This past is inescapable, Yu repeatedly reminds readers. Society is no-longer friendly with each other, or neighborly. But some sense of community is what allows society to survive, Yu argues. Yu does not allow his themes to be obfuscated by verbose constructions or flowery euphemisms. Yet that doesn t mean the spiritual or fantastical isn t invoked.
Ghosts wander in and out of the narratives.
But following a strong tradition in Chinese fiction, Yu s stories have an element of the didactic. Each of the aristocrats loped down the road with hearts full of hope and ambition. Willow could not help but sigh for them as well. But Yu demonstrates that a simple belief in humanity, in acts of small kindnesses, though it can t stop the political structure from changing to its next cycle, or wipe out the rape and murder and other unpleasantries depicted in his stories, is hope. Small acts of kindness connect brother with brother, landowner with renter, gentry with peasant and keep the world a habitable place.