Rickshaw Boy aka Camel Xiangzi by Lao She 10 out of 10
Rickshaw Boy aka Camel Xiangzi by Lao She
10 out of 10
One of the spectacular, glorious aspects of reading masterpieces, such as Luòtuo Xiángzi, is that one can travel to the far corners of the earth, changing latitudes and longitudes in a matter of minutes – the undersigned has been over the past weeks to Africa and Surinam with Oroonoko, Queensland, Australia with Remembering Babylon, England with North and South and the list as long as the number of novels we can engage with – and as luminaries have stated, we can also live a multitude of lives, through the characters in the books we open and keep in our minds and imaginations, especially the one that are worthy, as is this work, included on The Guardian’s 1,000 Novels everyone Must Read list - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction
The hero of the Camel Auspicious Lad – which is yet another name for the book, the literal meaning of the original, Chinese title – is Xiangzi, a man who might become an antihero, as a consequence of a series of traumas, misfortunes, losses and a descent into a state of selfishness, disabusement, indifference and viciousness, brought about by the death of a few people in his life, rejection, extortion, after a rather promising, optimistic start for the young Rickshaw Boy, who came into Beijing – for some reason named Beiping in the book version available here – from the countryside, as so many used to do in China, at the beginning of the last century – they still try to do that today, but in the authoritarian land which has a president for life, it is not allowed to migrate so easily and most of those who travel to the cities are not able to enroll their children in state institutions and face other hardships.
Xiangzi is determined to work hard, use his unusual, tall size, the good muscles he has and the overall health and fitness to acquire a rickshaw of his own, living an austere life, staying away from smoking, drinking or gambling and avoiding the whorehouses – he has seen colleagues unable to urinate, as a consequence of sexually transmitted diseases, albeit he would contract one, when he has an affair with the concubine of one of his employers – until the time when he would start thinking that it is no use being a hardworking, honest, decent Rickshaw Boy, but before that he tries hard, saves hard earned money and buys a rickshaw, which he unfortunately takes to an unsafe area, where it is confiscated by soldiers and worse, the poor man is taken prisoner and forced to work as a slave for the troops, until there are explosions near the camp and the havoc, the resulting chaos is speculated by the protagonist, who had understood that he needs to escape soon, if he is to have a new chance to start over and resume his life, after this abhorrent trauma of his kidnapping and losing all his savings and the rickshaw…
Xiangzi hides near a group of camels and he has the chance to walk away, after the soldiers abandon the animals and seeing as he had nothing left, the hero takes one by the lead and two others follow, making him understand that this is something he could use, although it would be difficult and he understands the perils of being killed, exposed as a false camel herder, but in the end, he does find an older man who takes the animals, offers only 30 Yuan for them, only given the circumstances, it is better to take up the offer and eventually use this money to start the capital for a new, or just a little used rickshaw and before that, he finds refuge with Old Master Liu, the one who has a rickshaw rental outfit and a rather ugly, ‘manly’ daughter, Huniu, who is in her forties or close, unable to find a husband, having a rather hard, rough manner that had earned her the nickname ‘Tiger Girl’.
The Rickshaw Boy also gains a nickname, Camel, and he is not very popular with other men that rent rickshaws, because he prefers to remain private, he does not engage in drinking gambling or whoring, up to the time that is when everything changes and the previous paradigm of honesty, working hard, respect for others is replaced with the exact opposite, faced as he is with extreme adversity, for after being taken prisoner by rebels, losing the rickshaw, he is again manipulated and trapped by Huniu Liu, who invites her in her room one night, makes him drink alcohol, taking advantage of his previous teetotal ring, for he quickly becomes inebriated, they have sex and then she comes to the new employer he finds, Mr. Cao, and claims him for her husband, invoking her pregnancy, only to retract that on their wedding day, when she shows the pillow with which she had fooled him and her father.
Fourth Master Liu, who had acted as a gangster in his past, has a mildly positive opinion of Xiangzi, but nonetheless, not to the point where he would accept the humiliation of having him as a son-in-law (at that time, many rules were different), a simple Rickshaw Boy, when the Master is so wealthy and respected and even if the daughter is ugly and undesirable, he would not accept the union, under no circumstances, refusing to back down when Tiger Girl reveals that she is carrying a child, only to see that she is thrown out and has to take two rooms with her husband, hoping and scheming for a return, imagining that the old man would not refuse to accept his only descendant back to their home and she would see that the stubborn, mean Master Liu prefers to sell everything, pack and move away to an undisclosed location, rather than pass his fortune to the daughter and her humble husband.
There are many developments in a rather complex novel, that deals with the themes of poverty – indeed, we find that the author would return from exile to communist China, in a possible sign that he favors this dreadful, dictatorial regime – the undersigned has lived for 25 years and still sees the ghastly consequences all around – personal calamities, tragedies that strike in various manners and forms, from the death of a wife that was not loved – in fact, the hero hated more than he respected this consort that provided some money for a new rickshaw at one point – to the possible failure of what looked at some time as a possibly for Redemption, a new life with the woman who was forced to become a prostitute – in the manner of the famous Sonja from the Magnus Opus Crime and Punishment and so many other divine books – Little Fuzi.
This book represents the means to get more knowledge about China, admittedly, an older version of the rising and dangerous dragon of this age, the suffering of poor people like the one who becomes an antihero in the last part, no more interested in values, being concerned with others, but individualistic in the extreme, ready to do anything for himself and nothing for anybody else…
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