{"id":964,"date":"2012-06-07T10:28:50","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T02:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=964"},"modified":"2012-06-07T10:28:50","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T02:28:50","slug":"mike-frick-on-yan-liankes-dream-of-ding-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=964","title":{"rendered":"Mike Frick on Yan Lianke’s Dream of Ding Village"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dream<\/a>Over at The China Beat<\/a> (they have my favorite tagline on the web: Blogging How the East Is Read<\/em>) is Mike Frick’s review <\/a>of Dream of Ding Village<\/em> \u4e01\u5e84\u68a6 by Yan Lianke <\/a>\u960e\u8fde\u79d1. The novel was translated by Cindy Carter<\/a>, though you’d never know it from reading Frick’s review. Here’s an excerpt of Frick describing the writing:<\/p>\n

Yan\u2019s writing is at once richly metaphoric and attuned to the rhythms of Chinese farming life. He describes needle marks on the underarms of blood sellers as \u201cangry red sesame seeds\u201d and pinched veins as \u201cfat-streaked pork.\u201d Mostly this language is effective, though at its weaker moments the metaphors can feel overwrought, particularly in the dream sequences that mark major turning points in the plot. Dreams haunt the sleep of Qiang\u2019s grandfather and serve as convenient devices for moving the narrative forward, although this sometimes occurs at the expense of good story-telling. Major revelations about Ding Hui\u2019s greed and artifice are revealed through lushly animated dreams that allow Yan to transcend the narrative strictures of time and place. Through these dreams we see Ding Hui ingratiate himself with government officials until they appoint him chairman of the county taskforce on HIV\/AIDS. In his first move as chairman, Ding Hui intercepts the free government-issued coffins intended for AIDS patients in Ding Village and sells them to other AIDS-affected villages for a profit. For his efforts, he labels himself a \u201cphilanthropist.\u201d Left without coffins, those dying in Ding Village ransack the school for blackboards and desks to build their own. The transformation of the school into a funereal supply yard carries particular poignancy given China\u2019s storied reverence for learning and scholarship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Elsewhere on the web you can find The Transparent Translator: Cindy Carter on \u201cDream of Ding Village\u201d<\/a>, where Cindy is interviewed by Bruce Humes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at The China Beat (they have my favorite tagline on the web: Blogging How the East Is Read) is Mike Frick’s review of Dream of Ding Village \u4e01\u5e84\u68a6 by Yan Lianke \u960e\u8fde\u79d1. The novel was translated by Cindy Carter, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,16],"tags":[184,548,549,550],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-fy","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1306,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1306","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":0},"title":"Found in Translation: Five Chinese Books You Should Read","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"October 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In yesterday's post on the review of Bei Dao's The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems (New Directions, edited by Eliot Weinberger), I also mentioned the short collection of Bei Dao's poetry Endure (Black Widow Press), which I translated with Clayton Eshleman. 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