The Noodle Maker

by Ma Jian (Author), Ma Jian (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2006

  $19.39

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.46

  Written in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, The Noodle Maker is a virtuoso piece of 'red humour' - a darkly funny novel about the absurdities and cruelties of life in modern China. Every week, a writer of political propaganda and a professional blood-donor meet for dinner. They make unlikely friends, the one tortured by the desire for intellectual excellence, the other more concerned with the down-to-earth practicalities of life. Nevertheless, the writer enjoys the blood-donor's company, perhaps because, as the richer of the two, he provides the dinner. Over the course of one especially gastronomic and drunken evening, the writer moves from complaints about his latest commission - the composition of an epic account of a Communist hero - to recount the stories he would really like to write, had he the freedom. A young man buys an old kiln from an art school and opens a private crematorium, delighting in his ability to harass the corpses of police officers and Party secretaries; an illegal migrant scrapes a living writing letters for the illiterate, but becomes so immersed in the lives of others that he loses a grip on his own; a heartbroken actress performs a public suicide.

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $12.18

  From the award-winning author of Red Dust, comes a virtuoso piece of 'red humour' - a darkly funny novel about the absurdities and cruelties of life in modern China. Every week, a writer of political propaganda and a professional blood donor meet for dinner. They are unlikely friends - one of them tortured by his 'art', the other fat and wealthy from the earthy business of providing spare blood for the citizens of China. Over the course of one especially gastronomic evening, the writer starts to complain about his latest Party commission: the story of an ordinary soldier who sacrifices his life to the revolutionary cause. This is not the novel he wants to write, he tells his friend. Inside his head lives an unwritten book about the people he knows or sees everyday on the streets - people who lives are far more representative of the world in which he lives...