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Life and Death are Wearing Me Out  By  cover art

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

By: Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt - translator
Narrated by: Feodor Chin
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Publisher's summary

Today’s most revered, feared, and controversial Chinese novelist, Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, offers a tour de force in which the real, the absurd, the comical, and the tragic are blended into a fascinating narrative. The hero—or antihero—of Mo Yan’s new novel is Ximen Nao, a landowner known for his benevolence to his peasants. His story is a deliriously unique journey and absolutely riveting tale that reveals the author’s love of a homeland beset by ills inevitable, political, and traditional.

©2006 Mo Yan. English-language translation copyright 2008, 2012 by Howard Goldblatt (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A wildly visceral and creative novel.... A vast, cruel, and complex story." (The New York Times Book Review)

What listeners say about Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

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REINCARNATION

China becomes communist in the 1940s under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Communism seeks re-distribution of private land into cooperatives to benefit the many at the expense of the few. Mo Yan’s story begins with China’s communist revolution and the unjust murder and confiscation of a landowner’s farm.

The murdered landowner is Ximen Nao. After death, Ximen Nao falls into an imagined purgatory to be, presumably, cleansed of his sins. Despite severe torture, Ximen Nao refuses purgatory’s judgment of sin. In consequence, or happenstance, he is reincarnated as a donkey. The twist in his reincarnation is that he remembers his former life. Returning to life as a donkey, he meets former employees, a wife, two mistresses, and his children.

Ximen Nao, as a donkey, returns to his homeland and finds that his former employee has married one of his mistresses and is farming 6 acres of his confiscated land. Ximen Nao, as a reincarnated donkey, gains a grudging respect for his former employee. The employee steadfastly resists public ownership (becoming part of a communist co-op) and insists on being an independent farmer. (Communist China’s law allows a farmer to be independent if they choose to work the land themselves.)

Finding the right balance in life is an overriding theme in Mo Yan’s story. As the inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi suggests, “Nothing in excess”; Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and many others have suggested moderation in all things. Mo Yan suggests that both Chinese communism and capitalism fail to offer the right balance in life.

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6 people found this helpful

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Five Flowerings in the era of Communist China

I was intrigued by the paperbank my husband had borrowed from the library and didn't know if he liked. I got the Audible version, due to limited vision, and now I can't wait to download the next of MoYan's works.
The story takes place over 50 years of pilitical and cultural change in China, from shortly before Mao Zedong came to power, to Y2K. it also encompasses 5 incarnations, each with its own elemental force from Chinese 5 Element Taoist philosophy, as an undertone. The several lives that Xi Men Nao has to serve to cleanse his heart of bad sentiments each serve to tie family politics and ancenstral duty with the political upheavals of the period.
it is a story with rich modern Chinese flavor, a but of surrealism reminiscebt of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and a structure and purpose that strobgly recalled Midnight's Children to me.
Mo Yan is a remarkable loudmoyth of an author, and I'm lookibg forward to listening to all his books.

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  • 06-24-18

Good but LOOONG

An original way to convey the sweep of Chinese contemporary history through one family, one village, and one person who is repeatedly reincarnated as a series of animals. The only problem for me is that it really is VERY long -- over 24 hours. I only listen when I take a walk. Over time, it was hard to keep all the characters straight, especially since several have similar names. When I am reading a book, I can leaf through it to remind myself, but that's difficult to do with a recording. Also with a written book, I sometimes keep a pad of paper beside me and make a list of characters when they appear. That would have been useful but was not practical since I was out walking. Still, I do recommend it if you have the patience.

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4 people found this helpful

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Entertaining look at life in China

If you could sum up Life and Death are Wearing Me Out in three words, what would they be?

funny, insightful, profound

Have you listened to any of Feodor Chin’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Any additional comments?

It would be better read as it was difficult to follow characters because of unfamiliarity and similarity of Chinese names.

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4 people found this helpful

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The Magnificent Journey

This is a great journey and well worth the time to listen. The characters are alive in the story and bring insight into your life. It is entertaining as well as thought provoking. I enjoyed this story to the last word. I was sad to see it end.

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2 people found this helpful

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Wow! What a story!

This is definitely not the type of book I would usually read. But, oh boy! What a story! Mo Yan explains to you Chinese history (1950-2000) through the eyes of Ximen Nao, reincarnated from many farm animals but, at the same time, Chinese horoscope animals. Worth reading.

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1 person found this helpful

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Probably my favorite book

I found this book in 2008 in the library in in college and ended up reading it instead of the books assigned by my professors. I was happy to find it here. I liked it even more this time. Such a great mix of history humor and storytelling.

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Painfully long winded

Couldn’t even get 1/3 of the way through the book - I kept thinking it would get better but it was way too long winded that I gave up and couldn’t finish. I don’t understand all the great reviews?

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