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A review by dangosaffron
The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke
4.0
“The odd thing was that no one was speaking about the present. No one wanted the present. This was a war over the past and the future. More specifically, this future was the future that was written about in books, and the past was that of the town battle. This great war had erupted over the future and the past. As for the present of this night of this month of this year, it either had been completely forgotten, or had been transformed into a nightmare. There was no present. The present had disappeared.”
took me a while to really get on board with the social satire/commentary aspects—but i really like the idea of “don’t fall asleep” as a political directive. i think china needs more internal/immanent critique like this and not the annoying type from western observers. the james joyce comparisons are very clear from the deja vu-inducing writing style. i also liked how funny yan lianke could be with so little (“the sun was as bright as the sun”).
took me a while to really get on board with the social satire/commentary aspects—but i really like the idea of “don’t fall asleep” as a political directive. i think china needs more internal/immanent critique like this and not the annoying type from western observers. the james joyce comparisons are very clear from the deja vu-inducing writing style. i also liked how funny yan lianke could be with so little (“the sun was as bright as the sun”).