Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li

Teenage impulsivity ruins four lives

Ruyu, a laconic orphan, raised and philosophically molded by a pair of quasi-Catholic elderly women, arrives in Beijing to attend high school and board at the home of family friends. She shares a bed with Shaoai, whose first year at college has been marred by the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. Shaoai has participated in the demonstrations, and the crushing of the dissent has meant the crushing of Shaoai’s future. This has made her cynical and she likes tormenting the silent unworldly Ruyu.  Ruyu is befriended by two classmates who also live in the compound, handsome Boyang, and caring Moran.   After Shaoai drinks a glass of poisoned Tang, however, leaving her severely brain damaged, eventually the three others fail in adulthood both at material achievement and emotional intimacy.

This book disappointed me, especially after I loved The Vagrants so much. Halfway through this one I didn’t care about any of these drips. The American sections where the two girls, now middle aged women, trudge around winter landscapes in sackcloth and ashes, go on far too long.  Could it be that my feelings are a function of well yes I enjoy your stories of spiritual desperation in totalitarian China but perhaps I cannot appreciate your stories of spiritual desperation in the affluent US. There are twelve different kinds of latte at Starbucks.  What then is the problem?  Here the truly compelling story is what exactly happened back in the bedroom in Beijing.  Also, the writing is far more vivid describing the compound with the lively neighbors, and the parts where the three kids bike around Beijing.

For me, the big "mystery" reveal was ho him and it is established way too late that Boyang’s mother has access to poison, although it’s clear enough that this novel is not structured as a traditional whodunit. The paragraphs get preachy at times, and there seemed to be too much showing instead of telling. However, I thought it was pretty cool that Ruyu played the accordion. More of that please.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

 

An unsentimental look at people striving to get ahead

These stories are about Chinese trying to figure out their strange new capitalist world. Long ago, the people were irrevocably severed from ancient traditions, but now they are cut off from the all encompassing revolution that formerly dictated their actions and beliefs. They have to figure things out on their own and you’re out of luck if you don’t have enough cash. Immigrants who venture to America are sucked under by the same sadnesses. Like Li’s novel, The Vagrants, the stories are tragic, about lives crushed by fear, and at times, the stories were so sad, I wondered why the characters bothered going on. I’m not sure if that question is completely answered. It seems that both repressed spied upon life in Communist China and ignored life in dog eat dog capitalist China is terribly cruel.  

I loved "Immortality" in which a young man from a town with a proud history of supplying imperial eunuchs is both blessed and cursed with a resemblance to the dictator. A quiet fable extrapolated to indict an entire country. I also really liked the enjoyable story "Death is not a Bad Joke If Told the Right Way" a story about a little girl running around Beijing talking to people who live in an apartment block. A story called “Persimmons” is told in multiple voices and concerns a murder. You get a sense of a small town. Some stories, like "Extra", about the love for an abandoned old lady and a small boy, flirt with sentimentality but still are very memorable.  

Li is a powerful writer, able to suck the reader in with tactile descriptions. The stakes are high in every single paragraph. People are trapped, but people have to cope with it.  I really enjoyed this book.

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

Winds of change blow through the isolated city of Muddy River

One morning, the once ardent young soldier of the Cultural Revolution, Gu Shan, who just as ardently turned against Communism, is executed after spending ten years, the flower of her youth, in a brutal prison. She wasted her life because of a belief in slogans, and has gone mad, thinking she is Chairman Mao’s girlfriend. This novel tells the story of how her execution affects the town as well as the many characters entwined with her fate.  

We learn about Gu Shan’s parents, Teacher Gu and Mrs. Gu.  Their marriage, in which he is an educated man whose parents met in Paris, and she an illiterate concubine who was freed during the revolution, tells you all you need to know about the forces shaping modern China. Kai, a successful newscaster who has it all, rich husband, beautiful baby son, remembers fervent Gu Shan from their youth, and, influenced by a mortally ill young man who loves her, decides to strike a blow against repression. The Huas, presumably the Vagrants of the title, are the city’s junk collectors. They have a good heart and adopted six daughters found abandoned on their rounds. But after the revolution, officials packed the girls off to different orphanages.  Now the Huas have nothing but each other and their memories. 

This is historical fiction and this novel will help the reader understand China better than a number of scholarly articles. But it’s fiction first, history second. A gripping story, cleverly plotted, with lots of characters. Overall, the book was depressing and essentially every single character has his heart broken. Also, the novel (intentionally or not) makes China look bad. To western eyes the culture comes off as heartless. There no caritas here just people stomping on the necks of other people. Dog eat dog. (Literally) The prose is simple and beautiful but many times I was shocked by the brutality of the memorable images. At the end, even that dog gets it between the eyes, although a tiny bit of hope is offered, when the crippled girl runs away with the rag pickers. Are they all Vagrants then? Even though it was unpleasant reading this book (sometimes highly unpleasant), I thought about the characters long after finishing the final page.