I really wanted to like the Shaanxi Opera. Reading the synopsis of the book, I expected a Chinese "Wizard of the Crow", something vast and deep and well written. Chalk it up to translation, or cultural difference, but I felt that the tone of the book was completely off. I don't often flinch at vulgarity in literature, but here it felt so misplaced and poorly executed. I respect that the context could call for such vulgarity and crudeness, but it ultimately left me cold.
What's more, I didn't feel as if the fragmented style lent itself well to the story. While I enjoy such a style (something like Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son comes to mind), I just would have preferred here a more classical style to counterbalance the small, granular nature of the writing (if that makes any sense).
I still have a lot of questions about the book, and it's one I'll try to come back to soon after some time away, so as to give it a fair chance. But at the time of review, it's not a book that I'd be able to recommend, nor one I'd like to sell in my store.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital review copy of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley, AmazonCrossing, and Jia Pingwa for the opportunity to read “The Shaanxi Opera” in exchange for an honest review.

This book is not at all what I expected. Being unfamiliar with Jia Pingwa’s work, I glanced through the synopsis and thought I was going to read a fictional tale about unrequited love and family politics against a backdrop of village life in China. I was totally taken aback by the style of the novel, and the intricate detail in which the author depicts the daily lives and folk customs of the rural people of Shaanxi.

First of all, the book doesn’t have a linear plot. It’s written in fragments, flitting between this character and that, and your job is to read into all of the day to day minutiae that takes place in Freshwind village in order to glean the author’s broader message.

Knowing that Pingwa is of rural origins and comes from the village upon which Freshwind is based, I feel that this novel is his ode to a dying way of life. Village life is on the decline. Most households are in debt. There isn’t enough food to go around. The youngsters are abandoning their parents’ tradition of living off the land, flocking to cities instead in search of work. So, in creating Freshwind Village along with its hundreds of residents (and yes, there are hundreds of characters to keep track of), Jia Pingwa is preserving a lifestyle that will (if it hasn't already) cease to exist.

Personally, I found this book difficult to read and I have no doubt that I did not understand all its nuances. There were moments when I was fully invested in the residents of this village, their antics making me gasp in horror or laugh out loud, but there was a deeper subtext that went right over my head. I will go out on a limb and say that even some urban Chinese youngsters would have a hard time with this book because it’s so far out of their cultural context, let alone mine. The poetry, the filthy jokes, the violence, the plain-spoken (sometimes cringe-worthy) language and behavior gave me an authentic glimpse into village life, but I felt like a tourist visiting Freshwind, leaving it without truly understanding it the way only a local can. The operatic passages and the significance of them was lost on me. I also found it very hard to keep track of all the characters in the story. Some kind of index or family tree would have been useful.

My feeling is that some books lose their essence when translated. They are written in a certain language for a certain audience for a certain reason. Cultural context is essential, and when rendered in a language that does not have the literary forms and depth of the original, the story becomes a shadow of itself no matter how talented the translators are. Being the winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, I have no doubt that this book is monumental in its own right, and that it will resonate with a specific type of reader. Unfortunately, that reader is not me.