Hard Like Water

Yan (Three Brothers) probes the darkness and absurdity of Chinese society and history with a sexy satirical tale of the Cultural Revolution as wrought in a small village. In 1967, narrator Gao Aijun, a Red Army soldier (his name, he tells the reader, means “love the army”), meets the beautiful Hongmei, a stylish former city girl, while walking home. Her red nail polish transfixes him, and, roused by the routine patriotic songs booming from the village’s loudspeakers, they can barely keep their hands off each other despite both being married. Aijun’s father-in-law is the Party Branch Secretary, and Hongmei’s is the mayor, but they know the old men have lost their revolutionary fervor and see an opportunity to seize power. It’s a period when accidently sitting on a copy of Mao’s Quotations can bring imprisonment, and the determined, ingenious, and sex-crazed duo—self-styled “blood-red revolutionaries”—make the most of it, rising inexorably through the party ranks until they, too, run afoul of political sensitivities. Yan studs the book with revolutionary slogans and references to Chinese opera and literature, and the couple engages in a long-running “revolutionary verbal battle” involving wordplay that often leads to sex; the play with language makes the satire distinctive and punchy. Yan’s exuberant and unflinching tragicomedy is undeniably appealing. (June)