Yu Hua
Paperback | Pages: 250 pages Rating: 4.31 | 7381 Users | 854 Reviews
Details Of Books To Live
| Title | : | To Live |
| Author | : | Yu Hua |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 250 pages |
| Published | : | August 26th 2003 by Anchor Books (first published 1992) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. China. Historical. Historical Fiction. Asia. Asian Literature. Chinese Literature. Literature |
Narration Supposing Books To Live
From the author of Brothers and China in Ten Words this celebrated contemporary classic of Chinese literature was also adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. This searing novel, originally banned in China but later named one of that nation's most influential books, portrays one man's transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant. After squandering his family's fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Left with an ox as the companion of his final years, Fugui stands as a model of gritty authenticity, buoyed by his appreciation for life in this narrative of humbling power.Identify Books To To Live
| Original Title: | 活着 [Huózhe] |
| ISBN: | 1400031869 (ISBN13: 9781400031863) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Fugui, Jiazhen, Fengxia, Youqing, Erxi, Kugen |
| Setting: | China |
| Literary Awards: | Premio letterario Giuseppe Acerbi (2014), Premio Grinzane Cavour for Narrativa Straniera (1998) |
Rating Of Books To Live
Ratings: 4.31 From 7381 Users | 854 ReviewsRate Of Books To Live
With "The Outward Room" a contender, this might be one of the best novels I've read all year. Only someone with a heart made out of chiseled and finely white and crumbly shit would not like it.Xu Fugui is a shit-ass who loses everything through his shit-assery and then some. And then he loses everything again. And again. Simple, often frenetic, and downright gut-wrenching, like in that sense that shit's so bad, what the fuck, but then there's the title, which pretty much sums it all up.Forget
Recommended by a student! First time for everything, and I love this first! She's already looking forward to her next Yu Hua book though she's having to wait til exams are over (and I til exam and term grading is over and in)
As this is a book originally written in Chinese and translated into English I can only assume that much is "lost in translation". (thus a missing star) That aside, I found the story of Fugui and his family with all their trials and tribulations (and there are MANY) oddly piercing. Descriptions of their meager lives and the dire poverty they endured will not be forgotten by this reader.The writing is very spare, not a wasted word. Yu Hua has indicated that he got the inspiration for this novel
This was the most depressing, awful book I have read in a very long time. The main character is a jerk - no way around it - a really, really, unlikeable jerk that screws his entire family by being feckless and mean and just plain stupid. Then, everyone around him who is even remotely likable dies. More often than not, really horribly. I've read books about serial killers with less horrible deaths. Senseless deaths. Deaths that make me want to scream.Including not one, but two, dead little boys.
This book felt a little forced. It was kind of like a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Wile E. Coyote gets squished by anvils, falls of cliffs, and gets cut in half by trains, but just keeps on coming. Except it's about horrible poverty in China instead of... whatever Bugs Bunny cartoons are about.I did like Yu Hua's writing style though. I recommend Chronicle of a Blood Merchant instead of To Live. It's similarly tragic, but its social commentary was more interesting to me.
The last of my Fall 2017 Best Of Chinese Literature project; more here, and a cool list of books here.I had been wondering where the great literature of parenting was. Western novels are often about children but rarely about parents, who appear, if at all, as a series of Medeas and Undine Spraggs and, God help us, Anse Bundrens. It's here, in China, that I finally found novels wrestling with what it's like to be a parent. It's a consistent theme in novels like The Vagrants, Wild Swans, The Good
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