title: Hard Like Water by: Lianke, Yan published: 2022-06-21 read: 2021-12 preview

After some heavier reads, I needed something lighter to cheer me up.  So I chose ‘Hard like water’ by Yan Lianke.  “This talent cannot be ignored” says the New York Times.  It’s a 2001 book recently translated from Chinese, and it’s dark while hilarious.  No, it is not light at all, of course, since it describes the revolution in the late 1960s. The main character, Gao Aijun, who is in his late 20s, and his erotic liaison, Xia Hongmei.  Both are married (to other people).  The two play revolution, while having sex whenever and wherever they can; adultery is not looked upon lightly then and there, since it’s bourgeois.  It is hilarious, since the revolution and eroticism (no worries or false hopes, it’s not pornographic at all; they call it, “doing that thing”) are intertwined and related.  They are in the game for the revolution?  Or for the sex?  It’s not clarified, and it’s not important.

The book begins,

After I die and things settle down, I’ll reevaluate my life, and specifically the cracks between my speech, behavior, posture, and my chickenshit love. That “tender land” will be an excellent place to reflect on life, with beautiful drifting catkins and bright peach blossoms. Right now, however, they have taken the muzzle of a loaded gun and placed it against the back of my head, invoking the reputation of the revolution. With death lodged in my throat, I have no choice but to soon proceed to the execution ground and wait for the bullet. Laughing at the prospect of death, I’m prepared to cross the bridge that leads to the underworld.

Aijun’s wife has other interpretations of erotic acts:

She exclaimed, “If you want to conceive a child, you should go ahead and do so. But why are you feeling me up? When you touched my head and my face, I could tolerate it, but then you began rubbing your hands all over my lower body. What are you, a soldier or a hooligan?!”

and he follows her command, leading to their second child. And so begin his encounters, beyond revolutionary acts, with Hongmei:

I was overcome by that red nail polish and that intoxicating scent and was so ecstatic that I felt I might pass out. My lips were trembling and my teeth were chattering. I began madly kissing her feet, proceeding from her pinky to her big toe and from her toes up to the top of her feet.

The description of how Aijun sees and feels Homgmei, het feet, her pert breasts, her thighs, are extensive, erotic, revolutionary.

She said, “You can stand here and stare at me nonstop for three days and three nights. If we had enough to eat, then we wouldn’t even need to leave this tomb for the rest of our lives. I, Xia Hongmei, will give every hair on my body—from my head to my toes—to a revolutionary, and that revolutionary is you, Gao Aijun!”

But no adultery, in a way: I said, “That’s good, then. Guizhi is dead, and Qingdong is ill.” As I said this, I finished removing my clothes. tslking about their wife and husband. And caught in flagranti by his father in law, he says, “Cheng Tianqing, if you didn’t see anything, we’ll let you live. If, however, you saw something and were to say anything about it, you would become an irredeemable counterrevolutionary, and I’m afraid that the revolution would not permit you to continue living on this earth.”

One has to love Aijun.  One has to love Hongmei.  They are really loving characters, sacrificing theirselves for the revolution – or for love, whatever.  And they deal with the revolution with, I’d say, eyes wide shut.  Like two children playing a game, albeit a deadly one.   And are successful in it, until…

Their meetings remain difficult to orchestrate. And so, to celebrate their love, Aijun digs a 550 meter long tunnel between their houses, with a “nuptial chamber” in the middle.  It takes a few years to complete, but it is done.  This is the kind of fantastic realism that this book survives upon; and it is indeed so realistic, that one keeps siding with the heroes, or are they villains, of the story.

The book is not satire, but uses carefully chosen imaging to let the reader embrace the ridicule; or let it be, if one so chooses.  

I strongly advise you to read the book, if you feel like a bumpy trip with Mao, Marx, Engels, and two lovebirds.