Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh

Rating:
Summary: Simply marvelous
Review: I'm afraid I have nothing intelligent to say about this book. However, this is not a reflection on the quality of the book, which certainly was not lacking, but rather a reflection of my extreme fatigue. In any case, this book is certainly worth a read or two and perhaps even more.

Rating:
Summary: His Muses Were Hunger and Loneliness
Review: This is a short story collection that ranges from the prosaic to the poetic. The title story ("Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh") is a delightful tale of an unemployed factory worker who gets incredibly creative and makes out like a bandit until he meets some clients that are out of this world. The Chinese director Zhang Yimou made turned this story into a film called HAPPY DAYS.

Other than the opener, my favorite stories are "Abandoned Child," which makes a strong statement about the continuing practice of female infanticide; "Love Story," about an unlikely love affair set in the countryside; the strange fantasty "Iron Child" about a possible outcome of over-industrialization; and the incredibly poetic "Man and Beast," which the author claims is a sequel to his novel RED SORGHUM (although I missed some of the references, I was enthralled).

In his preface, Mo Yan (which, by the way, is Chinese for "Don't Speak") says his muses were hunger and loneliness. In fact, the author has a unique rapport with the lives of peasants and workers, as opposed to many more intellectual writers in exile such as Gao Xingjiang. I have already read THE GARLIC BALLADS and plan to read more of this fascinating writer.