I had to read this book for school and, honestly, I wasn't looking forward to it at all. By the cover, I assumed it was going to just be some contemporary love story. I was wrong. This novel delves into the infamous Chinese Cultural Revolution under the dictator, Mao Zedong. It provides an outlook on the victims affected by this oppression. This novel follows two young men who are considered "intellectuals". Both their parents are so-called "enemies-of-the-state" for various reasons. The two boys are sent to a remote mountain village to be reeducated. All western items have been banned. The first bit of comic relief comes during one of the first few pages when one of the boys lies about the song he's playing on his violin. There is much distinction between the separate classes like this throughout the novel. There is a sense of superiority among the two men who are being reeducated. They share many inside secrets at the villagers' expense. This story does a stupendous job of causing one to yearn for the Western world. You really feel for the two protagonists of this book as you want them to be able to go back to urban life. However, their chances of this are slim. I really enjoyed the tone of this book as it was hopeless yet full of hope at the same time. I found it to be very interesting also as I don't have much knowledge on Chinese culture. One criticism I have of this novel however was that some of the symbols throughout seemed rather ambiguous. There were a few things that I wasn't sure what they meant. It seemed as though the author just placed random symbols so as to cause the reader to think. That wouldn't have been a bad thing to do had there been more meaning connected to them. Certain plot devices seemed to move rather fast. It was as though the author was getting somewhat bored and wanted to get the story over with. Also, I thought the ending was rather unexpected in a bad way. I understood where the author was coming from and what he meant by it. I even understood why he left is so secretive throughout the book, however, I feel like it could've been done in a different way. There were also a few times when I thought some tremendous event was going to occur but then nothing happened, leaving me disappointed. Despite all the negative things I just stated about the book, I really did enjoy it. I thought the writing style and choice of words themselves were both marvelous. I also really enjoyed the plot and found it to be highly original. There is a sense of irony throughout the entire novel that I found to be rather enticing. This book is comical, full of yearning, lacking of hope and yet hopeful, and at times, intensely sad. It takes a great book to have all these characteristics at once. To me, this book is a modern-day classic.