Ancora un libro unico nella descrizione dei paesaggi, dei personaggi e della violenza umana. Violenza raccontata con una crudezza talmente realistica da spaventarsi nella lettura. Racconto difficile da seguire ma talmente incredibile nella descrizione dei paesaggi.Alcune descrizioni sono talmente belle da rileggerle più volte. ( )

Dopo “Sorgo sorgo” e lo splendido “il supplizio del legno di sandalo” inizio questa raccolta di racconti di Mo Yan. Per l’esattezza si tratta di nove storie, tutte abbastanza brevi; lo stile del grande autore si vede, la densità dello stile è di quelli che colpisce, la parola è forte, importante, densa. Insomma sicuramente Mo Yan è uno dei maggiori interpreti della letteratura mondiale contemporanea e questi racconti, detto da uno che non ama i racconti, lo testimoniano. Nei ricordi di Mo Yan, nella sua ricerca delle radici della Cina ci sta la cultura di un popolo da un lato, le due tradizioni, la funzione del partito comunista e di una dittatura sul popolo, nel nome del popolo; il racconto migliore, dovendone segnalare uno, è la colpa, un ragazzo viene ritenuto colpevole della morte del fratello e l’atmosfera di malessere quotidiana della famiglia permea bellissime pagine. La capacità di Mo Yan è quella di fare dei particolari un mondo dal quale si parte per giungere al generale, e lo fa con eleganza e con uno stile tutto suo che si riconosce anche in questa raccolta di racconti. ( )

"...His book for me is like a dictionary to understanding the huge differences between life in the city and the countryside. Sometimes it feels like there is 500 years of difference. The problem is that the young people move to the city and learn so much and then when they go home it is very difficult to communicate with the older generation, who are often peasants who have never been educated or travelled to the next village.



There is a story in there which I particularly like, ‘A Letter to My Father’. In it he writes about what life was really like in the countryside from 1960 to 1980. I really admire his writing because he hardly uses adjectives and adverbs but he uses verbs perfectly. He paints amazing pictures through his descriptions. Reading his stories is like watching a film. His book for me is like a dictionary to understanding the huge differences between life in the city and the countryside. Sometimes it feels like there are 500 years of difference. The problem is that the young people move to the city and learn so much and then when they go home it is very difficult to communicate with the older generation, who are often peasants who have never been educated or travelled to the next village. That is what Moye’s parents are like. They will say things to their children like, ‘My children, when you go in an aeroplane don´t open the windows’ even though they have never seen an aeroplane!



Or in one story he wrote that one time he visited his home village and his neighbour’s daughter-in-law was having a baby but, because it was a girl and girls are so unwanted in China, the family paid more attention to the birth of the family donkey than the baby girl. The donkey got the midwife, not the woman giving birth. I have travelled all over China to research my books which focus on how women are treated and I can tell you that is the truth. He never talks in a political way but you can tell a lot about what is going on in China through his descriptions.



For example, in one description of a girlfriend in his dream she is wearing very cheap slippers and walking along a stone country path and in the winter the ground freezes her feet. And from that description you can tell how hard life is there. People have no money for proper shoes. His books really helped me with my own work which is how to represent other people’s lives through my own eyes not just my thinking. It is good to have other people who have seen what I saw and felt out in the countryside. These are people who are not often written about...."(reviewed by Xinran at FiveBooks. Full interview is available here:http://fivebooks.com/interviews/xinran-on-understanding-china) ( )