BOOK REVIEW

By Margot Griffiths

With a nod to Tolstoy, it may be said that the free are all alike, but the oppressed are each oppressed in unique ways. A sadly familiar theme in literature, the evil of oppression is at the heart of Dai Sijie’s widely translated, and richly awarded, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. Under Chairman Mao, China’s formula for repression changed the face of the country forever during the notorious cultural revolution.

In the late 1960s, while American youth were free to burn the flag, Mao Zedong introduced his re-education program, stealing the lives of “city youth,” banishing them to remote mountain villages. Anything that hinted of western culture was purged. Math and physics were struck from curricula. Books were burned. Mao’s extremism stemmed, it is thought, from a fear of intellectuals.

The author, who underwent re-education himself, reveals the truth in his wrenching memoir. With his friend, Luo, 17-year-old Sijie treks for two days up a tortuous mountain path into exile. His crime? His parents are doctors. Day in, day out, the two young men haul buckets of excrement up the mountain. The odds of release are three in 1,000. Of the millions “re-educated,” that is the percentage whose lives were regained.

Sijie’s is a typical story of resilience. Typical because everyday we find evidence of people enduring the unendurable with humor and hopefulness. Sijie’s violin miraculously escapes incineration and soon the starved villagers are experiencing the forbidden beauty of Mozart. Most important, is the cache of burned books Sijie and Luo stumble across. They share the classics of European literature with the daughter of the local tailor, the beautiful little Chinese seamstress. Their awakening to love and literature is made poignant by the desolate world they inhabit. Chairman Mao cannot imprison their minds.

Sijie is first and foremost a filmmaker, and his writing, on occasion, tends toward documentary. He has a lesson to teach and he’s earned the right. Still, the story enchants, building with the cadence of a folktale to a surprising and droll conclusion. Moments of despair are offset by moments of pure delight. With warmth and optimism, Sijie makes clear his message. Nourished by the power of art, the human spirit prevails.

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