I spent a few days finishing Liu Zhenyun’s new novel A Salty Joke. Overall, it is a solid and complete work that still carries his signature narrative style and social concern. But frankly, it is neither as weighty as A Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand nor as entertaining as I Am Liu Yuejin.
It is a good novel, but it does not deliver a real surprise.
1. Formal experimentation: fresh, but not fully mature#
A Salty Joke makes clear structural experiments:
- The main text has only two chapters.
- The “side notes” section has thirty-three chapters.
- Multiple appendices provide extra explanations.
It is easy to see that the side notes are actually the core narrative body. The protagonist Du Taibai’s life is assembled through these seemingly marginal fragments.
That approach is ambitious in itself.
Liu Zhenyun also tries to engage with the current era by writing in contemporary social elements:
- livestream selling culture
- online violence
- trial by public opinion
The problem is that these elements are “inserted” but not fully “integrated,” so parts feel rigid. At the same time, several magical-realist settings create tonal breaks for the reader.
The appendices are an even bigger issue: many function as plot annotations or background notes, reading more like footnotes than organic storytelling, which adds noticeable redundancy.
2. Du Taibai: an ordinary man repeatedly crushed by his time#
As in many of Liu Zhenyun’s works, the story is set in Yanjin County.
Du Taibai’s life is fundamentally rewritten by three major blows:
- After a drunken conflict with a school principal, a secretly recorded video goes public and he loses his teaching job.
- While working as a ceremony host, he is pulled into a sexual-harassment scandal and targeted by online abuse.
- He is later besieged again by public opinion over a prostitution incident.
After these consecutive shocks, he suffers a mental collapse and moves toward self-destructive escape.
The ending is not explicitly written, but it implies a restart at the foot of Mount Tai, where he opens a small restaurant with his former daughter-in-law, Chun Ya, as a symbolic rebirth.
Is it absurd? Yes.
But this absurdity is rooted in reality.
In Luo Yonghao’s podcast, Liu Zhenyun said Du Taibai has no single real-life prototype; he stands for ordinary people in general.
The line near the end says:
“On different streets around the world, everyone walking there carries wounds inside.”
That sentence summarizes the core theme.
3. A familiar Liu Zhenyun style, still recognizable#
In terms of craft, A Salty Joke is classic Liu Zhenyun:
- plain language
- dense detail
- repeated setup
- layered progression
- winding narrative movement
The story appears trivial on the surface, but structural design is hidden underneath.
The book also includes a mouse named “Archimedes” that can calculate, drink, and bow, with obvious magical tones that may remind readers of certain Mo Yan elements.
The attempt itself is interesting, but it is not always fully compatible with Liu Zhenyun’s usual realist texture.
4. Why it does not match A Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand#
By comparison, A Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand is clearly more complete.
Through the two-generation destinies of Wu Moses and Niu Aiguo, that novel builds a clear and deep narrative line of “searching,” pushing the theme of loneliness into the core of Chinese social psychology.
After reading it, you naturally start reflecting on human connection.
A Salty Joke is more fragmented:
- like walking through old Yanjin streets
- one side note, one minor character
- more like a collection of life slices
It has strong street-level texture, but limited overall tension, and not many truly unforgettable characters.
Beyond Du Taibai, many figures feel somewhat schematic.
5. Thematic limitation: a narrow entry point into middle-age crisis#
A Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand discusses loneliness.
A Salty Joke discusses predicament.
The issue is that its entry point into predicament is mostly concentrated on “loss of control over alcohol and sex.”
At a deeper level, Du Taibai’s real crisis is about:
- passive survival
- collapse of dignity
- loss of identity
Alcohol and sex are only the trigger.
From the reading experience, however, this setup can easily lead to a “he brought it on himself” response, which weakens empathy.
In real life, many middle-aged people’s crises come from:
- layoffs and unemployment
- mortgage pressure
- elder-care burden
- career discontinuity
Against that background, Du Taibai’s predicament can feel comparatively narrow.
6. The gap in absurdity and entertainment value#
A Salty Joke is less fun than I Am Liu Yuejin, and that gap is obvious.
The absurdity in I Am Liu Yuejin is closer to the multi-thread black-comedy tempo of films like Crazy Stone and Crazy Racer: intersecting lines, layered misunderstandings, and escalating coincidence.
In A Salty Joke, absurdity mostly stays within realistic logic, with fewer truly outrageous turns.
Combined with the appendix-heavy structure, rhythm weakens and the reading pace can feel dragged.
7. Conclusion: a good novel, but not a peak work#
Overall, A Salty Joke is a qualified, steady, and mature novel.
Its strengths are clear:
- a strong Liu Zhenyun signature
- grounded social observation
- stable narrative control
If you already like Liu Zhenyun, this book is worth reading.
But it is better not to expect it to surpass A Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand.
Saying Liu Zhenyun is “out of talent” is exaggerated.
Saying this book does not fully meet expectations is also fair.
It feels more like a “solid-level work” than a “representative masterpiece.”
Between absurdity and reality, it stands firm, but it does not take flight.