{"id":19820,"date":"2008-05-03T18:07:18","date_gmt":"2008-05-04T01:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/05\/four-chinese-novels-reviewed\/"},"modified":"2008-05-03T18:11:18","modified_gmt":"2008-05-04T01:11:18","slug":"four-chinese-novels-reviewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/05\/four-chinese-novels-reviewed\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Chinese Novels Reviewed"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the New York Times book review, four Chinese novels are reviewed. Jonathan Spence reviews<\/a> Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan; Pankaj Mishra reviews<\/a> Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong; Francine Prose reviews<\/a> Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi; and Liesl Schillinger reviews<\/a> Serve the People! by Yan Lianke. In the same issue, an essay about Chinese pop fiction<\/a> looks at writer Guo Jingming<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Guo is the most successful of a dozen young celebrity authors who make up the \u201cpost-\u201980s\u201d generation, some others of whom have also achieved book sales in the millions. This group includes the high school dropout and professional car racer Han Han, 25, who derides China\u2019s inefficient educational system in his novels and regularly insults older, more established artists on his blog, and Zhang Yueran, 26, whose novel \u201cDaffodils Took Carp and Went Away\u201d features a bulimic girl who falls in love with her stepfather, is mistreated by her mother and is sent off to boarding school.<\/p>\n

While the Chinese government frequently jails dissident writers or forces them into exile, it mostly ignores the antics of Guo and the other post-\u201980s writers. For all their flamboyance, they exemplify the social ideals of the new China \u2014 commercialism and individualism \u2014 said Lydia Liu, a professor of Chinese and comparative literature at Columbia University. They \u201cdon\u2019t pose any threat,\u201d Liu said. \u201cThey collaborate.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the New York Times book review, four Chinese novels are reviewed. Jonathan Spence reviews Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan; Pankaj Mishra reviews Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong; Francine Prose reviews Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi; and Liesl Schillinger reviews Serve the People! by Yan Lianke. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1611,2103,1289,1442,2385,1766],"class_list":["post-19820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-book-reviews","tag-jiang-rong","tag-literature","tag-mo-yan","tag-wolf-totem","tag-writers","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nFour Chinese Novels Reviewed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/05\/four-chinese-novels-reviewed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Four Chinese Novels Reviewed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the New York Times book review, four Chinese novels are reviewed. Jonathan Spence reviews Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan; Pankaj Mishra reviews Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong; Francine Prose reviews Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi; and Liesl Schillinger reviews Serve the People! by Yan Lianke. 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