Frog (novel)

Frog (Chinese: 蛙; pinyin: Wā) is a novel by Mo Yan, first released in 2009. The novel is about Gugu (姑姑 "paternal aunt"), the aunt of "Tadpole", the novel's narrator. Gugu performs various abortions after the One Child Policy is introduced.[1] The novel discusses both the reasons why the policy was implemented and the consequences of it.[2]

This article is about the Mo Yan novel. For the Stephen Dixon novel, see Stephen Dixon (author).
Chinese first edition

It was translated into English by Howard Goldblatt (Chinese: 葛浩文), foremost translator of contemporary Chinese literature and former research professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame. [3] He served as Mo Yan's longtime English translator.[4]

In Mandarin Chinese the word for frog, 蛙 (wā), sounds similar to the sound made by a baby (娃 wā), and the narrator's name means "tadpole".[5]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the conflicts between the government abortion planners, who believe that they are doing the right thing, and the prospective parents makes Frog a "startlingly dramatic book".[6] Steven Moore of the Washington Post wrote that since the novel includes scenes of anguish, Frog "is no polemic supporting the necessary if heartless one-child policy."[2]

Plot

Gugu, born in 1937, is the first modern midwife in Tadpole's town. She had fallen in love with an air force pilot in 1960, but the officer went to Taiwan.[6] The novel is divided into five parts, each part being a letter by Tadpole to a Japanese professor. Following a recent visit the professor requests more information about his Aunt's career. Told through flashbacks interspersed with his reflections, Tadpole takes us through his memories of Gugu's life.

Later the novel catches up to present day and follows less of Gugu and more of Tadpole himself.

Reception

Julia Lovell of The New York Times wrote that comparisons to The Dark Road by Ma Jian, also about abortions in China, would be inevitable; praising the final part of Frog, she argued that the two novels initially appear quite different but that both "describe a country that has lost its way, a land in which a repressive state has rendered individuals incapable of making independent moral judgments about political, economic and social behavior and in which women continue to suffer at the hands of reckless male politicians and son-fixated husbands." But Lovell also wrote, "Those anticipating an analysis of Gugu’s innermost psychology will be disappointed. Throughout the book, Mo Yan’s narrative attention darts here and there [...] Mo Yan has made his name and his fortune as a best-selling novelist. I sometimes wonder, though, if his heart lies in more visual, linguistically pared-down literary genres".[1]

Notes
  1. "Mo Yan’s ‘Frog’" (Archive). The New York Times. February 8, 2015. Retrieved on March 5, 2016. Print: February 8, 2015, p. BR14 of the Sunday Book Review, title: "Missing Children".
  2. Moore, Steven. "Book review: ‘Frog,’ by Mo Yan" (Archive). Washington Post. March 23, 2015. Retrieved on March 5, 2016.
  3. "Notre Dame’s direct link to Nobel Literature Prize." Notre Dame News. October 11, 2012. Retrieved on April 8, 2017.
  4. "China's Mo Yan wins Nobel in literature." Associated Press at the Houston Chronicle. October 11, 2012. Retrieved on March 5, 2016.
  5. Machart, Bruce (Bridgewater State University). "Review: Mo Yan’s “Frog” is a tale of modern China" (Archive). Houston Chronicle. January 25, 2015. Retrieved on March 5, 2016. Article posted by Maggie Galehouse.
  6. Maslin, Janet. "Review: In Mo Yan’s ‘Frog,’ a Chinese Abortionist Embodies State Power" (Archive). The New York Times. February 26, 2015. Retrieved on March 5, 2016.


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