Big Breasts & Wide Hips

Big Breasts & Wide Hips by Mo Yan was one I had been waiting for a while on library loan. Mo Yan won the Nobel last year and seemed to be the talk of the town and I hadn't read anything by him. This book is huge, and kind of intimidating, but trust me it reads a lot easier than something like War & Peace. It takes some doing to read this book in the office break room without getting weird looks. But the pay off is worth it for me, I could have read another 400 pages.

"In the brief history of Northeast Gaomi Township, six women have been transformed into Fox, Hedgehog, Weasel, White Snake, Badger, and Bat Fairies, all result of love denied or a bad marriage; each lived a life of mystery, earning the fearful respect of others. Now a Bird Fairy had appeared in my house, which both terrified and disgusted Mother."

Big Breasts & Wide Hips is the story of a family, primarily the women of the family. Mother is the main character I would say, as opposed to the narrator, her one and only boy-child Jintong. Mother grew up in the 1900's in a rural Chinese village where her feet were bound and tradition revered. Then the revolution turned things upside down and Mother married the butcher's boy. She has eight daughters, all by different men, and finally, finally has a boy. Mother is abused by her in-laws, raped often, and endures crushing poverty to try to keep her family together. Tons of horrible, horrible things happen to a lot of people in this book, so if violence is not your thing, be warned.

Jintong grows up with the biggest breast-fascination ever and does not eat solid food until he is well in his teens. Every woman's breasts hold his attention and he even gropes a few of his sisters at times. Because he is the boy, and thus the important one of the family, he is babied by all of them and grows up to be useless.

"Mother was rooted to the spot like a pine tree and I was a knot on the trunk of that tree."

We see the family adapt to the times, the girls grow and rebel and marry. War, occupation, peace, none bring lasting happiness to the family. Time passes all the way through to the post-Mao period in China, but to me the history was a bit confusing at times. Granted, I take that as my fault as I know very, very little about Chinese history.

What the book is about is a family, the same way that 100 Years of Solitude is about a family. While reading Big Breast & Wide Hips I kept noting how much it felt like 100 Years. The magical elements of telling a rich and detailed story about all of the people who affected the story of your family.

"Are women really wonderful things? Maybe they are. Yes, women definitely are wonderful things but when all is said and done, they aren't really 'things'."

This is one is the best book I have read yet this year.

Stories tell us how to live

After reading and loving Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, I picked up Peony in Love from the library the next day.

Peony lives in a world where dynasty change has occurred and everyone is still adjusting. By that I mean the men are adjusting and the women are continuing to live inside even though they had a brief time where they could travel and, gasp, write books that would actually get published and read.

Peony is an only child in love with an opera called the Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu (which is a real opera). Her father gave her a love of reading and learning which perhaps was not the most useful thing for a wife back then.

"Had you been a son," Baba went on, "You would have made an excellent imperial scholar, perhaps the best our family have ever seen." He meant it as a compliment and I took it that way, but I could hear regret in his voice too. I was not a son and never would be."

Her father stages a showing of the opera in their family gardens and the women get to hear it while hidden behind a screen. Through a crack in the screen, Peony sees a very handsome man who then runs into her in the garden, something very improper. The poet, Ren, and Peony meet for three days and then the opera is over and Peony must face that fact that she is to be married out.

"I will follow the course my father sets for me, but all girls have dreams, even if our destinies are set."

She becomes obsessed with the Peony Pavilion and sees herself as the woman in the opera who loves even after death and is then brought back to life through the power of love. Peony neglects to take care of herself, eat and eventually dies while working on her commentary of the Peony Pavilion.

"Everyday I see it and I don't know what to do. Literacy is a grave threat to the female sex. Too often I've seen the health and happiness of young women fade because they will not give up their brush and ink."

The rest of the book follows Peony's afterlife as she attempts to watch over Ren and learns more about the women in her family. Because Peony's tablet was not dotted correctly, her spirit is not at rest and she fears that she will remain a hungry ghost for all time.

One thing that I really liked was that in the afterlife Peony meets a group of other girls who all died young after becoming obsessed with the Peony Pavilion. It reminded me of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Wurther where young men were killing themselves for the romantic gesture of the thing.  Thankfully, Kate Beaton did a little comic which illustrates (clikc her name for a larger version):

Ren goes on to have two other wives and Peony is there, watching and trying her best to make him happy for she just loves him so much. And while I personally would have haunted the crap out of Tan Ze (Peony's old friend who is Ren's second wife), Peony does seem to have Ren's happiness at the heart of all she does.

This book has some interesting insights into how women slowly became more accepted as poets and writers, but I was not as enthralled with this one as with Snow Flower. I still would recommend this book, but if given the choice stick with Snow Flower.


Also side note - I've got a poll up for what my next big classic read should be! So far Bleak House is winning but you should totally check out the other options and vote. Do me a solid!

We are old sames

I need to listen to my friend's recommendations in a more timely manner because I have let this book languish on my shelves for months and simply nodded every time Liz would tell me "You will love it; you have to read it." As always, she was right.

Lily is an old Chinese woman looking back on her life now that all those who might be ashamed of what she has to say are dead. Lily grew up in a home that was not the best financially and as a daughter was thought of as basically worthless. She detailed her foot binding days, how harsh her mother was with her and how painful the process of breaking her feet was but Lily always accepted that this was how it was supposed to be in order for her to make a good marriage.

Just in case you needed a visual of the way these girls (sometimes as young as three) had their feet broken:
picture source

But the real meat of the story is the relationship between Lily and her laotong, Snow Flower. The laotong relationship is basically a contracted friendship that began when the two were extremely young and is to be an emotional love that is valued even over their husbands. Snow Flower is much more refined than Lily, but we see that she is ignorant towards household tasks that she will need in her future.

"For my entire life I longed for love. I knew it was not right for me — as a girl and later as a woman — to want or expect it, but I did, and this unjustified desire has been at the root of every problem I have experienced in my life."

Lily and Snow Flower communicate using women's language, nu shu, and record the events of their lives on a decorative fan that they pass between each other. Because of the interpretive nature of nu shu, there is a misunderstanding and Lily and Snow Flower's lives are cut apart.

This book was such a fascinating read. I knew nothing about Chinese family dynamics and felt the most connected to Snow Flower and her plight. The laotong relationship is so fascinating to me. The nature of friendships change over time, in my life I have seen friends who I thought would be with me always fade away over things that I cannot comprehend and other friends that I never expected to love become sisters in my heart.