Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

pigpen. A grand plan was surely taking form in his breast, with escape from the pig farm at its core. . . . But what could a nearly blind castrated boar do once he’d gotten free? I guess that’s a question for another time. Let’s continue the tale of events from August of that year.
    Shortly before the sows I impregnated were about to come to term, that is, on or about the twentieth of August 1967, following several unusual occurrences, a devastating epidemic struck the pig farm.
    The first signs occurred when a castrated boar named Butting Crazy developed a chronic cough, accompanied by a high fever and a loss of appetite. The disease spread to four of his sty mates in short order. All this went unnoticed, since Butting Crazy and his friends were thorns in the side of farm personnel, a bunch of pigs who refused to grow. From a distance, they looked like normal little piglets of three to five months, but up close they shocked the observer with their scraggly bristles, coarse skin, and hideous faces. They’d experienced pretty much everything the world had thrown at them, and showed it. Back at Mount Yimeng, they’d been sold off every couple of months, since their voracious appetites had no effect on weight gain. They were menacing eating machines, seemingly lacking normal small intestines. Whatever they ate, regardless of quality, it went from their throats to their stomachs and straight to their large intestines, where, in less than an hour, it emerged in horribly foul form. They squealed when they were hungry, which was all the time, and if they weren’t fed, their eyes turned red and they ran headfirst into a wall or a gate, more crazed by the minute, until they foamed at the mouth and passed out. But as soon as they regained consciousness, it was back to the head butting. Anyone who bought them and raised them for a month or so could see they hadn’t gained an ounce, so it was back to the marketplace, where they were sold for whatever their owners could get. People sometimes asked the obvious question: Why not just kill and eat them? Well, you’ve seen them, so I don’t need to tell you, but if the people who asked that question took one look at Butting Crazy, you wouldn’t hear any more talk about killing and eating those pigs, whose meat was more disgusting than that of toads in a latrine. And that was how those little pigs got to enjoy considerable longevity. After being sold and resold on Mount Yimeng, they were bought for almost nothing and brought over by Jinlong. And you couldn’t say that Butting Crazy wasn’t a pig. He and his friends contributed to the pig population.
    Who would pay any attention to pigs like that just because they were coughing, ran a fever, and had lost their appetite? The person responsible for feeding them and cleaning out their pen was someone who has appeared and reappeared up to now and will continue to do so down the line, our old friend Mr. Mo Yan. By kissing up to any and everybody at the farm, he eventually realized his goal of becoming a pig tender. His “Tales of Pig-Raising” had gained him quite a reputation, since it was a work that was clearly related to his experience and position at Apricot Garden Pig Farm. There was talk that the renowned film director Ingmar Bergman thought about bringing “Tales of Pig-Raising” to the silver screen, but where was he going to find that many pigs? I’ve seen plenty of today’s pigs. Like chickens and ducks these days, they’re nothing but empty-headed animals, thanks to chemical feed and all sorts of additives, which have made them feebleminded. You won’t find any pigs as classy as we were these days. Some of us had strong, healthy legs, some had extraordinary intelligence, some were crafty old scoundrels, and others had the gift of gab. In a word, we were good-looking animals with strong personalities, the sort you won’t find again on this earth. Nowadays, you get moronic porkers that weigh three hundred jin at five months and couldn’t qualify as extras in any film. And that is why, to my way of thinking, Bergman’s planned filming will never take place. Yes, yes, yes, you don’t have to tell me, I know Hollywood, and I know all about digital special effects. But those are expensive and tricky. But most of all, I’ll never believe that any digital pig could come close to matching the style and substance of Pig Sixteen. Or for that matter, Diao Xiaosan, Butterfly Lover, even Butting Crazy.
    Now Mo Yan