In the pond

There is Jin. - In the pond. Tusquets. 2002.

The incapability of the books of history to turn into faithful reflex of the reality that they try to interpret is revealed in the works that treat the most recent history. In them, the monolithic affirmations and generalizantes necessary to try to understand the forces in game in a certain historical moment, turn out to be answered by the multiplicity of personal histories that insist on contradicting this considered historical reality as such. In this aspect, works as the present one, ambientadas in the years later to the death of Mao Zedong, they help in a decisive way to define the details of the big picture of this epoch.

The title of the book alludes to the phrase of secretary Yang in his last conversation with the young man Bin: "We we all live in the waters of the same pond and cannot always tackle it to bites some against others".

A small revolutionary fable ambientada in the years later to the death of Mao that passes between the miseries and wishes of a few common, almost too common personages. Along the work the ideals make a mistake with the personal interests, the injustices with the ups and downs of life, and the daily miseries of personages who strain for taking possession of the crumbs of wealth that put themselves to his scope, they provide a vivid picture of local customs and manners of a time and a place in China.

The action is developing like a game in that the personages reach his splendor for his round humanity, where not even the villains are so bad, not good so good ones. Between the curious indifference of a few spectators who only seem to want to enjoy the opportunities that the clash offers to them between the hard-working artist and his managers of the factory of fertilizers.

There is interesting the aptitude of the author to dramatize almost insignificant events so that they manage to provide a good suspense dose on the solution of a conflict based on insignificant events. The description of this miserable ambience in which an apple bundle can become considered a bribe, helps to comprise a period of the recent history of China that needs for his comprehension the merger of the history and his cold descriptions, and the narrative, with this temporary historical frame where it places his personages.

A reality that puts up this monolithic society too often described in the books of history, a combination of human forces in which they count the blood bonds, the politicians, economize on them, as well as the disinterested friendship. Where unilateralistas that so often we are she turns out to be answered to these visions by a wealth of situations that corresponds more faithfully to the historical reality.

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