This life needs to be planned or allowed to flow on the journey of fate, perhaps unimportant to Shangguan Jintong, the only son of Shangguan Lu, a simple woman who was forced to marry at the age of 17. Jintong is a spoiled character and treats himself and others gently, whereas life out there goes very hard, cruel, and far from civilization. The young man did live in an age before and had a hard time when the People's Republic of China was just established. He has several chances to be a successful person, but he always fails to take advantage of him so that he then is used by others.
As a narrator, Jintong recounts his family's problems, especially about his mother being treated very cruelly by his father's family. The husband of Lu, Shangguan Shouxi, was a blacksmith who was expecting a son. However, of the eight children born all were women. Of the eight children, none were fertilized Shouxi because the man was barren.
Jintong's biological father as the youngest son and only man was Reverend Malory, a Swedish missionary who later committed suicide. In the family, only Jintong and Yunu (Eight Brothers) have one father and mother. Yunu was born as a blind woman who in his journey considered himself only a burden in difficult times so he chose to escape from the family.
Jintong has a complicated personal problem because until adulthood he can not escape from his mother's milk, even when her mother's breasts are no longer watery. He can not live without milk. Other foods that the Chinese people consume at that time, are unacceptable to the body and only make it vomit. In wartime when his extended family had to flee, Jintong's mother was forced to carry goats everywhere to feed her beloved child. When Jintong went to school at the age of 18, his mother also had to deliver milk to school in the bottle although Jintong was more comfortable enjoying milk directly from the goat's nipples by sleeping under the crotch of the beast.
Throughout his journey of life, Jintong is always obsessed with breasts so several times he gets into trouble with it. Despite his handsome face with a tall posture (the incarnation of his biological father), he is not a man worthy of a man. Not tough in fights, as well as stuttering in front of women. He's a weak man who can not be an example. Even if you follow the story until finally, can not if we think Jintong is a naive man. In addition to nature which does not want to hurt others, hardly anyone can be a role model of Jintong.
Had become the pride of his mother when he has crowned Prince of Snow, life then very unfriendly to Jintong. His brother, one by one, fell in love with a hostile army. It does not matter to be a fourth wife, if it has been put on a man, then there is no power that can withstand the female Shangguan surge. His mother was also aware of it but also unable to control it so that some chances for a better life are wasted.
The novel's author, Mo Yan, is a 2012 Nobel Prize for literature and a co-author living outside of China. He does not portray the main character as a hero who is full of goodness and excellence, on the contrary, he is full of flaws. Mo Yan seems to invite readers not only to learn from good things but also to take an image of the bad things experienced by the characters in this book.
Big Breasts and Wide Hips set the history of the founding of the People's Republic of China with the great Shangguan family as the main story. Mo Yan strung his story from one child to another, from one time to another with the tragedies that surrounded him. All issues and conflicts are conflicting and emotionally draining, ranging from family, war, social, political, hunger, religion, to love and sex. Everyone taught us how life is a colorful painting and can not be interpreted in black and white.
The number of main characters in this book slightly disrupts the concentration, especially most of the common figures called the sequence number and the name of the title to replace the original name. However, the small nuisance does not diminish the pleasure of stabbing the wholeness of the story.
Mo Yan was the leading writer of China at the time, it is clear from the accolades of Nobel laureate literature writers in this book. Some of his books have been translated into many languages, while others have been filmed by involving famous stars.[]