Waves: Stories by Bei Dao

by Bei Dao, Bonnie S. McDougall (Translator), Susette Ternent Cooke (Translator)

In  Waves , Bei Dao―China’s foremost modern poet―turns to fiction, recording the painful years of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. Avoiding polemics, his attention is on individuals―intellectuals and factory workers, drifters and thieves―swept up in the turbulent political tides of contemporary China. Bei Dao himself has been a victim of the censors, and he wrote the title novella clandestinely in a makeshift darkroom while ostensibly developing photographs. The author now lives in exile.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Poetry, China, Literature, Chinese Literature

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Name in Chinese: 北岛

Bei Dao ("Northern Island") is another name for Zhifu Island.
Bei Dao literally "Northern Island", born August 2, 1949) is the pen name of Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai. He was born in Beijing. He chose the pen name because he came from the north and because of his preference for solitude. Bei Dao is the most notable representative of the Misty Poets, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution.

As a teenager, Bei Dao was a member of the Red Guards, the enthusiastic followers of Mao Zedong who enforced the dictates of the Cultural Revolution, often through violent means. He had misgivings about the Revolution and was "re-educated" as a construction worker, from 1969 to 1980.[5] Bei Dao and Mang Ke founded the magazine Jintian[6] (Today), the central publication of the Misty Poets, which was published from 1978 until 1980, when it was banned. The work of the Misty Poets and Bei Dao in particular were an inspiration to pro-democracy movements in China. Most notable was his poem "Huida" ("The Answer") which was written during the 1976 Tiananmen demonstrations in which he participated. The poem was taken up as a defiant anthem of the pro-democracy movement and appeared on posters during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. During the 1989 protests and subsequent shootings, Bei Dao was at a literary conference in Berlin and was not allowed to return to China until 2006. (Three other leading Misty Poets — Gu Cheng, Duo Duo, and Yang Lian — were also exiled.) His then wife, Shao Fei, and their daughter were not allowed to leave China to join him for another six years.

Since 1987, Bei Dao has lived and taught in England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and the United States. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages, including five poetry volumes in English[7] along with the story collection Waves (1990) and the essay collections Blue House (2000) and Midnight's Gate (2005). Bei Dao continued his work in exile. His work has been included in anthologies such as The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry Since the Cultural Revolution (1990)[8] and Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese poetry.[9]

Bei Dao has won numerous awards, including the Tucholsky Prize from Swedish PEN, International Poetry Argana Award from the House of Poetry in Morocco and the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Jintian was resurrected in Stockholm in 1990 as a forum for expatriate Chinese writers. He has taught and lectured at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Beloit College, Wisconsin, and is Professor of Humanities in the Center for East Asian Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews

[Mengsen Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note: I read the Chinese version of this book. ) It's more appropriate to treat this book as a poem rather than a story. The waves of thoughts, questions, conflicts, motives and uncertainty are intertwined and embedded in the rhythm of his sentences, sections and chapters. What to appreciate is this multifaceted rhythm of a heart. The story was the score paper. The time was a turmoil of a over-rationalized ideal that flooded into nothingness. You might understand it better, if you take sometime first to learn in what circumstances this book was written--it would perhaps remind you of 1984 except that Beidao wasn't meeting Julia but his manuscript.

I also took a look at some paragraphs in the English version. My impression was that it lost many subtleties that are the essential characteristics of Waves. The wave is the ambiguity.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sad little collection containing one novella entitled The Waves and five short stories -- all taking place during the Cultural Revolution with its Red Guard disturbances in which so millions of Chinese lost their lives and so many families were disturbed so that young city-dwellers would work on collective farms or factories in distant parts of the country. In the first story, "In the Ruins," a professor contemplates suicide and begins to muse as he sees some old ruins:

Standing before him was China's history, the history of the last decades, or even of the last centuries or millenia. The endless arrogance and revolt, dissipation and vice; the rivers of blood and mountains of bones; the sumptuous yet desolate cities, palaces, and tombs; the thousands upon thousands of horses and soldiers mirrored against the huge canopy of the heavens; the axe on the execution block, dripping with blood; the sundial with its shadow revolving around the glossy stone slab; the thread-bound hand-copied books piled in dusty secret rooms; the long, mournful sound of the night watchman beating his wooden rattle ... all these together formed those desolate ruins.

The author, Bei Dao, tried hard to convey his image, but either because it was such a bleak one, or because the translator failed to make the story meaningful to an occidental such as myself, I was always just on the point of getting involved, but never was able to make the jump.

China scholar Jonathan D. Spence spoke highly of this book in The New York Times Book Review and of Bonnie S. MacDougall and Susette Tennent Cooke's translation for this New Directions edition. In fact, that is why I bought this book. I am still pleased that I read Waves, primarily because there is so little of merit that comes down to us from this period; and Bei Dao writes a hauntingly sad book about lost lives. But his technical skills may not be up to multiple viewpoints in a 100-page novella, as, I think, few authors are.

This collection does make me wonder whether much of the news coverage about the new China, flush with the wealth of the West, still has a back story behind all the prosperity. When I hear of mass suicides of workers who jump out of the windows of their iPod factory dormitories, I wonder how much China has really succeeded where it counts the most, in the hearts of its people.

[Sjors · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Waves” by Bai Dao was written in China in 1974 (published 1979) and is a reckoning of sorts with the tremendous damage done to countless Chinese lives by the Red Guard violence during the highpoint of Cultural Revolution hysteria. Interestingly enough, according to the explanatory notes following this text, the writer himself was a Red Guard for a “brief” time, during which he was able to travel freely around China.

Due to the political climate in China in 1974, the book could not be published; it was only published (after extensive rewrites) in 1979 - after the death of Mao and the end of the “10 years of chaos”.

The book follows the interlinked lives of 5 people during few weeks. There is a main romance plot that involves 2 of them, a secondary romance and “running away from home” plot involving 2, and a case of corruption involving just 1 (but touching on the 2 others from the main romance plots). History and circumstances make these plots unhappy and perhaps a bit wistful.

Since 1979, a lot has been written about the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, both by survivors still in China and in the Chinese diaspora. Historians have also published long narratives of loss and despair. So from that point of view, “waves” does not offer a lot of new insights (we have access to much more direct accounts now). Also, the thwarted romance and (chaste) love triangulations are very familiar and don’t really stand out.

For me, the corruption plot was the most interesting because it showed a clash between government officials, where one accused the other of grand corruption but the other managed to show how deeply caught in the web of corruption both of them are. The accusations were presumably dropped (the book ends before the plot ends) - but I was left with an interesting insight in a how the weeds of corruption can and do strangle progress and good intent.

I give this book two red stars out of five, for corruption.

[Si · Rating 4 out of 5]

我已經很久沒有在電腦上敲繁體字。但《波動》這樣的題目若只是用簡體字，仿佛平白失了個中許多重量。香港這邊給北島出版的叢書裝幀都很精美，一律的硬皮純色，上面用一些復古的雕刻性質的字體印上白色的書名，厚度也差不多，都是二百來頁，靠調整排版做到的。比如這本，深綠封面，類似舊社會時的印刷字體的題目，小説很短，每頁沒有多少行，頁遍距也很大，小説很短，不過一百五十多頁，剩下的用冗長的序和更加冗長的附錄填滿。我想，我若是作家，看到一排厚度規整，顔色莊重，封面簡潔的書，應該也會很滿意。

這是一篇七十年代的作品，無一例外地批上了時代的外衣，文革，知青下鄉。若簡單來説，便是一個幹部的私生子楊迅作爲知青下鄉時候，和一個流落農村的文革時家破人亡的小資女孩蕭淩談了一年戀愛，最終靠關係辦了困退自己榮歸京城。我是回來問父親才知道什麽是困退，那個時代的各種簡稱縂有著無數故事。蕭淩很是悲觀，已然經歷過歷史，沒了父母沒了家，也立誓再也不回北京，楊迅卻是躊躇滿志，絲毫不解蕭的種種言辭，只覺得犀利有趣。這是最明顯的一段愛情，另外有兩段隱藏的愛情。其一是楊迅生父和更高級領導妻子的私情，其二是蕭淩剛剛開始流放時委身于一個救過她命的男孩並生了孩子。後來那個男孩也回京上大學，再也沒回來。

全是無疾而終。明明該是無憂無慮戀愛的年紀，卻在身上背負了多少“歷史遺留問題”，如山洪般讓人跌了下去。北島的意思，通過蕭淩回憶自己父親好友的話表現出來：如果一個國家吹著音調不定的號角，這既是某种權力衰敗的象徵，也是整個民族奮起的前奏……

小説語言平靜，對話簡潔，但在這種字面上的安靜下到處是暗湧。一部分原因，就是序中提到的動詞的頻率，短而多，不斷推進著情節進展，這完全是語言上面的功力；至於手法上，小説用了所有主角的視角分別去記敍事情，稍有交曡，讓讀者自己聯係種種前後因果，而每一種視角充滿了洶湧的心理活動，所以讀起來總是在一種緊張的狀態，有疲憊不堪的意識和思考，奔騰而來。當然這種視角變換如今來看早就不是什麽新鮮玩意，但放在七十年代的中國應是很有分量的。

北島在附錄裏詳細記敍了《波動》寫作過程中的種種歷史背景，洋洋灑灑到了小説五分之一的長度。老實說，我覺得小説應該是作者要說的全部的話了，若是說了之後仍然意猶未盡，說之前又怕讀者看不明白找人寫個長長的序，不是畫蛇添足就是小説本身不夠完整。從一個詩人變成一個在附錄絮叨回憶的老人，難免有些唏噓。

另：其實每個年代都淨是難以善終的愛情，那些年是政治階級，若放在今天，則和偶像劇中的貧富結合遭長輩阻撓的戯碼如出一轍，就是政治比金錢聼起來更複雜影響力更大罷了。楊迅這樣按著長輩安排窩囊而自私的青年你我身邊比比皆是。像蕭淩一樣每天念著悲觀的詩句的女孩也經常在街上飃過，只是並沒有真的有她那般淒慘。

[Dawn Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

（I read the Chinese version of this book, the translation of quotes from the book is also made by myself）

Bei Dao's "Waves" is a tale of the generation who grew up during the Culture Revolution. It uses romance to comment on corruption and damage caused to the mind of the young generation who grew up in 1970s China. These people all-time have different motivations and coping mechanisms. One thing is clear that the young generation is ready to break free from the shackle of their father and mother. The most memorable dialogue is probably:

"We all need to play our parts. I believe this world will not stay this way. This is why we are different."

"You're still too young."

"That's why for me this old is way too old. Goodbye, Uncle Lin."

[Lyuba · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few short stories and the novella Waves capture the different voices of a generation that has lived through the Cultural Revolution and is struggling to survive in its aftermath. The writing is devastatingly depressing and sad but the feelings, or lack thereof, are beautifully written. Life is equated to losing everything you once had. Happiness exists only in the imagination. Death is everywhere. "All that's left is a body, and this body has no connection whatsoever with the original person, it's only keeping up certain basic habits to survive, nothing more."

[王棕 · Rating 3 out of 5]

@自藏

[Yvette · Rating 3 out of 5]

一本需要放在特定年代背景去阅读的书。过了半个世纪再读，爱情部分有种琼瑶戏的味道，阶级部分倒依然不过时，这个世界依然显得太老。

[Grace Matherne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and thought provoking. Knowing context for the stories is helpful. Something I would like to come back to again and again especially for the character of Xiao Ling.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am still absorbing this one. I appreciate Bei Dao's set up of this bleak political world/society, and the aftermath of such severe human consequence, in these shorter stories, which precede the novella, Waves. The novella itself I think moves and picks up as gradually as waves, almost such that you don't really detect this pick up or build up, not until it's right on top of you.

[Fazal Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bei Dao shows you how living in china during the cultural revolution supressed everyone: intellectuals,
artist,thiefs,whores,goverment officials,women,men,
children,...etc. all are bind together by fear,love and pain.

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

real bleak and sad, like a lonely little coal mine in winter. also features - get ready for this - a character with the name





















are you ready for this



























Dongdong, lmao @ that name.

[Jane MB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty prose.