Desert
Hunters
Desert
Hunters is a great fable written by the author Xuemo in a plain and realistic
style. Its English translation was also carried out by the famous American
sinologists Howard Goldblatt and his wife Sylvia Li-chun Lin.
Through
describing the living conditions for a group of people in western China,the
author reveals the survival of mankind and the mutual environmental problems
for human world.It also reveals the karmic cycles where humans persuit to
satisfy their desires leads to their own destruction.This is what is different
from Desert Rites.In Desert Hunters, every section is a vivid scene of life,and
every chapter is a grand depiction of the society;It forms an epic
historical picture in the whole work .There are more than 50 characters, and
depicts more than 20 species of animals in the book features.
The
stories of the book revolve around a place called the Pig Belly Well.All people
and all life in the area, including wolves and sheep, falcons and rabbits,
birds and bugs, foxes and rats, rely on this water well for survival.Images of
all figures demonstrated both fierceness and kindness,suffering and joy,
helplessness and endurance,Nature and feud, greed and strife,all scenes seem to
be distant but familiar, vast but subtle.Every character, every animal seems to
be the mouth of God in these book,telling stories about their own
transgressions and the following aftermath.Through layers and layers of
conflicts between humans and animals, humans and nature, and humans for their own fate,the book tells us
that tragedies of humanity are rooted in greed, hatred, and ignorance.Those who
transgress, those who break the laws of nature, are bound to be punished, bound
to suffer in the dessert of the soul,and bound to become a prey that is being
hunted on the hunting field of the soul.It is like the coronavirus spreading
around the world,ruthlessly attacking everybody around us,paralyzing industries
and forcing countries into long-term lock down, spreading fear and anxiety
among all people.However, through the actions of the heroes and heroines, the
book also tells us how to create a harmonious conservation between people and
their inner selves, between different people, and between human and nature.
The
following people will like this book: those who love animals and those who
wonder about how to create balance between human and nature, how to make a
living ,and how to form a harmonious conservation between people’s life and
their own inner world .