This was a very complex read and quite tough to digest at times. Overall I found the story very intriguing and a bit mesmerizing. It was very strange how the author works himself into the story as a character but somehow it worked.

Still thinking about barrels and barrels of corpse oil.

Our story begins on a day early in June. The sun is just going down in a little town deep in the Balou mountains of China.
Fourteen -year-old Li Niannian notices something is different about his town. Instead of folks settling down for the night, the residents start appearing in the streets and fields. There are people everywhere. Why aren’t they home preparing for evening meal and bedtime?
Li Niannian is confused and mystified. Eventually he realizes the people are dreamwalking, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn’t gone down. All is calm until darkness covers the town and all hell breaks loose.

This unique novel takes place over the course of one night. I found that an intriguing device of writing. Things become increasingly weird and troubling, even nightmarish as Li Niannian and his father struggle to save their town. “His eyes were wide open as though he were wide awake, but when he spoke he didn’t look anyone in the eye. His brick-like expression demonstrated that he was sleeping.” This quote shows the creepiness of the situation. When people are dreamwalking, they see only the people and things they care about and nothing else.

The sun MUST rise again to end the chaos, death and horror. But how dies one persuade the sun to rise? Keep reading reader. You will learn.

I really enjoyed Yan Lianke’s storytelling as I read. My only criticism is that the book was a bit wordy and the events were spaced too far apart. I almost abandoned the book for this reason, but plodded on. I’m glad I did.

In 2012, President Xi Jinping first talked about "the Chinese Dream", a concept that aims to translate the American Dream into Chinese cultural concepts and, by that, is meant to capture a specifically Chinese version of the strife for success, prosperity and happiness. Author Yan Lianke knows that the line between a dream and a nightmare can be a thin one, and that dreams might give free reign to our subconscious urges and fears. "The Day the Sun Died" is his novel about the Chinese dream, and, as many of Yan Lianke's satirical and critical works, the book has not been published in Mainland China.

Our protagonist is 14-year-old Li Niannian who lives in Gaotian Village (which actually exists) and whose parents own a shop that sells items for funeral rituals. His uncle has become rich as the owner of the local crematorium - the party has forbidden to bury the dead in order to save space, so all bodies must be cremated, and there is money to be earned by reporting those who try to bury their dead anyway. In the story, the cremations produce "corpse oil", which sells for high prices and can be used to keep machines running or to make fertilizer - I guess we don't have to discuss Yan Lianke's attitude towards China's authoritarian regime.

The incident told in the book takes place during one single night during which all inhabitants of the village suddenly start sleepwalking, or "dreamwalking", the word used in the text which better reflects the Chinese expression for the phenomenon. As a consequence, the village drowns in chaos and violence, all kinds of secrets are revealed, and elements of Chinese history are played out in the context of this uprising. The nation's past haunts the villagers, and their individual pasts and urges are exposed while even in the morning, the sun refuses to rise, until Li Niannian's father crafts a shocking plan to bring back the light.

What does the Chinese people really dream of, what nightmares haunt this nation? Often, characters in the book are unsure whether they are awake or dreamwalking - they do not know what is happening anymore, and the horror is often rooted in the injustice they have experienced (like having the graves of their loved ones blown up with dynamite), their own wrongful deeds (like ratting out their neighbours) and the circumstances they are living in (the oppression of the system).

First, I read this tale as purely metaphorical, until I found out that in 1956, Mao announced a “proposal for cremation after death” (he himself was of course not cremated), and that there are really regions in China in which burials are illegal (https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...). Still, the book operates with satire and critcism on many levels, and while it obviously talks about modern China, it also has a lot to say about human nature in general and contemplates how we treat each other under which circumstances. Interestingly, the book also features a character named "Yan Lianke" who is an author (his book titles are puns on the books written by the real Yan Lianke) and who, just like everybody els, is sometimes awake, and sometimes dreamwalking.

The novel has a very specific tone and works with variations of sentence structures, repetition and the juxtaposition of darkness and light as well as heat and cold, which gives the text an unusual feel (but maybe this is only the opinion of a European who doesn't know much about Chinese literature and poetic concepts). A fascinating, impressive read, highly recommended.

Good book! Very different and will keep you occupied for hours. Loved the characters and setting.
Would recommend to anyone!

Though this novel spams a single night there’s enough description, character and story to give a view of an entire society set within a certain period of what some people call “The Chinese Dream”. Here, a small rural township is undergoing what the writer terms “dreamwalking” – people act out their lives in a sort of stupor and sleep – a satirical view, perhaps, of the writer’s view of life under Chinese rule. The sleep is like a nightmare, and the setting concentrates on teenage Li Niannian and his parents’ funeral parlour. As a snapshot of Chinese society the book is highly effective, but it’s not without its challenges as a read. Some ideas are dwelt on for much longer than they need to be, and in sections such as those concentrating on the collection and usage of oil produced by the cremation of human corpses, the reader’s patience is tested to the extreme.

It's an imaginative satire of modern China. In a rural setting, and over the course of one night, people start dreamwalking - carrying out activities that they were thinking about or doing before they went to sleep. Slowly the night becomes more chaotic and violent. Lin is a 14 year old boy and his parents try to stem the tied and work to making the sun come up again and the night to end.
My main criticism of this interesting interpretation of the dangers of modernisation, the great dream of renewal, is it seemed to meander repetitively for some time before something new was introduced. The cheeky thoughts of Lin and how he viewed his world before dreamwalking was a highlight for me.