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Authors: Mo Yan

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Sandalwood Death

BOOK: Sandalwood Death
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C
HINESE
L
ITERATURE
T
ODAY
B
OOK
S
ERIES
Series Editor
Jonathan Stalling
Advisory Board
Paul B. Bell Jr., University of Oklahoma
Cao Shunqing, Sichuan University
Chen Xiaoming, Beijing University
Cheng Guangwei, Renmin University
Robert Con Davis-Undiano,
World Literature Today
Ge Fei, Qinghua University
Peter Gries, University of Oklahoma
Howard Goldblatt, translator
Huang Yibing, Connecticut College
Huang Yunte, University of California, Santa Barbara
Haiyan Lee, Stanford University
Li Jingze,
People’s Literature Magazine
Liu Hongtao, Beijing Normal University
Christopher Lupke, Washington State University
Meng Fanhua, Shenyang Normal University
Haun Saussy, Yale University
Ronald Schleifer, University of Oklahoma
Daniel Simon,
World Literature Today
Michelle Yeh, University of California, Davis
Wai-lim Yip, University of California, San Diego
Zhang Jian, Beijing Normal University
Zhang Ning, Beijing Normal University
Zhang Qinghua, Beijing Normal University
Sandalwood Death
A Novel
Mo Yan

Translated by Howard Goldblatt

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS   :   NORMAN

2800 Venture Drive

Norman, Oklahoma 73069

www.oupress.com

This book is published with the generous assistance of China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, Beijing Normal University’s College of Chinese Language and Literature, the University of Oklahoma’s College of Arts and Sciences, and
World Literature Today
magazine.

The translator gratefully acknowledges the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for its generous support.

This translation is dedicated to the memory of Michael Henry Heim, master translator and dear friend.

First published in Chinese in 2001 as
Tanxiang xing
. English eidition copyright © 2013 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblence to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act—without the prior permission of the University of Oklahoma Press.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive, Norman, Oklahoma 73069 or email
[email protected]

ISBN 978-0-8061-4339-2 (paperback : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-8061-8881-2 (ebook : mobipocket)

ISBN 978-0-8061-8882-9 (ebook : epub)

Sandalwood Death: A Novel
is Volume 2 in the Chinese Literature Today Book Series.

This eBook was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at
[email protected]

QED stands for Quality, Excellence and Design. The QED seal of approval shown here verifies that this eBook has passed a rigorous quality assurance process and will render well in most eBook reading platforms.

For more information please
click here
.

“The finest play ever staged cannot compete with the spectacle of a public slicing”

Zhao Jia

Contents

Translator’s Note

Book One:
Head of the Phoenix

     
Chapter One: Meiniang’s Lewd Talk

     
Chapter Two: Zhao Jia’s Ravings

     
Chapter Three: Xiaojia’s Foolish Talk

     
Chapter Four: Qian Ding’s Bitter Words

Book Two:
Belly of the Pig

     
Chapter Five: Battle of the Beards

     
Chapter Six: Competing Feet

     
Chapter Seven: Elegy

     
Chapter Eight: Divine Altar

     
Chapter Nine: Masterpiece

     
Chapter Ten: A Promise Kept

     
Chapter Eleven: Golden Pistols

     
Chapter Twelve: Crevice

     
Chapter Thirteen: A City Destroyed

Book Three:
Tail of the Leopard

     
Chapter Fourteen: Zhao Jia’s Soliloquy

     
Chapter Fifteen: Meiniang’s Grievance

     
Chapter Sixteen: Sun Bing’s Opera Talk

     
Chapter Seventeen: Xiaojia Sings in Full Voice

     
Chapter Eighteen: The Magistrate’s Magnum Opus

Author’s Note

Glossary of Untranslated Terms

Translator’s Note

The challenges for the translator of Mo Yan’s powerful historical novel begin with the title,
Tanxiang xing
, whose literal meaning is “sandalwood punishment” or, in an alternate reading, “sandalwood torture.” For a work so utterly reliant on sound, rhythm, and tone, I felt that neither of those served the novel’s purpose. At one point, the executioner draws out the name of the punishment he has devised (fictional, by the way) for ultimate effect: “Tan—xiang—xing!” Since the word “sandalwood” already used up the three original syllables, I needed to find a short word to replicate the Chinese as closely as possible. Thus: “Sandal—wood—death!”

Beyond that, as the novelist makes clear in his “Author’s Note,” language befitting the character and status of the narrators in Parts One and Three helps give the work its special quality of sound. Adjusting the register for the various characters, from an illiterate, vulgar butcher to a top graduate of the Qing Imperial Examination, without devolving to American street lingo or becoming overly Victorian, has been an added challenge. Finally, there are the rhymes. Chinese rhymes far more easily than English, and Chinese opera has always employed rhyme in nearly every line, whatever the length. I have exhausted my storehouse of rhyming words in translating the many arias, keeping as close to the meaning as possible or necessary.

As with all languages, some words, some terms, simply do not translate. They can be defined, described, and deconstructed, but they steadfastly resist translation. Many words and terms from a host of languages have found their way into English and settled in comfortably. Most of those from Chinese, it seems, date from foreign imperialists’ and missionaries’ unfortunately misread or misheard Chinese-isms: “coolie,” “gung ho,” “rickshaw” (actually, that comes via Japanese), “godown,” “kungfu,” and so on. I think it is time to update and increase the meager list, and to that end, I have left a handful of terms untranslated; a glossary appears at the end of the book. Only one is given in a form that differs slightly from standard Pinyin: that is “dieh,” commonly used for one’s father in northern China. The Pinyin would be “die”!

This is a long, very “Chinese” novel, both part of and unique to Mo Yan’s impressive fictional oeuvre. There are places that are difficult to read (imagine how difficult they were to translate), but their broader significance and their stark beauty are integral to the work.

I have been the beneficiary of much encouragement in this engrossing project. My gratitude to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for its generous support, and to Ed, Mike, Jonathan, and David for writing for me. Jonathan Stalling has been in my corner from the beginning, as have representatives of the University of Oklahoma Press, for whose new and important series this is the inaugural work of fiction. Thanks to Jane Lyle for her meticulous editing. Finally, my thanks to the author for making clear some of the more opaque passages and for leaving me on my own for others. And, of course, to Sylvia, my best reader, sharpest critic, and, from time to time, biggest fan.

H
OWARD
G
OLDBLATT

B
OOK
O
NE

Head of the Phoenix

C
HAPTER
O
NE

Meiniang’s Lewd Talk
The sun rose, a bright red ball (the eastern sky a flaming pall), from Qingdao a German contingent looms. (Red hair, green eyes.) To build a rail line they defiled our ancestral tombs. (The people are up in arms!) My dieh led the resistance against the invaders, who responded with cannon booms. (A deafening noise.) Enemies met, anger boiled red in their eyes. Swords chopped, axes hewed, spears jabbed. The bloody battle lasted all day, leaving corpses and deathly fumes. (I was scared witless!) In the end, my dieh was taken to South Prison, where my gongdieh’s sandalwood death sealed his doom. (My dieh, who gave me life!)


Maoqiang
Sandalwood Death.
A mournful aria

————

1

————

That morning, my gongdieh, Zhao Jia, could never, even in his wildest dreams, have imagined that in seven days he would die at my hands, his death more momentous than that of a loyal old dog. And never could I have imagined that I, a mere woman, would take knife in hand and with it kill my own husband’s father. Even harder to believe was that this old man, who had seemingly fallen from the sky half a year earlier, was an executioner, someone who could kill without blinking. In his red-tasseled skullcap and long robe, topped by a short jacket with buttons down the front, he paced the courtyard, counting the beads on his Buddhist rosary like a retired yuanwailang, or, better yet, I think, a laotaiye, with a houseful of sons and grandsons. But he was neither a laotaiye nor a yuanwailang—he was the preeminent executioner in the Board of Punishments, a magician with the knife, a peerless decapitator, a man capable of inflicting the cruelest punishments, including some of his own design, a true creative genius. During his four decades in the Board of Punishments, he had—to hear him say it—lopped off more heads than the yearly output of Gaomi County watermelons.

BOOK: Sandalwood Death
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