Commentary/review

It took me about a week to decide what to write about this book. It is important to know, first, that Yu Hua is considered the best living Chinese author. This acclaim is shared by the Chinese living in China and the Author himself lives in China. I find it fascinating that such frankness about Chinese history as displayed in the works by Yu Hua is not only allowed but openly praised in the mainstream Chinese culture. Thus the book changed the way I think about China, plain and simple.

Secondly, the book is heavily pornographic. I was not sure for a while what I thought about it. Since the book is clearly a masterpiece in literature, the Author is uncommonly clever, there had to be a catch somewhere. I then remembered that the book is also full of violence, with long descriptions of torture and mental anguish. In the European culture, we already got used to descriptions of violence in literature. It was necessary to make us sensitive to the perils of war and ideologically driven genocide. We are ready to make young people read about physical violence but usually shelter them from sexual violence. I believe that what Yu Hua did in “Brothers” was intended to make a comparison between hunger and solitude, between physical violence and the commercialization of sexuality, between the lack of direction during austerity and the lack of direction during prosperity. This must be the first book of 2025 that gave me so much food for thought.

Thirdly, to get back to the regular review format, “Brothers” is a story of the lives of two step-brothers, one more suited for a life of a scholar or at least to a frugal life in early communist China, while the other perfectly suited for a life in China after the Deng Xiaoping reforms. The style strangely reminds me of Günter Grass. The story is painted rather than told. The pictures stay with the reader, making the story relatable like a personal experience. Such style is very apt for the materialistic viewpoint. There are many beautiful images there, although the bad ones are really bad. The book is very long, its second part sometimes feels tedious (I skipped a few chapters) and, in terms of final takeaway, there is no hope, just existence. It is also funny, entertaining and informative. Overall, “Brothers” sheds light on one of the most important world cultures during a very interesting time in history.

I did not like the cover, the colors just reek of violence.

Cover Photo by Leslie Ting on Unsplash