Review of Mo Yan's POW!

 

   POW!  is a novel by Mo Yan , a Chinese writer and the winner of the Nobel prize in literature in 2012. His  novels have become known for their new narrative technique,  Panorama of the  society  in  transition, and fine characterization.     

    The protagonist of the novel is Luo Xiaotong who wants to turn ascetic and narrates his story in a temple where the  Wise Monk Lan  lives. The confessional tone of the boy  mingles with humour, irony, ardent  desire, wonder,  pathos, feelings of irreverence,  family honour, revenge and fictional nature of the mind and explicit description of amorous activities .  

   The boys’ father abandons the family due to his obsession with another woman called Wild mule. The boy’s mother  Yang Yuzhen  works hard to eke out living and to provide at least bare minimum. For the boy meat is everything , his passion, first love and last desire. When the father reappears with a girl  child Jiaojiao, mother first refuses them a stay but later allows them to stay with them. With the help of  Lao Lan, the family survived in the absence of wayward father. But Luo Lan starts  United meatpacking Plant in which the elder Tong , yang Yuzhen  and later the boy join and rise in their position. Luo Xiaotong who spurns school joins the factory, advises on innovative methods of slaughtering , and  wins a meat eating contest as a part pf publicity event. An insulting  remark by one  Yao QI against  Yang Yuzhen and the father Luotong  leads to the murder of the mother and arrest of Luo Xiaotong’s father.  The orphan children struggle for existence and Jiaojiao too dies due to starvation leading to avenging her death by Luo Xiaotong by blowing up Lao Lan and his empire  through  firing shells from an old  mortar bought earlier.

     The novel shows transition to market economy, corruption by the entrepreneurs, tactics by the managers, government  officials,  Chinese festivals , the jealousies of the workers in the factory , the struggle for existence of the families, the stoical nature of  Yang Yuzhen  the kindness coupled with cunningness of characters like Luo Lan , the anarchic and  impetuous nature of the Luotong the sensitive nature of the Wild Mule and the wife of   Lao Lan , the quarrels  among women such as Huang Biao's wife and Fan Zhaoxia to please the powerful Lao Lan and Luo Xiaotong’s obsession with eating, desire, imagination  and revenge that creates an ambience of gloom and doom at the end.    

The novel is racy, hilarious, irreverent, culturally sensitive and  a gripping tale that makes the reader glide on till  the end. POW boys are those whose stories hover between reality and illusion. In the novel one  can also  see the underlying subversion of society gradually moving from  old hierarchy and  market  economy where the Old powerful keep their positions intact whereas the common people struggle without any relief. This is a novel that  startles and delights the readers.