The Boat to Redemption
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Disgraced Secretary Ku has been banished from the Party - it has been officially proved he does not have a fish-shaped birthmark on his bottom and is therefore not the son of a revolutionary martyr, but the issue of a river pirate and a prostitute. Mocked by the citizens of Milltown, Secretary Ku leaves the shore for a new life among the boat people on a fleet of industrial barges. Refusing to renounce his high status, he maintains a distance - with Dongliang, his teenage son - from the gossipy lowlifes who surround him.
One day a feral little girl, Huixian, arrives looking for her mother, who has jumped to her death in the river. The boat people, and especially Dongliang, take her to their hearts. But Huixian sows conflict wherever she goes, and soon Dongliang is in the grip of an obsession for her. He takes on Life, Fate and the Party in the only way he knows . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this Man Booker-shortlisted novel, Tong (Raise the Red Lantern) chronicles the misadventures of a lovesick young man left behind by China's new prosperity. Ku Dongliang's father, Ku Wenxuan, is the powerful Secretary of Milltown; his mother, Qiao Limin, is a radio propagandist; and their relation to a beloved revolutionary martyr has earned them much respect. But an official investigation reverses their fortune when it's discovered that there is no relation to the martyr. Wenxuan loses his job, Limin questions his faithfulness, and Dongliang's classmates dub him "Kongpi," or "emptier than empty, and stinkier than an ass." Dongliang then follows Wenxuan into ignominy by living among the vulgar but kind-hearted boat people of the Golden Sparrow River. After Wenxuan literally, and graphically, attempts to excise the lust that lead to his ruin, his features transform, making him resemble a fish. He also becomes increasingly bothered by Dongliang's burgeoning sexuality, which only worsens when the boat people adopt a mysterious orphan girl. Dongliang's obsession with her drives him to disobey his father, and society, and soon everything begins to look "kongpi." Finally, he makes off with a revolutionary monument without considering its true weight. Tong's characterizations are thin (particularly the women), and the logic of his plot questionable, but his unflinching attention to hypocrisy and bitterly absurd sense of humor are in fine form.
