The Aesthetics of the Ugly in Postmodernism (V. Sorokin's Novel "Blue Fat" and Mo Yan's Novel "The Land of Wine")

Yui Linghong ORCID: 0000-0003-2461-8318 Postgraduate, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 117198, Russia, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6 yu_linghong@yahoo.com

Vladimir Sorokin is one of the most influential writers of modern Russian literature of the era of conceptualism and postmodernism. His work is known for breaking all taboos and using various taboo discourses. Mo Yan is a modern Chinese writer whose works are characterized by national flavor and "hallucinatory realism that combines folk tales with history and modernity" ^[1]. In his works, Mo Yan presented almost all the popular literary trends of the 80s of China. His work belongs to the literature of the "search for roots" and "magical realism", even to Chinese postmodernism.Being almost the same age, both writers began their work in the 1980s, accompanied by great changes in society.

Sorokin and Mo Yan are from two completely different countries, nevertheless their literary style and language are similar. The creativity of both is marked by the presence of multidimensional literary experiments. Their works often cause heated controversy both among critics and readers. According to the critic P. Basinsky, the question of Sorokin "is firstly a criminal issue and only secondly - cultural, literary, etc. <...> If the author is ill, let him be treated. If healthy, file a lawsuit against the scoundrel. At least three articles: pornography with elements of perversion, incitement of ethnic hatred, as well as abuse of specific historical persons whose children and grandchildren, by the way, are still alive" ^[2]. As for the assessment in the criticism of Mo Yan, as the Chinese literary critic Jiang Ni points out, "what he wanted to glorify the life and spirit of humanity turned out to be anti-life, anti-humanity and veneration of violence. <...> He likes to go to extremes so that people with fragile nerves can't stand it. What he is doing is causing widespread controversy and pandering to the market in a veiled form" ^[3]. Accordingly, in this article, two works are selected for analysis — "Blue Fat" and "The Land of Wine", which have defining similarities in the field of aesthetics, and both had a sharply negative resonance in criticism.

It is important to note that both novels were written in the 90s. Sorokin's "Blue Fat" begins with an intimate letter from the "biophilologist" Boris Gloger, allegedly written in 2068. In addition to the line of the future in the second half of the XXI century, the novel is still set in an alternative 1954. The two time lines are connected through a fantastic substance, the "blue fat" mentioned in Gloger's letters. In Mo Yan's novel "The Land of Wine", the action is based on three storylines around a supposedly real story related to the eating of children in the province of Jiugo. It is noted that one of the storylines is interspersed epistolary fragments between Li Yidu and Mo Yan, there is a similarity with Gloger's letters in "Blue Fat". In addition to the similarity of the narrative structure, their publications also ignited considerable controversy not only about the works, but also about the writers themselves. The scandal surrounding the "Blue Fat" reached its climax in 2002. In June, the youth organization "Going Together" accused Sorokin of promoting pornography and drugs. Later, activists of the movement gathered in front of the Bolshoi Theater, tore up books and threw them into a foam toilet. Nevertheless, the reverse effect brought Sorokin great commercial success and raised his popularity all over the world. Conversely, "The Land of Wine" was immediately shelved after its release. The problem is rooted in the fact that as the most shocking work of Mo Yan, in addition to mass disgusting scenes and descriptions of swearing, the novel fiercely exposes the injustice and corruption of officials in the 1990s, which is why critics were afraid to start a conversation about romance. Nevertheless, "The Land of Wine" has received almost unanimous praise from Western literary critics since its publication. "The Land of Wine" is also the first work of Mo Yan to be printed in Russia. V. Bondarenko points out the similarity of both writers about the construction of their artistic world, in particular: "Over the pages of his "Land of Wine", you will remember Pelevin more than once and not twice, and especially V. Sorokin, feeling how close we, "Chinese and Russian — brothers forever," in our post-socialist wanderings-insights" ^[4].

The commentator's explanation of Sorokin and Mo Yan is understandable, since they are vivid representatives of the same aesthetics of the ugly. According to V. Yerofeyev, "Sorokin's texts are like meat from which blood has flowed and which is infested with worms. This dish, prepared by a disappointed romantic who is taking revenge on the world for its ontological disrepair, causes the reader a gag reflex, an aesthetic shock" ^[5]. Researcher I. Smirnov comments on Sorokin's work as a work "insulting innocence" ^[6]. The aesthetics of the ugly began to spread in China largely thanks to the robot of the Chinese scientist Liu Long "Western Aesthetics of the Ugly" in 1983, which greatly influenced the aesthetics and creativity of Chinese writers, including Mo Yan. Critic Shen Xiao, in an article about the connection between the Western aesthetics of the ugly and the work of Mo Yan, writes: "The unique work of Mo Yan not only shows the reader the vast landscapes of the countryside in Shandong Province, but also depicts the holy and ugly in human nature" ^[7].

When we talk about the aesthetics of the ugly, it is difficult to do without the disintegration of form, the chaotic nature of matter and unreason. It is obvious that in "Blue Fat" and "The Land of Wine" there is an abundance of violent scenes, as well as detailed descriptions of violent bloody scenes. Sex scenes are also heavily featured in both novels. In "The Land of Wine", sex scenes between Ding Gower and his mistress, who is Jin Gangzuan's wife, are depicted in detail. And in the "Blue Fat" in the alternative 1954, Hitler as a pedophile rapes Stalin's daughter, Alliluyeva has sex with Pasternak and her own stepson. In addition, "Blue Fat" also describes sex between Khrushchev and Stalin. The abundance of sex scenes and various sexual games forced V. Obermayr to call the novel "pornography history" ^[8]. It would be biased to consider the depiction of obscenity in Sorokin's novel from this point of view, since it is one of the means of Sorokin's polemics with traditional literature, which does not comprehensively reflect reality. According to Yu . Dreyzis, "naturalistic descriptions of sexual scenes, physiological organs, injury, extensive inclusion of obscene vocabulary are designed to make up for the lack of physicality in literature" ^[9]. As one of the methods of violating all imaginable traditional boundaries, the writer not only laughs at official and popular culture, but also tries to achieve the artfulness of literature, which is "only paper covered with combinations of letters" ^[10].

As we know, the fondue of human meat mentioned in the "Blue Fat" still attracts a lot of attention from critics. Sorokin depicts in detail how Khrushchev tortures a young man who is purple and sweating from pain and screaming with various corkscrews, after which Khrushchev and Stalin together devour fondue made from the severed torso of a young man who has just died with pleasure. In the "Land of Wine" there is also a similar image of eating a person. In the second chapter, entitled "Meat Children", parents give birth to children only to sell them to the special procurement department at the Culinary Academy, where they provide a fried baby for officials. Moreover, this sale of children is a law. For parents, this is just a trade exchange — the child is not a person, but a special product. Cannibalism deepens in another storyline of "The Land of Wine" — investigator Dean Gower came to the province of Jiugo to get to the truth of eating children. At a grand feast in honor of his arrival, led by Jin Gangzuan, deputy head of the propaganda and agitation department of the city committee of Jiugo, a large gilded tray was brought out on which "a little boy sat with his legs tucked under him; an amazing aroma emanated from him, and oil flowed from his golden-yellow body" ^[11].Unlike Sorokin, Mo Yan turns to the depiction of violence and cruelty in an attempt to detect abuse of power, which is manifested in the novel by the means of eating a child. Mo Yan expresses his anger at the words of the protagonist Dean Gower in the novel. When Dean Gower saw the roasted baby, he immediately raised a pistol at the officials present and said: "And you, the leaders, kill the sons of the people to saturate their wombs" ^[12]. A bullet from Dean Gower's pistol hit the cooked baby right in the head and the pieces were scattered everywhere. "The party secretary or the director licked the boy's brains, which had splattered the back of his hand. The taste must have been excellent, because he even smacked his lips: "Here's a scoundrel, he spoiled such a dish" ^[13]. For them, nothing is more important than food and drink, even if this delicacy is made from a child —hope and the future of humanity. Such people of power are completely separated from the people and do anything. According to Bi Guangming, "Mo Yan is deeply concerned about the ubiquity of this ideology, because it is it that makes power and money conspire to eat people, and use its seduction and power to drag people down, expand the cannibalism festival, make more people accomplices who simultaneously use power and money to justify and the cover of cannibalism" ^[14].

At the same time, it must be admitted that the description of physiological details and nauseating details also occupies a significant part in both novels. They are often accompanied by swearing and cursing. In "Blue Fat" there are numerous descriptions of genitals and obscenities. Because of the dirty content, Bondarenko calls Sorokin's work "fecal literature." The disgusting description is also present everywhere in the "Land of Wine", where there is even a scientific theory for drinking urine. The character of Li Yidou, as a candidate of sciences, engaged in research at the Jiugo Academy of Winemaking, proves the legality of adding urine to a vat of wine, which is one episode from the work "Red Gaolian" by Mo Yan. He also considers this attempt to open a new era in the history of winemaking: "Urine is a real miracle, it is not only the most wonderful liquid in the world, it also has a deep philosophical content" ^[15]. These absurd and alienated descriptions cause the reader to have a deep feeling and reflection on reality.

In general, it can be stated that both writers create their own artistic world based on the aesthetics of the ugly. Unlike Sorokin, Mo Yang is obsessed with depicting the comparison between good and evil, beautiful and ugly. This shows the opinion of the hero who has the same name as Mo Yan in the "Country of Wine": "Neither is the beauty created from the beautiful. The truth of beauty is achieved by the transformation of the ugly" ^[16]. In the "Land of Wine", the world of power and money created by Jin Gangzuan corrupts the researcher Ding Gower and drives him crazy, but at the last moment he takes up arms against those who participate in cannibalism. At the end of the novel, Dean Gower shouts "I protest" and gets into an uncovered cesspool, where the excrement of the inhabitants of Jiugo accumulates and all the "dirt that can only be imagined floats <...> In a few seconds all the ideals, justice, dignity, honor, love and many other sacred concepts after the unfortunate investigator on especially important cases plunged to the very bottom of the latrine ... " ^[17]. The world is cruel, but evil can never prevail over good.

In addition to the aesthetics of the ugly, both writers are heirs of the classical literature of their countries. In "Blue Fat" Sorokin juggles Russian literature. In the spirit of biopunk, the writer draws different clones of writers, such as Tolstoy-4, Chekhov-3, Nabokov-3, Platonov-3, Pasternak-1, Dostoevsky-2 and Akhmatova-2, and their creations, as Uffelmann points out, are only "by-products of the biochemical process of blue fat excretion" ^[18]. In the futuristic plot, Pasternak begins to write poems praising female genitals; Akhmatova is portrayed as a crazy old woman who crawls in front of Stalin. The image of Akhmatova in "Blue Fat" makes the famous writer V. Aksenov publicly accuse Sorokin that the novel is "the most abominable mockery of Akhmatova" ^[19]. With the help of irony over famous writers, Sorokin undermines the stereotype and authority of traditional literature, as a result of which he realizes exclusion in his work. When it comes to the "Land of Wine", the novel focuses on the theme of "eating a man", which also arises in the story "Notes of a Madman" by Lu Xin, which sounded like a sharp denunciation of the vices of class-clan relations and feudal ethical norms of old China. And the sharp edge of Mo Yan's criticism is directed at the chaotic reality under the onslaught of a market economy and, first of all, at the corrupt government that can dominate everything.

Interestingly, there are many Chinese elements of everyday life in "Blue Fat", which gives the novel an oriental flavor. In addition, Sinoisms as a large component of neologisms play an important role in the novel. They are often used together with swearing and cursing, committing literal linguistic violence. Moreover, according to M. Marusenkov, "unusual-sounding Sinoisms functionally come close to phonetic zaumi" ^[20]. Sorokin has repeatedly expressed his love for Chinese culture in Interviews and articles, which is one of the reasons for the numerous references to the Chinese language in "Blue Fat". Mo Yan also admits to the influence of Russian classical and Soviet literature on him. The evidence for this is found in the novel "The Land of Wine", where the words of I. Lenin and L. Tolstoy are quoted. In addition, their names, along with M. Gorky, are used more than once in the work.

All this, as it was shown in the article, proves that the works of Vladimir Sorokin and Mo Yan have existing similarities. The heritage and development of the traditional literature of their country, the reinterpretation of modern society and its values, a self-sufficient artistic world based on the aesthetics of the ugly, is accompanied by an abundance of literary experiments, which allows both writers not only to show their talents in literary circles, but also to successfully demonstrate their own national mentality.