Una rappresentazione potente, appassionante e drammaticamente crudele delle sofferenze patite dagli intellettuali in Cina nell’epoca del “grande balzo”. Prigionieri in campi di rieducazione, massacrati da un lavoro finalizzato a far apparire la Cina grande e al tempo stesso cannibalizzati dalla fomentazione di un odio reciproco. È un romanzo maestoso, dalla narrazione composita e complessa, che spazia tra momenti crudi e momenti aulici, intriso di metafore e interpretazioni simboliche. Una riflessione esemplare sulla miseria umana che lascia profonde tracce nell coscienza del lettore, sicuramente fra i migliori romanzi di questi anni. ( )

Four red stars of the finest quality steel. Just one more and you can see your family again. Melt down all the farm implements. Cut down all the trees. The future needs steel and cities, not farming and forests.

This is one to mull over. You now don't want to read another novel for a while. You want to digest, dissect.

It isn't only about the Great Leap Forward. It has a very clear message about human nature and how we repeat the same mistakes and fall into the same traps again and again. What will we do when we run out of _______? We'll figure something out. In the meantime.. more more more! More is more!


In these books we have the Great Leap Forward in microcosm. I didn't know the story, I didn't know how shortsightedness lead to the deaths of possibly 40 million people. In the Four Books I watched terrible mistakes being made in slow motion.

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An Allegorical Look at Tragedy

"The Four Books" is a difficult read, although it moves very quickly. The book follows a series of characters within a re-education camp during The Great Leap Forward, a disastrous political and economic campaign that ended in famine. The director of the camp is a selfish, petty man who wants to please his superiors while keeping his inmates satisfied. The inmates, all intellectuals accused of rightism, vary from complacent to entrepreneurial in their relationship with the camp and their desire to leave it.

Although the surface stories are put together very well, there are several long and ever-present allegories that I had great trouble piecing together. Translator Carlos Rojas tries to preempt the confusion readers might have with an introduction from which many professional reviewers seem to have borrowed. Magical realism plays a huge part in these allegories, with certain characters making personal and physical sacrifices that represent the effects of China's totally misguided policies. A group of inmates tries to escape multiple times, only to find themselves magically back in the same spot and hungrier than ever, perhaps like the Great Leap Forward itself. Another character fertilizes plants with his own blood, while yet another offers pieces of his own flesh as penance so that other inmates may eat. Other allegories are more ironic, like the director of the camp crucifying himself. While some of these allegories made sense, there seemed to be others that I simply couldn't piece together.

Having read "Dream of Ding Village," also by Yan Lianke, I had trouble seeing why other reviewers compared Yan to Kafka and Garcias Marquez, but "The Four Books" makes it clear. "The Four Books" is less smooth and less traditional. Besides academic studies, there really isn't much literature, even oral history, about the Great Leap Forward, unlike other events such as the Cultural Revolution. This makes "The Four Books" a valuable piece of literature. ( )

La acción de Los cuatro libros nos sitúa en la China de los años 50 del pasado siglo. Su trasfondo es el confinamiento de cientos de miles de personas en 'campos de reeducación por el trabajo' y la movilización de los campesinos para la producción de hierro y acero. Aquel despropósito fue el preámbulo de una de las mayores hambrunas de la humanidad. Yan Lianke recorre ese periodo con una creatividad desbordante y una prosa poética e incisiva, alternando con una maestría insuperable los lenguajes de la narrativa bíblica, la tradición confuciana y la mitología griega, así como la jerga política maoísta. Un niño y un escritor sobresalen entre los diversos personajes anónimos: el erudito, la música, el profesor de religión o el técnico del laboratorio. Los avatares y las vidas absurdamente truncadas de aquellos hombres y mujeres conforman este drama satírico, inspirado en hechos reales de la Historia. El autor da rienda suelta a su capacidad imaginativa sin la habitual autocensura practicada por los escritores chinos. Por ello, y ante su osadía, ninguna editorial del continente chino se atrevió a imprimir su obra. Finalmente se publicó en Hong Kong y Taiwán.

Tried, tried, tried, wanted to, wanted to, wanted, but after 60 pages, I aborted.
Dull as dish water. ( )