I have anemia and irrespective of what comprises my daily diet or the amount I consume, my body's ability to manufacture blood and hemoglobin remains permanently stunted. Which is why I have no choice but to take iron supplements regularly and without fail. Once I suspend this routine for a few days, the dizziness, the lack of vigour returns to haunt me with a vengeance. So perhaps, it is a travesty of the highest order that I will now proceed to empathize with the protagonist's compulsion of selling his own blood away like a commodity to procure a few Yuan for his family's well-being. I am supposed to wax eloquent about how moving an account this is of the mishaps that befall a family, mainly due to the policies implemented by a cruel, unfeeling administration divorced from the needs of the common man.I do know a thing or two about being bloodless but then I have no first-hand knowledge of suburban and rural poverty in China preceding and succeeding the years of the Cultural Revolution. Hence, I don't deserve to frame a few pompous sounding sentences in a review depicting the hardships of Xu Sanguan and his family and express commiseration. Because come what may, I'll never be able to experience what it feels like to be in his shoes. Even if my family falls on hard times, I'll promptly be shooed away from hospitals or laughed at if I ever did try and sell/donate my blood.How can I understand destitution, sitting here inside an air-conditioned room typing away patronizingly at a desktop after having read a book on my kindle? I don't know the first thing about working on an empty stomach in a silk factory. Or being forced to savour a bowl of thin corn flour gruel laced with sugar like the finest gourmet dish in existence during a terrible famine. Or having to sell blood and, in turn, risk selling my life away in order for my family to get over a crisis. Or having my life's basic structure re-modelled according to the whims of a delusional autocrat.But what I do perceive with shocking certainty is the giant, looming shadow of Chairman Mao's legacy of despotism and how deeply it affects the work of writers from this fascinating country. It is becoming increasingly hard to imagine coming across literature from and about China devoid of any mention of the Communist Party's history of corruption and the blunt indifference with which they stripped away a generation of people of their dignity as human beings, treating them almost like laboratory mice.Xu Sanguan goes through life, fights his daily battles with various adversities without knowing the first thing about Communism, Socialism or Capitalism. He only wishes to provide for his family and survive, remaining largely clueless about the political upheavals in his own country or their significance in the greater scheme of things. Forget politics, he only identifies with the English letter 'O' as a circle which denotes his blood group. Such is the extent of his guileless ignorance.He can only know what being in the throes of starvation feels like and what it is like to be in perpetual need of one thing or another. Concepts like subversion, revolution, agitation or questioning the legitimacy of a regime or higher authority are alien to him.And yet innocuous as his existence is, ripples of political disturbances outside the realm of his comprehension bring turbulence into his own minuscule sphere of existence. He suffers and we suffer along with him.Chronicle of a Blood Merchant showcases no instances of ostentatious wordsmithy or lucid erudition. Instead, Yu Hua often resorts to crude metaphors to bring to life the rustic simplicity of the backdrop against which the story unfolds. But what catapults this into the league of great literature is its endearing honesty and its attempt at remaining true to the spirit of an age and a nation caught in a painful phase of transformation. Sanguan's bloodlessness is rife with underlying implications. It is his steady depletion of vitality which symbolizes the silent misery of a generation.And yet, this book stresses not so much on an anti-communist rhetoric as much as it directs its energies at narrating a tale of blood ties and a family's quest for survival in the face of all imaginable trials and tribulations. A family which couldn't care less about Mao remaining in power or Mao being deposed. Because to the Xu Sanguans of China, all meaning in life lies embedded in a crock full of bug-free rice and a few Yuan which can buy them the luxury of gorging on fried pork livers and gulping down a few shots of cheap yellow wine.
Čínský román popisující životy obyčejné rodiny od 50. let 20. století, kdy se k moci dostává Mao Ce-Tung, jehož politika přivádí do měst hlad a chudobu. Kniha tedy líčí všechna úskalí, s kterými se rodina musí vypořádat. Rodina je pro tamější lidi to nejdůležitější a hlavní postava Sü San-kuan začne i prodávat vlastní krev, jen aby udržel vlastní rodinu ve zdraví a dostal ji z nesnází. Název knihy “dva liangy rýžového vína” odkazuje na moment po prodeji krve, kdy darující usedá do restaurace a objednává talíř vepřových jater a rýžové víno. Vtipný byl i styl objednávání, kdy vždy bouchli do stolu a pak teprve učinili objednávku.Zajímavá jsou pojmenování čínských dětí. Sü San-kuanovi a Sü Jü-lan se narodili tři synové, kteří byli pojmenováni jako I-le, Er-le a San-le (První radost, Druhá radost a Třetí radost).Navzdory tragickým momentům se i přesto objevují až komické dialogy, které mi nepřijdou humorem vzdálené od těch českých. Např.:“No jo, vždyť dneska je ten den, kdy mě porodila moje máma. Aha, tak proto jsi dala do kaše cukr a udělala ji hustší. A ještě jsi udělala misku navíc.”...Su San-kuan sledoval své tři syny, jak znovu nahýbají misky k ústům a nenasytně lokají kaši. Pak jim řekl:“Až dojíte, všichni tři se mi pokloníte a popřejete mi dlouhý život.”…Když děti dojedly kaši, vyplázly jazyky a vylízaly misky dočista. Když I-le položil misku zpátky na stůl, zeptal se Sü San-kuana:“Teď se ti máme poklonit, tatínku?”“Už jste všichni dojedli?” přejel Sü San-kuan své tři syny pohledem. “Jestli jste dojedli, tak se mi všichni tři pokloňte.”I-le se zeptal: “Máme se ti poklonit jeden po druhém, nebo všichni tři najednou?”“Jeden po druhém. Od nejstaršího po nejmladšího. Tak nejprve ty, I-le.”…“V jiných rodinách, když se synové klaní svým otcům, je slyšet, jak hlavou ťuknou o zem. Copak to je, vy uličníci, že já neslyším nic?”…Ale tři synové už si v řadě před ním poklekli a se smíchem začali hlavami bouchat o zem.…“Co to děláte? Tohle jsou vaše hlavy, ne prdelky. Hlavama nemůžete bouchat, jak se vám zachce, ještě je budete potřebovat. Myslíte, že chci mít doma tři hlupáky?”Důležitým momentem je pro Sü San-kuana zjištění, že jeho první syn I-le ve skutečnosti není jeho syn, ale Che Siao-Junga. Sü San-kuana to nesmírně pobouří a se synem nechce mít již nic společného, přestože ho vychovával již devět let. Manželku navíc trestá svoji nečinností a lhostejností, což opět potvrzuje do jisté míry komický dialog:"Su San-kuane, vyprala jsem povlečení, teď ho potřebuju vyždímat, ale je moc těžké, pomůžeš mi?Su San-kuan odpověděl:"Já nic dělat nebudu. Ležím si tu v ratanovém křesle a je mi v něm hrozně dobře. Když se pohnu, už mi tak dobře nebude."Ačkoli otec chová ke svému synovi zášť a nerad za něj utrácí peníze, tento stav netrvá dlouho a syna si ze všech tří oblíbí nejvíce a jakmile I-le onemocní, několikrát prodá svoji krev, aby zaplatil I-lemu léčení až v Šanghaji, kam jej nechá s matkou i dopravit. Sám se za nimi vydává, přestože kvůli velkému úbytku krve cestu málem nepřežije. Nově nalezená sounáležitost mezi oběma ukazuje obrovskou proměnu v Sü san-kuanově chování a nahlížení na svět. Z dříve možná bezohledného, chladného člověka se stal vřelý a laskavý člověk.“Předtím jsem brečel proto, že jsem si myslel, že je I-le mrtvý, teď brečím proto, že vím, že je naživu.”
Do You like book Chronicle Of A Blood Merchant (2004)?
"What we sold just now is energy, understand? City people call it blood, but we country forks call it energy. There are two kinds of energy. One kind comes from the blood, and the other comes from muscle. But the kind that comes from the blood is worth a lot more money.""The more you kids laugh, the more you look alike.""That's just taking bricks from the east all to repair the west wall.""It doesn't matter who eats it in the end. It'll turn in to shit no matter who eats it. Let the kids shit a little extra. Let's give it to them.""The more you see, the more you learn about the world.""The ancients said that the more you say, the more you lose.""We're all on the same boat, so we have to take the good and bad together."
—Sung-Gi
This was such a heart-wrenching novel. I enjoy novels that give insight into other cultures whether it be socially, politically, or often a mix of both. Through the eyes of one family, this novel gives a very sad, interesting look into the life of a man struggling to support his family under the very poor circumstances of his day. What I liked about reading Blood Merchant was that I got a closer look at the social context of The Great Leap forward when much of China became industrialized but in turn created famine due to a lack of farmers and farming equipment. This piece of literature was highly influential and controversial in China. Yu Hua's style of writing is very direct and he also relies heavily on dialogue to develop the novel and characters, something I enjoyed about this reading.
—Emily
Yu Hua is one of China's most celebrated modern authors, coming into prominence in the aftermath of 1989 and in whose works, he examines the everyday brutality of modern life in the post-Cultural Revolution society of a newly-modernising China. In Chronicles of a Blood Merchant, however, Yu Hua steps back in time to follow the life of Xu Sanguan from the early days of socialism in the 1950s up to the early days of reform in the 1980s. Xu Sanguan sells his blood to make ends meet, to ensure he and his family are able to survive famine, turmoil, and social upheaval. Alongside this, Xu Sanguan must deal with the allegations of his unfaithful wife and illegitimate son. Struggling to provide for his family, he visits the Blood Chief to sell his very self more frequently, yet ultimately it his love for his wife and sons that drive and motivate him through the very worst of his ordeals. Life under Chairman Mao was never easy and Yu Hua honestly and forthrightly shows just how life for the ordinary peasants and urban workers transformed under the rule of the Chairman. Unforgettable cruelty during the Cultural Revolution is given a human solution - the simple image of Xu Sanguan sneaking pieces of meat to his wife, shamed before the townsfolk, is moving; the human cost of the Great Famine a few years earlier is tempered by Xu Sanguan cooking a feast for his whole family using his words and imagination. The simple moments that make life are at the centre of Chronicles of a Blood Merchant, the cruelties and kindnesses of everyday life are the driving force in this novel.Yu Hua however does not stray entirely away from the themes of his earlier works; Chronicles of a Blood Merchant still has much to say about the state of modern China, particularly the human cost of development and modernisation. "Where does capital come from?" "What does it mean to sell your lifeblood for a living?" Xu Sanguan thus stands for all of those workers, farmers, and people who not only sold their blood throughout China but also for those consumed by the breakneck pace of modernisation, whose lives were merely figures in an account book as China modernised its economy. Yet all of these themes are subsumed by the central theme of family - of how Xu Sanguan and his family survive together throughout all that they experience. Chronicles of a Blood Merchant is a moving story of one man's life, a microcosm of the human tapestry, compassionate and emotionally intense.
—James
