I wonder if you are more conscious of cultural divides when one is separated by language above all else? It probably depends who you are. Many, I’m sure, would put religion or colour or politics at the top of that list – and then fight you for it.
If I struggled with Yan Lianke’s “The Years, Months, Days” then I have to assume that there was something in its Chinese background and inheritance of which I could not possibly be aware nor grasp. The two novellas here read like fables, as if there is ‘a message’ below the surface; something not actually contained in the words themselves, but in the world (and history) from which they have sprung. These messages may have universal application, but I sensed their greater resonance was reserved for the mountains, fields, peasants about whom Lianke writes.
Both novellas are insistent, persistent; there is something of desperation in them (for the characters, not the writing), and I can only imagine how impactful they might be in their native country.
Ian Gouge - Writer 