Bi nu

Why bother (re-)telling a story?

If most of the volumes of the myths series so far have struggled to do anything but rehash the same tired Greco-Roman mythology, Chinese novelist Su Tong's (Raise The Red Lantern) contribution to the Canongate Myths series at least adds a different perspective. It's apparently based on the tale of Binu, the wife of a man conscripted to build the Chinese wall, who walked all the way across China to make sure he had something warm to wear when winter came, only to end up crying over his grave.

"Different" doesn't necessarily mean "good," though.

There's no denying that there's a story very much worth telling at the heart of this. Criterion #1 to re-telling an old myth to a modern audience must, of course, be that the myth still has some sort of value as a story, and Su Tong (who's a citizen of the People's Republic and lives in Beijing) certainly mines this one well. There's a great project to be built, ordered by the king whom almost nobody has seen in person and who only shows up in the story by dying, for which the people are expected to sacrifice everything and not complain; the worst crime one can commit (short of planning to assasinate the king or disobeying the local ruler) is to cry. Especially if you're a woman.

They had stolen her package, stolen her body, and finally they had stolen her grief, her tears, and her right to die.

Damnit, it's positively Orwell with a Confucian twist as Su Tong follows Binu across China, running into people from all walks (and rides, and leaps, and crawls) of life, leading up to a finale that I'm sure would make a cracking scene in a movie.

And yet. One would think criterion #2 for a successful re-hash of an old story would be to make not only the themes but also the characters come alive, so that the reader can identify with the story and not only understand but feel its relevance. Now, in fairness, it's possible that there's just a cultural gap at work here. Maybe the numerous side plots are in fact allusions to stories I've never read, and maybe Tong puts a clever spin on them and uses them to add another layer to what, to me, looks like a lifeless story, full of clumsy "magic realism" that never feels real, and populated by flat, one-dimensional characters. Our heroine never does anything but weep - bucketfulls, literally - and declare how much she needs to get to her husband, and none of the dozens of supporting characters she meets along the way serve any purpose but to provide video game-like obstacles and clues in a way that would make Paulo Coelho proud. And it goes on like this for far too long, veering back and forth the affairs of peasants and kings without ever really making any of them matter despite going into excruciating detail time and again.

I can see why Tong bothers re-telling the story of Binu. I'm not entirely sure if I should have bothered reading it, though. As an allegory, it works; but like Binu's husband, it ends up crushed under the weight of far too much stone serving no purpose but to keep people out.