Skip to content
Menu
Lucky's Bookshelf
  • Browse
  • About
Lucky's Bookshelf

Book Review: To Live (活着) by Yu Hua

Posted on February 20, 2020April 10, 2022
Topics: China, Novels / Fiction

Rating: 8.5/10.

A very tragic novel — the protagonist is an old man telling the story of his life when he was young. In the beginning, he was born into a rich family, he gambled all day. He lost all his family’s property gambling and they had to move into a small hut. At this time, he was arrested by the Kuomintang to fight in the Civil War, and after returning home, communism started and everyone’s property was confiscated. Under communist rule, they had a hard time without food, and then the family began to die one by one: the son, the daughter, the wife, the grandson, all died. In the end only the old man was left with a cow to keep him company.

I really liked this book, which describes many events in Chinese history from the perspective of ordinary people: the Chinese Civil War, Great Leap Forward, Great Chinese Famine, Cultural Revolution Revolution, etc. The old man was irresponsible when he was young, so I did not sympathize with him very much, but like the Book of Job, disaster upon disaster fell upon. The book is fairly easy to read, but the content is deep, not like a child’s book.

See more reviews on Amazon.com

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter

Most similar books:

Sky Burial by Xinran Xue Three Body Trilogy by Liu Cixin Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Enjoying these books?

Join our mailing list to receive weekly book reviews!

No spam, unsubscribe at any time

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Subjects

  • Meta (2)
  • Topics (227)
    • Arts and Music (12)
    • Business / Finance (25)
    • Canada (11)
    • China (17)
    • Current Events (8)
    • Data Science / ML (8)
    • Economics (11)
    • History (27)
    • Indigenous (9)
    • Linguistics (17)
    • Mathematics (5)
    • Medicine / Health (14)
    • Natural Sciences (20)
    • Philosophy (15)
    • Self-Help / Career (12)
    • Social Sciences (12)
    • Software Engineering (3)
    • Startups (12)
    • World (22)
  • Type (244)
    • Classics (18)
    • Nonfiction (162)
    • Novels / Fiction (29)
    • Textbooks (36)

Lucky’s Bookshelf is a participant of the Amazon Affiliates Program.

©2023 Lucky's Bookshelf | Powered by SuperbThemes & WordPress