Yu Hua (simplified Chinese: Ó໪; traditional Chinese: Ó໪; pinyin: Y¨² Hu¨¢) is a Chinese author, born April 3, 1960 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. He practiced dentistry for five years and later turned to fiction writing in 1983 because he didn't like "looking into people¡¯s mouths the whole day." Writing allowed him to be more creative and flexible.[citation needed] He grew up during the Cultural Revolution and many of his stories and novels are marked by this experience. One of the distinctive characteristics of his work is his penchant for detailed descriptions of brutal violence.
Yu Hua has written four novels, six collections of stories, and three collections of essays. His most important novels are Chronicle of a Blood Merchant and To Live. The latter novel was adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. Because the film was banned in China, it instantly made the novel a bestseller and Yu Hua a worldwide celebrity. His novels have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Persian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish, Hungarian, Serbian, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Malayalam and Turkish.
Typ Buch, das w¨¹tend macht, weil man lange nicht herausfindet, ob die dargestellte Gewalt Folge eines unreflektiert fiesen Autors oder eine genaue Schilderung der Welt ist. Mir scheint: zweites ist richtig. Es wird mit der Nachbarin, der Sch¨¹lerin, der Kollegenfrau gev?gelt, alles so derbe inszeniert und in so vulg?re S?tze gegossen, dass der Text manchmal zur Posse mutiert, insgesamt aber immer noch die Br¨¹cke zum Glaubw¨¹rdig-Historischen zu schlagen im Stande ist, ohne dabei einen verschmitzt grinsenden Humor zu verlieren.
Als da ist: China in den 60er und 70er Jahren, Kulturrevolution unter Mao, das Land erschl?gt das Erbe und berauscht sich an "kulturellen S?uberungen", an Denunziation und obligatorischer Selbstanklage der hungernden Bauern, die nun Kommunisten sind, ohne zu wissen, was das bedeuten soll. Auf einem solchen Dorf w?chst ein Junge heran, inmitten des egoistischen Handelns der sozial Verwahrlosten.
Wie im zuletzt gelesenen chinesischen Roman "Der Traum meines Gro?vaters" wabert der Erz?hler, ist mal im Wissen klar beschr?nkter Ich-Erz?hler, mal mit auktorialen M?glichkeiten ausgestattet. Die Zeitstruktur ist wie trudelnder Kr¨¹meltee im Glas, die ?bersetzung klingt gut mit einzelnen Quersch¨¹ssen ins Generische - "es lag auf der Hand" - was dem Text aber nur exotische Patina verleiht. Ich m?chte um nichts in der Welt mit einem Chinesen um 1970 tauschen, selten ist mir ein solches Ma? an Armut und fehlendem Gemeinsinn untergekommen.
Wenn man dem Buch etwas vorwerfen kann, dann sicherlich, dass es keinen Handlungsstrang bereith?lt. Die Schilderungen der menschlichen Gier sind beeindruckend abartig, aber auch eine blo?e Kette an einzelnen Spotlights. Das nimmt den Darstellungen nicht ihre Intensit?t, h?tte aber noch etwas geschickter gel?st werden k?nnen.
Wer neugierig auf Land und Zeit ist, aber kein Sachbuch zu der Zeit lesen m?chte, erf?hrt hier ebenfalls, welche Auswirkungen der gro?e Wandel in China hatte. Die Gegenwart versteht man nach der Lekt¨¹re jedenfalls besser.
It's rare that I don't finish a book - even when I'm not enjoying a book, I still aim to finish it, I just don't like to leave something unfinished in any facet of my life - but such is the case with Cries in the Drizzle. I picked it to read for the in October for a few reasons, but none of them are particularly important: I simply wanted to read it for the same reason I want to read anything - to learn more, to experience someone else's life, to open up my own for a new voice, a different perspective, and the hope to be inspired or touched in some way.
Sadly, Yu Hua's fictionalised autobiography became a real slog to read, and at 186 pages (out of 304), I decided to stop trying to read it. One thing was blazingly clear: it wasn't going to improve in the last hundred pages, not for me. Not finishing a book always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, but October was a month of reading struggle in general and a book like this was proving to be a real block to recapturing my stride and making progress on other titles. But because this was for a challenge, I wanted to share my thoughts on what I did read, and why it didn't work for me.
Essentially it boils down to the writing as the primary problem; secondly, the story itself. The first is the most subjective, and plenty of readers will love the writing style and connect with it in ways that were simply impossible for me. Set in rural China in the 1960s, Cries in the Drizzle tells the story of an impoverished family through the eyes of its narrator, Sun Guanglin. Guanglin is the middle child of three boys, Sun Guangping and Sun Guangming. His father, Sun Kwangstai, is a horrible man, with a mean temper, a drinking habit and a seemingly complete inability to love others or care for anyone but himself. His mother is a bit of a nonentity, and his grandfather, Sun Youyuan, who lives with them, is self-abasing towards Sun Kwangstai, a bit of a coward and a doddery old man who sits in the corner daydreaming about his dead wife, who was once the daughter of a rich man.
Sun Guanglin was sold to a military officer when he was six, but returns to his home village of Southgate when he's twelve; compared to his real family and life in Southgate, life with Wang Liqiang and his wife was wonderful. It isn't until Part 4 that the narrator speaks with any depth about this time in his life, and I didn't read that far. Divided into sections that deal with chunks or themes in his childhood and adolescence, Sun Guanglin tells stories about his brothers, his parents, the widow his father had a lengthy affair with, his friendships with Su Yu and Su Hang at school, troubles with girls and going through puberty, and the history of his grandfather and great-grandfather, who were stone masons and bridge builders before war, famine and poverty struck.
I tend to be a fairly organised person, and Sun Guanglin's story has no real structure to it, making it hard for me to follow. Even in the midst of a story, he seemed to change direction completely from one paragraph to the next, and gave no indication that this was a relevant tangent to the story he's telling and it'll all come together just wait. It reminded me of my struggle reading John Elder Robison's memoir, . The scattered, unfocused style is much the same, and Hua's storytelling style tends to come across as a bit flimsy, weakly put together, and poorly fleshed out. It is no doubt his style, and some readers will enjoy it, but it's not for me. My brain and Hua's brain just aren't compatible: we think differently, in terms of rhythm and rhyme, like we're two different musical instruments each playing a different song.
There is humour here, and plenty of farce - especially in the stories Guanglin tells of his ancestors; it's comical but not funny. The one thing that does come across strongly is the atmosphere of utter poverty, and the disconnect between the state and the working classes. One of the saddest stories is about the little boy called Lulu, whose mother is arrested and sent to a labour camp for prostitution. Lulu is left behind to fend for himself. A boy of six! There is no other family, no one to care for him or feed him, and while his mother wasn't in the slightest bit nurturing or loving, she at least provided a home for him. I loved her response to the interrogation at the Public Security Bureau: "The clothes you wear, they're issued by the state, and your paychecks too. So long as you're taking care of state business, you're doing your jobs all right. But my vagina belongs to me - it's not government issue. Who I sleep with is my affair, and I can look after my own vagina perfectly well, thank you very much." [pp.134-5]
There are quite a few mini-stories or scenes that touch of the people's alienation from their own bodies, and complete lack of understanding or education around their bodies, their sexuality, anything practical or emotional and psychological of that nature. It's quite sad, and combined with the images of poverty and the sense of these people as being quite disposable and without real value, Cries in the Drizzle paints a pretty bleak picture of communist China. It does maintain its focus on the people, not the politics; you simply glean truisms from the stories of people's lives. I just wish those stories had been easier to follow; the narration is disjointed, and Sun Guanglin's habit of omniscience robs the stories he tells of authenticity: How does he know what happened, what someone was thinking, what Su Yu was feeling as he lay dying? He wasn't there. It's all conjecture, speculation, and this undermines the credibility of his story - especially as it reads like a memoir.
With no plot, there is little direction to this coming-of-age story. There's no forward momentum or impetus. When you have a plotless novel, it's down to the characters to carry the story. In some ways, this being a story about people, the characters are well fleshed out. And yet they always remain caricatures of themselves. There's no real depth or understanding to them. Sun Guanglin's narration remains consistent in this regard: how he talks about people is the same as how he talks about events - from a distance, both all-knowing and superficial. It's perplexing, and frustrating. Annoying, even. Even when people die, when children die - something that, these days, never fails to bring on the waterworks - I was left largely untouched. Cries in the Drizzle failed to connect with me emotionally, and without that connection - on top of a lack of plot and basic structure - I had no reason to keep reading. Time to move on.
Ya?mur Alt?nda ???l?klar, Yu Hua'n?n ilk roman?. ?lk roman i?in harika bir kitap.Fakat ?ans?zl?k ?u ki, T¨¹rk?e'ye ?evrilen 7.G¨¹n(ki bence en iyi kitab?), Ya?amak ve Kan?n? Satan Adam gibi m¨¹thi? kitaplar? ?evrilip en son bu kitab?n ?evrilmi? olmas? b¨¹y¨¹k talihsizlik. Bu nedenle bu kitaba kendimce bir puan vermeyi bu ?artlar alt?nda do?ru bulmuyorum:) Keyifli okumalar!
"When things get bad, we'll just have to eat dead people."
This is the third novel of Yu's that I have read and I can say he is consistently great, though some might find the innate undercurrent of bleakness and violence a little disturbing. I certainly don't. I also disagree with the usual inane American cover blurbs about how these novels are all about "totalitarian" ways of life and going out of their way to excoriate China pretty much any way they can. Sure, that's there. It can't help but be since Yu grew up during the worst excesses of the zany Cultural Revolution, but his novels, especially this one, are novels about families, their dynamics, and how external events can affect each member. I'm not so sure I'd go so far as to say Yu is using the family as a microcosm of Chinese political culture, because I think his concern is something greater and unsettling for the "Western" reader: the disintegration of the family in the modern world, the violence inherent in that collapse, and the profundity of rural idiocy. Cries constitutes the random memories of Sun Guanglin, who gets given to another family at age 6 and returns home as a teenager, unwanted and spurned by his father. Events are out of order, chaotic, and tentatively linked, but the vignettes are stark and grim with Sun present as both witness and victim. Dark but beautifully composed, with a fine, bleak sense of humor as well.
Buku Yu Hua kedua yang kubaca setelah Kisah Seorang Pedagang Darah. Secara urutan waktu, Tangis di Rinai Gerimis (cakep ya judul Indonesia-nya) merupakan novel pertama Yu Hua yang diterbitkan.?? ?? Seperti halnya Pedagang Darah, tema novel ini adalah perjuangan rakyat kelas bawah Cina pada masa Revolusi Kebudayaan. Dan meskipun diambil dari sudut pandang seorang anak, Sun Guangling, novel ini tetap menunjukkan ciri khas Yu Hua dengan deskripsi lugasnya tentang kekejaman dan kematian, juga kebrutalan hidup sehari-hari. Termasuk nafsu berahi yang sepertinya tak pernah bisa mereka kekang. ?? ?? Sun Guangling yang selalu tersingkir dari keluarga dan lingkungannya, sehingga malah bisa menjadi pengamat dari luar, menceritakan kisah orang-orang di sekitarnya. Ayah pemabuk yang bodoh dan kejam, ibu yang tak berdaya, nenek yang dibuang suami pertama, sahabat yang ditinggal pergi begitu saja oleh orangtua, gadis tetangga yang cantik dan berakhir sebagai pelacur, anak-anak telantar... Beberapa ceritanya begitu mengenaskan, kadang lucu, sering kali absurd sampai sulit dipercaya.? ? Yu Hua sendiri pernah menyatakan dalam salah satu wawancara bahwa dia adalah penulis realistis. Dan jika kisah-kisahnya terkesan absurd, itu karena mereka merupakan proyeksi dari realitas yang absurd.?
Dari POV Sun Guanglin, anak kedua dari ketiga bersaudara, kambing hitam di keluarganya yg miskin dan papa, dia menceritakan kisahnya semasa dari kecil hingga menjelang dia kuliah di desa kelahirannya, Gerbang Selatan. Pengamatannya yg kritis dan merangkum dinamika sosial yang terjadi dalam masyarakat Cina dibawah Komunis pimpinan diktator Ketua Mao.
Setiap kali saya membaca novel Yu Hua, selalu saja banyak sarkas dan situasi yg kocak di saat yg semestinya tidak utk ditertawakan. Keluarga Sun ini sungguh "ramai" dgn sifat mereka yg blak-blakan, super awban dan dilema mereka antara menghormati tradisi atau melecehkan semua omong kosong kuno di tengah kemiskinan dan mata para Komunis. Ayah Sun Guanglin bernama Sun Kwangtsai adalah kepala keluarga tipe tiran, doyan seks sekaligus culas, bahkan kepada ayahnya sendiri, Kakek Sun. Kakak sulung Sun, Sun Guangping lebih mirip spt ayahnya yg berdarah panas versi lebih mendingan. Sedangkan adiknya, Sun Guangming ini yg paling lucu, bersemangat dan paling heboh, sayangnya mati muda krn kecerobohannya. Sedangkan Sun Guanglin krn posisinya sbg kambing hitam keluarga (bersama kakeknya), dia lebih mengamati dgn teliti sifat-sifat anggota keluarga dan teman-teman terdekatnya.
Favorit saya tentu saja si Kakek Sun ini, entah kenapa beliau saat muda mengingatkan saya pd film-film Jackie Chan, koplak banget. Dan saat sudah uzur, semangat dan kelicikannya tidak memudar, bahkan hingga menjelang ajalnya dia masih bisa mengecoh anaknya yg durhaka ini dan ribut mulu soal kemiskinan sampai tega-teganya mengungkit soal makanan yg dimakan ayahnya. Gak heran Sun Kwangtsai matinya pun ngenes banget.
Biasanya saya paling malas membaca cerita orang-orang miskin dan papa, tapi utk buku-buku karangan author ini sangat pengecualian. Entah sarkasme-nya, atau cara memandang kemiskinan dari orang yg sama sekali gak punya kekayaan materi ini terlihat realistis penggambarannya. Kebetulan kepribadian ayah dan kakek Sun mirip-mirip dgn gabungan karakter-karakter ayah, ibu dan kakak-kakak saya. Jadinya, mau gak mau saya menganggap novel ini realistik. Penasaran? Baca aja bukunya ini.