Brothers
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Average rating4.8
When Baldy Li's mother marries Song Gang's father, the two boys become brothers. Although they are inseparable as children, their ambitions and personalities are very different, and become more, rather than less, pronounced as they grow into adulthood. Song Gang is thoughtful and serious; Baldy Li, meanwhile, is obsessed by sex (even before he fully understands what the act involves) and an unquenchable desire to make something of himself - for Baldy Li plans to become a man of the world... in all senses of the word. And although Baldy Li is a man who always (well, almost always) keeps his word, so too is his brother - but even here, their differences are obvious, for while Song Gang promises to put his brother first in everything they do, Baldy Li promises himself he will capture the heart of the town beauty, Lin Hong... who just happens to be the love of Song Gang's life. Set against the brutality and violence of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, Brothers is a novel about boys becoming men, about family feuds and the ties that bind - that bind all of us, even those who refuse to be bound by mere convention or custom because they are bound for far greater glories...
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No real spoilers below - I left all the surprise parts out...
Baldi Li never met his father, who died on the day he was born, drowned in a cesspit of the public toilets, where he was peeping at the women next door. When his mother married Song Fangping, Song Gang, who was eight - one year older than Baldy Li, became his brother.
When the Cultural revolution started, Baldy Li's mother was in hospital in Shanghai, and life was very hard, as Song Fangping was a school teacher, and therefore a class enemy. He was humiliated and beaten, and then imprisoned. This left Song Gang and Baldi Li to fend for themselves. Picked on by others, it was a hard life, and the brothers had to look out for each other.
In the book we follow their lives from childhood to old age in the present day (written 2006). We are introduced to the main characters of Liu Town where they live and follow the path of China from before the Cultural Revolution, through those times to the modern day capitalist focused China we know now.
The book is well written, and well translated, and ably mimics the writing style of traditional Chinese novels, but with a modern twist. Interestingly the tone changes frequently from its very funny parts to the desperately sad parts, where families and dreams are crushed. Others have questioned the simplicity of the narrative - whether this was purposeful. My view from reading it was it was certainly purposeful, to mimic the small town language of the narrator.
I enjoyed the use of quotations (from Mao's Red Book, from The Art of War, and from others, and no doubt many more from Chinese works I missed). Narrated by an unknown towns person, we are offered glimpses of the future, with the story then filling in the details of how they got there. Usually this involves some steps backward before moving forwards!
Other details about the writing - it is loaded with swearing, and quite crude at times with plenty of focus on sex, so if that sort of thing is off putting for you, don't bother starting the 600+ pages. There is certainly an element of the absurd, but what can I say - other than it worked.
As I mentioned above, it has its moments, some of them very sad, distressing and aggravating, such as the weak thinking of the Red Guards, beating people to death in such cowardly ways. But the book is predominantly clever and funny, albeit fairly basic humour!
Very good. 5 stars.
