Status
Available
Call number
Description
A mig camí entre la novel"la, el treball d investigació i l autobiografia, Wolf Totem gira al voltant de les tradicions populars, l antropologia, la història, les llegendes i la filosofia mongoles i ens apropa a la complicada relació que tenen els mongols de les estepes amb els llops. Escrita per un dissident xinès sota pseudònim, de Wolf Totem se n han venut milions d exemplars a tot Xina i se n està preparant una versió cinematogràfica que s estrenarà coincidint amb els Jocs Olímpics de Pequín de 2008. Wolf Totem reflecteix amb vivacitat les vides dels mongols, dels personatges valents, coratjosos i forts que es creen en l entorn natural tan inhòspit en què habiten. Propi d aquest entorn és el llop, l ànima de l estepa, que ha jugat un paper clau en el desenvolupament del poble mongol. La descripció que Jiang Rong fa del terrible predador de Mongolia ens commou per la humanitat de les seves observacions. Tot i que el llop és un animal terrible, té també una gran bellesa. Però més enllà de la llegenda i del lirisme de la descripció de les estepes mongoles, és possible fer una lectura política de la novel"la: Jiang Rong es pregunta per la identitat xinesa i per si els xinesos d avui s han convertit en xais mansois, disposats a acceptar qualsevol lideratge abans d agafar les regnes del seu propi futur, com farien els llops.
Description
An epic Chinese tale that depicts the dying culture of the Mongols--the ancestors of the Mongol hordes who at one time terrorized the world--and the parallel extinction of the animal they believe to be sacred: the fierce and otherworldly Mongolian wolf.
Collection
Publication
Barcelona : La Magrana, 2008.
Physical description
573 p.; 24 cm
User reviews
LibraryThing member subscriber
I read the book with enjoyment (despite some of the declamatory style). I see it as a treatise on ecology and politics set in the form of a novel. During the cultural revolution several students live as herders with Mongol nomads.
Ecoloogy of grasslands. A fragile ecosystem that can turn to desert
Politics. Cultural revolution, military style political rule imposed on people that follow traditional rules. Stupid people who see wolves as bad and so hunt them. etc... Killing off the wild will lead to a weak society; Mongol armies (Genghis Khan) learned to fight and survive in competition with wolves.
Main interest is in the detailed descriptions of herding life, ecology of wolves, humans on grassland. The life of the grassland is the "big life" and that of wolves, horses, humans are the "small lives".
One wise old man (Mongol herder) uses traditional beliefs and values to explicate the ecology. If you kill the wolves, the squirrels, rabbits, marmots will grow and destroy the grassland and make it a desert. Religious beliefs reinforce the values and habits that sustain the ecology and enable humans to live there. A feedback system based on eons of experience. If you change, disaster will happen.
Ecoloogy of grasslands. A fragile ecosystem that can turn to desert
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if the system is broken: killing wolves, digging up for farming, hunting rare birds, digging up wild flowers,etc. Struggle between herders and farmers.Politics. Cultural revolution, military style political rule imposed on people that follow traditional rules. Stupid people who see wolves as bad and so hunt them. etc... Killing off the wild will lead to a weak society; Mongol armies (Genghis Khan) learned to fight and survive in competition with wolves.
Main interest is in the detailed descriptions of herding life, ecology of wolves, humans on grassland. The life of the grassland is the "big life" and that of wolves, horses, humans are the "small lives".
One wise old man (Mongol herder) uses traditional beliefs and values to explicate the ecology. If you kill the wolves, the squirrels, rabbits, marmots will grow and destroy the grassland and make it a desert. Religious beliefs reinforce the values and habits that sustain the ecology and enable humans to live there. A feedback system based on eons of experience. If you change, disaster will happen.
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LibraryThing member kewing
An ecological and political critique/allegory of epic proportions. Set during the Cultural Revolution, Chinese students are sent for "re-education" to the Mongolian grasslands to "learn;" at the same time, other Chinese are sent to "supervise." The students "learn" about faith, stewardship,
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inter-relationships, ecology, and life from the Mongolians, but the Cultural Revolution sets in motion a series of events that change Mongolian life, and the lives of the students, for a long time. There are epic battle scenes: wolves attacking a horse herd in the middle of a blizzard, men slaughtering marmots and wolves, and much poetic beauty: spring grasses poking through snow, starry nights filled with wolf songs; there are also didactic passages to stumble through. But overall, this is an exciting and penetrating and educational novel. Show Less
LibraryThing member MarcusAverius
An inspirational book with a deeply meditative feel. Ecological sustainability is artfully blended with shamanistic attitudes and offers to educate the reader in the ways of observation and acceptance.
LibraryThing member Edith1
Written by a Chinese author who spent a few years in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. It is a fictional story, but since most of the book is about the nomadic lifestyle of the Mongols, presumably many details are rooted in reality.
On the one hand I found it a very interesting book --
On the other hand, at more than 500 pages it is much too long. The author has a clear message: that the nomadic culture and the Mongolian grassland are worth preserving, and that the Han 'outsiders' are ruining it. It's an important message (and apparently the book was a bestseller in China), but after about 300 pages, you get the point.
On the one hand I found it a very interesting book --
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there is a lot of detail about how the Mongols live, how the Han Chinese view them, and how they view the Han Chinese. Fascinating stuff, mostly, and the translation is excellent. On the other hand, at more than 500 pages it is much too long. The author has a clear message: that the nomadic culture and the Mongolian grassland are worth preserving, and that the Han 'outsiders' are ruining it. It's an important message (and apparently the book was a bestseller in China), but after about 300 pages, you get the point.
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LibraryThing member nmele
Apparently this autobiographical novel was/is very popular in China. The author recounts the experiences of a group of Chinese students sent to work with nomadic herders in Inner Mongolia and focuses on one student who becomes fascinated with the place of wolves in the economy of the grasslands.
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Filled with Mongolian stories and lore, the book operates on several levels, as a guide to a vanishing culture, as a cautionary story of impending environmental disaster, as a memoir of a very unusual formative period in a young person's life, and, perhaps, as a critique of the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
Although the ending is no surprise, tears still welled up. The view of life on the grasslands of Mongolia was fairly unsentimental most of the time, despite the narrator's infatuation with the wolf totem.
LibraryThing member AHS-Wolfy
Chen Zhen is a Chinese student, volunteers to spend some time in the countryside at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Sent to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia to live and work among the nomadic people whose way of life hasn't changed in centuries. Taken under the wing of Bilgee, a tribal
This is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author's own experiences of the time. It explores the socio-political expansionism of the Chinese at the expense of their neighbours as well as providing a very strong ecological message where removing one part of a delicately balanced ecosystem could spell disaster that may be impossible to recover from. It's not a subtle book and does bang you over the head with its message at times. Its also not an easy book to read, I personally couldn't just sit and read large chunks of this novel reading just one or two chapters at a time before having to set it down. It's not that it isn't a fascinating tale, it is, but the narrative doesn't flow and I'm not sure whether that's the fault of the author or the translator or possibly a combination of both. What most appeals about this book though is the way in which the grasslands existence is brought to life for the reader. It's quite an insight into an often brutal reality. An epilogue chapter,where Chen Zhen returns to the grasslands some thirty years later, is quite damning on what has happened in those intervening years .
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elder, Chen learns of a natural order of balance that has successfully provided for the existence of these people which is now under threat from the new way of doing things that the Chinese have brought with them. The intended destruction of the wolves, the largest predator in the region could have devastating effects on the ecology. Who is it that keeps the gazelle's from stopping in one place until that area of grass has either been consumed or trampled into oblivion so there will be none left for the Mongols own herds of sheep, cattle and horses? Who keeps the marmot and rabbit population in check so that their burrows won't proliferate across the land causing untold devastation? Chen's fascination with wolves grows with the more he sees and learns of these creatures and formulates a plan that may have dire consequences. He wants to get hold of a cub and raise it so that he can study it at close quarters. Raising a natural predator within a camp surrounded by livestock, what could possibly go wrong?This is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author's own experiences of the time. It explores the socio-political expansionism of the Chinese at the expense of their neighbours as well as providing a very strong ecological message where removing one part of a delicately balanced ecosystem could spell disaster that may be impossible to recover from. It's not a subtle book and does bang you over the head with its message at times. Its also not an easy book to read, I personally couldn't just sit and read large chunks of this novel reading just one or two chapters at a time before having to set it down. It's not that it isn't a fascinating tale, it is, but the narrative doesn't flow and I'm not sure whether that's the fault of the author or the translator or possibly a combination of both. What most appeals about this book though is the way in which the grasslands existence is brought to life for the reader. It's quite an insight into an often brutal reality. An epilogue chapter,
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LibraryThing member robfwalter
When you see the phrase "steely gaze" in the first sentence of a book, you know you're in for a tough journey. Unfortunately things didn't improve by the end of the first chapter, with lots of inadvertent anthropomorphising and a very ugly, breathless style. A quick flick through the book revealed
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that it kept this up for over 500 hundred pages, so I bowed out after the first chapter. Show Less
Call number
095
Language
Original language
Chinese
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2010)
Delete Key Award (2009)
Man Asian Literary Prize (Winner — 2007)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2008)
Original publication date
2004 (1e édition originale chinoise)
2008-01-31 (1e traduction et édition française, Bourrin éditeur)
ISBN
9788498673081