GOLDSEA | ASIAN BOOKVIEW | FICTION
Garlic Balladsby Mo Yan; translated by Howard Goldblatt
Viking Books
New York, 1995, 290 pp, $23.95
Love amidst the pain and hardships of Chinese peasant life.
EXCERPT
ao Yang!"
The noonday sun beat down fiercely; dusty air carried the stink of rotting garlic after a prolonged dry spell. A flock of indigo crows flew wearily across the sky, casting a shadowy wedge. There had been no time to braid the garlic, which lay in heaps, reeking as it baked in the sun. Gao Yang, whose eyebrows sloped downward at the ends, was squatting alongside a table, holding a bowl of garlic broth and fighting back the waves of nausea rising from his stomach. The urgent shout had come in through his unlatched gate as he was about to take a sip of the broth. He recognized the voice as belonging to the village boss, Gao Jinjiao. Hastily laying down his bowl, he shouted a reply and walked to the door. "Is that you, Uncle Jinjiao? Come on in."
This time the voice was gentler. "Gao Yang, come out here for a minute. I have to talk to you about something."
Knowing the consequences of slighting the village boss, Gao Yang turned to his blind eye-year-old daughter, who sat frozen at the table like a dark statue, her black, beautiful, sightless eyes opened wide. "Don't touch anything, Xinghua, or you might scald yourself."
Baked earth burned the soles of his feet; the intense heat made his eyes water. With the sun beating down on his bare back, he scraped caked-on dirt from his chest. He heard the cry of his newborn baby on the kang, a brick platform that served as the family's bed, and thought he heard his wife mumble something. Finally, he had a son. It was a comforting thought. The fragrance of new millet drifted up on a southwestern breeze, reminding him that harvest was approaching. Suddenly his heart sank, and a chill worked its way up his spine. He wanted desperately to stop walking, but his legs kept propelling him forward, as the pungent odor of garlic stalks and bulbs made his eyes water. He raised his bare arm to wipe them, confident that he wasn't crying.
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