Red Azalea

I chose Anchee Min’s autobiographical novel, Red Azalea, for my final selection. While reading the first chapter and Min’s biographical details, I realized that we both were born in 1957; our lives and ages parallel although vastly different.
While I cannot completely identify with Min, I can appreciate what her protagonist represents. Min struggles begin with her educated family who must accept Mao’s teachings and politics just to survive. They do not have the luxury of freedom, of choosing where to live or where to work, for the parents or the children. Part Two of the novel begins when Min is sent to work on the Red Fire Farm.
While on the farm, Min reaches the age of sexual maturity and falls in love with Yan. She speaks to the fact that there are no men around. Yan symbolizes not only the strong female role model, but also when Min moves away, Yan symbolizes Min’s adaptation to change while she remains the same. This aspect of the story intrigued me and reminded me of a scene from Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. When Steinbeck returns to the bar where he was a regular, Steinbeck has changed, but the people and the bar have not changed. The bar owner becomes embarrassed by Steinbeck’s presence because Steinbeck has grown, matured, and changed while he, as if stick in a time warp, has not.
The episode with Little Green was especially moving. She’s caught with her lover who is executed for “raping” her. She does nothing to stop the execution, which results in her eventual death. This happens, once again, from lack of choice and free will.
In Part Three, Min is chosen as a possible candidate to portray Madame Mao (Red Azalea). She doesn’t get the role, instead she must serve as a subordinate to the actress and studio. She becomes involved and has an affair with the unnamed Supervisor, a fairly effeminate man. I believe he symbolizes the face of male superiority in the last years of Mao’s regime.
The last section completes the story with Mao’s eventual death and the imprisonment of Madame Mao. Our heroine, like the author, escapes China for America.
I found Red Azalea both lyrical in its prose (not being a translated novel probably aided this endeavor), well paced, and intricately woven. Being autobiographical and written in the first person can leave a reader wanting more from a writer. Red Azalea definitely portrays the life of post WWII China from the perspective of an average young woman. I’m awfully thankful I didn’t have to live Min’s life.

Zhang Yimou's To Live

Novels and books are undoubtedly different forms of media. In a novel, a writer takes time to develop characters, weaves specific details in the text, and leads the reader along with tidbits of information. Film, on the other hand, must move on its own, breath, cry, inhale, and die. The written story takes time to develop; however, movies often start “in medias re.” Yu Hua’s compelling novel “To Live” was adapted to film by Zhang Yimou in 1994. Roger Ebert states in his review of Zhang Yimou’s film, To Live, that “ “To Live” is a simple title, but it conceals a universe” (Ebert 1994). While the film follows the protagonist Fugui through four decades of his life, the film alters the storyline significantly, and adds symbolism not appearing in the book. For example, Fugui travels with a group of puppeteers before being captured and force into service. The puppets symbolize the changes faced by the characters. Fugui keeps the puppets, but eventually he is forced to burn them, symbolizing change and the stark, new way of life for his family. Also, in the novel, the family farms and raises sheep, but the film ignores this aspect of the story. I thought the relationship between the son, Youqing and his sheep was a fairly significant part of the story. Yimou also changes the death of Youqing from the novel where the hospital bleeds him to death into a tragic accident.
In the interview with Yu Hua, Hua mentions that he is pleased with the film (Standaert 2004). Personally, I thought the film was entirely too political and Yimou changed the story in order to achieve a somewhat happy ending. At the end of the book, Fugui has only his oxen for company; however, in the film, Fugui has his wife and grandson still alive.

Ebert, Roger. To Live. 1994. Web.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19941223/REVIEWS/412230303/1023

Standaert, Michael. Interview with Yu Hua. MCLC Resource Center. 2004. Web.
http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/yuhua.htm

Yimou, Zhang. To Live. 1994. Century Communications Ltd. Film.

Yu Hua's To Live

Born in 1960 in Zhejiang, China, Yu Hua trained initially to be a dentist. After five years in dentistry, he tells Michael Standaert, a graduate student at the University of Iowa that “I didn’t like the job because I was looking into people’s mouths the whole day. The mouth offers the worst scenic view in the world. I was still young and I wanted to see other more interesting things” (Standaert 2004). Hua emphasized, in addition, that he saw writers walking around the cultural center observing life and people. The pay was the same regardless and writers could set their own hours, so Hua decided that was the life for him.

Hua’s novel, To Live, follows the protagonist Fugui over the course of four decades, through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and through the upheavals, grief, and joy of family life. Fugui symbolizes not only tradition, but also shift to modernity which takes place over the course of the novel. Fugui initially gambles away his family’s fortune and they lose their home. Fugui is taken into service and cannot return for several years, reuniting with his estranged wife at that point. The couple has a daughter, deaf and mute, and a son.

I enjoyed the novel a great deal. Despite all their struggles, both politically and personally, Fugui manages to keep a positive attitude toward life. Grief befalls our protagonist in the novel as he loses his entire family by the end and is left to wander with only an oxen as companion. He compares himself to the oxen.

At the end of the novel, I discovered that Hua was actually inspired to write this story from an American slave song. The experiences Hua discusses and refers to are undoubtedly uniquely Chinese, however, the universal experience of human life are remarkably similar. Hua states that “human experience, combined with the power of imagination, can break down all barriers, enabling a person truly to understand that thing called fate at work in his life” (250).

In the interview, Hua discusses some of his writing technique. Hua emphasizes to Standaert that if he listens to his character’s voices, he can feel what they feel and the characters he creates tell him what to write. Most writers employ this universal technique. So it comes as no surprise to me to hear Hua talk about his style in this manner. The voices in his head are, in fact, real.

Standaert, Michael. Interview with Yu Hua. MCLC Resource Center. 2004. Web.
http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/yuhua.htm

Hua, Yu.
To Live. New York: Random House: 250 (2003). Print.

Delays in posting

I've been away from my desk, dealing with computer issues (slower than molasses in January!), and took a week vacation. I will have a new post by the end of the week as I have read Yu Hua's To Live, and watched the corresponding film. Quite a difference between the two entities. More later.

Akira Kurosawa

Undoubtedly, Akira Kurosawa is probably the most internationally famous Japanese film director. Recently, I watched two of his movies, Rashomon and Throne of Blood. I should have watched Throne of Blood before Rashomon, because the cinematography was disappointing compared to Rashomon.
The film Throne of Blood takes Shakespeare’s Macbeth into the world of feudal lords. Cinematically, the film fell far short of Rashomon, but the story delivered an interesting interpretation of Macbeth and his scheming wife. For the most part, the warrior overplayed his passion and greed. In his New York Times review, Bosley Crowther tells us that "The action is grotesquely brutish and barbaric... with Toshiro Mifune as the warrior grunting and bellowing monstrously and making elaborately wild gestures to convey his passion and greed...".
The film Rashomon shows us one of Kurosawa’s signature vignettes—torrential rain which had to be dyed to show up on film. They could have just added some milk like Singin’ in the Rain. Rashomon became not only an internationally acclaimed film for Kurosawa, but also for cinematographer, Kazuo Miyagawa. This film also constructs a unique storyline of a rape of a woman and the death of her husband. Throughout the film, the music and cinematography propel the story. As the woodcutter hurries through the forest, the combination of camera angles and relentless music drives the woodcutter deep into the forest. Each character shows their own version of what happens in the woods and the viewer never learns which version is true, leaving them to draw their own conclusions at the end. At the film’s conclusion, the woodcutter who has shared his story with a stranger and a priest, finds a sliver of hope for the future represented by the infant left at the ruined monastery. Even though, the woodcutter already has six children of his own, he leaves with the child, and the sun finally comes out. This type of storyline has been copied and remolded many times in movie like Crash and Vantage Point and in multiple series from comedies like Scrubs and Three’s Company to crime dramas like CSI and NCIS. With amazing cinematography and a unique storyline with the story within a story, Rashomon does not disappoint. In addition, one of my favorite movies of all time is The Magnificent Seven, which is an American adaptation of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

Next: Yu Hua's To Live, book and film

The Setting Sun 2

Chapter 5 – The Lady
In this chapter, the author focuses the text around the mother and her eventual death from tuberculosis. Kazuko’s mother is portrayed as the last traditional lady of Japan. The author adds some interesting context including economic theory from Luxemburg and Marxism belief from perfection to destruction; “Man was born for love and revolution” (114). Also, we are shown a couple of recurrent themes in the reference to sails and the mother’s dream about the snake. The snake, perhaps, seeks revenge for her eggs and achieves its goal through the mother’s death. Kazuko laments at the end of the chapter; she believes that life is a struggle, a battle, and tells us that “I must go on living” (124).

Chapter 6 – Outbreak of Hostilities
This chapter was a little confusing. Kazuko discusses how she can depend on love and nothing else, speaks about more than just physical love or human love. I believe she’s talking about the two kinds of unconditional love, both spiritual love and the unconditional love a parent has for a child. Maybe this is why she appears so darn desperate to breed with Uehara. There are obvious conflicts at work in the text. On the one hand, we have Naoji, nihilistic and overwhelmed, who kills himself, and Kazuko and Uehara who profess their love and eventually procreate.

Chapter 7 – The Testament
This chapter is Naoji written memoir which serves as his suicide note.
Naoji portrays his personal torment when he says that “only those who wish to go on living should” (153). In the memoir, Naoji laments about his unrequited love for Suga, the painter’s wife—a contributing factor to Naoji’s negative mindset.

Chapter 8 – Victims
In the closing chapter, Kazuko is pregnant and Naoji is dead, portrayed by Dazai as “victims of a transitional period of morality” (173). As Japan rebuilds, traditions change and the modern world definitely creeps in. At the end Kazuko tells us that “in the present, the most beautiful thing in the world is a victim” (174). I found the characters in the novel rather flat compared to Western novels. They lack depth and do not appear to grow or change. Maybe that was the point. I just do not know.

The Setting Sun 1

Chapter 1 – Snake
In the opening pages, Dazai introduces us to Kazuko and her mother. The mother is “old school” traditional and at the time, wealthy and an aristocrat. Kazuko and her mother represent the changing women’s role in Japanese society with the traditional mother who takes the path of passive acceptance and Kazuko as the modern divorcee.
As the title of this chapter suggests, snakes represent a powerful symbol which is repeated throughout the rest of the novel. When Kazuko’s father dies, the snakes twist themselves around the tree outside the house. To Kazuko, this appears to be a bad omen, and when she sees what she thinks are poisonous serpent eggs, she burns the eggs to exorcise her torment and perceived evil. Perhaps her own experience having a stillborn child scarred her more than she initially realized.
Kazuko’s mother changes from an aristocrat to a pauper upon the death of her husband, a role she never fully accepts even in her death. She tells us about others that “just because someone has a title doesn’t make him an aristocrat” (4). It’s more a sense of how a person handles themselves and lives their life. The mother doesn’t deal well with moving to the country or becoming poor, as though her fragile conscience just cannot accept the consequences of her life.

Chapter 2 – Fire
“Carelessness leads to conflagrations” (29). Kazuko accidentally starts a fire, and while no real damage is done, she feels tremendous guilt. This chapter again focuses on the differences between mother and daughter, and additionally portrays the nihilistic role of Naoji, Kazuko’s opium addicted brother, who recurrently steals from the family for his own personal fiends. The end of the chapter discusses how secrets kept, even with the best of intentions, often surface with a vengeance.

Chapter 3 - Moonflowers
This chapter mirrors the author’s life. In the chapter, we find Naoji has returned from Tokyo or whatever opium den he has been hiding in, only to get drunk and steal from his mother. He also tells her that “To die by being sucked into an act of desperation…no, thanks. I had rather die by my own hand” (66). This statement foreshadows Naoji’s death in chapter 7.

Chapter 4 – Letters
This chapter is confusing. Kazuko believes that her life is slipping away and that her life will be better if she has a child. At age 30, she considers herself middle-aged. In her letters to M.C., a teacher of Naoji’s who is revealed later in the novel as Mr. Uehara, Kazuko professes her love and she wishes that he would agree to father her child. She writes three very strange letters and receives no response.

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai

"Mine has been a life much shame" (The opening sentence of No Longer Human, 1948).
Osamu Dazai is the pseudonym used by novelist and storyteller Tsushima Shuji. His work often mirrored his troubled life, especially in his novels No Longer Human and The Setting Sun. J. Thomas Riner in Reader’s Guide to Japanese Literature emphasizes that “Dazai's life and work, many Japanese critics have pointed out, are closely intertwined. The more reader knows of Dazai's life, so the argument goes, the more Dazai can and should be admired for finding a literary means to bare his soul" (1999).
Born in 1909 as the tenth of eleven children, Dazai was raised mostly by servants. In addition to being wealthy and brilliant, Dazai was also troubled, attempting suicide twice before the age of twenty.
While studying French literature at the University of Tokyo, Dazai’s interests swung not only to French Symbolism and Surrealism, but also his political views changed to left wing after exposure to Marxism.
Also at the university, Dazai developed an acquaintance with Masuji Ibuse, the man who mentored Dazai’s as a novelist and writer. Having read Ibuse's The Salamander at age fourteen, Dazai stated that "I felt with excitement that I had discovered a hidden, anonymous genius" (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dazai.htm).
Dazai composes The Setting Sun in an “I-novel”/confessional style of fiction, full of symbolism, conflicts between tradition and modernity as characters struggle with lifestyle, addiction, passive acceptance of women’s role, and symbolism.
In the first three chapters, Dazai uses the symbols of snake eggs, fire, and moonflowers to emphasize themes and motifs. I will expand on these images in my next post.