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A review by logantmartin
The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
You know that thing where you wonder if the color you call blue is the same as the color another person calls blue? I'm starting to feel that way about the term "social commentary."
The Day the Sun Died is about one night when everyone in a small village (though evidently one large enough for 500 people to die in one night without decimating the population) starts sleepwalking and robbing each other. If there's anything to take away from this novel, it's that everyone has a deep-seated, hidden desire to steal from the grocery store. Throughout the story, you'll occasionally see a glimmer of something profound, like when the mayor starts acting like a king; but if there is anything thoughtful in these moments, it's in the sense that I'm left wondering whether I'm supposed to get something out of them other than a small bump of intellectual stimulation that makes the overall sense of ennui all the more powerful.
By far my biggest gripe with this book is the fact that the author has literally inserted himself into the story. There is an actual character called Yan Lianke. It's possible there's a way to competently pull this off, but Yan the author certainly doesn't know how. All through the story Yan the character is trying to hide in the background, to become a nonexistence, but he has this spotlight on him by virtue of his mere presence in the novel. The author wants to ignore him, the reader wants to ignore him, and yet we can't because we're trying to understand what he's doing there. Yan the author doesn't seem quite sure, as if the thought popped into his head and he couldn't get rid of it and birthed this unpleasant experiment in uselessness and undesirability. It's imminently philosophical in all the wrong ways.
The Day the Sun Died is about one night when everyone in a small village (though evidently one large enough for 500 people to die in one night without decimating the population) starts sleepwalking and robbing each other. If there's anything to take away from this novel, it's that everyone has a deep-seated, hidden desire to steal from the grocery store. Throughout the story, you'll occasionally see a glimmer of something profound, like when the mayor starts acting like a king; but if there is anything thoughtful in these moments, it's in the sense that I'm left wondering whether I'm supposed to get something out of them other than a small bump of intellectual stimulation that makes the overall sense of ennui all the more powerful.
By far my biggest gripe with this book is the fact that the author has literally inserted himself into the story. There is an actual character called Yan Lianke. It's possible there's a way to competently pull this off, but Yan the author certainly doesn't know how. All through the story Yan the character is trying to hide in the background, to become a nonexistence, but he has this spotlight on him by virtue of his mere presence in the novel. The author wants to ignore him, the reader wants to ignore him, and yet we can't because we're trying to understand what he's doing there. Yan the author doesn't seem quite sure, as if the thought popped into his head and he couldn't get rid of it and birthed this unpleasant experiment in uselessness and undesirability. It's imminently philosophical in all the wrong ways.