Starred review from November 24, 2008
Baldy Li, the hero of Yu's epic third novel, comes into the world on the same day his father slips to a disgraceful demise while ogling women in a public toilet. The incident is big news in tiny Liu Town, China, and leaves the family tainted with shame. Yet even as Baldy Li and his mother, Li Lan, cower under the taunts of their neighbors, things begin to change for the better. The tall, handsome Song Fanping falls in love with Li Lan and marries her. Li Lan gains new happiness and Baldy Li gains an older stepbrother, Song Gang. Together, the two boys weather the changes of the Cultural Revolution, reform and globalization, and Yu's unflinching narrative, by turns tragic and hilarious, shows ordinary lives being broken down and built up again. Whether Baldy Li is peddling scraps or using Sun Tzu's war tactics to court the village beauty, Hua weaves the common thread of humanity through all his actions and desires. By the last page, the novel has imparted a whole world of histories and personalities that are difficult to forget.
February 1, 2009
Originally published in Taiwan as two separate volumes in 2005 and 2006, this latest by noted Chinese author Yu ("To Live") is a dark yet fanciful tale of stepbrothers Song Gang and Li Guang, better known as Baldy Li. It opens around the time of the Cultural Revolution (196676) and then spans four decades. As in Yu's other works, tragedy and hardship are elements that do not escape the protagonists, who must face the brutal imprisonment and killing of Song Gang's father at the hands of red-armbanded guards and then the death of Baldy Li's mother from illness seven years later. This somewhat allegorical work stresses the significance of family, and loyalty and the consequences of betrayal, as the brothers eventually vie for the love of the same woman and struggle through their own individual setbacks. Yu's well-rounded supporting characters and storylines add to the book's grim and gritty overtones, and he manages to work in tidbits of dry humor throughout. Adventuresome readers not looking for a nice and tidy read will certainly find that this work contains more than enough fodder for lively book group discussions. Public and academic libraries with Yu's other titles on the shelves should consider adding this title to their collection.Shirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from December 15, 2008
Baldy Li never knew his father, who drowned in the cesspool beneath the public latrine while peeping at womens butts. Welcome to Yu Huasearthy theater of the absurd. A best-selling and highly controversial novelist in China, award-winning Yu will continue to attract an international followingwiththis quickly devoured, bawdy, and barbed farce in whichpolitical oppression is conflated with the vulnerability of the body in scenes of sexual antics, horrific violence, and harsh deprivation. When Baldy Lis widowed mother marries the widower Song Fanping, a kind and noble giant, hisson Song Gang andBaldy Li, temperamental opposites, become inseparable. And once the Cultural Revolution comes to Liu Town, the brothers become essential to each others survival. Decorous and gentle, Song Gang is China past, while salacious and aggressive Baldy Li, a wildly successful entrepreneur, is China present. Yu steadily ramps up the satire, culminating in a beauty pageant for virgins and a brisk business in fake hymens and hymen reconstruction, without obliterating the complex humanity of his struggling, wholly sympathetic characters. At once gruesome and erotic, uproarious and shrewd, this three-ring circus of a novel, this tragicomic tale of opportunism and compassion, love and terror, boldly embodies the striving of China and the aberrant frenzy of the global marketplace.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)
Starred review from April 1, 2013
Spanning 40 years of Chinese history, from the Cultural Revolution to the economic boom, this rollicking novel reveals the exploits of two stepbrothers, one bookish, the other brackish. (LJ 2/1/09)
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.