Brothers: A Novel

To begin with, a poorly-devised haiku review:

Yu's roller coaster
Is careless with emotions.
Like a bad girlfriend
________________

I'm not really sure what to make of Brothers. I liked it, that much is certain.

The story is expansive and the characters indelible. The insight into the development of Chinese culture over the last four decades was enlightening. The episodes related were heartfelt, both funny and tragic. And sometimes even both simultaneously. I was involved for the book's entirety (which was not insubstantial).

The problem, I guess, is twofold: 1) I can't tell if the writing was simplistic and somewhat stilted by design or by translation; and 2) the extremism of Yu's emotional roller coaster reminds one of the formulaic approach of self-important tear-jerkers that mob the cineplex every Fall.

So far as the writing goes, it was more a curiosity than a bother. If the style was due to translator inadequacy, then I suppose I should feel a little ripped off (not getting anything close to the full expression of the author's intended work), but if the style was the author's choice and the translators indeed faithfully transmitted Yu's text into the book I read, then I find the choice fascinating. If the text was truly intended to be as simplistic as it was, then perhaps the semantic and grammatical choices fit the story. Liu Town, where the principal action occurs is certainly provincial and a place in which education is of the smallest of concerns. It then makes a kind of sense that the narrative should echo the voice of the story's inhabitants.

Emotionally, Brothers may be one of the saddest funny books I've ever read. I laughed a lot--mostly due to the ridiculousness of the town's many inhabitants and most especially because of the proclamations of the principal brother, Baldy Li. Still, the story carries more than its share of tragedies. And these aren't just garden-variety tragedies either. Brothers can be brutal as it destroys lives without tact or conscience. Perhaps this too is a reflection of the world in which our the brothers dwell, an echo of the terror--both loud and quiet--that the last half-century of China's history and culture have wrought in the lives of its citizens. In any case, I don't know if I've ever felt more mournful while reading a novel. Which of course makes me suspect it.

Brothers develops alongside the lives of two step-brothers (or more properly, brothers) from about 1960 onward. These brothers weather the terrible years of the Cultural Revolution and the mortal fear Chairman Mao's movement instilled in the nation. They struggle through the years following and look for opportunities in the more capitalistic China that would grow out of the revolutionary era. Their differing temperaments and philosophies of life offer breadth to the tale, allowing readers to more completely apprehend China and its culture.

Yu focuses much of his effort exploring the depths of human folly and the sewer stain of humanity's soul, only occasionally revealing the purity of true love and camaraderie throughout. And of course those moments shine all the more brightly due their depraved surroundings. I don't know exactly what Yu thinks of the human being, but I suspect that he doesn't think much of it--though he seems willing to be surprised by its moments of joy and beauty.

Brothers: A Novel Feature

• ISBN13: 9780375424991
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Brothers: A Novel Overview

A bestseller in China, recently short-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and a winner of France’s Prix Courrier International, Brothers is an epic and wildly unhinged black comedy of modern Chinese society running amok.

Here is China as we’ve never seen it, in a sweeping, Rabelaisian panorama of forty years of rough-and-rumble Chinese history that has already scandalized millions of readers in the author’s homeland. Yu Hua, award-winning author of To Live, gives us a surreal tale of two brothers riding the dizzying roller coaster of life in a newly capitalist world. As comically mismatched teenagers, Baldy Li, a sex-obsessed ne’er-do-well, and Song Gang, his bookish, sensitive stepbrother, vow that they will always be brothers--a bond they will struggle to maintain over the years as they weather the ups and downs of rivalry in love and making and losing millions in the new China. Their tribulations play out across a richly populated backdrop that is every bit as vibrant: the rapidly-changing village of Liu Town, full of such lively characters as the self-important Poet Zhao, the craven dentist Yanker Yu, the virginal town beauty (turned madam) Lin Hong, and the simpering vendor Popsicle Wang.

With sly and biting humor, combined with an insightful and compassionate eye for the lives of ordinary people, Yu Hua shows how the madness of the Cultural Revolution has transformed into the equally rabid madness of extreme materialism. Both tragic and absurd by turns, Brothers is a monumental spectacle and a fascinating vision of an extraordinary place and time.

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