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Amazon Best of the Month, February 2009: During the Cultural Revolution countless unspeakable acts went down in the otherwise unremarkable industrial town of Muddy River. Lovers betrayed lovers, children denounced their parents, and neighbors became sworn enemies. A few years later, the townspeople have convened at the public stadium to witness the execution of Gu Shan. A Red Guard leader in her youth, she has received the death penalty for her counterrevolutionary writings and unrepentant attitude. In Yiyun Li's startling debut novel, we are introduced to Gu's parents, neighbours, and a handful of Muddy River's social outcasts whose lives have been irrevocably affected by her life and death. Yiyun Li's unblinking and unpredictable fictional narrative demonstrates how corruption and cruelty, fear, and moral ambiguity at the level of the individual reflect the dehumanization of an entire society, and The Vagrants establishes her as an important new voice in American fiction. --Lauren Nemroff
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
“Powerful and thoughtful . . . a revelation.”—The Washington Post
“Extraordinary . . . beautifully paced, exquisitely detailed . . . In this most amazing first novel, Yiyun Li has found a way to combine the jeweled precision of her short-story-writer’s gaze with a spellbinding vision of the power of the human spirit.”—Chicago Tribune
“The Vagrants is pure pleasure and a must-read.”—San Francisco magazine
“[Li is] one of America’s best young novelists.”—Newsweek
“[A] fully transporting vision.”—The New York Times
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Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling,
By
This review is from: The Vagrants: A Novel (Hardcover)
This book is a story of ordinary Chinese citizens in 1979, China. A year in which people are still getting used to the Communist regime after the break-up of the Cultural Revolution. Those who were staunch Red Guards during the rule Mao have been take care of and anyone still harbouring those or any feelings other than communism are antirevolutionists. The book opens upon the day that the Gu's daughter, Shan, now 28 after spending 10 years in prison for her actions during the rule of Mao is to be executed for her writings found in her diary in her cell.The story is mostly one of the characters who knew Gu Shan, those affected by either her life or her death, and those who live upon her street. It is a story of the horrors of political indoctrination, crimes against the people, ordinary people trying to live their lives, and of love. Love, both gone sour from years of hardship and burning romance between two very unlikely people. What a beautiful book! Very well written, continuously moving from one character's experiences to an other's. A slow-paced plot, the book encompasses only one year, but a moving look into the minds of various Chinese mindsets from traditional superstition to staunch communist to fierce activists. I loved every one of the eclectic characters but especially Nini and Bashi, two young people who slowly become more and more the main focus as the book progresses. I love reading about China and this brief period of the seventies is one that, historically, I haven't read of before. I found it fascinating as well as tragic and heart-wrenching. While slow-paced as mentioned above, it is not a slow read and I found myself turning pages as fast as I could. By no means a happy story but a dark and heart-rending one with glimpses of hope. This is the author's first novel, having previously published an award winning collection of short stories, and I most certainly will be keeping an eye out for her next one. Highly recommended especially to those who enjoy character driven novels.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
1970s Chinese morality play,
By
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This review is from: The Vagrants: A Novel (Paperback)
The author Li has woven an intricate tapestry of the lives of small town northern Chinese in the 1970s, following the Cultural Revolution. It provides an accurate picture of the oppressive, dictatorial, subservient and brutal existence endured by those in high positions, as well as low. The traditional Chinese ways of ancestral and ghost worship, compliance to patriarchy, pride in recognized social status and perseverance and inventiveness in a subsistence of grinding poverty are intricately related. The spark of hope for democracy and freedom of speech is ignited in some residents as the central theme of the novel. The consequences of taking action to move society towards such an ideal are predictably ruthless.The story focuses on the lives of a dozen characters by describing their outer circumstances as well as revealing their innermost thoughts. Destiny has most of them crossing paths in their quests for simple survival, ill-considered ambition, or adolescent romance. The novel could best be described as melancholic. It flows inexorably towards an intense and tragic conclusion. Dialogue is terse, often mirroring distrustful, depressive situations. It is a significant work ably reflecting the real desperation of a people caught in a nation's despotic and paranoic identity crisis.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely stunning novel,
By
This review is from: The Vagrants: A Novel (Paperback)
An absolutely stunning novel. Set in 1970s China during a burgeoning groundswell of anti-communist feeling that was a precursor to the Tiananmen Square uprising.Li effortlessly slips the reader into the heads of a multitude of characters -- sometimes several within the same chapter. There is never a confusion. Instead, the tension builds as the reader realizes the intersecting wants and needs of the community of characters and how they'll ultimately crash together in unexpected ways. This is a novel that says with the reader long after finishing.
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