SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: February 2022] The Village Teacher
This book came to my work and it was quite a challenge to catalog. Cixin Liu is a Chinese science fiction writer. These are graphic novel adaptations of his short stories. But he did not write the graphic novels. However, I wanted them linked together because there are going to be sixteen of them and they should all go together. If you put them under Liu, then they go into the Chinese authors section. But these are American books created for American audiences. (I wound up making it an American series under Liu’s name).
Anyhow, I had never heard of him before, but these books are blurbed by none other than Barack Obama.
So I decided to take a look at them.
This book is also called The Rural Teacher in translated form.
After the complex intensity that was The Wandering Earth, this story is much more simple. But it is not less intense.
There are two storylines. I’m not sure if in the written work it’s less clear that the story lines are at the same time. It felt like for a powerful effect, they would not be obviously simultaneous, but I’m not sure how he could have done that.
The story starts on a school in a rural village. The teacher is teaching the kids about outer space.
Then the story cuts to outer space where we learn that the carbon-based lifeforms are battling silicon-based invaders. The silicon invaders are very strong and quite ruthless and they are able to destroy planets (like the water-base and peace loving Searulen) with impunity. The story pulls back to show that the battle is taking place in the Milky Way Galaxy–Spiral Arm Two.
Back on Earth, the teacher has approached one of the boy’s father who is a drunkard and abuses his son. The father fights with the teacher and finally the teacher says he is taking the boy away–to allow him to live in the school, away from the abuse. A flashback shows that the teacher was once helped in a similar way by his own teacher when he was growing up.
Back in space, the carbon-based creatures have secured the galaxy. They are establishing an isolation area to prevent the silicon-based invaders from ever getting through again. This will involved destroying many planets. The carbon-based creatures are mindful that this could destroy civilizations as well, so they undertake a quick examination of the civilization level on the various planets.
If the inhabitants cannot answer certain questions, their civilization is not deemed advanced enough to survive. It’s harsh, but the isolation zone will save the rest of the galaxy. I imagine the short story goes into a little more detail about this).
Back on Earth we see the teacher doing everything he can for his students, but when the locals need pieces of the school for another structure, they have no problem tearing down parts of the school. When the teacher resists, they beat him up and leave him for dead. The students get him to a hospital.
The question of course is, does a society that treats its teachers this way deserve to survive?
S. Qiouyi Li translated this story as well. Again, the translation felt very natural, but this story definitely felt like it was edited down maybe a bit too much. It didn’t have quite the same impact as the other two. Although the ending is great. This story was written and illustrated by Zhang Xiaoyu. I love his illustration style. His people are slightly exaggerated which makes their emotions that much more powerful. I also love the look of the carbon-based creatures who decide everyone’s fate. And the outer space battle scenes look very cool. They’re not rapid-fire fight scenes that are hard to follow–they’re full page battle scenes that are engaging.
I have become a big fan of Cixin Liu with these three books and I think I may have to tackle one of his novels soon.
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