The novel is certainly worth reading, and can as a whole fairly be described as a (minor) epic - but hardly on the scale of, say, Russian historical novels such as War and Peace or, more recently, Life and Fate.WHEN THE NOBEL PRIZE in Literature is awarded, commentators often wonder if it was given to recognize the quality of the author's writing or for other reasons: jockeying within the committee, a desire to acknowledge a particular genre or style’s importance, the wish to make a political statement - or all of the above. Perhaps it reflects in part the 'wuxia' tradition of violence in some Chinese literature and films. At times this delight in violence seems to be excessive and somewhat to weaken the power of the narrative as a whole. Ma also seems to take a sadistic pleasure in describing extreme physical violence and the mass killing and mutilation involved in the various fights and battles. But the very occasional satirical episodes of almost slapstick humour sit rather oddly with what is essentially a tragic story of unfulfilled lives and a doomed love story. Mo's writing is extremely direct but can at times be almost poetic in its portrayal of nature and the changing seasons in the sorghum fields which can serve as a metaphor for the life cycles of generations of the local peasants. All in all, a vivid picture of a chaotic disrupted peasant society in which life, despite occasional periods of calm and temporary happiness, is generally uncertain, hard and often violently short. While not holding back on the merciless cruelty of the Japanese occupying forces, even more striking is Mo's depiction of the self-interested local Chinese militias under their minor warlords, viciously fighting one another as much as against the invaders. Red Sorghum is a brutal but compelling narrative of life in a part of rural China during the two decades up to the early 1940s.
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