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The Republic of Wine is a novel Joseph Heller might have written had he been Chinese. As it is, the honor goes to Mo Yan, one of China's most respected writers. Set in the fictional province of Liquorland, this tall tale begins with a rumor of cannibal feasts featuring children as the delectable main course. In response, Chinese officials send special investigator Ding Gou'er to look into the allegations. He arrives by coal truck at the Mount Lao Coal Mine, where he meets the legendary Diamond Jin, Vice-Minister of the Liquorland Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Bureau, a man known for an epic ability to hold his booze. Almost at once, Ding's worst fears seem to be realized when he is invited to a special dinner, given enough alcohol to stun an ox, and then served what appears to be "a golden, incredibly fragrant little boy." Horrified, he attempts to make an arrest and in the ensuing confusion, accidentally puts a bullet in the main course.
The braised boy was now a headless boy. The unsmashed parts of his skull had tumbled to the edge of the table's second tier, between a platter of sea cucumbers and another of braised shrimp, pieces of head like shattered watermelon rind, or pieces of watermelon rind like shattered head, watermelon juices dripping like blood, or blood dripping like watermelon juices, soiling the tablecloth and soiling the people's eyes. A pair of eyes like purple grapes or purple grapes like a pair of eyes rolled around on the floor, one skittering behind the liquor cabinet, the other rolling up to a red serving girl, who squashed it with her foot.Despite his hosts' explanation that the boy's arms are made of lotus root, his legs of ham sausage, and his head from a silver melon, Ding remains suspicious--until he is rendered so addled by wine that he ends up eating half an arm all on his own. As Ding continues his investigation, Mo Yan sends up the Chinese preoccupation with food, drink, and sex even as he daringly explores the nature of his country's political structure.
A lesser novelist might be satisfied with just this one narrative thread; Mo Yan, however, has bigger ambitions. In between chapters chronicling Ding Gou'er's adventures in Liquorland, the author has inserted letters and short stories purportedly sent to him by one Li Yidou, a doctoral candidate in Liquor Studies at the Brewer's College in Liquorland, and an aspiring author in his own right. The correspondence between fictional character and author allows Mo Yan to wax satirical on the subject of art, politics, and the troubling point where the two intersect in a Socialist society: "One of the tenets of the communism envisioned by Marx," the hopeful Yidou writes, "was the integration of art with the working people and of the working people with art. So when communism has been realized, everyone will be a novelist." In such a society everyone might write novels, perhaps; but as The Republic of Wine masterfully demonstrates, only a first-rate artist like Mo Yan could pull off such a subversive and darkly comic metafiction so seamlessly. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Decadence and debauchery in post-Mao China find a scathing satirist in the author of the lauded Red Sorghum, as he waxes metafictional in this savage, hallucinatory farce. The tale is set in an imaginary Chinese province called Liquorland, where custom dictates the consumption of mind-boggling quantities of sundry fine liquors. Other appetites are indulged, outrageously, and alarming reports of widespread infanticidal cannibalism prompt party authorities to dispatch special investigator Ding Gou'er to intervene. The rash Ding, however, quickly becomes debauched himself, drinking to the point of mental breakdown, feasting at a gluttonous banquet whose menu may include braised baby and entangling himself in a perverse, violent sexual relationship with the female driver of the truck that chauffeurs him to town. Ding's lover/driver is also the wife of Liquorland's vice-minister of propaganda, Diamond Jin, a drinker of legendary capacity--and Ding's prime suspect. Between updates on Ding's progress, the author inserts letters exchanged between Li Yidou, an aspiring writer and Ph.D. candidate in liquor studies at Liquorland's brewer's college, and the famous author Mo Yan. Li Yidou sends his conscripted mentor short stories telling of a rare liquor made by apes, the young writer's inappropriate attraction to his elderly mother-in-law, the culinary preparation of donkey genitals and the cultivation and butchering of infant boys. Mo Yan responds to his prot?g? with criticism and reports of his own writing efforts. Ultimately, Yo Man (the character) visits Liquorland and shares some of the experiences of the dissolute inspector Ding. Mo Yan (the author) fashions a complex, self-conscious narrative structure full of echoes and reflections. The novel grows progressively more febrile in tone, with pervasive, striking imagery and wildly imaginative digressions that cumulatively reveal the tremendous scope of his vision. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A deliciously sarcastic satire of China's corruption,
By
This review is from: The Republic of Wine : A Novel (Paperback)
Mo Yan well-deserves his reputation among those in the know as one of modern China's most wonderfully wry writers, as this discomfiting yet compelling novel attests.Republic of Wine's strength is in its evocative, viciously funny descriptions and depictions and in the symbolic social implications they raise. Centered around a fictitious province in China named Liquorland, the novel portrays China's obsession with food and drink and skewers the extremes to which it is taken by the wealthy and the politically connected (which are often one and the same). There is an expression in Chinese "Chi-he-wan-le" literally "Eat-Imbibe-Play-Joy". In ancient China, the landed and the literati had elaborate rituals and cultures surrounding the consumption of delicacies and fine liquor, which were mingled with the higher arts such as poetry composition, calligraphy, painting, and music. The Cultural Revolution attacked such traditions (among other things), and in its aftermath the finer points disappeared, leaving only its cruder translation: gluttony. Many Chinese know of few entertainments besides food and booze. A Chinese banquet is a grandiose affair, aimed at wasting expensive food and flaunting one's wealth. The higher level the revelers, and the bigger the favors the host is trying to earn, the more obscenely wasteful the dishes. Especially in the 1980s, when government corruption peaked, wining and dining was a popular form of bribery that took a chunk out of the Chinese treasury to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Republic of Wine is beautifully biting in its spoofing of this food obsession, which includes a craving for ever more exotic and expensive foods to impress ones guests with, here taken to the frighteningly logical extreme of serving up braised infants. Mo Yan also mocks the farcical attempt of Chinese men to prove their dubious machismo by "bottoms-upping" toast after toast: the last one standing is the "real man". Mo's winding, rambling narrative is the book's only shortcoming, which may be deliberate as it flirts with assertions that it was written under the influence. In some ways, the surrealism and sarcasm are overplayed to a degree that makes it difficult to become very involved in the stories. In that regard, it reminds me of the stories of Wang Shuo; the similarity may be partially due to the esteemed Howard Goldblatt, who translated both of Wang's English versions as well as Republic of Wine.
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Guy is Amazing,
By Prince Roy "edgar_snow" (los angeles, ca United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Republic of Wine (Hardcover)
This has been an excellent book. He is by far the best writer in China today and I hope he receives his deserved acclaim from the international literary world one day.Mo Yan is a great and creative talent...this is an absolutely bizarre book where he displays his profound imagination. He completely condemns the ostentatious consumption of China's corrupt ruling elite and their total, chilling disregard for the lower strata off which they consume. I see the book as a metaphor of the unchecked growth in wealth and power of this elite since the economic reforms. The main reason I admire Mo Yan is because he is an absolutely fearless writer. He is never afraid to take creative risks; he does so in each book and this gives him a style truly his own. The scatological humor, references to dogs, reptiles, apes and donkeys; through the ugliest specimens of nature he alludes to the human condition. Li Yidou's fight with his wife in the chapter 'Cooking Lesson', where in his eyes she degenerates into an ever more grotesque series of images is a case in point: 'her stumpy little fists, which looked like donkey hooves'; 'like a footless person wearing shoes, she was actually wearing a bra', etc. Hilarious, yet nauseating. I can't wait for his next novel. Oh yeah, and the translation by Howard Goldblatt is dead on. Truly excellent, and you can tell he is completely in tune with Mr. Mo's agenda. Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A deliciously sarcastic satire of China's corruption,
By Elisabeth W. Movius - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Republic of Wine : A Novel (Paperback)
Mo Yan well-deserves his reputation among those in the know as one of modern China's most wonderfully wry writers, as this discomfiting yet compelling novel attests.Republic of Wine's strength is in its evocative, viciously funny descriptions and depictions and in the symbolic social implications they raise. Centered around a fictitious province in China named Liquorland, the novel portrays China's obsession with food and drink and skewers the extremes to which it is taken by the wealthy and the politically connected (which are often one and the same). There is an expression in Chinese "Chi-he-wan-le" literally "Eat-Imbibe-Play-Joy". In ancient China, the landed and the literati had elaborate rituals and cultures surrounding the consumption of delicacies and fine liquor, which were mingled with the higher arts such as poetry composition, calligraphy, painting, and music. The Cultural Revolution attacked such traditions (among other things), and in its aftermath the finer points disappeared, leaving only its cruder translation: gluttony. Many Chinese know of few entertainments besides food and booze. A Chinese banquet is a grandiose affair, aimed at wasting expensive food and flaunting one's wealth. The higher level the revelers, and the bigger the favors the host is trying to earn, the more obscenely wasteful the dishes. Especially in the 1980s, when government corruption peaked, wining and dining was a popular form of bribery that took a chunk out of the Chinese treasury to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Republic of Wine is beautifully biting in its spoofing of this food obsession, which includes a craving for ever more exotic and expensive foods to impress ones guests with, here taken to the frighteningly logical extreme of serving up braised infants. Mo Yan also mocks the farcical attempt of Chinese men to prove their dubious machismo by "bottoms-upping" toast after toast: the last one standing is the "real man". Mo's winding, rambling narrative is the book's only shortcoming, which may be deliberate as it flirts with assertions that it was written under the influence. In some ways, the surrealism and sarcasm are overplayed to a degree that makes it difficult to become very involved in the stories. In that regard, it reminds me of the stories of Wang Shuo; the similarity may be partially due to the esteemed Howard Goldblatt, who translated both of Wang's English versions as well as Republic of Wine. 7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Guy is Amazing,
By Prince Roy "edgar_snow" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Republic of Wine (Hardcover)
This has been an excellent book. He is by far the best writer in China today and I hope he receives his deserved acclaim from the international literary world one day.Mo Yan is a great and creative talent...this is an absolutely bizarre book where he displays his profound imagination. He completely condemns the ostentatious consumption of China's corrupt ruling elite and their total, chilling disregard for the lower strata off which they consume. I see the book as a metaphor of the unchecked growth in wealth and power of this elite since the economic reforms. The main reason I admire Mo Yan is because he is an absolutely fearless writer. He is never afraid to take creative risks; he does so in each book and this gives him a style truly his own. The scatological humor, references to dogs, reptiles, apes and donkeys; through the ugliest specimens of nature he alludes to the human condition. Li Yidou's fight with his wife in the chapter 'Cooking Lesson', where in his eyes she degenerates into an ever more grotesque series of images is a case in point: 'her stumpy little fists, which looked like donkey hooves'; 'like a footless person wearing shoes, she was actually wearing a bra', etc. Hilarious, yet nauseating. I can't wait for his next novel. Oh yeah, and the translation by Howard Goldblatt is dead on. Truly excellent, and you can tell he is completely in tune with Mr. Mo's agenda. |
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