The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh by Mo Yan.
Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas

Mo Yan. Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh. Trans. Howard Goldblatt. Arcade, 2001. 189 pp. $23.95.

In the preface to this selection of stories, Mo Yan, one of China’s most remarkable contemporary writers, traces his drive to write to childhood experiences of starvation during the disastrous period of the Great Leap Forward. There is about Mo Yan’s writing the sense of an explosive need to tell stories, to strip away the pretenses of contemporary China and modern humanity and to lay bare our elemental, more or less savage natures. Mo Yan’s most characteristic writing is both stylistically and thematically visceral, and he is best known for tales set in the primitive Shandong countryside where he grew up. His narratives can abruptly swerve into the bizarre and grotesque and have frequently been compared to two acknowledged influences, García Márquez and Faulkner, although Mo Yan’s peasants make the latter seem comparatively genteel. Yet for all the darkness and disgust of its vision, his writing is shot through with exuberance and humor, albeit often black, and the no-less-elemental emotions of empathy and love. His persistant concern with the dehumanization of modern Chinese society can manifest itself in relatively mild forms, as in the title novella or “Shen Garden,” which deal realistically with repressed emotion, love, and sexuality. “Abandoned Child” more bluntly confronts the heartlessness of entrenched ideas about the preference for male children. A couple of stories extend the wild folk-saga begun in Mo Yan’s famous first novel, Red Sorghum—the basis for the even more famous film by Zhang Yimou. Finally, there is a pair of oddball fables that venture entirely into the fantastic. This highly readable collection is a fair sampler of the range of Mo Yan’s fiction and should be read as a mere warm-up for the narrative audacity and earthy brew of his novels. [Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh by Mo Yan. Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas Mo Yan. Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh. Trans. Howard Goldblatt. Arcade, 2001. 189 pp. $23.95. In the preface to this selection of stories, Mo Yan, one of China’s most remarkable contemporary writers, traces his drive to write to childhood experiences of starvation during the disastrous period of the Great Leap Forward. There is about Mo Yan’s writing the sense of an explosive need to tell stories, to strip away the pretenses of contemporary China and modern humanity and to lay bare our elemental, more or less savage natures. Mo Yan’s most characteristic writing is both stylistically and thematically visceral, and he is best known for tales set in the primitive Shandong countryside where he grew up. His narratives can abruptly swerve into the bizarre and grotesque and have frequently been compared to two acknowledged influences, García Márquez and Faulkner, although Mo Yan’s peasants make the latter seem comparatively genteel. Yet for all the darkness and disgust of its vision, his writing is shot through with exuberance and humor, albeit often black, and the no-less-elemental emotions of empathy and love. His persistant concern with the dehumanization of modern Chinese society can manifest itself in relatively mild forms, as in the title novella or “Shen Garden,” which deal realistically with repressed emotion, love, and sexuality. “Abandoned Child” more bluntly confronts the heartlessness of entrenched ideas about the preference for male children. A couple of stories extend the wild folk-saga begun in Mo Yan’s famous first novel, Red Sorghum—the basis for the even more famous film by Zhang Yimou. Finally, there is a pair of oddball fables that venture entirely into the fantastic. This highly readable collection is a fair sampler of the range of Mo Yan’s fiction and should be read as a mere warm-up for the narrative audacity and earthy brew of his novels. [Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas]

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