Sandalwood Death: A Novel: 2 (Chinese Literature Today Book Series) - Softcover

Mo Yan (author) & Howard Goldblatt (Translated By)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0806143398 ISBN 13: 9780806143392

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012

Synopsis

Sometimes called "The Chivington Massacre" by those who would emphasize his responsibility for the attack and "The Battle of Sand Creek" by those who would imply that it was not a massacre, this event has become one of our nation’s most controversial Indian conflicts. The subject of army and Congressional investigations and inquiries, a matter of vigorous newspaper debates, the object of much oratory and writing biased in both directions, the Sand Creek Massacre very likely will never be completely and satisfactorily resolved.This account of the massacre investigates the historical events leading to the battle, tracing the growth of the Indian-white conflict in Colorado Territory. The author has shown the way in which the discontent stemming from the treaty of Fort Wise, the depredations committed by the Cheyennes and Arapahoes prior to the massacre, and the desire of some of the commanding officers for a bloody victory against the Indians laid the groundwork for the battle at Sand Creek.

About this title

Review:

Mo Yan's recreation of the Boxer Rebellion opens, as it will close, with first-person narratives by voluptuous Meiniang and the four men in her life: her father, an opera singer leading the rebellion against the German railroad workers; her husband, a dull, muscular butcher of dogs and pigs; her father-in-law, the Imperial executioner assigned to punish the rebel leader; and her rich lover, the Magistrate who betrays her father to the foreign invaders where the sandalwood death will be his punishment. The plot has all the ingredients of an opera tragedy, and the monologues that form the opening and closing chapters each begin with lyrics from a Chinese folk opera based on the same story called Sandalwood Death. Three public executions, at the novel's beginning, middle, and end, are set pieces of ceremonial horror. Zhao Jia, the Imperial executioner, is such a cold-blooded, cunning, ruthless fellow that only the novel's first sentence, revealing that the heroine will stab him to death in seven days, gives the reader the courage to read on as he performs hideously cruel public executions as well as shames, abuses and torments the more likeable pawns in this dark, suspenseful love story. Fortunately, the heroine's not-so-bright husband provides comic relief, blundering along good-naturedly, blind to the obvious, falling out of bed when she screams in her sleep with desire for another man. Mo Yan is a mesmerizing storyteller and a daring one, constantly showing the other side of characters you thought you knew. He gives away plot turns before they happen. He introduces a character in flashback after showing him publically executed by the hideous slicing death of 500 cuts. Though his irrepressible trademark humor has little opportunity to shine here, the scenes are just as knockdown powerful, and his sense of theatricality knows how to prolong suspense and deliver wallops of surprise as he brings to life a collapsing empire over a hundred years ago, where long beards are sexually attractive, dogs are herded and butchered as food, and public executions are long, horrific torture sessions of satanic ingenuity. Not until sixty pages from the end of this huge novel does Mo Yan give the reader a first glimpse of the staggering finale he has painstakingly prepared - detail after detail quietly building over hundreds of pages in a mounting tsunami of information come together in a final catastrophe set piece including all the main characters and resolving all the novel's themes in a once-in-a-lifetime ending no reader will ever, ever forget. - Nick DiMartino

About the Author:

Mo Yan (literally, "don't speak") is the pen name of Guan Moye. Born in 1955 in Gaomi, Shandong province, he is the author of ten novels and more than seventy short stories. Mo Yan is the winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature and the 2009 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature.

Howard Goldblatt is an award-winning translator of numerous works of contemporary Chinese literature, including seven novels by Mo Yan, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0806143398
• ISBN 13: 9780806143392
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 424