The small town that makes up the setting of the story has changed as well. Whereas earlier there had only been political meetings and demonstrations, now there are nightclubs and karaoke bars everywhere. The only problem is that the factories are closing, and there's no work on offer.
Yet this isn't primarily a political tale. Nonetheless, many of the things about contemporary China that one reads about in generalized accounts are presented here in the lives of individuals. But the emphasis is invariably on the human concerns of the victims -- a man's worry over whether his wife in a neighboring camp has enough to eat, a woman's concern over whether she'll have enough money to clothe her child.
But it isn't a depressing book either. Families in cramped housing units may lament the years of life they have missed, but the book is often funny too, and there's enough sex in it to keep the most debauched reader happy.
There's a sub-plot, for instance, in which a 19-year old girl, the child of an dysfunctional family, has her first affair. It's not as simple as that because there's some clever inter-linking with other strands of the story. But it would spoil some of the immense pleasure the book contains to give any more away.
More importantly, fragments of classical Chinese poems are often introduced into the text, and these give unexpected relief from what's generally an ugly setting. But Hill, as well as being both a lover of poetry and himself a poet in prose, is also a remorseless realist, and contemporary China is clear-sightedly delineated on every page.
A book published in its original language almost invariably makes easier and more convincing reading than a translation. This is not to say that The Drink and Dream Teahouse isn't a strong story, with gripping events and a compellingly interesting cast of characters. It's all of these things. But its linguistic naturalness is also such that, all things considered, it's the most compulsively readable novel set in modern China I've ever read.
This claim may involve some loss of face for China's own novelists. But this book looks at China from an emotional distance, and as a result it achieves a roundedness that perhaps comes more easily to an outsider.
Inevitably you can't help wondering if there are any plans afoot to translate it into Chinese, and that having been done, what Chinese readers themselves will think of it. There's a major opportunity here that Taiwan's own energetic publishing houses shouldn't let pass.
But make no mistake about it, Hill has all the hallmarks of a major writer. We will be hearing a lot more of him, and with luck before very long.Publicatio Notes:
The Drink And Dream Teahouse
By Justin Hill Weidenfeld & Nicolson
344 pages
Available from FNAC Hardback
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