Love reading

Body is a novella written by Sun Pin, a female writer born in 1980s, which is included in her novella collection Salt. This novel is set in Jiaocheng County, Luliang City, Shaanxi Province at the turn of the century-this is also the hometown where the author grew up. The novel tells the story of two castrated men and women at the bottom, redeeming each other in despair, resisting fate and surviving in despair. With enchanting language style, delicate psychological description, exaggerated and bold scenes and extreme emotional rendering, it brings readers a reading experience that stings the senses and shocks the soul.

Chang Yong, the heroine of the novel, was unfortunately blind when she was young, abandoned by her parents who worked in a lead mine and raised by her grandfather who worked as a wrench. In order to make her survive in this backward and savage county, Grandpa "forced" her to bury her female identity and "castrated" her gender by wearing short hair, men's clothes, corsets, standing to pee and hiding menstrual belts.

Yang Deqing, the hero of the novel, lost his parents. Like Chang Yong, both of them are weak lives without parental protection. He lives by the meanest job in Jiaocheng county, and no one respects him, and of course no woman respects him. In this absurd world, young men's perennial unsatisfied sexual desire was passed on to a dead pig, but it was found on the verge of orgasm. He was frightened and lost his sexual ability, which was undoubtedly a kind of "castration" for the ignorant at the bottom of the old society.

A castrated woman meets a castrated man. In this case, gender is lost, and gender oppression is eliminated in a sense. She and he are no longer divided into men and women. She and she have the same fate in this "man-eating" bottom environment, and both just want to fight stubbornly with a weak body against the ignorant and poor outside world and their weak and depressed inner heart.

Chang Yong and Yang Yuqing, who are in similar situations, take care of each other, care for each other and understand each other. Chang Yong was raped and pregnant with a child. Yang Yuqing quietly took her to have an abortion, gave her meals every day, stayed at her house at night to take care of her safety, and never "bullied" her. After knowing that he didn't do it, she never despised and alienated Yang Tuoqing like others, and even willingly endured his violent emotions caused by his "incompetence". In his eyes, Chang Yong is a woman; In her eyes, Yang Yuqing is a man. She and he both regard each other as normal people, even relatives and comrades.

However, in the eyes of ignorant county people, Chang Yong and Yang Yuqing are both monsters who are neither male nor female, and they are lowly people who are inferior to pigs and dogs and whose lives are like dirt. No one cares about her and his life and dignity. And neither she nor he is willing to fate. In order to resist his own fate, Chang Yong, under the leadership of Yang Yiqing, chose to be a "corpse" to win people's attention and respect in this cruel and masochistic way.

A person who is possessed by a "soul" in divination and asks for good luck or bad luck. Since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there has been a superstitious activity in China called "Fufu". People often ask the gods for instructions on the fifteenth day of the first month, asking about farming, mulberry weaving and fame in the coming year. For a long time after the founding of New China, this cruel, bloody and superstitious interaction continued in some backward poverty-stricken counties or mountain villages.

Chang Yong and Yang Yuqing really gained the attention and awe of the people in the county through this extreme game, and even made some money around them, but in essence, people still didn't treat these two people as human beings. In the end, Yang Yiqing died of severe physical disability, and Chang Yong also set himself on fire. To some extent, she and he have been reborn spiritually, but in reality, this redemption is achieved by "death", not by "life". Such an ending inevitably makes people feel ironic and sad. In this way, it highlights the absurdity of the world.

Due to the author's own life experience and the particularity of the times, some cruel and bloody scenes and plots in the novel will inevitably make readers who read Sun Pin's works for the first time feel that "even breathing is painful". Many readers give feedback that "I can't read", but it is this "I can't read" that reflects the significance of reading Sun Pin's novels.

We are used to avoiding those cruel and painful memories, and we will forget them over time. Then how can the events that caused these serious injuries not be repeated? Only by actively facing this "imminent pain" can we deeply understand the feelings of those who are in a miserable situation and realize why we must resist all oppression such as gender, poverty and class.