As I stand amid the dense hybrid sorghum, I think of surpassingly beautiful scenes that will never again appear: in the deep autumn of the eighth month, under a high, magnificently clear sky, the land is covered by sorghum that forms a glittering sea of blood.
— Mo Yan, Red Sorghum
Red Sorghum is a Chinese novel written by Guan Moye, a Nobel Prize winning author better known by his pen-name Mo Yan, which means "Don't speak". Moye explained that this name eludes to the advice his parents gave him while growing up. When Moye was a child, it was considered unwise to speak one's mind in public, especially anything which could be considered anti-government, amidst the political climate of the 1950's, during Mao's Cultural Revolution.
Red Sorghum is Moye's best known novel, particularly with English-speaking readers like myself. It was originally published as a series of magazine shorts in the 80's and officially published in 1988. I read the English translation by Howard Goldblatt which was published in 1992. The translation is based off the Taipei Hong-fan Book Co. 1988 edition of the novel, at the authors behest, as the mainland Chinese version published had to be altered and censored.
Red Sorghum takes place in the early twentieth century and the events span the course of several decades. The unnamed narrator has returned to his hometown to compile a family chronicle and tell the story of the elder generations of the Shandong family—from his parents all the way back to his great-grandparents. The events aren't told chronologically, which made the first few chapters a bit confusing as I was still getting acquainted with the various characters.
The story takes place in what the narrator refers to as "Northeast Gaomi Township", which is most likely based on the town of Gaomi in the Shandong province of China, as that is where Moye grew up. Most of the events of the book occur during the Second Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan between 1937 and 1945. This war, which involved the invasion of mainland China by the Japanese, became part of the Pacific War of World War II. War and conflict is a major theme of Red Sorghum; every member of the Shandong family is either a participant in the war, or deeply affected by it.
It's hard to comment on Moye's writing style since I read a translation. But for the sake of brevity I will assume the translator had a minimal impact on the prose and structure of the english text, so I will only refer to Moye in my review.
Moye's writing is terse. He can be very graphic, but in general I found his prose to be oblique and abstract, often interjecting his narrative with unrelated descriptions and non-sequiters. l think these "random" inclusions add more dimensionality and vibrance to the writing. For example,
Father's attention was riveted by the sight and sound of blood dripping from the Japanese soldier's nose into the steel helmet, each drop splashing crisply and sending out rings of concentric circles in the deepening pool. Father had barely passed his fifteenth birthday. The sun had nearly set on this ninth day of the eighth lunar month of the year 1939, and the dying embers of its rays cast a red pall over the world below. Father's face, turned unusually gaunt by the fierce daylong battle, was covered by a layer of purplish mud.
— Mo Yan
I loved the visually descriptive nature of Moye's writing. The description of the dead Japanese solider's blood slowly dripping into his metal helmet is intense and detailed. Moye immediately follows it with: "Father had barely passed his fifteenth birthday". It's not directly related but it reminds the reader of the innocence and youth of the narrator's father during this time. It's his first experience in battle.
I read this book during a trip to China. It was cool to read about this period of time in China's not-so-distant past and then to look up and see the modern state of living in the cities I visited, as well as the small rural towns I passed by on trains and such.
The contrast between the brutality and hardships of 1930's China with the technology and social order of 2018 China was interesting. Another contrast I saw while there was the urban life vs. rural life. There is a huge disparity in the living conditions and culture of towns compared to cities. It was so extreme that I could see similarities between what I was reading in Red Sorghum and what I saw in the rural communities. It hasn't changed much.
It seems like this disparity has existed for a long time. In Red Sorghum, even the accent of someone from the city was seen as valuable and a status symbol:
When Commander Yu was recruiting troops, he assembled fifty or so men, one of whom was a gaunt young man with a pale face and long black hair, dressed in black except for a pair of white shoes. He spoke with a beautiful Beijing dialect, and never smiled; his brow was forever creased in a frown, with three vertical furrows above his nose. Everyone called him Adjutant Ren.
— Mo Yan
Family Matters
Red Sorghum follows the story of the Shandong family specifically the narrator's grandfather, Commander Yu Zhan'ao, his grandmother Dai, and his father Douguan.
The story is divided into 4 parts. The first part, Red Sorghum, focusses on a famous battle in the town's history called the Black River Battle, of which his grandfather led a local army squadron. The narrator describes the events of this battle, and how it culminated in the death of his grandmother. Although the non-chronological nature of the writing makes this a little obscure.
The second part, Sorghum Wine, is about how the narrator's grandmother came to own a wine distillery, how she met his grandfather, and how his father was conceived. There's lots of death, and violence in this part of the book. Granted, it takes place during a war, but a lot of the deaths in the story aren't actually caused by the Japanese but by fellow countrymen. The people of Gaomi Township couldn't even have a funeral without multiple people getting trampled to death by the chaotic crowd. I'm serious.
Part three of the story is called Dog Ways, and it is largely about dogs. So much so that there are entire scenes where the author explains the inter-group drama between a pack of dogs out in the forest with no humans present. It calls into question the "journalistic" facade the author was trying to go for with the narration.
The central conflict in this third section is between humans and this aforementioned pack of dogs (numbering several hundred dogs). The conflict arises after a terrible massacre during the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, where only a handful of villagers survive. It leaves all the dogs in the town ownerless, so they take off to the forest surrounding the village to look for food and shelter.
The issue arises when the surviving villagers pile all the corpses of the massacre into the field outside the town (they did not have the manpower to give proper burials to all of them yet), and the dogs begin to launch organized raids on the dead bodies so they can eat. The injured and vulnerable group of villagers then have to arm and defend themselves so that they can ward off the dogs and protect the bodies of the deceased.
It's pretty surreal; I found the whole section to be quite...surprising, but moving. The devotion shown by these individuals to protect the bodies of the other dead villagers, despite barely surviving the massacre themselves, a powerful motif. It symbolizes the respect the Chinese have for the dead, and also for their traditions.
The events of this chapter exemplified a recurring theme in Red Sorghum—how the natural world used to be integrated with our humanity and livelihood. Not just in China, but in all societies at some point. Our modern society has developed systems and the infrastructure necessary to distance ourselves from nature. 100 years ago, humans were much closer to being a natural component of the environment, exposed and vulnerable to the world around them. Organized society was not the artificial, destructive presence it is today.
Dogs were more than a pet to the villagers, they were also a labourer, a source of food, and potentially an existential threat. Highlighting the parity between species was intentional by Moye. He wanted to draw a comparison between the violent assaults on the dogs by the villagers, and the assault the Japanese invaders had levied against them.
Being rural villagers, much of the weaponry the Japanese used was advanced and unknown to them, as described by the father during this battle at the Black Water River Bridge.
The fast-approaching trucks were getting larger and larger, the eyes in front, as large as horse hooves, sweeping the area with their white rays. Their revving engines sounded like the wind before a downpour. Having never actually seen a truck before, Father assumed that these strange creatures survived on grass or some sort of fodder, and that they drank water or blood. [...]As they neared the stone bridge, the lead truck slowed down, allowing the clouds of dust to catch up and settle over he hood, obsuring the twenty or more khaki-clad men in the bed, shiny steel pots on their heads. Father subsequently learned that these pots were called 'helmets'.
— Mo Yan
Compare that to when the villagers were battling the dogs and using grenades they had scavenged from a previous battle:
Red glared hatefully at Father and barked, as though accusing him and his friends of violating a tacit agreement by invading their bivouac area and using new, cruelly undoglike weapons.
— Mo Yan
These "cruelly undoglike" weapons are exactly like the exotic weaponary the Japanese used while invading the rural Chinese countryside.
The fourth part of the book is called Sorghum Funeral. It covers the events before and after the aforementioned funeral where several people were trampled to death by overcrowding. It actually got much worse from there—the funeral procession later gets ambushed by a rival Chinese battalion and many more people die.
It was interesting how much conflict was between different "groups" of Chinese soldiers originating from disparate villages and regions. It seemed strange that there would be so much blood shed between fellow countrymen during an actual invasion by a foreign country. I suspect the military squadrons that formed in these rural areas of China were not controlled by the government much. Instead, they were essentially gangs that protected their immediate area and fought off any other potential "gangs", since resources like food and weapons were so limited.
Planted Firmly
Thinking about the main themes of Red Sorghum; I feel that Moye chose to explore this period in China's history to highlight the characteristics that define his culture: Unwavering strength, resolve, and vitality in the face of hardship. This is symbolized in the red sorghum which blankets the land surrounding Gaomi Township.
Sorghum is a resilient plant which stands up to wind, sun, snow, rain, and even war—the fields of sorghum provided the stage on which countless raids and battles were fought. Despite all this, the sorghum plant remains a constant and enduring source of life and prosperity for the people of Gaomi Township. It feeds them, clothes them, makes the wine which provides industry and employment for many, and even provides cover and protection in times of conflict. Sorghum is the lifeblood of this village, and countless others like it, and the narrator aludes to this dependency when recounting the death of his grandmother,
Father falls to his knees, drapes her arms around his neck, then stands up with difficulty, lifting her off the ground. Fresh blood quickly soaks his neck and assails his nose with the aroma of sorghum wine. His legs tremble under the weight of her body; he staggers into the sorghum field as bullets whizz overhead. He parts the densely packed plants, stumbling forward, his sweat and his tears merging with Grandma's fresh blood to turn his face into a demented mask. Grandma is getting heavier as the passing sorghum leaves lacerate him mercilessly.
— Mo Yan
Moye is symbolizing this dependence literally by describing the blood as smelling of "sorghum wine". The grandmother's death is amongst the sorghum, her son is cut by the sorghum leaves while carrying her body through them. The sorghum pervades the whole scene. It's so critical to the life and death of the villagers that it's integrated into all the important moments of the story.
Unlike our modern society, which has practically eliminated the risk and influence of the natural world on our lives, the peoples of Gaomi Township during those years were as much a component of nature as the sorghum they harvested.
In the closing scenes of the book, the narrator recounts his experience going back to Northeast Gaomi Township and visiting the areas where all these triumphs and atrocities happened. He visits the graves of his ancestors and along the way he takes note of a new strain of sorghum which has invaded the region. It's a green hybrid which, to him, doesn't stand as tall or look as bright, and it has a "a bitter, astringent taste" compared to the red sorghum of days past. He is metaphorically speaking about himself and his generation, raised in cities and exposed to all sorts of luxuries and exotic lifestyles,
Hybrid sorghum never seems to ripen. Its grey-green eyes seem never to be fully opened. I stand in front of Second Grandma's grave and look out at those ugly bastards that occupy the domain of the red sorghum. They assume the name of sorghum, but are bereft of tall, straight stalks; they assume the name of sorghum, but are devoid of the dazzling sorghum colour. Lacking the soul and bearing of sorghum, they pollute the pure air of Northeast Gaomi Township with their dark, gloomy, ambiguous faces.
— Mo Yan
It is interesting that he chooses to end the story on this note. After reading nearly 400 pages of questionable ethical behaviour from almost every character in the story, Moye sought to make a point that the hardships his forebearers experienced made them better people. Perhaps not better per se, but stronger and of better character. Moye asks whether perhaps the increase in comfort and quality of life has taken something away from the individual; a sacrifice of our essential humanity in exchange for happiness:
I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort. Prosperity and comfort are what people seek, but the costs to character are often terrifying.
— Mo Yan
Overall, I enjoyed reading Red Sorghum. I learned a bit about what China looked like in the 20th Century, and how the war shaped and altered their society. It ultimately was a novel about humanity and survival—and how closely connected these two concepts are. We owe our existence to the strength and resilience of our ancestors. Red Sorghum was meant to celebrate our predecessors and their stories of survival, but also to pay respect for all those whose stories had to end early.