Mo Yan. Wow! Any other readers?

[Momò Nin]

some experiences:
I read Mo Yen's books in chinese instead. In these cases(Mo Yan and Eileen
Chang...ect...) I feel lucky my mother tongue is chinese(I find it's
ridiculous to read Pynchon in Chinese as well) .
I don't speak japanese, but since transtors began to work on japanese
writers from a few decades ago(nobel winners...Yasunari Kawabata...so on),
I assume I enjoy reading the english version of Kawabata than the chinese
version.
Moreover, reading Gao Xingjian only can be a typical french expereience for
me.

And yes, I like the english version of Mo Yen as well, but i think he
becomes so attrative as he is more free, more open than most westerns. One
need true empathy in front of his imaginations.


On 30 January 2017 at 09:24, Jemmy Bloocher <jbloocher at gmail.com> wrote:

> I love Mo Yan; once upon a time, I nearly started a PhD thesis on his
> work. I’d love to write more, but I’m supposed to be ‘working’, the
> frustrating stuff that earns me money. I saw Mo Yan and skipped away from
> my compliance paperwork.
>
> I have some of his work in Chinese as well as English, but I am yet to
> really ‘appreciate it’ that way and I’m stuck in English. Strangely his
> prose is simultaneously rich and dry and blunt. It’s a curious thing and a
> balance not found in many writers; immediately Murakami springs to mind,
> those this is perhaps strange. I would have to look into it, but I think a
> number of other 20th century avant-garde Chinese writers also have this
> tuning in their words and I think this is a reflection of the Chinese.
> Howard Goldblatt is as you say a marvellous translator and this is
> maintained. My post-grad supervisor is a Chinese literature specialist, I’m
> going to look again at this and get her books out.
>
> Have you read Liu Suola?
>
> > On 30 Jan 2017, at 05:59, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >
> > I’m taking breaks from that now almost universal affliction of the
> demonic T- Rump chewing on my brain by the daily pleasures of home
> maintenance, by doing art  and by reading a book called ‘Frog' by Mo Yan,
> beautifully translated from Cinese by Howard Goldblatt.   The storyteller
> in the novel is the nephew of a woman obstetrician whose life is followed
> from childhood under Japanese Occupation through early Maoism, the
> cruelties of the cultural revolution, to contemporary China. The darkest
> aspect of her life is the enforcement of the one child policy.  This topic
> is weighty, the enforcement clearly un-natural  and I have no personal
> clarity concerning it, but it seems to embody so many of the questions that
> face us on this crowded and abused planet.
> >   I grew up in California with Japanese and Chinese friends, a mother
> fascinated by East Asian culture, and a fair number of trips to Chinatown.
> I study tai-ji with a Chinese woman and teach Qigong tai ji to a small
> group and regularly study chinese art. So love, fascination, some modest
> practical discipline , and deep respect for the culture , but far from in
> depth knowledge . But I can tell that the translation catches the bluntness
> and intense energy of  conflict, family and dialog among Chinese people.
> His writing is relentlessly lively, real and unsentimental, and fiercely
> humane.
> >   Mo Yan has won the Nobel and the Newman prize for Chinese lit. His
> world is dense, alive, credible  with cruelties and magic,  always savory,
> and full of hope and heart. If you haven’t read this amazing writer, he is
> a rare and gifted artist.
> >
> > Mo Yan is his pen name and means “Don’t Speak”.  He is best known for
> the novel "Red Sorghum”, also a film.
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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