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Title: a fascinating world
Review: This beautiful little novel describes the changes that came to a small village in south Hunan via the Cultural Revolution. It's focused on about eight people, the main character a woman in her thirties who runs a tofu stand on the village's only road. It deals most of all with the fascism of the reforms, with both pathos and lightly ironic humor. We watch as the villagers and the 'reformers' live out their lives, going through oftentimes dramatic changes, and how the village is essentially destroyed by them - while at the same time, how they live on, finding joy when and where they can. Are villages traditions evil? Who has the right to decide what is a proper way of life? To what extent are those in power willing to go to enforce a 'correct' way of living? How do plain old people deal with all of this? These are some of the questions the novel poses and answers. Gu Hua's prose is lively, quite moving, and his subject utterly fascinating. A great novel.
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