Life and Death Are Wearisome (The latest major work by Mo Yan)

Author: Mo Yan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out – Examining the Changing Relationship Between Farmers and Land Through the "Eyes of Animals," Narrating 50 Years of Rural History
■ Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out recounts 50 years of Chinese rural history from 1950 to 2000, revolving around the heavy topic of land and elucidating the various relationships between farmers and the land. Through the artistic imagery of life and death cycles, it showcases the lives of Chinese farmers since the founding of the People's Republic of China and their resilient, optimistic, and tenacious spirit.
● The narrator of the novel is a landlord executed during the land reform, who believes he had wealth but no guilt, and thus he pleads his case in the underworld. In the novel, he undergoes six cycles of reincarnation—once as a human, once as a horse, once as an ox, and once as a donkey. In each rebirth as a different animal, he never leaves his family or this land. The novel observes and experiences the rural transformations through his eyes—more accurately, through the eyes of various animals. Mo Yan embraces the magnificent yet decaying land and resolves to retell half a century of land history. Mo Yan solemnly places the land before the monument of memory, watching it gradually in history and confirming its regained solemnity, casting, and sharpness in the midst of decay.
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out is a grand book that pays homage to the great tradition of Chinese classical novels and narrative. In this sacred "reunion with roots" ceremony, the novel subtly weaves the six cycles of reincarnation into the fabric of the entire book, writing an ode and dirge to the farmers' unwavering devotion to life. The story of the landlord Ximen Nao's family and the farmer Lan Jiefang's family is filled with paradoxes, fervor, sighs, and suffering. When the reincarnated "Big Head" finally speaks with unwavering determination, we see a vibrant river of life and land, birth and death, hardship and compassion flow into our hearts. At the moment Mo Yan echoes the great tradition of classical novels, we hear the familiar yet fresh grand sound of the capping and return narrative. Mo Yan, enduring the torment of life and death fatigue and entangled grievances, transforms the complex and tumultuous suffering of the Chinese people into pure and precise poetry, praying for the solemnity and tranquility of the motherland, and hoping for the abundant life and harmony of humanity with nature. My story begins on January 1, 1950. In the more than two years before that, I endured unimaginable tortures in the underworld. Every time I was interrogated, I cried out in injustice. My voice was mournful and desolate, spreading to every corner of the Yama Palace, stirring up.