Край

Starik prosypaetsi͡a, smotrit v okno, zhdet chego-to, ne zhdet nichego, zasypaet. I vspominaet, vspominaet, vspominaet. Ego vospominanii͡a ne znai͡ut lineĭnogo vremeni - oni raspadai͡utsi͡a, sobirai͡utsi͡a v prikhotlivye figury, poroĭ poėtichnye, neredko strashnye. Stekli͡ashki ėtogo kaleĭdoskopa rezhut do krovi, no iz nikh skladyvai͡utsi͡a istorii͡a cheloveka, v chʹeĭ zhizni vse bylo ochenʹ malym, vse bylo slishkom ogromnym, i vse proshlo, i istorii͡a t͡seloĭ strany, kotorai͡a perezhila neskolʹko velikikh potri͡aseniĭ i ne odno pokolenie iskalechila. Kulʹturnai͡a revoli͡ut͡sii͡a, trudovye lageri͡a, publichnye ponoshenii͡a. Voĭna, strakh, gri͡azʹ. Nezhnostʹ, pechalʹ, odinochestvo. Gde-to za kadrom - li͡ubovʹ, no starik govorit o voĭne, o strakhe, ob odinochestve i izmene, i tolʹko o li͡ubvi on ne govorit. Gė Fėĭ - odin iz vedushchikh avangardistov v literature Kitai͡a. Kritiki stavi͡at ego v odin ri͡ad s takimi vydai͡ushchimisi͡a sovremennymi kitaĭskimi prozaikami, kak Mo I͡Anʹ, Bi Fėĭi͡uĭ, I͡Uĭ Khua, i sravnivai͡ut ego stilʹ s Kafkoĭ, Borkhesom i Markesom. "Kraĭ" - kitaĭskiĭ otvet romanu "Kogda i͡a umirala" Uilʹi͡ama Folknera, obshirnai͡a panorama Kitai͡a XX veka i malenʹkai͡a zhiznʹ cheloveka, ne uskolʹznuvshego iz cheli͡usteĭ istorii. Starik brodit po labirintu svoikh vospominaniĭ, govorit, govorit, ego rasskaz obryvochen i polon umolchaniĭ. Vse proshlo na krai͡u - na krai͡u zhizni, na krai͡u istorii, - no vse bylo, i li͡ubovʹ tozhe byla.

The old man wakes up, looks out the window, waits for something, waits for nothing, falls asleep. And she remembers, remembers, remembers. His memories do not know linear time — they disintegrate, gather into whimsical figures, sometimes poetic, often scary. The pieces of glass in this kaleidoscope cut to the point of blood, but they form the story of a man in whose life everything was very small, everything was too huge, and everything passed, and the story of an entire country that went through several great upheavals and crippled more than one generation. Cultural Revolution, labor camps, public vilification. War, fear, dirt. Tenderness, sadness, loneliness. Somewhere behind the scenes is love, but the old man talks about war, fear, loneliness and betrayal, and he doesn't talk about love alone. Ge Fei is one of the leading avant—garde artists in Chinese literature. Critics put him on a par with such outstanding modern Chinese novelists as Mo Yan, Bi Feiyu, Yu Hua, and compare his style with Kafka, Borges, and Marquez. "The Edge" is the Chinese answer to the novel "When I was Dying" by William Faulkner, an extensive panorama of China in the 20th century and the small life of a man who did not escape the jaws of history. The old man wanders through the maze of his memories, talking, talking, his story is fragmentary and full of omissions. Everything happened on the edge — on the edge of life, on the edge of history—but everything was there, and there was love too.