On Yu Hua's Novels

Yu Hua is an outstanding novelist. His early novels, with a grim style and a tone of extremity, focus on conspiracy, death, violence, and the chaos and irrationalities of the world to express a skeptical and subversive attitude to life conventions and social norms. They reflect the hostility and tension between the novelist and the reality and represent the achievements of the exploration into human existence by the 1980s' pioneering novels. The hardships of life was the major theme of Yu Hua's novels since the 1990s, which also indicates the transformation of attitude from enlightening intellectuals to emphasizing the civic value. The joy, kindness, tenderness and generosity of human life appease the ruthless emotions in his earlier works. Yu Hua's stern narrative style, influenced by France's Nouveau Roman, and such writers as Lu Xun, Franz Kafka and Hemingway. His description of the details is vivid, rich, accurate and imaginative, and his language is simple, fine and fluent. This composes the most important part of Yu Hua's artistic talent. His attention to the details, though is a reflection of his ability, at the same time is a limitation to his creation.