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A review by emburger
The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke
4.0
Wasn't going to leave a review as I didn't think I have much to say about this book, but after reading other people's reviews here, well:
1) this novel isn't lost in translation. I read this in the original Chinese text and it was just as repetitive and tedious. I think the writing was deliberately so, partly because the story was narrated by a simpleton kid, but also considering the dream-state of this narrated world, it's understandable for one to recount things slowly, deliriously. Imagine if you're the only lucid person in a world gone mad. You'd want things to end, you'd give anything for the night to end, for the sun to finally rise. It was so interesting too, for time to stop having any meaning; the village was stuck at 6am for a few chapters, and nasty things continued to happen. What a nightmare.
2) I was inching my way through the tedium of the story, each chapter bringing me closer to daylight hour...only for the inexplicable fog to descend, keeping the village shrouded in blackness still. At this point I think Yan Lianke truly succeeded in making me feel a certain claustrophobic nausea. Is this what it's like to live in an authoritarian state? The constant "Oh god please stop why is it not stopping??" One might be better off "sleepwalking".
3) and of course it takes one morally ambiguous character to finally, literally, save the day. Through means that could not have existed if he had been an honest fellow. Fascinating.
4 stars for what this book made me think and feel, 1 star for the painful process.
1) this novel isn't lost in translation. I read this in the original Chinese text and it was just as repetitive and tedious. I think the writing was deliberately so, partly because the story was narrated by a simpleton kid, but also considering the dream-state of this narrated world, it's understandable for one to recount things slowly, deliriously. Imagine if you're the only lucid person in a world gone mad. You'd want things to end, you'd give anything for the night to end, for the sun to finally rise. It was so interesting too, for time to stop having any meaning; the village was stuck at 6am for a few chapters, and nasty things continued to happen. What a nightmare.
2) I was inching my way through the tedium of the story, each chapter bringing me closer to daylight hour...only for the inexplicable fog to descend, keeping the village shrouded in blackness still. At this point I think Yan Lianke truly succeeded in making me feel a certain claustrophobic nausea. Is this what it's like to live in an authoritarian state? The constant "Oh god please stop why is it not stopping??" One might be better off "sleepwalking".
3) and of course it takes one morally ambiguous character to finally, literally, save the day. Through means that could not have existed if he had been an honest fellow. Fascinating.
4 stars for what this book made me think and feel, 1 star for the painful process.