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| Shanghai-born author, Chan Koonchung |
The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung
First published in Chinese in 2009 by OUP, Hong Kong as Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013
English translation by Michael S. Duke, 2011
318 pages, £6.50 on amazon.co.uk
The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung has been billed by some as the Chinese Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although the novel has been banned in China, it is far less radical than George Orwell's masterpiece that was first published in 1949.
Koonchung's story is set in the China of 2013. Whilst the rest of the world languishes in economic depression, China has forged ahead to a 'Golden Age of Properity'. As Old Chen sips his Lychee Black Dragon Latte in the local Starbucks, it barely crosses his mind to question his own feeling of contentment or that of anybody else around him. On the surface, everybody is happy.
It takes several encounters with old friends before he seriously starts to suspect that something is wrong with reality. First, the spiritual traveller, Fang Caodi, insists that a whole month has been wiped from people's memories. Second, Chen's ex-girlfriend Little Xi is constantly shadowed by undercover agents because of her internet activism.
The story follow's Chen's somewhat rambling path to unveiling the truth. Along the way there are plenty of essayistic style dialogues with wizened Party official, He Dongsheng. Although these offer interesting perspectives on Chinese history and politics, they clog up the action.
In the end, the book is more philosophical treatise, than straight thriller. Is it better to live a lie and be happy or live in truth and be unhappy?
Interesting final question. There may be other options although perhaps not in a dystopian society. Given the two options put I hope I would go for truth and unhappy, however truth and happy is preferable.
ReplyDeleteI gather 'The Iron Hand' by Jack London (1908)is considered to be the seminal novel of the genre. I might pop it onto my Kindle but I'm not sure I'm up to actually reading it.
Thanks for the comment TD. I checked it out and the Jack London novel is actually called 'The Iron Heel'. Looks quite different from 'White Fang'!
ReplyDeleteAnother early dystopian novel is 'We' by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921). Apparently, Orwell took a lot of inspiration from it for 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.
I knew the title was Iron 'something or other'. Thanks for the correction.
ReplyDeleteHave you checked out the highly regarded work from the Victorian era Lancastrian Jack Ferzackerley (1872)? Both London and Zamyatin drew on Ferzackerley's inspirational work 'I'm all Right Jack'. I'm planning to re-read it on my Kindle.