While the novel opens on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War (1936), with the birth of the central male character, Shangguan Jintong, and his twin sister, the narration actually begins in time (chapter 2) at the turn of the century, in the wake of the failed Boxer Rebellion, in which troops from eight foreign nations crushed an indigenous, anti-foreign rebellion and solidified their presence in China. As in Mo Yan’s earlier novel, Red Sorghum, the central, and in many ways defining, events occur during the eight years of war with Japan, all on Chinese soil. For Mo Yan, the earlier decades, while not peaceful by any means, are notable for personal, rather than national, events. It is the time of Mother’s childhood, marriage, and the birth of her first seven children – all daughters and all by men other than her sterile husband. The national implications become clear when Mother’s only son, Jintong, arrives, the offspring of Swedish Malory, the alien “Other.”
The bulk of the novel then takes the reader through six turbulent decades, from the Sino-Japanese War, in which two defending factions (Mao’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists) fought one another almost as much as they fought, and usually succumbed to, the Japanese. It is here that Mo Yan has particularly angered his critics, in that he has created heroes and turncoats that defy conventional views, resulting in a “sycophantic, shameless work that turns history upside down, fabricates lies, and glorifies the Japanese fascists and the Landlord Restoration Corps [groups of landed individuals who went over to Nationalist-controlled areas after the War when their land was redistributed by the Communists],” in the words of one critic. Of the several male figures in the novel, excluding the foreigner, whose “potency” cannot save him and stigmatizes his offspring, one is a patriot-turned-collaborator, another is a leader of Nationalist forces, and two are Communists (a commander and a soldier); all marry one or more of Mother’s daughters, but only one, the Nationalist, earns Mother’s praise: “He’s a bastard,” she says, “but he’s also a man worthy of the name. In days past, a man like that would come around once every eight or ten years. I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of his kind.”
Big Breasts and Wide Hips is, of course, fiction, and while it deals with historical events (selectively, to be sure), it is a work that probes and reveals broader aspects of society and humanity, those that transcend or refute specific occurrences or canonized political interpretations of history. Following Japan’s defeat in Asia in 1945, China slipped into a bloody civil war between Mao’s and Chiang’s forces, ending in 1949 with a Communist victory and the creation of the People’s Republic of China. Unfortunately for the Shangguan family, as for citizens throughout the country, peace and stability proved to be as elusive in “New China” as in the old. The first seventeen years of the People’s Republic witnessed a bloody involvement in the Korean War (1950-53), a period of savage instances of score-settling and political realignments, the disastrous “Great Leap Forward,” which led to three years of famine that claimed millions of lives, and the Cultural Revolution. In defiance of more standard historical fiction in China, which tends to foreground major historical events, in Mo Yan’s novel they are mere backdrops to the lives of Jintong, his surviving sisters, his nieces and nephews, and, of course, Mother. It is here that the significance of Shangguan Jintong’s oedipal tendencies and impotence become apparent. [6] In a relentlessly unflattering portrait of his male protagonist, Mo Yan draws attention to what he sees as a regression of the human species and a dilution of the Chinese character (echoing sentiments first encountered in Red Sorghum); in other words, a failed patriarchy. Ultimately, it is the strength of character of (most, but not all) the women that lends hope to the author’s gloomy vision.
In the post-Mao years (Mao died in 1976), Jintong’s deterioration occurs in the context of national reforms and an economic boom. Weaned of the breast, finally, he represents, to some at least, a “manifestation of Chinese intellectuals’ anxiety over the country’s potency in the modern world.” [7] Whatever he may symbolize, he remains a member of one of the most intriguing casts of characters in fiction, in a novel about which Mo Yan himself has said: “If you like, you can skip my other novels [I wouldn’t recommend it – tr.], but you must read Big Breasts and Wide Hips. In it I wrote about history, war, politics, hunger, religion, love, and sex.” [8]
Big Breasts and Wide Hips was first published in book form by Writers Publishing House (1996); a Taiwan edition (Hong-fan) appeared later the same year. A shortened edition was then published by China Workers Publishing House in 2003. The current translation was undertaken from a further shortened, computer-generated manuscript supplied by the author. Some changes and rearrangements were effected during the translation and editing process, all with the approval of the author. As translator, I have been uncommonly fortunate to have been aided along the way by the author, by my frequent co-translator, Sylvia Li-chun Lin, [9] and by our publisher and editor, Dick Seaver.
List of Principal Characters
In Chinese, the family name comes first. In families, proper names are used far less often than relational terms (First Sister, Younger Brother, “Old Three,” etc.). In this novel, some of the characters change names, a few more than once, for a variety of reasons. Nicknames, including numbers, are common.
Mother
Shangguan Lu; childhood name Xuan’er. Motherless from childhood, raised to adulthood by aunt and uncle, Big Paw. Married to blacksmith Shangguan Shouxi. A convert to Christianity in her late years.
Eldest Sister
Laidi, daughter of Mother and Big Paw. Married to Sha Yueliang, mother of Sha Zaohua. After the founding of the People’s Republic, forced to marry crippled mute soldier Speechless Sun. Later has a son with Birdman Han, named Parrot Han.
Second Sister
Zhaodi, daughter of Mother and Big Paw. Married to commander of anti-Japanese forces Sima Ku; mother of twins, Sima Feng and Sima Huang.
Third Sister
Lingdi. Also known as Bird Fairy, daughter of Mother and a peddler of ducklings. First wife of Speechless Sun, mother of Big Mute and Little Mute.
Fourth Sister
Xiangdi, daughter of Mother and an itinerant herb doctor.
Fifth Sister
Pandi, daughter of Mother and a dog butcher. Married to Lu Liren, political commissar of the Demolition Battalion, mother of Lu Shengli. Holds several official positions, changing her name to Ma Ruilian after the founding of the People’s Republic.
Sixth Sister
Niandi, daughter of Mother and wise monk of the Tianqi Monastery. Married to American bomber pilot Babbitt.
Seventh Sister
Qiudi, offspring of a rape of Mother by four deserters. Sold to a Russian woman as an orphan, changes her name to Qiao Qisha.
Eighth Sister
Yunu, a twin born to Mother and Swedish missionary Malory. Born blind.
I (narrator)
Jintong, Mother’s only son, born together with Eighth Sister.
Shangguan Shouxi Shangguan Fulu Shangguan Lü Sima Ting
Blacksmith; Mother’s impotent husband. Blacksmith, Shangguan Shouxi’s father. Shangguan Fulu’s wife, “Mother’s” mother. Steward of Dalan Town’s Felicity Manor; later serves as mayor.
Sima Ku
Younger brother of Sima Ting, husband of Zhaodi (Second Sister). A patriot, linked to the Nationalists during the War of Resistance (1937-1945).
[6] David Der-wei Wang’s study deals superbly with this aspect of Mo Yan’s writing. See “The Literary World of Mo Yan,”