events, as well as the atrocities of war, especially those perpetrated by the Japanese who employed a scorched earth policy in the region known, according to Wikipedia, as the "Three Alls" policy -- "kill all, burn all, loot all." Some of the details are hard to read. This is not only a very earthy book, with a variety of sexual relationships and jealousies, lots of blood, graphic injuries, mud, animal activities and wastes, and more, and a very violent book, but also a book with many lyrical passages like the one quoted above and in some ways a mythical one, with animals both helping and demonically possessing people, and even fighting people as an organized army. The red sorghum itself is almost a character, shielding lovers and warriors, providing sustenance, symbolizing the natural order of the region as it resists invaders. This is a difficult book to read, but one well worth reading. As a final note, I was interested to read a translator's note, especially in light of some discussions here on LT about English translations of Chinese novels generally being abridged, that said that the translation was based on a Taipei edition, "which restores cuts made in the Mainland Chinese edition" and that also "some deletions have been made, with the author's approval." 3StevenTXDec 4, 2012, 12:00pm Top And here is my review from early 2012: 10. Red Sorghum: A Novel of China by Mo Yan First published in Chinese 1987 English translation by Howard Goldblatt 1993 "Over decades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghum stalks to weave a vast human tapestry. They killed, they looted, and they defended their country in a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale by comparison. Surrounded by progress, I feel a nagging sense of our species' regression." Thus the narrator of Mo Yan's novel states the theme of Red Sorghum. The setting for the novel is the author's native village of Northeast Gaomi Township in the province of Shandong near the tip of the Chinese peninsula that points toward Korea. Most of the events in the novel take place between 1923 and 1941. During the first part of that period the region was loosely governed by one of China's many warlords. In 1937 the Japanese occupied the province, leading to years of violent repression and resistance. The narrative timeline is complex. The first-person narrator revisits his home town in the 1980s to construct his family's history. He begins his account in 1939 as his father, a teenage boy at the time, is preparing to participate in a partisan ambush of a Japanese convoy. This battle will be the central event in the novel. The story then shifts back to 1923 for the marriage of the narrator's paternal grandmother. These shifts in time occur frequently throughout the novel as though the principal characters are remembering their past, with the 1939-1941 timeline being the principal one. Though the characters' proper names are given, they are chiefly referred to by relationship as "Granddad," "Grandma," "Father," "Little Auntie," etc., thus reaffirming the narrator's invisible presence. Grandma, a remarkably strong and free-spirited woman, inherits a distillery while still a teenage girl and proves more than equal to the task of managing it. Granddad, a large and violent man, begins his career while still a boy by murdering his mother's lover, then alternates between manual labor and banditry until emerging as a feared guerrilla warrior after the Japanese invasion. The relationship between these two is both passionate and tempestuous. Violence and passion prevail in this story of remarkable heroism, brutality, treachery and suffering. When the Chinese partisan bands aren't fighting the Japanese, they are fighting each other for control of weapons and food supplies. The primitive, defiant individualism and amorality of Granddad and his contemporaries brings to mind the Old West of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Mo Yan's style of writing verges on magical realism, with its sensuality and capriciousness, but there is nothing disarmingly "magic" about it. The environment is a real as it can be, with every scene oozing blood, sweat, mud, pus, sap or semen. Red Sorghum is a harrowing, earthy and unforgettable immersion in the violent and tragic lives of its characters. Join to post
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 Red Sorghum is a powerful new voice on the brutal unrest of rural China in the late 20's and 30's.
2 Red Sorghum is a chronicle of blights and massacres unleashed by the Japanese forces on the peasantry of Northeast Gaomi Province during the second Sino-Japanese War.
3 Red Sorghum is a life-affirming film that functions as a shallow critique of contemporary Chinese life.
4 This is apparent in his novel Red Sorghum
5 Mr. Mo's 1987 book Red Sorghum, is an example
6 Raise the Red Lantern" and "Red Sorghum" are two of the finest films ever made.