To Live by Yu Hua
At some point I learned to repeat to my teachers that Greek tragedy is cathartic. It probably would have been better to have us read something that actually was cathartic, but I seriously doubt Sophocles would have fit the bill for a bunch of fourteen year olds. Sophocles doesn’t do it for me today either, and it’s the rare piece of literature that does. But every once in a while I become so enthralled with a book that it threatens to become transformative; I emerge from the reading as if baptised. This was my e experience with Yu Hua’s To Live.
As To Live begins, we hear from a narrator telling us of a time he was traveling across China in search of popular folk songs. During this trip, he encounters an old man badgering his tired ox while plowing his fields. The rest of the book is essentially narrated by the old man, Fugui, as he recounts his harrowing life story.
Fugui’s tale begins at his youth as an undisciplined aristocrat, literally riding the backs of prostitutes through his village, and then through much harder times, most of which can be traced back to his disgraceful behavior. This is, however, not a simple morality tale, for it is not as if Fugui is ever really born again–though he learns from his past, he has the human habit of forever discovering new mistakes to make. In addition, his life’s tortuous path is intertwined with the massive changes taking place in twentieth century china:the civil war between the nationalists and the communists, the Chinese Land Reform Movement, The Great Leap Forward and finally the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. So on the one hand you get an inspiring study of a character who is committed to life despite its difficulties, and a personal reflection of the impact of national level events filtered down to the “simple” lives of Chinese peasants.
Though the book was banned in China on its release in 1993, it has been named one of the ten most influential Chinese books of its decade, and was the source for a movie by the same name. (I haven’t seen the movie, but I certainly will.) Hua is one of China’s pre-eminent authors, and I plan to read every word the man writes. He’s that good.