he Fat
Years China Brave New World

by Michael
Schaub

National Public Radio,
USA

January 12, < br /> 2012

Toward the end of Aldous Huxley 1932
classic Brave New World, the character John the Savage tries to
explain why he rejecting the artificial utopia that the world has < br /> become. Pretty much everyone on the planet is drugged, complacent
and happy – but for John, that the problem. “I don want
comfort,” he says. “I want real danger, I want freedom … I
claiming the right to be unhappy. “

Things don turn out well for John, of
course. Huxley was famous for his humanist philosophy, but he
seemed skeptical that most people would be willing to sacrifice
their creature comforts and shallow thrills for real freedom. It
a question that has divided philosophers and writers for years. As
Chan Koonchung puts it in his smart, incendiary new novel,
The Fat Years: “Between a good hell and a counterfeit
paradise, which one will people choose?”

The Fat Years takes place in 2013, two years after the
collapse of the global economy. Only China has emerged from the
meltdown unscathed, and its people are indisputably happy, filled
with a national pride the country has never seen before. Author and
journalist Lao Chen is among the content – he perfectly satisfied
getting his daily tea at (now Chinese-owned) Starbucks, strolling
aimlessly through the streets of Beijing.

When two of < br /> Lao friends tell him about an entire month in 2011 that gone
missing, he doesn know what to make of it. While he initially
finds it difficult to believe that the 30 days between the
international economic collapse and the start of the new Chinese
Golden Age have been erased from the public memory, he begins to
find the evidence impossible to ignore. He and his friends go in
search of the missing month, and what they find out is terrifying
and unthinkable – but, sadly, undeniable.

Chan Koonchung is a novelist, journalist
and screenwriter. He has published more than a dozen
Chinese -language books, and is the founder and former chief editor
and publisher of City magazine.

Chan Koonchung is a novelist, journalist
and screenwriter. He has published more than a dozen
Chinese-language books, and is the founder and former chief editor
and publisher of City magazine.

Dystopian novels get their power from their
originality and plausibility – nobody needs to read another
by-the-numbers retread of Nineteen Eighty-Four , and if a story is completely unbelievable
it loses whatever sense of urgency it might have had.
Although The Fat Years clearly owes a debt to
Brave New World , Chan characters are infinitely more
believable, and drawn with a real sense of sympathy and
understanding – something Huxley archetypes famously
lacked.

As for plausibility, The Fat Years is almost too believable – given the
widespread censorship and totalitarianism in modern China, there
nothing in the novel that strains the reader credulity. (Perhaps
needless to say, Chan novel has been banned in China, although
reports suggest that it easily available through underground
publishers and booksellers.)

Although The Fat Years < / I> could be read, by a Western audience, as
nothing more than a cynical parable about contemporary Chinese
government, it would largely miss the point. Chan book is an
urgent clarion call for people in every country to treasure their
individuality, and to reject leaders who promise temporary
happiness in exchange for total freedom. The government in
Brave New World discouraged emotion and self-expression
with the slogan “When the individual feels, the community reels.”
In other words: Smile. You e being watched.