Reviews

Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke

_jose__'s review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

leonajasmin's review against another edition

3.0

This could’ve been a very interesting satire, but either the dark humour didn’t translate as well as the author/translator had intended or they couldn’t quite get that aspect across. It was a very meandering novel which had its sudden very dark moments. Very confusing and hard to evaluate

esther_habs's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

emburger's review against another edition

2.0

this is a strange, strange story, absurd to the last, entertaining in parts. I didn't particularly enjoy the way it was written, repetition as a device for humour and sarcasm, but that's just how this novel is.

thearbiter89's review against another edition

3.0

What it's about: In this satire of modern China's hunger for material wealth, a provincial official hatches a plan to Lenin's body from Russia and setting it up in his county to attract tourists. He enlists the oddly talented disabled inhabitants of a village into a performance troupe to raise money for the purchase.

Notes:

• This was a ponderous, meandering novel, one of the oddest I've read in a while. That it is a satire is clear, and manages to lampoon everyone and everything to do with contemporary China in some form or other. Co-opting a famous communist symbol to make money is a deliciously ironic conceit, as is the image of frenzied prancing villager bumpkins hauling in massive wads of cash as a result of channeling their capacity for productive work into money-generating, but ultimately unproductive, performances. It has its moments of absurd comedy, such as the relentless descriptions of Chief Liu's narcissistic excesses, or the surreal feats of the Liven villagers.



• As a novel, though, it doesn't really seem to work. Structurally, Lenin's Kisses is a bloated mess, with an excess of unnecessary verbiage, repetition, and narrative digressions. It presents flashbacks in the form of extremely extended footnotes, a curious stylistic affectation that, to me, doesn't seem to have a clear purpose or pay off in any way. It meanders from character to character, jumps timelines, and segues crazily from story arc to story arc without really feeling like a cohesive novel. Essentially, it prioritises its satire over its storytelling. Everything that Yan can find a way to lampoon, will be lampooned, even though it requires a few pages of exposition that are strictly not necessary to the story.



• At the end of it all, I can't say I really enjoyed reading this book, although I can kind of appreciate its value as one of the rare satirical works that hasn't been impacted by Chinese censors, mostly because its satire is so universal that its hard to point to any one thing that Yan is critiquing, or even if he can be said to be critiquing anything at all. Perhaps that is its main selling point.

Verdict: Satirical to the core, yet ponderous to read, Lenin's Kisses is best admired for its adroitness in satirizing the hypercapitalist excesses of modern China in a way that passed the censor's pen (maybe because it was so metronome-like in its repetitiveness?)

I give this: 3 out of 5 firecrackers to the ear

lu_ranger's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism and Suicide

papiro's review against another edition

4.0

Este señor escribe muy bien (no por nada fue nominado al Nobel) pero no tengo una buena opinión suya. Igual es por el tipo de historia que acostumbro a leer yo.

La trama es más original y divertida que la del libro que leí de él hace un tiempo (Crónicas de una explosión). La documentación de este señor es excelente, pero no veo mucha profundidad en los personajes. Cierto es que los mediterráneos somos muy expresivos, y los chinos los cuales he conocido no mucho, pero, no se...

zakshep's review

• Loveable characters? No

1.5

chaoticbibliophile's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

• Strong character development? No