The Years, Months, Days by Yan Lianke

The Years, Months, Days by Yan Lianke

Author:Yan Lianke [Lianke, Yan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802188816
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2017-01-10T05:00:00+00:00


MARROW

Chapter One

The entire world smelled of autumn.

The fall harvest season arrived before you knew it. In the mountains, the sweet smell of corn was so thick it would stick in your throat. Drop by drop, the autumn light streamed down onto the roofs of houses, onto the tips of grass, and onto the hair of the peasants out working in the fields. This sunlight, shimmering like agate, illuminated the entire village.

It illuminated the entire mountain ridge.

It illuminated the entire world.

It was a bountiful harvest. During this period of the year, a dry spell would usually be followed by a flood, and by the time the corn was ready for pollination, the balance of sun and rain would be perfect. Down in the plains the harvest was meager, while up in the mountains it was extraordinary. The ears of corn were almost as thick as a man’s leg, leaving the stalks doubled over like a hunchback. A few of the stalks were broken and lying on the ground, struggling to grow. You Village, often called Four Idiots Village, consisted of a few hills, and had abundant harvests. Between the white dew and the autumn equinox—which is to say, between the fifteenth and the sixteenth solar terms—people began harvesting corn. All the land belonging to the family of Fourth Wife You was on the mountain ridge farthest from the village. During previous years’ land reallocations, all of the families in the village felt that this field was too far away. The village chief told Fourth Wife You that if her idiot children wanted to eat, she would need to farm the field herself, and she was welcome to farm as much of it as she wished. Fourth Wife You therefore took her four children with her to sow the field. She sowed the entire ridge, amounting to perhaps eight or ten mu of land, but who knew this year would yield such an extraordinary harvest?

Fourth Wife You took her idiot children out to the fields three days in a row, and spent another three transporting everything back, but still had only harvested a third of her grain. By this point, she was exhausted, and found herself increasingly annoyed by this extraordinary harvest. In the endless cornfield, green stalks and dried leaves were piled high, and stepping inside was like entering the sea. As Fourth Wife You was carrying the baskets of corn up to the head of the field, she heard her Third Daughter calling softly out to her, “Ma, Ma! Won’t you do something about Fourth Idiot? He keeps following me around, touching my breasts and pinching my nipples.” By this point, there was already a huge pile of corn at the head of the field. The sky was high and the clouds were sparse. The purple strands of corn silk were just beginning to emerge, and they swayed back and forth in the sunlight. Fourth Wife You turned in the direction of the voice, and sure enough her son was chasing her daughter around.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.