I finished reading The Garlic Ballads (by Mo Yan) a few days ago and I'm here to tell you not to read it. It may have won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012, but it was such a bleak and depressing and yes, brutal, view of China that I didn't like it.
When I first started reading the book I thought it must be set back in some ancient dynasty as life was very primitive with most of the farming being done by hand and the peasants being terrorized by the people in authority. I was surprised to find out that the book was set in 1987. The Garlic Ballads is based on a true story about an uprising by the farmers in Gaomi Township in Northeast China. Although the government encouraged the farmers to plant garlic there ended up being a glut on the market resulting in the government not buying the garlic and the farmers rioting.
Although The Garlic Ballads was well written and the story was interesting, it was just too brutal. Is China really that brutal? I have no idea, but I can't imagine there isn't kindness and love within families or between neighbours. I wasn't surprised that the officials and the police and the jail wardens were aggressive and brutal, but the villagers and family were fighting and mean to each other as well.
Like I mentioned in my review of The Help, the book needs to have hope for it to be enjoyable for me. I read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and I felt the same way I did about The Garlic Ballads. I ended both books upset that they were just endless retelling of lives full of misery.
So, while I can't recommend that you read this book, I did find it interesting to read about the homes in Northeast China. I did some hunting on the internet and have become a recent expert in kang beds. I've pulled together some visuals to illustrate what I think some of the images (the more pleasant ones anyway) from The Garlic Ballads looked like:
So what do you think? Can you read difficult books, books that are depressing or brutal? Or do you need a little hope and kindness in the lives of the main characters in the stories you read?
Linked to Literary Friday at Art @ Home
When I first started reading the book I thought it must be set back in some ancient dynasty as life was very primitive with most of the farming being done by hand and the peasants being terrorized by the people in authority. I was surprised to find out that the book was set in 1987. The Garlic Ballads is based on a true story about an uprising by the farmers in Gaomi Township in Northeast China. Although the government encouraged the farmers to plant garlic there ended up being a glut on the market resulting in the government not buying the garlic and the farmers rioting.
Although The Garlic Ballads was well written and the story was interesting, it was just too brutal. Is China really that brutal? I have no idea, but I can't imagine there isn't kindness and love within families or between neighbours. I wasn't surprised that the officials and the police and the jail wardens were aggressive and brutal, but the villagers and family were fighting and mean to each other as well.
Like I mentioned in my review of The Help, the book needs to have hope for it to be enjoyable for me. I read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and I felt the same way I did about The Garlic Ballads. I ended both books upset that they were just endless retelling of lives full of misery.
So, while I can't recommend that you read this book, I did find it interesting to read about the homes in Northeast China. I did some hunting on the internet and have become a recent expert in kang beds. I've pulled together some visuals to illustrate what I think some of the images (the more pleasant ones anyway) from The Garlic Ballads looked like:
So what do you think? Can you read difficult books, books that are depressing or brutal? Or do you need a little hope and kindness in the lives of the main characters in the stories you read?
Linked to Literary Friday at Art @ Home
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