July 24, 2020
Review of Life, by Lu Yao
Life, by Lu Yao, is a Chinese novel written – and situated – in the early 1980s. A lot has happened since in China (and globally), though much of the story revolves around timeless issues.
What does it mean to love someone of a different social status? How does one balance between responsibility and personal desire? Should one submit to their fate – here defined not as some ghostly force but as what society prescribed – or not?
Life, by Lu Yao, poses such questions. The problem is that not only does it actually attempt to answer them – there are no real answers to such questions – but that it does so in a narratively naive, uninspiring manner.
Review Of Life, by Lu Yao: Genre, Plot, Narrative
The genre of the book doesn’t really matter. Genre is a fluid concept anyway, and that is particularly the case with books set in a vastly different setting than what we, in the West, are used to.
Lu Yao’s Life describes life in the 1980s rural China. If you’re not familiar with what that entails, know that there’s a very strong class division at play: those born/residing in the countryside versus those born/residing in the city. The two lives can never really mix – not in the way we in the West understand.
A Linear Plot and a Problematic Narrative
With this in mind, Life describes the literally hopeless attempt of a young man to escape the life of a peasant. The plot is excessively linear, which renders the characters rather flat and uninteresting.
As if the author realized that every now and then, he attempts to squeeze in some background information in an extremely crude, naive manner – narrative exposition lacks creativity and literary merit. The author also has a bad habit of entering the minds of his characters a bit too abruptly and directly, explicitly telling the reader what they feel, what they think, and what they should do, rather than allowing the art to express affect in a symbolic manner.
Review Of Life, by Lu Yao: Characters
As I mentioned earlier, the characters of Life are rather uninteresting, as they lack the necessary depth and abstraction. Indeed, it often feels as if the novel belonged to the young adult genre, with shallow love interests (that change literally overnight) and the associated drama, stubborn parents, and some sort of faux coming-of-age themes.
More damaging for the lack of realism in the characters is their complete lack of evolution. Without revealing too much – not that it matters – Lu Yao’s main characters begin from point A, more or less gain everything they desire, then suddenly – and quite randomly/arbitrarily – just before the end, they fall back to point A, sort of.
The Deus ex Machina Problem
This goes against every notion of Aristotelian narrative principles, in that it displays no narrative tension – not to mention the Deus ex Machina problem, described in my post on narrative endings, as well as by Aristotle himself:
It is therefore evident that the unraveling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the Deus ex Machina […]
The Deus ex Machina should be employed only for events external to the drama – for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold.
Aristotle, Poetics
For a related explanation, also check my comments on adventuristic time.
Review Of Life, by Lu Yao: General Impression
Life, by Lu Yao, began very promisingly. For quite a while it looked well structured, having the foundations of a proper literary-fiction novel.
Sadly, however, things begin to crumble after the first third. The plot is too linear, leaving little chance for character exploration. The language itself is not bad, though often unnecessarily pompous (I don’t know if it’s a translation issue).
More problematically, the narrative style is excessively naive, with the author invading the characters’ minds and telling us explicitly what they should think, what they should do, and overall what happens. It has all the ingredients of a young adult, coming-of-age novel.
Ultimately, I can’t say reading Life was a waste of time. It flows effortlessly – ironically, though, that’s the problem; the reader is not disturbed enough to be forced into reflection – and pats the reader on the back until the very end, where “fate” undoes everything.
Although “fate” here has a human name, the action is so random and pointless, that it comes off as an avoidable ending. The author seems exceedingly preoccupied with maintaining the status quo, which calls for a fanciful solution to the predicament, a definite answer to what should’ve been an unanswerable question.
7 Comments
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So diversity includes life styles and choices that are not Western – and are different. Maybe Chinese readers insist on what we call the Deus ex machina ending – as Romance readers insist on and HEA or at least an HFN.
Doesn’t sound as if it converted you – but I’ve heard far worse reviews of books.
I’m in the ‘bad or ambiguous endings’ ruin the whole book and that author forevermore group, but that’s just me. I’m to old/settled/mature for all the angst any more. I think that an author who is going to do that to you has already given you many clues – something is off all along because they didn’t know where they were going.
If a book is widely popular, there’s a reason – just maybe not for me.
You present an intriguing problem: To which extent are “traditional” (whatever that means) theories of narrative applicable to non-Western narratives? Can Aristotle’s Poetics be applied to a Chinese author? I think the answer is somewhat obvious, but with some gray areas: Traditional narrative theories cannot be applied even to all Western works, let alone non-Western. For example, as you pointed out, Deus ex Machina endings are fairly typical in some Western genres, like fantasy.
However…
The real issue, I’d argue, is to which extent authors should give the audience what they want. That is to say, just because e.g. romance fiction audiences expect things to go a certain way, does that mean the author should comply? Or should the author attempt to “steer” the audience away from generic conventions, into a direction s/he considers more appropriate? Authors with marketing considerations — in other words, who want to make money from their writing — are in a tough spot. You can’t be free if you’re in the people-pleasing business.
Most of us try to strike a balance, I suppose.
I have to please myself first. And be very difficult about it.
Then I will find other people who like what I write – which I do, slowly.
About leading a fickle market away from what they’re happy buying – for writers with more stamina than I have. Many of those who write for trending markets will not be read in the future – but that’s true for most writing.
I have a lifetime of molding myself – 70 years now. My writing has intrinsic value – or it doesn’t. Even if it does, most work is not going to find its true market: there is just too much competition. And no individual writer can do enough marketing.
So the satisfaction must come, for writers like me, from the work, because if it’s unsatisfying AND obscure, why bother?
In the opening you mention they are timeless questions, but I must digress: how is “loving someone of a different social status” (or even a different stratum) not a timely issue? Only a society with differing statuses (maybe even strata) will allow for such an occasion. The second and third questions – desire and societal prescription – tie into each other weaving a very specific and precise society (one not open to chance, thus neither open to desire). I think what precisely makes great literary fiction is the (re)insertion of time, the “remembrance of things past”. The angel of good literary fiction knows that the past is still passing and that
Good Literary fiction knows itself as timely as well. It knows that it should rework the seeds of promised futures buried in dead pasts. Hence, why, as you’ve stated (was it you? I may be confusing people), good literary fiction is more character-centric than plot-centric – it operates subjectivity as desubjectivation.
When it comes to “Only a society with differing statuses (maybe even strata) will allow for such an occasion” (which is an apt, valid point), I would have to ask: Has there ever not been such a society?
From the imperial China to the industrial England, and from the Aztec empire to the Vikings, I’d argue it’s impossible not to find social differentiation. Even in tribal societies, there is some sort of stratification — perhaps not in as clearly Marxist terms as we recognize it today, but caste systems certainly have existed.
As for good literary fiction being character-centric, that’s something I have indeed mentioned myself. And you are right, good literary fiction should be temporally aware, in the way you describe — “[reworking] the seeds of promised futures buried in dead pasts”; that’s an excellent way of putting it.
Still, perhaps there is something paradoxical there: In order for literary fiction to be temporally aware (and facilitate the display of this temporal tug-of-war), it must at the same time become atemporal. In other words, it should not be preoccupied with “That person, there, at that time”, but, idealistically, with “Everyone, everywhere, always”.
This also reminded me of something Russel West-Pavlov has mentioned, that time is one of the greatest self-contradictions known to man, as it is “both eminently common-sensical and highly abstract at once … [a] paradoxical mixture of not-needing-to-be-discussed and not-being-able-to-be-discussed [that] constitutes a double subterfuge which is one of the most effective conspiracies of modernity” (West-Pavlov, Russell. Temporalities. Oxon: Routledge, 2013. pp.4-5)
I mean, does it matter that there has never been such a society? As Saer put in his essay, (literary) fiction is speculative anthropology. But I think we’re on the same page, as one thing is difference itself, another is social stratification (private property x particular property discussion all over again). Subjectivity as desubjectivation really means “that person, there, at that time” becoming “everyone, everywhere, everytime” (for a little twist in your statement). And that has puzzled me since ever. I guess that’s why I’ve gone for Physics and then Literary Studies, fiction has been discussing time since its dawn (hence Nietzsche).
Indeed, it doesn’t matter! Actually, I originally intended – but forgot – to make in my comment a differentiation between historical societies and imaginary societies. What you mention, referring to Saer, is spot-on regarding the function of literary fiction.