My wife rented this book and I thought I’d give it a read before returning it. It was perfect for the airplane... didn’t have to think to hard, easy rMy wife rented this book and I thought I’d give it a read before returning it. It was perfect for the airplane... didn’t have to think to hard, easy read.
Though all the reviews for this 2008 Man Booker Prize winner seemed to include words like ‘humorous’, ‘comedy’, ‘hysterical’, ’side-splitting’, I thought it was brutal… maybe because I know the ‘real’ India or because the situations in the book are to some degree similar to the situations where I live, though not nearly as bad.
The structure of the book was interesting. The story is told by Balram, an entrepreneur, ex-servant, and sometimes philosopher, by way of a letter written to the premier of China. It attempts to portray the India of today and I think succeeds brilliantly.
If any of you westerners feel a need to go to India to find enlightenment, read this book first. You might just decide to stay home instead....more
"A man who turns his back - who lurks at the edge of the battle, and pushes others in to face his enemies-" Barker looked suddenly and obviously at Ha"A man who turns his back - who lurks at the edge of the battle, and pushes others in to face his enemies-" Barker looked suddenly and obviously at Hawks. "That's not a man. That's some kind of crawling, wriggling thing."
Great book! Thanks, Ben. This isn’t the science fiction I remember. A handful of messed up characters fiddlin’ around with death, material transmitters, and weird shit on the moon. Some of the best dialog and character interaction I’ve read this year. Death. It’s a book of death and rebirth and neurosis. And I wonder if chickens do know why we take such good care of them....more
I walked into a bookstore in Istanbul on my first day there and asked Mr Bookseller about good Turkish authors, other than Pamuk that I saw his fingerI walked into a bookstore in Istanbul on my first day there and asked Mr Bookseller about good Turkish authors, other than Pamuk that I saw his fingers reaching for immediately. This is one of the books he said was his favorite (the other was The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak). It was ok. It is not my favorite. Pamuk is still my Turkish god… so sorry Mr Bookseller. (Regardless of his Armenian Genocide comment, it doesn’t diminish his ability to write great novels). Berji Kristen is not a great book, but definitely an interesting read about a culture and life not normally given much attention. It’s a book of tales loosely connected about the squatters living on the garbage heaps on the outskirts of Istanbul. Some parts read like poetry and Ms Latife almost made me yearn for the life of Flower Hill, the name of the first squatter neighborhood set up in the dumps. Life was hard for these people, but their love of rumor, song, and shiny things seem to have got them through the harsh living environment. The makeshift factories that set up on garbage hill gave them artificial weather; white snow shooting out of the stacks would drift down on them, warm blue water sprang forth from the flushing pipes, and acrid fumes from the blossoming exhausts brought tears to their eyes.
Not a funny book. Not particular touching in any way. But, it was entertaining and different and talked about shiny things in the garbage....more
This is a collection of three novellas, The Diving Pool, Pregnancy Diary, and Dormitory, which won Yoko Ogawa the Akutagawa prize in Japan. Her writinThis is a collection of three novellas, The Diving Pool, Pregnancy Diary, and Dormitory, which won Yoko Ogawa the Akutagawa prize in Japan. Her writing made me feel like I was swimming deep underwater at dusk when everything seems murky. Her language is simple and dreamy. The central characters in each of the stories on the surface seem normal enough but cracks in their being soon appear. What makes these cracks disturbing is realizing that we all may possess such cracks.
In the Diving Pool a young girl is infatuated with her stepbrother and for reasons she doesn’t understand feels a need to hurt others. In the Pregnancy Diary a sister chronicles her sister’s pregnancy but the story soon takes on a hallucinogenic quality; but which sister is hallucinating? My favorite of the three stories was Dormitory. A girl has the chance to revisit her dorm and the caretaker, a triple amputee with only one arm.
Like swimming underwater, I felt the alienation and the weight around me as I stroked through Ogawa’s sparse and palpable prose. She’s someone to keep in the crosshairs....more
Browsing through the used bookshop this weekend I came across this book and it was the author’s last name“Suicide - masturbation multiplied by itself”
Browsing through the used bookshop this weekend I came across this book and it was the author’s last name that made me slip it off the shelf and into my hands… Laxness… the name had a calming effect on me. Then I saw just below his name in bright red letters ‘Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature’. Ok… might be worth a go. And then the blurb at the bottom kind of made me wary, ‘Laxness has been hailed as Iceland’s John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair combined. His is a significant voice in world literature’… I never did like comparisons to other authors (though it seems every country has a Camus and a Kafka or two, and yes, even a Steinbeck).
The Atom Station proved to me worthy of being set free from the cluttered shelves of the bookshop and into my hands. It was an interesting ‘cold war’ romp and if I had to tie this book to Steinbeck it would have to be with Cannery Row. The characters were brilliant. Ugla, a simple country girl from the north works as a housemaid in the home of one of parliament’s ministers, a household where the mother names her children with African names because it’s chic. The characters were some of the strangest I’ve read this year. I found myself looking at the copyright date a couple of times because the writing seemed so fresh, but there it was, copyright 1948.
The U.S. wants to buy a bit of Iceland to build a nuclear base. The government wants to sell because money is the current god of their alter. The communists do not want the country sold; they want free nurseries for children and a youth assembly hall, the organ teacher is a philosopher that has a senile mother that offers strange tidbits to guests, and a couple of gods make appearances, one sings verse while the other plays a salted fish… This book had me spinning.
I read a review of this book just now at Amazon and one critic gave the book 1 star because, as the he says, “Halldor Laxness is a world-class writer as his masterpieces like Independent People and The Fish Can Sing demonstrate. There is however, one aspect of Mr. Laxness' life that casts a shadow over his career, and is, regardless to say, quite disturbing. That is his lifelong love affair with communism and the former Soviet Union.” Quite disturbing? And that should dictate whether someone should enjoy his books? I could care less if Laxness slept with pigs while courting sheiks and declared that all bananas were gods. Plus, who today could write “that foul fellow Muhammad” in a book and not have a death fatwa chasing his tail? He strung together a jumble of words into a book that had me laughing and thinking and longing to visit the countryside of Iceland, in summer. A good read, a good read indeed. I’ll be looking for more of his books....more
Hell yeah! This was great modern Chinese literature. I Love Dollars is a book of short novellas and a couple of short stories. Wen's characters live iHell yeah! This was great modern Chinese literature. I Love Dollars is a book of short novellas and a couple of short stories. Wen's characters live in the new dollar-driven China being bounced around through random chance encounters and events while seeking pleasure and kicking aside the decaying rubbish of the Maoist repression era. His characters are cynical, not too endearing, and generally have a 'fuck all' attitude but will bend down and pet the puppy just enough to elicit a bit of sympathy for their plight. Wen's voice is unique; a loosely punctuated first-person narrative in which speech runs on within sentences of descriptive prose. Wen wrote these novellas during the beginning of China's economic liberalization where anything could be set on paper that would sell and make money; anything that didn't touch on politics. As Deng Xiaoping said, It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice, it's a good cat.
'I Love Dollars is probably the weakest story in this collection. A Hospital Night, A Boat Crossing, Wheels and Pounds, Ounces, Meat are the best of the book.
From the beginning of Pounds, Ounces, Meat:
On the bridge by the old Drum Tower I was stopped by a shabby individual, clearly someone who'd wandered in from out of town, with a black bag tucked under his arm and an unnerving gleam in his eyes. He told me my physiognomy was most unusual; he simply had to tell my fortune, he wouldn't charge a cent. The plastic on top of the bridge had melted tackily in the sun: crossing felt like walking over spat-out chewing gum, or smoker's phlegm, or snot, or semen, or fresh dog shit. I include these comparisons purely to illuminate, not disgust, you understand. If I were to suggest you imagine it was raw meat underfoot, now that, I admit, would be nauseating. Fuck off, I told him as impatiently as I could manage.
Briefly, all too briefly, the man was transfixed by shock, too transfixed to manage any kind of response, till I'd reached the end of the bridge's elevation and was about to set off down the steps on the other side. Good luck's coming your way this year! He screeched vengefully at me across the asphalt. About fucking time, I muttered to myself as I descended. When I was halfway down, I happened to look up and see a girl with a healthily tanned face coming toward me up the steps, carrying a black parasol and a copy of I Love Dollars. My heart began to pound. I wasn't sure, at that moment, whether this counted as my good luck or not. In subsequent weeks and months, I often thought back over this scene, about this girl and that book, about how she kept the latter pressed beguilingly up against her chest, blinding me to its obvious flatness....more
“… I could not help comparing once more the man of today with the boy I had known; nor could I help facing the abyss that separates the expectations o“… I could not help comparing once more the man of today with the boy I had known; nor could I help facing the abyss that separates the expectations of one day from the realities of another…”
Are biographies, written by an outsider, ever truly correct? Can that writer document the life of another without his thoughts, biases, seeping into the work, tainting the course of the other ever so slightly? Or, is it even possible for an autobiography to be written when the life of that author is not yet over? I don’t think Machado de Assis concerned himself with such frivolous thoughts when he created the fictional character of Braz Cubas, so I won’t either. Cubas was a wealthy nineteenth-century Brazilian who examines his life from beyond the grave. Braz was, as his father so lovingly accused, a rascal… “Oh, you little rascal! You little rascal!”
This was a fun book that had me laughing one moment and contemplating the tip of my nose the next and if you've never contemplated the tip of your nose you'd better start now because, baby, that's what life is all about. And after just finishing Sebald’s Austerlitz, a book that relies on the comma and period and space and shuns the paragraph and chapter, this book came as a shock containing 160 chapters with only 210 pages. Austerlitz I could not put down because of lack of breaks in the narrative, Epitaph of a Small Winner was nearly impossible to put aside because of the quantity and length of each chapter. Like M&M’s, they’re small, taste good, and before you know it the bag is empty.
And if you do go out and look for this book, be sure to get a copy with Susan Sontag’s forward. That forward (printed in the New Yorker) is worth the price alone. (from forward: Machado de Assis’s novel belongs in that tradition of narrative buffoonery - the talkative first-person voice attempting to ingratiate itself with readers which runs from Sterne through, in our own century, Natsume Soseki’s I Am a Cat, the short fiction of Robert Walser, Svevo’s Confessions of Zeno and As a Man Grow Older, Hrabal’s Too Loud a Solitude, much of Beckett.)
There are many gems in this book, here's some gem dust...
“I was a child with manly ways or a man with childish ways. At all events, I was a handsome lad, handsome and bold, and I galloped into life in my boots and spurs, a whip in my hand and blood in my veins, riding a nervous, strong, high-spirited courser like the horse in the old ballads, which Romanticism found in the medieval castle and left in the streets of our own century. The Romanticists rode the poor beast until he was so nearly dead that he finally lay down in the gutter, where the realists found him, his flesh eaten away by sores and worms, and, out of pity, carried him away to their books.”
“Chapter 136. Unnecessary: And, if I am not greatly mistaken, I have just written an utterly unnecessary chapter.
Chapter 137. The Shako: No, I am wrong,, for it sums up the thoughts that I expressed the next day to Quincas Borba…”...more
This is a nice bedside book, a book to pick up and enjoy in small doses. It begins with an introduction that includes a history of Japanese haiku and This is a nice bedside book, a book to pick up and enjoy in small doses. It begins with an introduction that includes a history of Japanese haiku and biographies of Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki. And because the publisher probably thought that a book of haiku poems alone might not sell well, it is loade with landscape photographs by John Cleare. Nice photos, but distracting.
My favorite haiku is from Buson.
A paper kite flies Just where it was In yesterday’s sky....more
“Any number of wicked things could be listed against him, but quite apart from these crimes there was about him a secret meaness that clung to him alm“Any number of wicked things could be listed against him, but quite apart from these crimes there was about him a secret meaness that clung to him almost like a smell.”
Sometimes I pick up a book, read it, and realize with a kind of fear that there are just too many great writers I’ve never heard of and too many wonderful books I’ve yet to read. The fear stems from the fact that many of these books I’ll never discover; their language will never speak to me.
I picked up The Ballad of the Sad Café (and other stories) on a whim… I liked the cover. Luckily it turned out to be one of those books that may have otherwise eluded me. McCullers created characters that were off-beat, peculiar, sometimes physically deformed, but always real.
The Ballad of the Sad Café is a story of a twisted love triangle in a small town in Georgia. It is a story that will forever echo even in my feeble memory. The short story, ‘A Domestic Dilemma’ also throws a hard punch with its last two lines. If you haven’t read McCullers, you’re missing out on a beautiful voice.
“For people in this town were then unused to gathering together for the sake of pleasure. They met to work in the mill. Or on Sunday there would be an all-day camp meeting - and though that is a pleasure the intention of the whole affair is to sharpen your view of Hell and put into you a keen fear of the Lord Almighty. But the spirit of a café is altogether different. Even the richest, greediest old rascal will behave himself, insulting no one in a proper café. And poor people look about them gratefully and pinch up the salt in a dainty and modest manner. For the atmosphere of a proper café implies these qualities: fellowship, the satisfaction of the belly, and a certain gaiety and grace of behaviour.”...more
Yoko Tawada is good. This book of 3 short narratives is the first of her works to be translated in English. These twisted tales are funny and slightlyYoko Tawada is good. This book of 3 short narratives is the first of her works to be translated in English. These twisted tales are funny and slightly sinister. In the title story, a ‘cram’ school teacher tells her students a story about a little princess whose hand in marriage is promised to a dog as a reward for licking her bottom clean; only to have her own life turned upside down by the sudden appearance of a dog-like man with a predilection for the same part of her anatomy. The second story, Missing Heels, a mail-order bride arrives at her new husband’s home. She attempts to learn the culture of her new homeland and normalcy is questioned. She appears to have missing heels and it appears her husband is of a somewhat different species. The last story, The Gotthard Railway, is about a reporter fixated on entering things.
I’ve never been inside a man. Everyone was once trapped in the belly of a woman we call Mother, and yet we go to our graves without knowing what a father’s body is like inside. ...more
This book is full of ‘what the…?’ moments that catch you totally off guard. But these moments do not come across as gimmicky. Murakami, the Ryu one, nThis book is full of ‘what the…?’ moments that catch you totally off guard. But these moments do not come across as gimmicky. Murakami, the Ryu one, not the Haruki one, weaves a pretty dark, yet humorous Japanese landscape. Two babies are found locked in station coin lockers and grow up together; first in an orphanage, then on an island, then splitting ways, both terribly messed up.
The opening line was the most disturbing I’ve ever read in a book and the story took off full of gristle and bone. Unfortunately, Ryu lost focus around the middle of the book. His pace fell off, the texture turned from gritty and gristly to a bland, tasteless pudding. He did regain a little form in the end but by then it was too late.
Still an enjoyable read. Here's a passage before the book turned to pudding:
They went back to the hotel exhausted. In the elevator, the cleaning woman was wiping down the walls. Though quite elderly, her hair was dyed, and she wore dark eyeliner and bright red lipstick that filled the deep wrinkles around her mouth.
"Hot, isn’t it?" she said to Kazuyo.
"And terribly sticky, " answered Kazuyo pleasantly as the old woman spat in her mop bucket.
"Hey, by the way, you two find anything weird in you toilet?" she asked suddenly. "Those Filipino whores been throwing some pretty strange stuff down the johns. It’s a bitch having to clean them out. Rubbers you expect, but this is getting ridiculous."
The elevator had reached the fifth floor, but when Kazuyo and Kiku got off, the woman left her bucket and mop and followed them.
"Good night, then - we’re pretty tired, " said Kazuyo, trying to slip into the room, but she grabbed her arm.
"I’m finding these big wads of pubic hair - must be shaving down there. Clogs up the pipes and I have to clean it out by hand. But that’s not the worst of it. A while back I found eggs stopping up one toilet, and I don’t mean chicken eggs. It was frog eggs - these huge frog eggs. Well, I thought that was a bit peculiar, so I did some asking around and found out those Filipino girls keeps the frogs as sort of special pets, real special. Seems they like to stick them up inside themselves... feels good and squishy. But somebody’s got to clean up after them, and what kind of job is that - pulling frog eggs out of a toilet?... Goddamn Filipino hookers and theri goddamn frogs... I ask you!" Bursting into tears, the maid held tight to Kazuyo’s arm. Her mascara began to run and black canals formed along her wrinkles....more
This book made me feel real small. The stories may be short but the ideas that fill them are huge. I had a tough time with the first few stories and hThis book made me feel real small. The stories may be short but the ideas that fill them are huge. I had a tough time with the first few stories and had to keep my dictionary at hand. Luckily I have a good dictionary or I would have given up. I warmed up to Ficciones after the first few chapters, or stories, and was sweating by the time I finished it. I took my time with this book reading only 1 or 2 of the stories at a time. If my watch had stopped during the reading I would have assumed time stood still. I probably wrote this before.
What one man does is something done, in some measure, by all men....more
"As far back as I can remember, said Austerlitz, I have always felt as if I had no place in reality, as if I were not there at all…"
Not knowing your i"As far back as I can remember, said Austerlitz, I have always felt as if I had no place in reality, as if I were not there at all…"
Not knowing your identity, your history, and intentionally blocking out references to your heritage can lead to a lonely life. Austerlitz was put on a train with other children in 1939 and his wandering and wondering began. As he grew older flashes of his past, references to another life began to beckon him to search of his heritage.
Borges once wrote, "… that all books, however diverse, are made up of uniform elements: the period, the comma, the space, the letters of the alphabet." Sebald followed this dictum. I found it hard to put the book down because there were just so few breaks in the text. But it was also hard to set aside because of the melancholy musings and architectural observations (something I particularly enjoyed) that flowed along in Austerlitz’s telling of his discoveries.
Passages I enjoyed:
"Once, towards the end of last summer, Tilly the white pigeon did stay away much longer than the homeward flight should have taken her, after being dispatched on a test flight from Dolgellau only a few miles up the valley, and it was not until the following day, when he was on the point of giving up hope, that she finally returned - on foot, walking up the gravel drive with a broken wing. I often thought later of this tale of the bird making her long journey home alone, wondering how she had managed to reach her destination over the steep terrain, circumventing numerous obstacles…”
"But I always found what Alphonso told us at that time about the life and death of moths especially memorable, and of all creatures I still feel the greatest of awe for them. In the warmer months of the year one of other of those nocturnal insects quite often strays indoors from the small garden behind my house. When I get up early in the morning, I find them clinging to the wall, motionless. I believe, said Austerlitz, they know they have lost their way, since if you do not put them out again carefully they will stay where they are, never moving, until the last breath is out of their bodies, and indeed they will remain in the place where they came to grief even after death, held fast by the tiny claws that stiffened in their last agony, until a draft of air detaches them and blows them into a dusty corner."...more
“Were there no such thing as man, there would be nothing like Kyoto either. It would all be natural woods and fields of grasses. This land would belon“Were there no such thing as man, there would be nothing like Kyoto either. It would all be natural woods and fields of grasses. This land would belong to the deer and wild boar, wouldn’t it? Why did man come into this world? It’s frightening… mankind.”
Another Kawabata this year and another wonderful, calming read. I timed this one perfectly for my trip to Kyoto and was able to plan a few days in the 'Old Capital' based on the settings described in the book. It is a simple story about an adopted daughter, Chieko, who learns that she was left abandoned on the doorsteps of a kimono designer and his wife. She is content and happy with her life until an answered prayer at the Yasaka Shrine changes her perception of herself and the city that surrounds her. Kawabata captures the seasons of Kyoto in this book by painting realistic landscapes and portraits and he preserves the crafts and traditions of the city before progress and tourism disrupted its harmony.
Everyone should read Kawabata and The Old Capital is a great way to start....more
This is a great collection of short stories from the writers Chi Li, Bi Shumin, Liu Qingbang, Hong Ke, Ma Yuan, and Su Tong. The stories could be abouThis is a great collection of short stories from the writers Chi Li, Bi Shumin, Liu Qingbang, Hong Ke, Ma Yuan, and Su Tong. The stories could be about anyone from anywhere. They are not about the revolution of the culture kind. The stories are about common people facing common people problems… except maybe for the first one about a trucker left behind by his convoy to fix his truck. Like the straggling, weak animal of the pack that the lion targets, this trucker is stalked by a pack of wolves. It’s a face-off between the king of the wolves and the smart thinking trucker.
The other stories are about a hitchhiker in the desert and the concept of trust, holding on to principles during changing times, a poetic story of a butcher of sheep, a family held together by a telephone, and the encounters of a past famous director, Mr Sima, and his wife. The last written by Su Tong, the author of ‘Wife and Concubines’, which was made into the movie ‘Raise the Red Lantern.
There’s good stuff coming out of China. Not all is tainted with melamine....more
This will be one of the best books I’ve read in 2008. It’s an unsettling account of two sisters an old uncle, and a cat living together sheltered in aThis will be one of the best books I’ve read in 2008. It’s an unsettling account of two sisters an old uncle, and a cat living together sheltered in a big house. The rest of the family is dead and the mystery of their death unfolds as they retell the story, with smiles, to each other. Their life and home changes when a cousin comes to visit.
Merricat, the youngest sister, narrates the story. Her voice is like a little girl, but Merricat is 18 years old. She is a character that will be remembered.
The creepiest scenes are when neighbors come knocking on the doors and they sit inside the house quietly waiting for them to go away; being so close to their ‘monsters’, unseen and unheard, separated by inches of a locked door or shuttered window.
Being an outcast is not easy and from what little I’ve read about Shirley Jackson she wrote from experience. This was a creepy book. Not horror, but definitely one that leaves you a bit unsettled....more
A simple tale of love… let me correct that opening line… a slightly difficult tale of simple love... that’s still not right... a somewhat simple tale A simple tale of love… let me correct that opening line… a slightly difficult tale of simple love... that’s still not right... a somewhat simple tale of difficult love that involves a son, his dead father’s mistress (or two) and the mistress’s daughter using the Japanese tea ceremony as a metaphor for this tragic story.
Reading Kawabata is like lying in the shade beneath a tree, fresh leaves dappling little specks of sunlight across the pages; it is a meditation.
Now, even more than the evening before, he could think of no one with whom to compare her. She had become absolute, beyond comparison. She had become decision and fate....more
In 1389, the Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo Field) saw a battle between the Christian army made up of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Romanians and the OtIn 1389, the Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo Field) saw a battle between the Christian army made up of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Romanians and the Ottoman army led by Sultan Mourad. On the eve of battle the Serb military minstrels sang, “Rise, O Serbs, the Albanians are seizing Kosovo” and the Albanian minstrels sang, “Rise, O Albanians! Kosovo is falling to the pernicious Serb!”. Though it had nothing to do with the impending fight with the Ottomans it was the only song each knew. Even when they sang together at the funeral of a northern European lady they sang these songs. Now according to the Serbs, in 1389 they were the only ones who fought the Ottoman. But according to Kadare, it was a coalition that teamed up and fought. Regardless of who fought, the Ottomans owned the Field in 10 hours. 600 years later, the Serb leader Milosevic launched a campaign to eliminate the Albanians, the majority population of Kosovo. Today the same song is being sung.
This is an epic book told in only a handful of pages. Kadare’s intention was to just state the truth. That truth is called propaganda from some quarters a chronicle of untold history by others. Regardless, it is a stirring book that looks at the absurdity of war, of hatred, of taking religious differences to the extreme. Blood never washes away. The satirical moments throughout the book pierce like arrows....more
These six stories by the Nobel Prize winner are like looking at 6 paintings, small portraits painted with words and impressions. They are not plot driThese six stories by the Nobel Prize winner are like looking at 6 paintings, small portraits painted with words and impressions. They are not plot driven but more like slices of happenings, bits and pieces of thought, and small insights into a person's life seemingly, at times, randomly cut and served. The best of the six is the book's namesake, All of the stories are portraits of characters illustrating their hopes and fears with broad brush strokes of their past mingling with the present. Interesting experimentation with language especially with the final story called In an Instant....more
This was a fun book. Though the writing was a little flat (possibly due to poor translation), I never imagined a book about the Cultural Revolution coThis was a fun book. Though the writing was a little flat (possibly due to poor translation), I never imagined a book about the Cultural Revolution could give me such a boner. Mao, his little red book of quotations, the Cultural Revolution, and lots of steamy sex created an interesting voyeuristic peek into this oft told historical moment in China. This is not your standard Cultural Revolution book. The best scene is where the two main characters try to outdo themselves to prove how counter-revolutionary they each are... between the steamy sex, descriptions of defacing all things Mao, and clever insertions of Mao’s annoying quotations this was a pretty funny little book. And did I mention the steamy sex? Needless to say this book is banned in China, as are most of Yan’s books....more
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