Serve the People!

by Yan Lianke

Book Overview

Banned in China, Serve the People is the sexy, satirical sensation chronicling a love affair between the wife of a powerful Communist army commander and her household's servant--a remarkable, profound, and deliciously comic satire on Mao's famous slogan and the political and sexual taboos of his regime

Today Yan Lianke's best-known work, Serve the People found a wide underground audience in 2005 via excerpts and in...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802170447
• ISBN13: 9780802170446
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Bawdy and Hilarious Satire of Life in Mao's China

While there's doubtless no worse governmental regime under which to live than totalitarianism, there is also no other easier (and more dangerous) to skewer with satire. Such is indeed the case with Yan Lianke's marvelously spot-on short novel, SERVE THE PEOPLE! Written in 2005 in a relatively more open China, this book certainly did little to endear author Yan to his country's party and leadership. The book's title derives from one of the Chinese Communist Party's central tenets, "Wei renmin fuwu," a sentiment toward selfless service to the country expounded by Mao himself as the title of a speech he delivered in 1944, five years before his ascendancy to the role of Great Leader. "Serve the People" remains an everpresent admonition for China's current leadership, still inscribed in Mao's brushstrokes at the entrance to the Communist Party's leadership compound Zhongnanhai in Beijing. However, author Yan Lianke takes serving the people to a whole new and decidedly bawdy level in his exposition of Maoist China in 1967. Wu Dawang is a typical Chinese country boy who joins the Army in order to secure enough promotions to make good on a pre-marital vow to move his wife and child to the big city someday. Finding himself trapped in a loveless marriage to which he strives to be faithful, Wu lives most of his days at the military base where he has risen to General Orderly (primarily cook and gardener) to the Division Commander. In that role, Wu lives with his company comrades but works every day at the Division Commander's standalone residence. Winner of multiple awards and commendations for politically correct service, Wu strives to live outwardly by the People's Liberation Army's three rules of thumb - don't say what you shouldn't say, don't ask what you shouldn't ask, and don't do what you shouldn't do. In reality, he follows the survival rules he's learned from army veterans, "To think hard but say little, to channel ingenuity into practical ends and to blunt intelligence into worthy dullness." Young Wu's plans are turned upside down one day shortly after the Division Commander has left for a two-month conference in Beijing. A wooden sign lettered "Serve the People" in bright red characters has moved from its normal spot on the dining table to the kitchen counter. It takes Wu little time to discover the reason: the Division Commander's beautiful young wife, Liu Lian, has elected to use the sign as a signal that she "needs [Wu Dawang] upstairs for something." He timidly approaches her room only to discover her naked in her darkened bedroom, holding a copy of The Selected Works of Mao Zedong. Thus begins Wu's bawdy adventures in serving the people by serving the Division Commander by, in turn, servicing his wife (at her insistence). The story elevates to hysterical bedroom farce in short order, with the two main characters becoming wholly consumed by their physical relationship in the Division Commander's absence. Yan takes repeated satirical swi

A wonderful work

There are shades of many things - the Biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, Edith Wharton's "the Age of Innocence" and "1984," but this work is its own, and it is masterful. This is the portrait of a tyrannical, puritanical totalitarianism, but also of human beings striving to find happiness in an equally degrading and degraded world.

serve the people serves you nothng but pleasure

Serve the People is a great book. It is well written like a lot of Chinese literature. The words are smart, sparse and full of emotion. The story is one that is both political and a love story at the same time. Apparently, according to the book jacket, this book was banned in China because it made fun of Mao and was sexual. The writing reminds me of Ha Jin in that it gets to the point by using few words and not using a bunch of big words just to fill up the pages. Once I got into it I couldn't put it down because I wanted to know what was going to happen to the characters next. It kept me on the edge of my seat and didn't necessarily take the path I thought it would to get to the end. I recommend this book because the writing is so good. The writing makes you feel at home, it makes you feel comfortable, not like you need a masters degree to read it. Also, the story is a good love story and the politics of it all is subtle and nuanced. You do not feel as if you are being preached at.