Bright paints for blind people

Bloggers read the Foreign List of Yasnaya Polyana: Bi Fayyu “Chinese massage”

Bi Fayyu. Chinese massage. SPb.: Hyperion, 2016. Translation by N. Vlasova

Vera Kotenko , Telegram channel of the book about books

According to Chinese massage, the series of the same name and the film “Massage blind” was shot (the latter even received a silver bear in 2014). Bi Fayyu was not going to write a book about blind people, if not for a combination of circumstances. To begin with, being a teacher, he went to school for blind and deaf. Even then, he began to write - and one of his blind friends asked him why he would not write a book about what to be blind? Bi Fayyu replied that he was unlikely to be able, and then accidentally got into a massage salon, where they made a Tuyna (classic Chinese massage) blind massage therapists. In an interview, he recalled how the masseuse, taking his hand and leading his corridor to the couch, accidentally dropped the phrase that "now I can see you better."

“Chinese massage” at first glance seems like a classic production novel-the place of action, in fact, is a massage salon in Nanjing, where invisible people work masseurs, but, in fact, because they are blind, life has not become worse. She is full of the same joys and sorrows as everyone else. Heroes fall in love, play the undercover games of the throne, love money (even make bets on the exchange), dream of opening their own massage salon. Each chapter talks about a new character, each hero has lost his vision for various reasons. Someone remembers how it is-to see, someone never knew this. Their auditory, tactile and olfactory skills are changing when the vision went irrevocably, but that is why the verb “to see”, or not by chance, or not, left by the translator in places where the blind heroine looks somewhere in the distance or “sees” in front of him, so unexpectedly in the text. In fact, the heroes are really much more than the sighted, despite the fact that the sighted sometimes do not want to see certain things, even though you are cracking. Bi Fayyu wrote a social romance - he slipped the public under the nose, and even received a bonus for him: so, they say, and so in our country there are things to do with disabilities and people with visual impairments, they have not a chance of normal and legal work. How all this is familiar and understandable, as if you are not reading about China. And therefore, the book really looks very naive, but really international. And in general, Chinese literature really wants to advise everyone.

Assessment: 6/10

Vladimir Pankratov , Telegram channel "Stonener"

The chamber text (heroes work in one massage salon, all the action in it occurs), which you read with constant bewilderment. What, in fact, leads the author? Two casters open the massage salon, where the same blind ones go to work. As we find out, it is the blind who master the traditional Chinese massage technique of Tuyna is better than the rest. Everyone comes here for their own reasons: one has nowhere to go (no one takes the blind to work, and and what kind of work they take up); The other came to the young man whom she fell in love with; The third itself wants to open a massage salon, but for this there is no money or an entrepreneurial vein. Working constantly in the cabin and living here, they greatly limit the circle of their communication; As a result, like insects in a bank, they create a close lump of mutual quarrels and love, to watch which is sometimes funny, and sometimes simply inconvenient.

Closer to the end, the initial bewilderment does not dissipate, and the only thing that remains to complain is “a cultural barrier” between the Chinese reader and, roughly speaking, European. “Chinese massage” is a slippery text that will suit different definitions. On the one hand, it all looks like an old “pharmacy on duty”, where the heroes had frankly funny problems, which each time were resolved in an absurd way. On the other hand, a realistic story about the household ghetto, into which the blind drive society and they themselves. With the third - a transparent allusion on you and me, physically sighted people, but turning a blind eye to a neighbor’s suffering. Throughout the novel, a game is supported in which the blind actually see everything (“... we are all blind <...> how can you not see?”), And the author, as it were, hints that we all see only what we want. If everything is generalized, you will get a story about a person who does not want to give himself an insult, but does not expect much from life: if only to work and whom to love.

And yet the same notorious cultural barrier, which is already shy, interferes; It is intuitive that we know a little more about Chinese traditional life, it would be easier for us to understand the actions of many local heroes, and that sarcastic-screen tone of the author that he adheres to.

To whom and why it is worth reading: in my opinion, the text is so ambiguous that it is easy to get into trouble with specific recommendations here - so I will refrain.

Assessment: 6/10

Victoria Gorbenko , Telegram channel of the bookviki

Once in any Asian country, you will definitely see salons where blind masters do massage. And be sure to hear that only to them it is worth carrying your money and a twisted body: the lack of vision is compensated by other senses, including by increasing tactile sensitivity. Bi Fayyu, the winner of the prestigious Chinese literary prize, talks about who these people, how they live and how they perceive their existence in eternal darkness.

The heroes of the Chinese massage are employees of one of the salons in Nanjing. Their problems and experiences, it would seem, are very typical. They fall in love, jealous, envy, try to self -realize, build a profitable business, and establish relations with families. But the world of the blind is special and very fragile. Its inhabitants, on the one hand, must have remarkable willpower, endurance and determination, and on the other hand, they are much more vulnerable than the sighted, and need constant support.

Roman Bi Fayyuya is laconic, but entertaining. The vicissitudes of the relationship between masseurs are touching and dramatic, but at the same time the author affects important social aspects. Fayyu simultaneously entertains the reader, shows him the diversity of the world, which usually remains unnoticed, and criticizes the social status of the blind. For example, he tells in detail how, after the transfer of Hong Kong of the PRC, an economic rise occurred and the country was flooded with numerous massage salons of the blind. A huge number of people then got the opportunity to provide themselves, but at the same time they remained on the other side of the law, deprived of the legal protection of their labor and medical insurance.

It is significant that the book was filmed twice, and these are two completely different even in the form of a work. The film “Flood Massage” directed Law E received at the Berlin Film Festival of a silver bear for outstanding artistic achievements. At the same time, a popular series based on the book of Fayuy was also shot for Chinese television. The ability to hide the important in an unpretentious plot, perhaps, is the main dignity of the novel.

To whom to read: those who want to open new aspects of life and just relax with an interesting book.
Who does not read: those who were offended by the massage therapists.

Assessment: 6/10

Evgenia Lisitsyn , telegram channel GreenlampBooks

Writers create a hermetic space in different ways to get a kind of sandbox, in which one can closely consider the behavior and thoughts of heroes from all sides, and then project them onto the rest of humanity. Bi Fayuy for this takes a massage salon, in which more than a dozen people work, and they all cannot see. There is not even any special metaphor, although, as the author of heavenly, he simultaneously criticizes the power, laws and the unprotected position of people who differ from the majority. But all this, in my opinion, is secondary. First of all, it is important that the blind people cook in their micromy with harsh restrictions and more acute attention to the details. In this world, any little thing is experienced convexly, passionately, and the heroes are artificially collected in a couple of premises, and they do not need to be sought and collected throughout the huge China to tell history. More precisely, a dozen stories.

The Chinese massage has a strong serial principle, and we have to spend a good half of the text in order to find out with everyone, understand, accept, love or reject. Only after that does some action begin, but, again, it is also secondary. They would give Fayu's will, so he would write and wrote, told and told, another thing is that not everyone would have an endlessly reality show to his liking. The author takes a tiny situation, which each of us can get into, then refracts it through the perception of the blind people, inflates it to a huge scale and documents all the experiences of the heroes in detail. Their feelings are aggravated, paranoia, too, typical Asian features - even more so. Bi Fayyu himself writes that the Chinese are secretive to externally, but inside are seething with emotions, they are afraid to lose their face and easily panic in non -standard situations. In this situation, I somehow clearly understand that every fourth man on Earth is a Chinese, and in this case I am just the fourth, albeit internally. And how many more such “internal Chinese” walks along our streets.

An involuntary and controversial bonus is the rhythm and language of the novel, which are unusual for us and can be uncomfortable, as descriptions of beauty and bright colors for blind people. If this causes rejection from the first pages, then you should not read further, but if you get into an alien space of literature, then you can feel the commonality of all people of the world, regardless of prosaic traditions, skin color and visual acuity.

Assessment: 6/10

General assessment: 6/10

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Recall of other books from a long list of the Yasnaya Polyana prize in the nomination "Foreign Literature":

Jonathan COU "Middle England" - 8.5/10

Richard Russo Empire Falls - 8.25/10

Oygen Ruga "Days of Decreasing Light" - 8.2/10

Viet Than Nguyen "Sympathetic" - 8/10

John Boyn "History of Loneliness" - 7.75/10

Syuw "Skugga-Baldur" -7.6/10

Julian Barnes “One History” - 7.4/10

George Saunders "Lincoln in Bardo" - 7.25/10