The top and bottom are both flat

Author: Ma Yuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-04-01
Features: Accumulated writing over time becomes accumulated history in the blink of an eye. In the new era, it becomes the experiences of the past century. For literature, the refining of time surpasses all conflicting opinions. We have compiled these masterpieces into a book, not only because they have been tested by time, but also because we hope they continue to be in the eyes of time and readers. We have this confidence in literature. We have an even greater confidence in life. This is a long novel with an autobiographical nature by the writer Ma Yuan. The story depicts the lives of a group of intellectuals who were struggling and starving in the early 1970s. To fill their bellies, they stole chickens, hunted, and feigned illnesses. Four girls: Bottles, Xiao Xiu, Jiang Mei, and Xiao Li, their beautiful youth and lives were buried in this land. Compared to similar works by other intellectuals writers, Ma Yuan does not show suffering and pain in this work, nor does he imbue it with idealized poetic brilliance; his novel is filled with a strange atmosphere and a sense of destiny. The real, perhaps, has more charm and can endure the test of time.