|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Whose Daydream Is This?
| Article
# : |
11808 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1994 |
1,939 Words |
| Author
: |
Howard Goldblatt
Howard Goldblatt has written or edited four books on Chinese
literature and translated a dozen more, including Jia
Pingwa's Turbulence, winner of the 1989 Pegasus Prize, and Mo
Yan's Red Sorghum: A Family Saga. He teaches Chinese
literature at the University of Colorado, where he edits the
scholarly journal Modern Chinese Literature. |
CANGHE BAIRIMENG
(Old River daydreams)
Heng Liu
Jiangsu: Jiangsu wenyi, 1993
337 pp.
The name Heng Liu is better known to moviegoers than to readers of novels, both in China and the West. That surely says more about the power and appeal of movies than it does about the scriptwriter of such internationally acclaimed movies as Ju dou, Black Snow (also known as Cycles of Fate), and The Story of Qiu Ju. The first two are adaptations of Liu's own novels, both of which won prestigious awards in China.
Born Guangjun Liu in 1954, Liu, a native of Beijing, generally writes of the rural China of his parents, if not their generation. Neither overtly political nor openly ideological, he is comfortable in his role as artist and celebrity, unconcerned with any requirement to be either critic or protector of society's interests or the government's. In examining family institutions, psychology, and the relationship between needs and social behavior, Liu has gained a reputation as a writer of straightforward prose, shorn of trendy gimmicks and intentional ambiguities.
In recent years, Liu has found considerable success working with award-winning director Zhang Yimou (Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern) to transfer the written word--his own, as often as not--onto the screen; the collaboration is about to occur again with a film of Liu's new novel, Canghe bairimeng (Old River daydreams). This time, the differences between the two versions will be more pronounced, owing to the complexity of the novel's form, even though its story line seems ready-made for the movies.
The slave's tale
Until now, Liu has focused on life since the Cultural Revolution; historical settings, from the unknowable days of antiquity that are the occasional preserve of his slightly younger contemporaries Su Tong and Ge Fei, to the fairly recent past of Mo Yan and others, have been largely absent from his novels and stories. Canghe bairimeng is a noteworthy departure. For Liu, unlike contemporaries who focus on the concept of history (or, more accurately, historiography), the past simply offers a more amenable canvas to experiment with narrative form.
As the novel unfolds on various levels, the narrated,
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
