Dream of Ding Village

Quanto fa incazzare sapere che, come esseri umani, siamo giunti alla conclusione che qualcosa è nocivo per la nostra salute, ma questa informazione non è immediatamente diffusa in ogni angolo del globo, per cui si continua a fare qualcosa di letale solo per il profitto di pochə e l’ignoranza di troppə? A me tantissimo, soprattutto se penso che sono storie niente affatto rare. Il sogno del Villaggio dei Ding è una di queste.

Yan Lianke racconta di quando, negli anni Novanta del secolo scorso, nella sua provincia natale, lo Henan, si diffuse la convinzione che si sarebbero potuti fare soldi facili vendendo il proprio sangue. Siccome i soldi sono facili solo quando si sta pagando un costo occulto, nel Villaggio dei Ding ben presto si show more inizia a morire di una malattia misteriosa, che si capisce essere collegata alla vendita del sangue, ma che confonde nel suo manifestarsi anche in chi non ha partecipato personalmente alla compravendita e addirittura neə neonatə.

Noi che sappiamo bene come si diffonde l’HIV non ci stupiamo: ci incazziamo soltanto davanti all’evidenza che questi farabutti abbiano usato più volte lo stesso ago per i prelievi – quanti lo avranno fatto scientemente e quanti con ingenua ignoranza? – e che davanti all’evidenza di un’epidemia in corso nessuna autorità si sia preoccupata di spiegare alla popolazione come arginare il contagio o di fornire dei farmaci aə ammalatə.

Si rimane annichilitə davanti alla distruzione di un’intera comunità, non solo per l’ammontare sempre maggiore di persone ce sviluppano l’AIDS e muoiono, ma per la perdita dei legami comunitari davanti all’evidenza di essere statə usatə e di averlo permesso davanti alla promessa dei soldi. Nemmeno la prossimità della morte sembra una motivazione sufficiente per recuperare il piacere di stare insieme e lasciare le persone libere di vivere come meglio credono i loro ultimi giorni.

Testimone privilegiato di questo sfracello è Ding Shuiyang, il cui figlio è quello che più si è arricchito dalla vendita del sangue. Insieme a lui assistiamo impotenti alla scomparsa del villaggio e all’abiezione con la quale il figlio continua ad approfittarsi della situazione, adattandosi a fornire nuovi “servizi” a mano a mano che l’epidemia si diffonde.

Nonostante tutto questo, però, non è un romanzo nichilista: paradossalmente è proprio lo sconforto di Ding Shuiyang davanti alle azioni del figlio a manifestare un grande amore per la vita e l’importanza di prendersene cura, per quanto possibile e fino a quando è necessario. show less

Despite the tragic nature of its subject matter, this is a funny and engaging book. The story of a village devastated by AIDS, it explores human relationships and how people react when something as final as an incurable illness affects an entire community. Inhibitions are lost and social contracts are ripped up. In a strange way, though, the illness ceases to matter. It is a background detail. At the centre of the story is one family - the cause of the AIDS epidemic, the exploiters of it, and the source of tension between neighbours and within its own structure. The use of dream sequences to move the story along reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's writing, and I enjoyed the dispassionate narration of the tale.

Ding Qiang is dead at twelve years old. Not old enough to be buried in the ancestors’ graveyard, he is happy behind the wall of his grandfather’s home, buried with his books. Young Qiang knew exactly how and why he had died. He had been poisoned by an angry neighbour, seeking vengeance on his father.

His father, Ding Hui, was a blood merchant, buying the villagers’ blood and reselling it at a profit. He had set up his business ten years ago at the direction of the county officials who wanted blood plasma. Now, the inevitable had happened. Villagers were dying of “the fever”; everyone of them had died of AIDS.

Qiang narrates the history of this small village, where every household had lost at least one member. His primary show more character is his Grandpa, a peasant given the honorific ‘Professor’ by the villagers due to his custodial role at the village school. Shaken to his soul by the havoc his son created, Grandpa set out to help as much as he could as a form of penance for his unrepentant son, who had no intention whatsoever of apologising to the villagers.

Through Grandpa and Qiang’s eyes, we see the initial change in the village culture, as people give up agriculture, making more money from selling blood than from selling their meagre crops. Traditional bonds break down as villagers try to outdo each other in building new houses and filling them with consumer goods.

Then the fever came. Initially no one knew how it arose, but soon they made the connection to selling blood. The village ran out of wood for coffins, but no worries, Ding Hui could take care of that too. That wasn’t the least of what Ding could do for the village.

The horror of Ding Hui’s deeds is tempered by Ding Qiang’s narrative, which presents events in the straightforward chatty style of a boy. Interspersed with this though, are Grandpa’s dreams. They are remarkably prescient and reveal the full devastation to come, not only to the people, but to their land, and ultimately to China itself with its real life epidemic. show less

Great Novel About Economic Upheaval in Rural China

"Dream of Ding Village" by Yan Lianke is a very well-written and well-translated book. The prose is easy to read and comprehend, despite the heavy subject matter.

The book is about a rural village suffering from the AIDS epidemic. The epidemic was brought to the villagers by unregulated entrepreneurs who bought blood from almost everyone in the village. There was an economic "boom" in the village that led to a major disruption in their farming lives. The father of the narrator was one of the most prolific and dangerous blood buyers. The book follows the reaction of villagers as he rises through party ranks to become a major corrupt politician in the county. His own father, the narrator's show more grandfather, struggles with his son's rise because he knows it was at the cost of the AIDS epidemic. The grandfather attempted a relief effort for the villagers, but otherwise, there was very little help from the government. Nearly every character in "Dream of Ding Village" is tragic in one way or another. Some of the descriptions are heartbreaking.

The author and the translator create wonderful images. Reading the book, it was easy to imagine the village's courtyards, threshing grounds, and the dusty paths leading to and from. The book is full of tragedies both great and small. It is certainly not for the faint of heart. Some reviewers have compared Yan Lianke to Camus or Kafka. Unfortunately, this book is neither absurdest nor allegorical. It is based on true, tragic events. show less

'You would hear them calling "Blood collector! Anyone selling blood?" like pedlars hawking their wares'
By sally tarbox on 12 Mar. 2014
Format: Paperback
Based on the true story of China's villagers who were encouraged to sell blood to make money; a few years after the initial prosperity, the unsanitary methods of blood collecting led to widespread AIDS.
Narrated by the dead son of one of the 'bloodheads', the novel exposes the utter corruption that permeated this activity. From the individuals setting up their own 'clinics' - and making a vast profit by re-using needles and taking more blood than they should, to later crooked dealings in coffin selling...
This was an interesting and indeed horrifying expose of these events, but I felt quite show more detatched from the people who make up the story. show less

This is a fictionalized account of a blood-selling scandal that occurred in a small rural community in China. As the government issued calls for blood, a number of blood collection points were set up by unscrupulous people. No sanitary precautions were taken, and people were allowed to sell their blood as frequently as they wished. The villagers were happy because they received small payments which allowed them to better their lives in small ways. The owners of the collection sites grew fabulously wealthy. Everyone was happy for a few years, until a huge percentage of the villagers found themselves infected with AIDS. At first the government downplayed their plight, promising cures and so forth. Ultimately the villagers are betrayed by show more the government as well.

This was an interesting glimpse into the perils of the rapid development of China. show less

In Yan Lianke’s novel, Dream of Ding Village, a remote, agricultural village in China suffers from an AIDS epidemic. Ten years ago, the inhabitants of Ding Village sold their blood to blood collectors to increase their wealth and improve their standard of living. While the blood sales allowed the villagers to replace their traditional mud and thatch huts with two-story houses made of brick and tile, the unclean blood collection practices infected many villagers with AIDS. This novel’s disturbing premise is based on the true story of the 1990s AIDS scandal in Henan Province.

The novel is narrated from the grave by the murdered son of Ding Village’s primary blood collector. The dead boy describes the slow and painful deaths of the show more AIDS-infected villagers, as well as the actions taken by the villagers in response to the calamity. Some attempt to profit from the tragedy (stealing from the sick or selling coffins, for example) while others seek to alleviate the pain of the sufferers or to bring hope to the dying. Lianke’s prose embodies a sing-song, repetitive quality reminiscent of an oral storytelling tradition, and the plight of the dying villagers is reflected and magnified by the parallel destruction of the village’s land, which suffers from drought and neglect.

Dream of Ding Village occasionally loses focus and, near the end, approaches absurdity with a complicated subplot about arranged marriages between dead people. While a tighter narrative would have increased this novel’s power, Dream of Ding Village remains a compelling portrayal of humanity’s ever-present potential for self-destruction.

This review also appears on my blog Literary License. show less