The translation of Wolf Totem works, as far as I can tell. At times the dialogue is reminiscent of sub-titles, but I don’t know, perhaps they talk like that there. The descriptions and narrative are clear and flowing and vivid. The story is literature. Those used to the predictable linearity of commercial fiction or worse (TV movies) might be helped by knowing that this book is more a braided stream than a train track.
The plot evolves three themes: The conflict between the Mongol traditions and those of the encroaching modernist communists; the struggle of the Mongol people with their environment--as exemplified chiefly by their contests with the wolves--and; most importantly, the losing battle between nature and the greedy development schemes of the artificial world.
The paradox central to the plot is the Mongol tradition of reverence toward their worst enemy, the wolf, who to them is both destroyer and preserver of the grassland upon which all the Mongolian creatures--especially the humans--depend. This thematic paradox is expressed in the actions of the main character, Chen, a Beijing student who has come to live among the Mongols. At once receptive and sensitive to the traditions of the local culture, he nevertheless badly bungles an attempt to raise and tame a wolf cub, but even his well-intentioned attempt to violate the natural order leads to inevitable disaster.
The wolf symbolizes the wild and free spirit of untamed, untamable, nature; that spirit in turn is contrasted with the docile temperament of the civilized Chinese. The political ramifications of juxtaposing the wild and ancient vigor of the wolf--the Mongols--with the regimented artificiality of civilized, modernist, communists--the Chinese--is pointed and deliberately instructive. The book suggests more than once that the cultures of the West (Europe and especially the United States, I take it) has retained a more wolf-like nature, thus flourishing. I don’t know. We have plenty of gluttonous sheep here, too.
