A round book for when hopes fluctuate

BarcelonaIn Frankenstein, the writer Mary Shelley wrote: “My courage and resolution are firm; my hopes, however, fluctuate”. Anyone with political aspirations could agree with this sentence; Catalans, without a doubt, would quickly join in. But I am not bringing it up because I have heard it said by any neighbor from, let's say, Tona, Vilafranca, or l’Ampolla, but because I found it in an excellent novel that speaks of lands very far from ours, and with a very different contextual situation. I am talking about Once Upon a Time in the East, a book by Xiaolu Guo published by Angle Editorial in collaboration with the Catalan International Institute for Peace (ICIP) within the collection Classics of Peace and Non-violence.

Guo published the book in 2014, but it reaches us now in English, in a translation by Joan Puntí Recasens. In fact, it is the first time we can enjoy this author in our language. The thread of the novel is the love story of Jian and Mu, two citizens who, through their personal and family lives, speak to us about Chinese dissidence, student revolts, and the journeys of refugees. The history of China is imposing, and Guo mixes it with the most intimate lives of the citizens. At the end of the book, the author writes a chronology that allows us to better situate ourselves in the events that happen at both levels (it is an aid that I did not find until I turned the last pages, but that if you want, you can consult before).

We learn of the tribulations of Jian and Mu thanks to Iona Kirkpatrick, a London translator who is handed a bundle of letters and diaries written in Chinese to determine whether or not there is a story worth publishing within them. From there, an almost detective-like plot begins in which both the Chinese interpreter and we, the readers, start putting the pieces together. The novel sucks you in and you cannot stop reading. But beyond the plot, the charm of Guo is that she writes questions that any person in the world can reflect upon, whether they live in China or not.

The punk enema

The most obvious diatribe is the one pursued by Jian and Mu. He is a convinced dissident, a "constructive punk." I put this definition in quotes because one of the funniest parts of the book is when Jian, who is a musician, meets the lead singer of the Sex Pistols and asks him if there is "a positive punk scene" in the West. Johnny Rotten laughs at him: "Punk is always negative, man." Mu, always annoyed, asks him: "Why do you say that punk didn't contribute anything good to society?", and the English singer replies: "Of course it contributed good things. Think about enemas, baby. Do you know what an enema is? Well, that's what punk was. To get it all out!"

The point is that Jian is a dissenter, and Mu, on the other hand, spends her life doubting whether it is worth worrying so much about politics; whether they wouldn't live more peacefully without so many convictions. Mu's honesty always serves as a counterpoint to Jian's stubbornness: “Our ideology has become so pragmatic that we no longer have imagination,” she says; “Not all art has to be political, Jian. There are artists who fight to go beyond the political sphere, even if that is difficult for you to imagine.” This is the central question of La Xina soc jo: is it worth risking one's personal life for ideals that are unlikely to come to fruition?

The book's plot is an excuse to reflect on profound themes. It has very beautiful reflections on memory, on how we love the land where we were born and why we carry its culture so deep inside (“Places and people, the old and the dead, get under your skin and when you reach my age…, you start to feel the urge to return, as if a ghost were chasing you. And you feel the urge to see for the last time the places you left behind and that you lost forever…”). It also contains many reflections on the challenges, the true meaning, and even the inherent failure in translation, taking advantage of the fact that the Londoner protagonist is dedicated to this. It is, in short, a good read; a well-rounded book.