Abstract
Mo Yan’s novels are inevitably focused on history and the countryside, but usually, they also demonstrate an ability to push beyond the confines of the writing conventions of his native soil, dragging the reader through a traversal imagination of the elaboration of overflowing desire and violent carnival world of Northeast Gaomi Township. His work Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out deals with this topic once again, but there is also an element of the abstract involved. One element of the story is a legend told of a man from the village that goes through six Buddhist cycles of reincarnation. This legend emphasises the intolerance of those who attempt to act in opposition to the Cultural Revolution. Another element, however, is the repeated and brutal violence suffered throughout the novel, and the impossibility to avoid this suffering is expressed through an undertone of sarcasm. This fantastic interpretation of history’s ruthless nature brings about a greater fullness and dynamism among modern Chinese novels.
Source: Dongyue Tribune, 2010(11): pp. 73–78.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Goldblatt, H. ‘Two Prefaces to the English Versions of Mo Yan’s Works’. Contemporary Writers Review, 2010(2): p. 193.
- 2.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: p. 217.
- 3.
Ibid., p. 3.
- 4.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: p. 3.
- 5.
Zhang Hong points out that the dogs in Mo Yan’s novels are in most cases carnivorous animals, only the old ones would lose the ferocious nature and become almost vegans. In accordance with this statement, the old dogs in both Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and White Dog and the Swing are exceptions. See Zhang Hong. The Realm of Senses: A Research on Narrative Art of Vanguard Novels. Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2007: pp. 62–63.
- 6.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: pp. 87–88.
- 7.
Ibid., p. 91.
- 8.
Ibid., pp. 183–186.
- 9.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: pp. 183–186.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 367.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 537.
- 12.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: p. 513.
- 13.
Mo Yan. Red Sorghum Clan. Bei**g: Peoples Literature Publishing House, 2007: pp. 30–32, 93–98.
- 14.
Mo Yan. The Herbivorous Family. Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2005: pp. 276–279, 315–333.
- 15.
Mo Yan. Big Breasts and Wide Hips. Taipei: Hongfan Bookstore, 1996: pp. 250–251, 424–429, 473–478.
- 16.
Yama cramp refers to a special iron hoop strapped on the head of a person to be executed, with only his eyes revealed through two holes in the iron. By stretching the cowhide rope attached to the iron, the iron hoop was gradually pressed into the persons head until the skull was crushed, while the eyes protruded from the two holes until the eyeballs fell out of the iron.
- 17.
Mo Yan. Sandalwood Death. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2001: pp. 58–65, 117–120, 252–270.
- 18.
- 19.
Mo Yan. Sandalwood Death. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2001: pp. 58–65, 117–120, 252–270.
- 20.
Ding Ling (1904–1986) is a famous writer and social activist of contemporary China. Her representative works include Miss Sophie’s Diary and The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River.
- 21.
Zhang Ailing (1920–1995) wrote a great number of literary works in her life, including novels, essays, and film scripts, such as The Golden Cangue, Love in a Fallen City, Eighteen Springs and Red Rose and White Rose.
- 22.
Root-seeking literature is, as the name suggests, a literary form of ‘seeking the root of culture’. It became popular from the mid-1980s when writers were dedicated to the exploration of traditional consciousness and national cultural psychology.
- 23.
Chen Sihe traced the cause of greed from the life and death fatigue of the first generation in **men Village and deduced the pitiful result from the greedy desire of the second and third generations, regarding the life and death fatigue coming from greed, and the most hidden theme of the novel was less greed, non-action, freeing both body and mind. See Chen Sihe. ‘The Narrative Structure and Significance of Hybrid of Human and Animal, Coexistence of Yin and Yang: A Tentative Study on the Folk Narration of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (II).’ In Chen Sihe (Ed.). Five Ways of Reading Contemporary Novels. Hongkong: Joint Publishing Company, 2009: pp. 222–229.
- 24.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: p. 4.
- 25.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: p. 195.
- 26.
Ibid., p. 327.
- 27.
Ibid., pp. 337–338.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House, 2004: pp. 23–24.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 21.
- 31.
Wang Dewei. ‘A Thousand Words Do Not Outweigh Silence: About Mo Yan’s Novels’. In Wang Dewei (Ed.). After Heteroglossia: Comments on Contemporary Chinese Novels. Taipei: Cornfield Publishing House, 2001: p. 209.
- 32.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House. 2004: p. 182.
- 33.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House. 2004: p. 276.
- 34.
Zhang Wenying. Voice from the Margin: The Literature of Mo Yan and Kenzaburo Oe. Bei**g: Communication University of China Press, 2007: pp. 146–147.
- 35.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House. 2004: p. 182.
- 36.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House. 2004: p. 338.
- 37.
Ibid., p. 186.
- 38.
Mo Yan. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Bei**g: The Writers Publishing House. 2004: p. 312.
- 39.
Spence, J. ‘Born Again’ in ‘Sunday Book Review’. The New York Times. May 4th, 2008. Also see Shi **gqian. ‘Rebirth: Comments on Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out’. Network of Contemporary Chinese Literature. September 5th, 2008.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wu, G. (2023). Samsara, Violence, and Satire: A Discussion of the Absurd Narration in Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. In: Jiang, L. (eds) Hallucinatory Realism in Chinese Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0666-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0666-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-99-0665-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-99-0666-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)