What do you think?
Rate this book
In the Pond
In the Pond is a 2000 novel by Ha Jin, who has also written Under the Red Flag, Ocean of Winds, and Waiting. He has been praised for his works relating to Chinese life and culture. The novel centers around the character Shao Bin, a Chinese man working at fertilizer plant, and his epic struggle to obtain a decent apartment for his young family. Continually passed over by the plant's corrupt leaders, Bin decides to fight back against his communist superiors. Conflict espouses when Bin's struggle is met with counterattacks and opposition he could never have imagined.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
31 people are currently reading
982 people want to read
About the author
Ha Jin
60 books836 followersHa Jin is the pen name of Jin Xuefei, a novelist, poet, short story writer, and Professor of English at Boston University.Ha Jin writes in English about China, a political decision post-Tiananmen Square.
Ha Jin grew up in mainland China and served in the People’s Liberation Army in his teens for five years. After leaving the army, he worked for three years at a railroad company in a remote northeastern city, Jiamusi, and then went to college in Harbin, majoring in English. He has published in English ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. Ha Jin’s novel The Woman Back from Moscow was published by Other Press in 2023.
Ha Jin grew up in mainland China and served in the People’s Liberation Army in his teens for five years. After leaving the army, he worked for three years at a railroad company in a remote northeastern city, Jiamusi, and then went to college in Harbin, majoring in English. He has published in English ten novels, four story collections, four volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and a biography of Li Bai. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ha Jin is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and he has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. Ha Jin’s novel The Woman Back from Moscow was published by Other Press in 2023.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 197 reviews
December 1, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed this Chinese comedy, recommended to me by my friend, Weiqing, and, if I’m honest, read initially out of politeness. I can’t thank her enough though as I enjoyed it on several different levels.
Bin is a poorly educated, maintenance worker in a fertiliser plant. He isn’t particularly liked - his nickname is Man Hater - and he has a persecution complex. He, his wife and baby, live in one room and he is passed over yet again for better accommodation. He decides to take his revenge on his bosses. As a talented artist and calligrapher, he creates a satirical cartoon that is published and causes great embarrassment to his superiors. His actions backfire on Bin though and his life starts to spiral out of control.
While this is a comedy, it also seriously critiques the corruption and power struggles inherent in the Chinese political system and the inability of the majority to move beyond their allocated position in society. It is full of Chinese aphorisms which sound trite on first reading but which are always appropriate and often insightful. I learned a lot about modern Chinese society and felt both pity for and frustration with Bin as he blunderbusses his way through the system.
An entertaining 5 star read. Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. Thank you, Weiqing!
PS Ha Jin writes in English, a decision he made post-Tiananmen Square.
Bin is a poorly educated, maintenance worker in a fertiliser plant. He isn’t particularly liked - his nickname is Man Hater - and he has a persecution complex. He, his wife and baby, live in one room and he is passed over yet again for better accommodation. He decides to take his revenge on his bosses. As a talented artist and calligrapher, he creates a satirical cartoon that is published and causes great embarrassment to his superiors. His actions backfire on Bin though and his life starts to spiral out of control.
While this is a comedy, it also seriously critiques the corruption and power struggles inherent in the Chinese political system and the inability of the majority to move beyond their allocated position in society. It is full of Chinese aphorisms which sound trite on first reading but which are always appropriate and often insightful. I learned a lot about modern Chinese society and felt both pity for and frustration with Bin as he blunderbusses his way through the system.
An entertaining 5 star read. Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. Thank you, Weiqing!
PS Ha Jin writes in English, a decision he made post-Tiananmen Square.
July 17, 2016
An enjoyable, light-hearted read with depth, chinese wisdom and poetry, an insight into life in modern China and mouth-watering descriptions of Chinese meals on the side! The main character, Shao Bin, is a worker in a chinese fertilizer factory. Bin is a talented calligrapher and artist with a love of chinese poetry and culture. He is continually overlooked by the factory's corrupt leaders and unfairly denied adequate housing for his family. Bin decides to use his talents to do something about it, taking the advice of the writer Wang Chong:
How can writing be merely playing with ink and toying with brush? It must record people'sdeedsand bequeath their names to prosperity. The virtuous hope to have their deeds remembered and therefore exert themselves to do more good; the wicked fear having their doings recorded and therefore make efforts to restrain themselves.
The book follows the ups and downs of Bin's campaign and the response of the small time leaders of the plant who continually underestimate him and try to block his way at every step.
How can writing be merely playing with ink and toying with brush? It must record people'sdeedsand bequeath their names to prosperity. The virtuous hope to have their deeds remembered and therefore exert themselves to do more good; the wicked fear having their doings recorded and therefore make efforts to restrain themselves.
The book follows the ups and downs of Bin's campaign and the response of the small time leaders of the plant who continually underestimate him and try to block his way at every step.
November 26, 2008
I finished reading In the Pond, by Ha Jin, on Wednesday night. This was my introduction to his writing, although I’ve bought several of his books for Diane, including Waiting. She really loved that book. I fell in love with the simple prose and fantastic story of In the Pond. It’s part Sisyphus and part car crash. You watch the main character struggle against the system, manifested at increasingly higher hierarchical levels in himself, his family, his work unit, his factory, his town, his province, and his country, China. You see the external battle he’s fighting, but you also see how he sometimes is his own worst enemy. But, he’s struggling to be a true and full person, and the foibles he lands in may be, in part, self-generated, but they’re also realistic situations that we often find ourselves in on a daily basis. Definitely read this book!
June 5, 2018
Macam ada persamaan gaya, stail dengan Change - Mo Yan. Agaknya novel China melawan komunis memang sebegini majoritinya.
mengisahkan seorang pekerja biasa yang memiliki bakat besar dalam seni tapi ditindas. sebuah cerita yang sangat sinis, ayat2 bersahaja dan sedikit lucu. Ha Jin berjaya merakamkan perubahan sifat manusia berlandaskan situasi dan tawaran semasa demi kehidupan yang lebih baik. Menarik!
mengisahkan seorang pekerja biasa yang memiliki bakat besar dalam seni tapi ditindas. sebuah cerita yang sangat sinis, ayat2 bersahaja dan sedikit lucu. Ha Jin berjaya merakamkan perubahan sifat manusia berlandaskan situasi dan tawaran semasa demi kehidupan yang lebih baik. Menarik!
July 4, 2017
Not a formal review here, but this is a great read for anybody from Western culture who enjoys world-perspective stories. I finished this book several days ago and it's still with me. There's something about how Ha Jin writes that instills a depth to his characters that make us really care about them. Add to that a setting that is a world unfamiliar to me, and I am left with a true appreciation for this book. Definitely not the last I will read of Ha Jin!
January 1, 2018
A strange, somewhat maddening little novel. Entertaining, but its ultimate meaning eludes me.
January 1, 2019
The book is a short satirical attack on how a crime (on this book's case - a corruption) case gets called out, but suppressed with a reward system.
Shao Bin, an amateur calligrapher, sees a folly within his plant and decided to act on it creatively by drawing an Editorial comic to criticize them. This event got escalated only for me to see that it gets placated with a reward he never expected to receive first-hand.
The book is a cautionary tale of sorts. We tend to criticize the institution, and when the ripples became too noisy, they pacify it with the personal needs/desires we never knew we can achieve. This book made me realize to be more critical, or be more #woke; and never have that chance to be deafen by the little comforts that I am experiencing today.
Wow, what a way to start 2019! Happy reading!
Shao Bin, an amateur calligrapher, sees a folly within his plant and decided to act on it creatively by drawing an Editorial comic to criticize them. This event got escalated only for me to see that it gets placated with a reward he never expected to receive first-hand.
The book is a cautionary tale of sorts. We tend to criticize the institution, and when the ripples became too noisy, they pacify it with the personal needs/desires we never knew we can achieve. This book made me realize to be more critical, or be more #woke; and never have that chance to be deafen by the little comforts that I am experiencing today.
Wow, what a way to start 2019! Happy reading!
November 22, 2016
This was a good read. It some ways it reminded me of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in the stark way life is presented. The ending of In the Pond was a bit of a surprise though, given the setting.
January 22, 2025
Redolent of Zoshchenko’s brilliant soviet satires, Ha Jin has captured the essence of Chinese bureaucratic madness in a relatively simple story of a communist worker/calligrapher at war with his superiors. I really loved this book. It provides the reader with a poignant, universal, and tremendously funny portrait of politics, power, greed, competition, corruption, and selfishness. But it also says something very specific about the way modern (post Mao) China is sometimes torn between communist and traditional Chinese (Buddhist, folkloric, poetic, Confucian) values. Additionally, it says something very powerful about the life of an artist who receives little tangible encouragement to pursue his passion. I’m new to Ha Jin but I’m already tremendously impressed. This was a brilliant first novel and his latest novel is very suddenly, but equally brilliant. His nonfiction biography of Li Bai is equally miraculous.
Read
June 4, 2011This book was not greatly “likeable” due to a writing style which was quite simple and due to unsympathetic characters. While protagonist Shao Bin does seem to be the victim of some unfair acts, his quest for justice is primarily self-centered; he feels slighted and wants to be vindicated. It is difficult to be drawn to a protagonist who is so ego-centric and not concerned about others or a cause greater than himself.
The ending also added to a sense of “let-down.” Despite Shao Bin’s unrelenting campaign to get a better apartment which entailed a number of successive confrontations with authorities in the party structure, he ultimately accepted another position which did not include a better apartment and yet he considered it a victory. From this, we concluded that a better apartment, which was so necessary to his wife and young child’s happiness, was not the primary motivation for his campaign. Rather, his anger was fueled by his need for recognition and acknowledgement of his gifts as an artist. Because his final job offer recognized his artistry, his primary needs were met.
The writing style was quite simple which you” had to be in the mood for or not. “ There wasn’t much extra to it. This could be because Ha Jin (according to a quick Internet search on the author) only learned to write English about 10-11 years ago – fewer when he wrote In the Pond. Moreover, writing was not Ha Jin’s original chosen profession. According to the interview, he had thought he might have been a critic or a translator if he had stayed in China. Instead, Ha Jin made the decision to stay on in the U.S. after attending university in the U.S. due to the incident at Tiananmen Square. In the U.S., he hoped to support himself by teaching but was unable to so he turned to writing to pay the bills.
Other comments:
• The environment Shao Bin experiences sounds very similar to happenings within an American government bureaucracy with careers advanced or limited due to personal influence rather than merit or achievement. It is interesting to note that the experiences within a bureaucracy are remarkably similar despite great cultural differences, however Americans would generally not fear for their lives when confronting authorities in the bureaucracy in the U.S. whereas (fictional character) Shao Bin was not certain if he would return alive from one of his confrontations with an authority in the Communist Party.
• The book gives an interesting insight into the Communist party from a real “insider.” It does a deft job of representing the appeal of communism when Shao Bin protests that the factory where he works is not owned by its “executives” but held in trust for all its workers. The novel also deftly shows how such an idealistic system is limited by the foibles within human nature.
• Similar to The Road to Wellville, the novel seems to have a strong male narrator. Like Wellville, In the Pond looked at its characters unsparingly, revealing the weaknesses of human character and offering its protagonists for our mockery.
The ending also added to a sense of “let-down.” Despite Shao Bin’s unrelenting campaign to get a better apartment which entailed a number of successive confrontations with authorities in the party structure, he ultimately accepted another position which did not include a better apartment and yet he considered it a victory. From this, we concluded that a better apartment, which was so necessary to his wife and young child’s happiness, was not the primary motivation for his campaign. Rather, his anger was fueled by his need for recognition and acknowledgement of his gifts as an artist. Because his final job offer recognized his artistry, his primary needs were met.
The writing style was quite simple which you” had to be in the mood for or not. “ There wasn’t much extra to it. This could be because Ha Jin (according to a quick Internet search on the author) only learned to write English about 10-11 years ago – fewer when he wrote In the Pond. Moreover, writing was not Ha Jin’s original chosen profession. According to the interview, he had thought he might have been a critic or a translator if he had stayed in China. Instead, Ha Jin made the decision to stay on in the U.S. after attending university in the U.S. due to the incident at Tiananmen Square. In the U.S., he hoped to support himself by teaching but was unable to so he turned to writing to pay the bills.
Other comments:
• The environment Shao Bin experiences sounds very similar to happenings within an American government bureaucracy with careers advanced or limited due to personal influence rather than merit or achievement. It is interesting to note that the experiences within a bureaucracy are remarkably similar despite great cultural differences, however Americans would generally not fear for their lives when confronting authorities in the bureaucracy in the U.S. whereas (fictional character) Shao Bin was not certain if he would return alive from one of his confrontations with an authority in the Communist Party.
• The book gives an interesting insight into the Communist party from a real “insider.” It does a deft job of representing the appeal of communism when Shao Bin protests that the factory where he works is not owned by its “executives” but held in trust for all its workers. The novel also deftly shows how such an idealistic system is limited by the foibles within human nature.
• Similar to The Road to Wellville, the novel seems to have a strong male narrator. Like Wellville, In the Pond looked at its characters unsparingly, revealing the weaknesses of human character and offering its protagonists for our mockery.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 28, 2022
overall, only reason for reading the book is because I’m Chinese (and this book was assigned to me)
March 15, 2016
Ha Jin's first novel, In The Pond, tells the story of Shao Bin - a worker at a factory in a small Chinese town whose artistic talents go unappreciated by his superiors. What starts as trouble over housing allocations in the centrally-planned economy soon escalates into an exposé of corruption and allegations of persecution as Shao Bin's troubles continue to increase.
The concept of satire is at the heart of this novel both in its narrative and theme. Shao Bin is an artist and satirist foremost and Ha Jin uses satire and comedy to tell a fable of power and morality. A comedy of political pettiness, Ha Jin captures perfectly the small-minded nature of bureaucracy amidst the turbulent setting of China in the 1970s.
Yet despite all his struggles to improve his standing at the plant where he works and to expose corruption therein, he is easily placated by a new job offer that removes his antagonistic stance from the plant; he chooses to remain a big fish "in the [small] pond" where his talents can be displayed, rather than working to change himself and his family's life (as seen during the climax of the novel). Though this conclusion feels somewhat anticlimactic, since one would hope Shao Bin would achieve all that he set out to do, it perfectly encapsulates the mentality of this era in China and serves as a reminder of the allure of even a little bit of power.
Nevertheless, this short novel is an excellent introduction to Ha Jin's works and reveals (as Waiting and War Trash also do) a fascinating and little-known aspect of contemporary Chinese social history.
The concept of satire is at the heart of this novel both in its narrative and theme. Shao Bin is an artist and satirist foremost and Ha Jin uses satire and comedy to tell a fable of power and morality. A comedy of political pettiness, Ha Jin captures perfectly the small-minded nature of bureaucracy amidst the turbulent setting of China in the 1970s.
Yet despite all his struggles to improve his standing at the plant where he works and to expose corruption therein, he is easily placated by a new job offer that removes his antagonistic stance from the plant; he chooses to remain a big fish "in the [small] pond" where his talents can be displayed, rather than working to change himself and his family's life (as seen during the climax of the novel). Though this conclusion feels somewhat anticlimactic, since one would hope Shao Bin would achieve all that he set out to do, it perfectly encapsulates the mentality of this era in China and serves as a reminder of the allure of even a little bit of power.
Nevertheless, this short novel is an excellent introduction to Ha Jin's works and reveals (as Waiting and War Trash also do) a fascinating and little-known aspect of contemporary Chinese social history.
May 12, 2017
Oooh, quick read. I am left thinking about A Confederacy of Dunces. I have the same type of concerns for our hero, but not to the same degree.
I loved the writing, though. I have always felt hopelessly outside of Chinese literature. But this didn't even feel welcoming - I was just suddenly AMONG. The writing splendidly muddled thought and events, in the sense that events occurred, and then the author described how any observer would react to them. Notably, this is not how any particular character reacted to the events. The author is neither pedantic nor patient with the reader - he makes it clear that WE, TOO need to feel this way about what's happening. I think that's what brought me in - I knew how to respond as a native to foreign cultural stimuli. And I was glad to be there.
Oh, and communism is stupid. Holy cow, so stupid. At least Chairman Mao and I agree on one thing: Human beings are the most precious resource in the world.
I loved the writing, though. I have always felt hopelessly outside of Chinese literature. But this didn't even feel welcoming - I was just suddenly AMONG. The writing splendidly muddled thought and events, in the sense that events occurred, and then the author described how any observer would react to them. Notably, this is not how any particular character reacted to the events. The author is neither pedantic nor patient with the reader - he makes it clear that WE, TOO need to feel this way about what's happening. I think that's what brought me in - I knew how to respond as a native to foreign cultural stimuli. And I was glad to be there.
Oh, and communism is stupid. Holy cow, so stupid. At least Chairman Mao and I agree on one thing: Human beings are the most precious resource in the world.
September 12, 2012
I really enjoyed the style of Ha Jin's writing. The plot was engaging and the characters were compelling and I loved it right up until the last ten pages or so.
On the surface it seemed like a story about a talented artist who struggles onward in his fight against The Man and eventually succeeds. However, while his persistence is admirable, the ending seemed ambiguous to me. I'm not sure what I thought about it; I felt like in the end Shao Bin lost his way and ended up getting trapped in a small pond when he could have been great. When I reconsidered the title it only added to me feeling that his eventual success was a shadow of the dreams he had in the beginning of the novel.
That being said, it's definitely worth a read.
On the surface it seemed like a story about a talented artist who struggles onward in his fight against The Man and eventually succeeds. However, while his persistence is admirable, the ending seemed ambiguous to me. I'm not sure what I thought about it; I felt like in the end Shao Bin lost his way and ended up getting trapped in a small pond when he could have been great. When I reconsidered the title it only added to me feeling that his eventual success was a shadow of the dreams he had in the beginning of the novel.
That being said, it's definitely worth a read.
October 30, 2014
This is a fiction book that tells the story of an amateur calligrapher who works at a factory in the 1970s. He gets in an ever-escalating battle with the Communist Party members in charge of the plant over them passing him over for new housing. He repeatedly uses his calligraphy as a weapon, choosing different styles for different situations in order to have the most effect. In some cases the book was hard to read, not because the writing was bad, but because I felt so bad for the protagonist and his constant struggle was painful to witness. At one point I almost cried for his bad fortune. But it's a good book that can touch you emotionally. I found it to be a very quick read, but I'm sure that there's more to discover on a deeper reading of it.
November 13, 2009
1) how else would we know what life in china is like?
2) makes you think about what is worth fighting and what is worth fighting for. then makes you rethink it. recommended for idealistic pragmatists or pragmatic idealists.also recommended for idealistic idealists and pragmatic pragmatists.
3) the language is at pared down but not sparse. even if you don't want to think about how to live with or get around convictions, worth reading for the writing itself. but if you don't notice the writing in writing, the plot can carry this book, too.
2) makes you think about what is worth fighting and what is worth fighting for. then makes you rethink it. recommended for idealistic pragmatists or pragmatic idealists.also recommended for idealistic idealists and pragmatic pragmatists.
3) the language is at pared down but not sparse. even if you don't want to think about how to live with or get around convictions, worth reading for the writing itself. but if you don't notice the writing in writing, the plot can carry this book, too.
Read
May 12, 2014What I saw in the short stories of The Bridegroom - the absurdity, the humor, the excavation of certain political realities - is all here in In the Pond, but more so. The book is essentially one long political skirmish between a calligrapher and his factory bosses. You'd like to think that what Jin presents here is particular to the Chinese reality, but I don't think it is. Most of what we read seems to be fairly universal: people in power have the resources to abuse that power and to suppress (or placate) those who want to shed light on that abuse.
January 24, 2023
The “pond” of this novel is a rural commune in 1970s China, still living in Maoist socialism. We see one “fish” (the protagonist, Shao Bin) who is too individualistic and rebellious for his supervisors and resents their corruption. At first we are only shown his arrogant and disagreeable personality, but as the story unfolds we see that he is a skilled artisan frustrated by a dead-end manufacturing job, with no prospect for using his self-taught skills and ashamed of his unsatisfactory living conditions. By the end, I admired his persistence and rooted for his hard work to be recognized.
January 19, 2013
Solid novel! Jin's writing here evokes the best things about Chekhov and Kafka - a sense of everyday people, their humanity, its pettiness and brilliance. The story revolves around Bin Shao, a worker in a commune who seeks to rise above his station in life. A common story, but the insight into communist China is illuminating. China as a setting is handled with such subtlety it never takes over the story. Reading it while applying to PhD programs makes Bin's struggle all the more relatable.
December 6, 2011
Ha Jin has the ability to just lock you into the angst that is going on in his books. I don't know what it is about his writing that slowly traps the reader like slipping into quicksand, but he can do that. This is a short book and I am not sure if there is a lesson or moral to it but until the end with the escape from his "situation" I too felt the anxiety of our Bin
February 13, 2013
Like Ha Jin's other masterpiece "Waiting", "In the Pond" describes in minute but never boring detail the immense efforts ordinary Chinese citizens must make to navigate the arcane and rigid bureaucracy of their country, avoid falling foul of the people in power, and snatch minuscule amounts of material comfort and fleeting moments of relative freedom. Haunting.
June 25, 2020
A story about a person's struggle against individuals who bully with their powers. The narrative is presented as a comedy of some sort, which I think slightly diminishes the emotional stake in the story, but maybe I feel that way because I'm just in a dramatic mood right now. Shao Bin is an underdog character to root for, even when his character flaws (pride and tactlessness) are infuriating.
September 18, 2022
Bence etkileyici bir kitap; Ha jin usta kalemini iyi konuşturmuş. Detaylı yorum gireceğim!
July 7, 2025
it’s like if you give a mouse a cookie, but a fucked up morally-justified classist labor movement version. what a delightful little shit show
August 25, 2024
Enjoyed the humor. Cheering for Shao Bin the whole time.
August 18, 2010
Finally, a chance to read - a chance read - of this fine author I had a chance to hear here in Buffalo on the Big Stage. There was an astonishing turnout then, as though this one writers' series is all there is that might, reliably, turn out everyone of a certain intellectual rank. 'What if everyone were to have read the same book?' And "history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." Let's all read something different, how about? And compare notes.
Ha Jin's is clearly a superior intellect, and his reasons for writing in his non-native English were, well, brilliant to the point of (my) wanting to cheer out loud. I have a vague memory that some brave souls might have done just that. The perpetual alien these well-credentialed scholars wanted to style themselves, I suppose.
But this English-language book is not written in English exactly. It's written in Chinese and then by translation - prior to the page I guess - rendered into English. I love looking up those unfamiliar words for familiar things which must have gotten there onto this page by having themselves been looked up by someone who can't possibly have mastered quite enough of English contexts.
Words like "gluteal fold" where you'd have to reach for a nice juicy metaphor in English, and know that there is no particular there there, below the it that is it. Then there's this pivotal passage:
"Not until now did he realize that he had been putting on a show. Somehow he had lost himself altogether in the performance and had unconsciously entered into the realm of self-oblivion -- a complete union with a character or an object, which he realized was the ideal state of artistic achievement, dwelled upon by many ancient masters throughout the history of Chinese arts." (pp. 153 in the paperback)
Of course, this is pure nonsense. Chinese artists of the true and sanctioned variety could only strive for mastery of true readings of what is, in fact, in front of them. Actors, imitators, as in the West, are lowlier manifestations of the artistic bent. Unschooled, as is our protagonist here, Shao Bin, they strive for what they cannot know. Putting on a show would be rather, well, picaresque for actual Chinese scholars. Fiction is a Western fetish. Artistic creation is meant to better nature. Where?
We don't know where our author stands, between two worlds. Is his mimetic art or is it the calligraphic poesis of brushstrokes to open the world to our reading. Is nature bettered in the mind or in reality (ask all the latest films and novels and, um, well, look around you)? Ha Jin may be making fun.
He stands, Ha Jin, at an historic crossroads. He writes about ordinary Chinese striving for justice - for a narrative of justice - in a world of petty privilege exercised without constraint beyond what the literate might dare to make in a complaint out loud. There are no legal codes.
Ha Jin delineates an illiterate nightmare in the place of a once great civilization. He might as well be describing U.S. I look forward to his further development, happily already accomplished for my belated reading. Anyhow, this is a nice start.
Ha Jin's is clearly a superior intellect, and his reasons for writing in his non-native English were, well, brilliant to the point of (my) wanting to cheer out loud. I have a vague memory that some brave souls might have done just that. The perpetual alien these well-credentialed scholars wanted to style themselves, I suppose.
But this English-language book is not written in English exactly. It's written in Chinese and then by translation - prior to the page I guess - rendered into English. I love looking up those unfamiliar words for familiar things which must have gotten there onto this page by having themselves been looked up by someone who can't possibly have mastered quite enough of English contexts.
Words like "gluteal fold" where you'd have to reach for a nice juicy metaphor in English, and know that there is no particular there there, below the it that is it. Then there's this pivotal passage:
"Not until now did he realize that he had been putting on a show. Somehow he had lost himself altogether in the performance and had unconsciously entered into the realm of self-oblivion -- a complete union with a character or an object, which he realized was the ideal state of artistic achievement, dwelled upon by many ancient masters throughout the history of Chinese arts." (pp. 153 in the paperback)
Of course, this is pure nonsense. Chinese artists of the true and sanctioned variety could only strive for mastery of true readings of what is, in fact, in front of them. Actors, imitators, as in the West, are lowlier manifestations of the artistic bent. Unschooled, as is our protagonist here, Shao Bin, they strive for what they cannot know. Putting on a show would be rather, well, picaresque for actual Chinese scholars. Fiction is a Western fetish. Artistic creation is meant to better nature. Where?
We don't know where our author stands, between two worlds. Is his mimetic art or is it the calligraphic poesis of brushstrokes to open the world to our reading. Is nature bettered in the mind or in reality (ask all the latest films and novels and, um, well, look around you)? Ha Jin may be making fun.
He stands, Ha Jin, at an historic crossroads. He writes about ordinary Chinese striving for justice - for a narrative of justice - in a world of petty privilege exercised without constraint beyond what the literate might dare to make in a complaint out loud. There are no legal codes.
Ha Jin delineates an illiterate nightmare in the place of a once great civilization. He might as well be describing U.S. I look forward to his further development, happily already accomplished for my belated reading. Anyhow, this is a nice start.
December 19, 2018
Sparely written story of a young artist who works at a soulless job in a factory in China. When his family does not receive the dearly hoped-for apartment in local housing, he uses his artistic talents and sense of outrage to protest with political cartoons and posters. His hapless, clueless superiors instigate an imbalanced battle of wills.
December 18, 2018
Turn out splendid, though it is a short novel.
February 14, 2017
The Pond is the Commune, and Shao Bin is in the pond. This story about communism and fascism, is designed to shed light on the injustices and corruption present in China (as they would be anywhere). Shao Bin is a young man with a wife and young daughter, working at a fertilizer plant. This story seemed along the lines of Animal Farm, but from a Chinese perspective.
This novel is chalk full of imagery as metaphor. Bin often finds himself thinking things like, "You shouldn't play the lute to a water buffalo, he said to himself. Without doubt Song was ignorant of the fine arts, unable to appreciate real work." He seems to feel he has more artistic talent and appreciation than everyone around him.
Bin writes/draws political cartoons to shed light on the faults of his supervisors. However, he often finds that political corruption runs so deep among the higher ups in the commune, that his supervisors give rewards and take punishments seemingly on a whim. In fact, the response from his superiors with regards to his attempts to uncover their injustices was,"An ant can't shake a tree. If a mantis tries to stop a tractor, it will only get itself crushed. Please have second thoughts before you try again."
And, of course, this is the story of rage. This is the story of how angry one man can become when it feels like he is not treated equal to his peers when the basis for all of their existence and persistence seems to be based on achieving equality through communism. Ha Jin expresses his anger very explicitly at times, saying things like, "I screw your ancestors! I screw them pair by pair!" He waffles back and forth between threats, subversive publicized messages, and sucking up to the officials, yet it seems nothing works, so he often gets angry.
This novel is chalk full of imagery as metaphor. Bin often finds himself thinking things like, "You shouldn't play the lute to a water buffalo, he said to himself. Without doubt Song was ignorant of the fine arts, unable to appreciate real work." He seems to feel he has more artistic talent and appreciation than everyone around him.
Bin writes/draws political cartoons to shed light on the faults of his supervisors. However, he often finds that political corruption runs so deep among the higher ups in the commune, that his supervisors give rewards and take punishments seemingly on a whim. In fact, the response from his superiors with regards to his attempts to uncover their injustices was,"An ant can't shake a tree. If a mantis tries to stop a tractor, it will only get itself crushed. Please have second thoughts before you try again."
And, of course, this is the story of rage. This is the story of how angry one man can become when it feels like he is not treated equal to his peers when the basis for all of their existence and persistence seems to be based on achieving equality through communism. Ha Jin expresses his anger very explicitly at times, saying things like, "I screw your ancestors! I screw them pair by pair!" He waffles back and forth between threats, subversive publicized messages, and sucking up to the officials, yet it seems nothing works, so he often gets angry.
December 1, 2013
Someone once said that satire was both the thing that defined Modernist Chinese literature, but also the element that has kept Chinese literature from progressing. In an almost grotesque way, this satire-forever paints an unsettling image of Chinese literature as only able to laugh, ceaselessly, at itself, at its own history, and, as always, at the bureaucracy of its own governments and politics.
Here, Ha Jin employs satire in an almost lazy fashion. The book is journey through a series of metaphorical 'ponds' where the main character, a trodden down labourer who aspires to become an intellectual, keeps trying to jump away from, into the 'larger pond' but each new situation is a farce of the previous; the continuous oppression and passing of power between the hero and the villains, though an important theme, becomes tiring. The escalating price of each situation is an interesting look at what initially started out as a domestic problem - of Shao Bin not getting the apartment he wants - into a macrocosmically social, artistic one.
However the comedy wears thin and is painted simplistically on every level. The writing does flow, yes, and the narrative is not particularly hard to read and a story is told, but at no points did I feel as if this book every tried to reach above the peg it placed itself in. At the end of the day what is disappointing is the book's simplicity. By no means a bad novel at all - and I am sure in Ha Jin's prowess as a writer to be showcased in other works; this being is first novel - but at the end of the page: a small fish for a small pond.
Here, Ha Jin employs satire in an almost lazy fashion. The book is journey through a series of metaphorical 'ponds' where the main character, a trodden down labourer who aspires to become an intellectual, keeps trying to jump away from, into the 'larger pond' but each new situation is a farce of the previous; the continuous oppression and passing of power between the hero and the villains, though an important theme, becomes tiring. The escalating price of each situation is an interesting look at what initially started out as a domestic problem - of Shao Bin not getting the apartment he wants - into a macrocosmically social, artistic one.
However the comedy wears thin and is painted simplistically on every level. The writing does flow, yes, and the narrative is not particularly hard to read and a story is told, but at no points did I feel as if this book every tried to reach above the peg it placed itself in. At the end of the day what is disappointing is the book's simplicity. By no means a bad novel at all - and I am sure in Ha Jin's prowess as a writer to be showcased in other works; this being is first novel - but at the end of the page: a small fish for a small pond.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 197 reviews