Jia PingwaReseñas

Maybe even 3.5* -- I was in a reading slump while I was reading this and I think that affected my rating somewhat. This book reminded me somewhat of the American classic "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair which I recently reread. Both books tell the reader about life in a city as recently arrived laborers, the struggle to make ends meet & the ways in which these lowest workers are taken advantage of. Generally I like this sort of 'social commentary' type of fiction, even when it is gritty, so I would be willing to try rereading this at some point.

Turbulence: A Novel (Pegasus Prize for Literature) by Jia Pingwa (2003)

Maybe even 3.5* -- I was in a reading slump while I was reading this and I think that affected my rating somewhat. This book reminded me somewhat of the American classic "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair which I recently reread. Both books tell the reader about life in a city as recently arrived laborer, the struggle to make ends meet & the ways in which these lowest workers are taken advantage of. Generally I like this sort of 'social commentary' type of fiction, even when it is gritty, so I would be willing to try rereading this at some point.

The story of Hawa "Happy" Liu who along with his friend, Wufu, travel to the city to be trash pickers. It really is a very mundane story of 2 men sorting through a city's trash. The words are short and clipped (maybe due to translation) and full of scatology. There just wasn't much good to say about this book. It could have been the topic as Happy and Wufu's life was depressing and as hard as they worked there was nothing they could do to better it. The entire last chapter of the book was the author describing where he got the ideas for much of his book and on whom the characters were based. From this last chapter I inferred that this story is supposed to tell of the plight of the country residents during China's industrialization. Besides being too long, I really can't say I learned anything from the book or that it entertained me---so I would not recommend it. 494 pages½

Twenty-year-old Butterfly is kidnapped and taken to a remote village to be the wife of Bright Black, a farmer/shopkeeper who keeps her captive in his cave home. All the villagers are complicit because they know how she came to be in the village and are aware of her imprisonment. Narrated by Butterfly, the novel focuses on her struggles with her situation; she is determined to find a way to escape or be rescued.

China’s one child policy has resulted in a gender imbalance as more male children than female children were born; now young men are having difficulty finding wives. Apparently bride kidnapping has recently resurfaced in some parts of China. In many cases, women are kidnapped and sold to men in poorer regions of the country. This is what happens to Butterfly. In an afterword, the author mentions that her story is based on what happened to the daughter of a neighbour in his home village.

Obviously, the reader will feel sympathy for Butterfly. She is tricked and taken far away from her mother, her only family. When the book opens, she has been held 178 days. The villagers come and gawk at her, but no one helps her since capturing a bride seems to be an accepted practice. Bright Black is not the only one who has purchased an abducted woman because “there were plenty of men in the village and a dozen or more were wifeless, ‘bare branches’ as they were called.” There is a strong desire to continue the family line: “Bright’s dad was scared stiff that his son would never marry . . . and the family would die out.” It is expected, therefore, that Butterfly is raped so she can ensure the continuation of the Black family.

Butterfly is brutalized but it is obvious that the author also wants the reader to have some sympathy for Bright as well. He is not totally evil. There are several instances of his caring and compassion for Butterfly. He buys special food for her such as steamed wheat buns; “There were always plenty of soybeans left, and I knew he’d saved them for me.” When Butterfly is experiencing great pain, Bright says, “’I won’t say anything, you scream and swear all you like if it makes it hurt less.’” In the Afterword, the author writes about the “barbarous practice of snatching women” but he also bemoans that “The recent transformation of China has led to the biggest migration of people from the countryside to the city in history. . . . In remote backward areas, the men who lack the ability, the skills or the funds to leave, are left behind in the villages to scratch a living on the land. They have no possibility of marrying. . . . no one mentions the fact that the cities have plundered wealth, labour power and women from the villages. No one talks about the men left behind in the wastelands to wither like gourds on the frame, flowering once, then dying fruitless.”

The book is written in a detached, unemotional style which is unusual and unexpected because Butterfly is the narrator. Her emotions, for example, are not described in great detail. When she is raped, she has an out-of-body experience; her spirit leaves her body and she describes only what she sees being done to Butterfly. The author explains that he cannot write “violent, extreme narratives” and, instead, compares his writing to “ink-wash paintings” whose essence lies in “the ‘suggestion’ rather than the detail.”

There are many minor characters, most of whom are known by their nicknames: Blindy is Bright’s blind uncle; a stutterer is called Tongue-Trip; and a woman who suffers from acne is addressed as Auntie Spotty-Face. These names often seem callous and offensive.

The character who seems most respected is Great-Grandad who tries to teach Butterfly to make the best of her situation. He advises her to “’Just pick out the good [beans]’” and tells her, “’if you treasure something precious, it’ll last longer than plastic, wood or iron.’” He always tries to see the positive; when a man is teased that he can’t see heaven, Great-Grandad says, “’Well, heaven’s looking at him.’”
Over time, Butterfly seems to adopt Great-Grandad’s attitude because she makes observations like “it was only by meeting people halfway that you could grab an opportunity and gain some momentum from it, and then everything went easy” and “The stones anchoring the fleeceflower root stayed put – they couldn’t grow roots or wings, they just got covered in muddy water but they didn’t complain, did they?”

There are sections of the book where focus is placed on things that seem irrelevant. For instance, Butterfly mentions that she has learned how to make corn pudding and then describes the process in great detail; the making of buckwheat noodles follows; and then there’s a lengthy section describing the many ways potatoes are eaten. Surely all of this information is not needed just to show that she is adapting to life in the village?

This book did not always keep my interest. The dispassionate style just doesn’t feel natural given the subject matter. Dialogue sounds robotic and there are even strange non-sequiturs: “Then, after Padlock’s wife got stung to death by hornets, Good-Son made up his mind to leave and get a labouring job in the city.” What’s the connection between the death of one man’s wife and another man’s decision to leave the village for the city?

Jia Pingwa is apparently one of China’s most popular writers, so I looked forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, though it addresses an important issue, the novel is not a compelling read.

Note: I received a digital galley of the book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).

When it started, it was very impressionistic and I was worried about pages and pages when I had no idea what was happening but it did settle into a sort of narrative. I still remained confused at times and I think a certain amount was lost in translation and it certainly was crude alot of the time but by the end I found it strangely poignant.

I won this kindle version in a GOODREADS giveaway.

4

Fiction & Literature
-Novel, literary criticism