This week, we looked at the Cultural Revolution and the opening of relations between the Communist Chinese government and the United States. For Wednesday, I read the Three Body Problem excerpt. Obviously, it was fictional, but the brutality of the situations depicted still seemed to be realistic and believable depictions of violence. This was particularly true of the re-education scene, where the main character’s father is beaten to death; the fact that the most destructive fervor comes from misguided youth is very believable to me, as is the incredible cruelty which they are capable of. I was initially very incredulous at the descriptions of violence between revolutionary groups, but was shocked when Dr. D said that they actually happened. I am considering looking further into that unrest for my show and tell.
Something that we discussed in class on Wednesday was the way that Three Body Problem could be seen as a method of dealing with the trauma that the Cultural Revolution left. I had been surprised at the apparent lack of direct punishment that the three murderers get; they simply had to live through the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and perform hard labor. Other than the implied punishment that they will be killed when the main character’s aliens finally arrive, there is nothing actually done to the murderers. They do not even give the main character an apology for murdering her father. One of the explanations that we went over in my group was that maybe the author felt a personal connection with the killers in addition to the victim. The author himself had likely been too young to take part in any state mandated torture sessions, but he might have had family or friends who had participated. I also had another idea that I did not get to go into during class, and it revolves around the statement by one of the former Red Guards about how everything that happened is simply history. While it might also be convenient for the plot of the book, I think that the author might be trying to send a message with that statement. It might be that one of the major ways of dealing with what happened, especially since so many people who lived through the Cultural Revolution, is to simply write it all off as in the past and to not think further than that. This way, the people avoid having to think about their own culpability for their actions.
Liu, Cixin. The Three-Body Problem. Translated by Ken Liu. New York: Tor, 2014.
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