Surprising chapter near end of Red Sorghum

Toward the end of Mo Yan's novel, Red Sorghum, there's a surprising chapter. The novel was published in 1987 w apparently was a version w some cuts mandated by the Chinese government. Th 1988 version, published abroad (how he managed this is a good question) included these excised passages acc to the note from the translator, Howard Goldblatt. I can't be sure which are the restored passages - clearly the Chinese leaders had no problem w extensive scenes of the brutality of the Japanese occupiers in the 1930s and 40s - but there's little doubt that the penultimate chapter did not appear in the first edition. This chapter moves well forward - to 1973 - and centers on a man now 80 and known as Old Geng (he was not a major character up to this point). We find him now living in poverty and near starvation in the rita collective that has been established in in Shandong province, where the novel is set (in MY's how town apparently). Geng basically burns all his belongings to fight off the cold and eventually sets off to plead his case to the leader of the collective. He is unable to reach the head man who is perpetually at a meeting- though Geng gets some solace from a sympathetic commune member. But it's not enough - and the old man dies of cold and starvation. We can see MY's goal here: the failure of the collectives to thrive and provide, the indifference of the leadership caught in a bureaucracy worse than that which the communists replaced, the need for charity and social justice, and ultimately the failure of the ideology to provide and to share equitably: from each according to his ability, etc. What surprises me is that MY would even tempt the fates by writing such a chapter and why he would provoke them even more by restoring the chapter. I don't know how well his works have been received in China but suspect that his eventual Nobel would insulate him to a degree or at least given him a pathway to the west if needed - though I think that he has remained in China and, I hope, been able to continue his work. Red Sorghum has some amazing scenes and the high ambition of portraying an entire culture through the history of one family - the narrator's, whom we see closely resembles the author - although at times I think most readers will get lost among the many plot strands and family/military rivalries the tormented the Chinese during their wars w Japan. Toward the end this diffuse plot centers on the shared loathing of the Japanese - a bitter ending and, w the restoration of the penultimate chapter, a sad sense of the futility of ideological and political struggles.

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