I had a hard time deciding how to rate this book. It is technically a brilliant book and at times, I really enjoyed it, but other times, it was disturbing, and others, a slog.

Mo Yan beni asla hayal kırıklığına uğratmıyor. Yaşam ve Ölüm Yorgunu kadar olmasa da bu kitaba bayıldım! Ele alınan konular ağır ve yorucu olsa bile olay örgüsü o kadar akıcıydı ki elimden bırakamadan okudum. Sayfaların fazlalığından endişelenmeye hiç gerek yok. Hem Çin'in geçmişi hakkında bilgi sahibi olmak hem de nefis bir kurgu okumak istiyorsanız İri Memeler ve Geniş Kalçalar kesinlikle doğru tercihlerden biri.

I didn’t hate the writing style, or the characters. I didn’t hate the premise. So why did I DNF this just past 150 pages?

Because I literally cannot count the number of times a single female character (Shangguan Lu, or “Mother”) was raped in those 150 pages. Incidents occurred on three separate occasions, the first by a lone man (who fathered one of her many children on her), but the later two were both gang rapes, one by four men and the other by…who knows? It’s not said.

The blurb led me to believe this was era-spanning Chinese historical fiction centered on “strong female characters” despite it being narrated by Mother’s last child and only son. (Which is weirdness I’ll get to in a minute.)

But this is a textbook case of “strong” equaling “suffers constantly and horrifically.”

Why is a woman’s strength measured by how much pain she can endure? Where’s the literary fiction built upon a male character being raped countless times?

So that’s enough to make me stop, because despite some aspects of the work being genuinely engaging, I’m done with narratives glorifying women for their stoic, unflinching acceptance of shit men shovel onto them.

Now, about the weirdness. The narrator, Jintong, is a baby. He’s fixated on Mother’s breasts (which the blurb says are symbols, that the female body is a symbol of strength) and sure, okay, they feed him, so I get that, even if reading about it constantly is vaguely uncomfortable because of the hyperbolic language and metaphors he uses for da boobs.

But this baby narrator thinks and “speaks” like an adult, because who would want to read 400-some pages of baby babble? So it’s already a flawed conceit. And then I noticed that Jintong also narrates scenes he’s not physically present for. I’d be fine with an omniscient non-character narrator, but….Jintong’s an actual baby? Is he supposed to be a psychic baby? Clairvoyant? If you’re going to have a gimmick, at least commit to it–if you pick a baby for a narrator, then the story should only be what he’s around for.

Casi un siglo de historia de China, mostrada a través de las vicisitudes de Shangguan Lu, sus 8 hijas y su "inútil" hijo varón Jintong. Denuncia contra el abuso de poder y del maltrato a la mujer. Sarcástica y dura.

<333 Fabulous.

Quelle saga! Quelle fresque! Y a des longueurs, oui, les personnages sont too much parfois, oui, mais il n'empêche, je l'ai lu jusqu'au bout, avec plaisir, avec anticipation, même, ma petite lecture plaisir du matin (le livre étant trop gros pour l'embarquer dans le métro :-]).
À travers ce récit un peu fantasque, un peu fantastique, on a un aperçu sur l'histoire de la Chine depuis le milieu du XXème siècle jusqu'à (presque) aujourd'hui. La vie même des personnages centraux semblent être une métaphore de cette histoire, dans leurs multiples déconvenues et rebondissements. Bon, sauf peut-être vers la fin où il y a des moments où ça part quand même franchement en cacahuète (ou alors j'ai loupé des trucs sur l'histoire de la Chine? C'est fort possible).
Bref, un chouette pavé.