Torment of the sandal

the Torment of the sandal is a novel of the Chinese writer Mo Yan. Published in 2001, it was translated only in 2006 in French, with the Editions of the Threshold.

In the canton of Gaomi, Meinang, more the beautiful woman of the country, sees her father, Sun Bing, to be made stop by his/her lover, the sub-prefect Qian Ding. Her husband, Small-Jia, is called to assist the torturer Zhao Jia, his own father and thus the father-in-law of Meinang. It is them which will put at dead Sun Bing, according to the old rite of the torment of the Sandal - and all that to satisfy Europeans who build a railroad. The continuation is only one rumor, that of the memories and the life in escape.

" Built like a Chinese traditional opera, '' the torment of Sandal '' explores all the forms of the anguish, that which vociferates and that which tait." (the Nile C. Ahl, in Le Monde of the Books, April 2006). A subtle play between the narrative forms, those of the Chinese opera with voice of cat, of the grotesque and excessive styles quasi shakespearien and a problematic sobriety as much as surprising, the author gives voice to all the voices kill out of the anguish and the theater. It is the instrument of the torment which counts, much more than the torment itself. The noise, contradiction, the superposition of the registers is all the energy of the dissonant and fantastic text. Small Jia, pathetic butcher, probably idiotic (but the silly thing is one of the ways of wisdom) push merry “miaous” on any subject. Sun Bing, singer finishing with voice of cat is only one “théâtreux”, whose revolt is summarized with a contest of barb: it is with which with most beautiful, largest, thickest. " Meinang, passionaria with the large feet, fragile and grumpy, is only one demi-mondaine hardly courtesan, of which the noisy threats do not have any effect - and whose body “more sweetened than melons of the North-East” tells the troubles of province as much as the poor ideals. That always finishes by pressures of corridors and cries of pigs which one cuts the throat of. Requiring, vociferating, sometimes difficult, '' the Torment of the Sandal '' is very a beautiful book of butchery and honor. Always surprising, never easy, the book burns sometimes a little the eyes of the reader. And yet, one does not stop reading: Miaou, Miaou! " (the Nile C. Ahl, in Le Monde of the Books, April 2006)

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