易經 [Yi jing]

by Eileen Chang, Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang is recognized as one of the greatest modern Chinese writers who would have been 90 years old in 2010. "The Book of Change" tells the story of a girl in her late teens who ran away from her opium addict father's Shanghai mansion after she has a fight with her step-mother. She ends up in her mother's who plans to send her to study in the UK, but she lands in Hong Kong as the war intervened in her fate. This semi-autobiographical novel is preceded by "The Fall of the Pagoda", both originally written in English, and concludes in "A Small Reunion", originally in Chinese.

Genres: China, Fiction, Chinese Literature

372 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published July 15, 2010

About the author

Eileen Chang is the English name for Chinese author 張愛玲, who was born to a prominent family in Shanghai (one of her great-grandfathers was Li Hongzhang) in 1920.

She went to a prestigious girls' school in Shanghai, where she changed her name from Chang Ying to Chang Ai-ling to match her English name, Eileen. Afterwards, she attended the University of Hong Kong, but had to go back to Shanghai when Hong Kong fell to Japan during WWII. While in Shanghai, she was briefly married to Hu Lancheng, the notorious Japanese collaborator, but later got a divorce.

After WWII ended, she returned to Hong Kong and later immigrated to the United States in 1955. She married a scriptwriter in 1956 and worked as a screenwriter herself for a Hong Kong film studio for a number of years, before her husband's death in 1967. She moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1972 and became a hermit of sorts during her last years. She passed away alone in her apartment in 1995.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This second installment of Chang's lightly fictionalized memoir, in part because she wrote it in English, is difficult to read. Lute, her alternative self, leaves Shanghai for University in Hong Kong where she tries to make sense of events and personalities that would confound anyone. When we first meet her again, Lute is living with her stylish Westernized mother and aunt who display no warmth for the teenager. That Lute's mother is pathologically self-involved probably has more to do with the grotesquely patriarchal indeed woman-eating Chinese culture between the two wars than with her nature. Still, her disparagement of Lute when Lute's cartoon is accepted by the local newspaper and to her son whom she abandons to death in her opium-eating ex-husband's house is astonishing. Life does not improve much when Lute goes to University in Hong Kong where despite her mother's undermining behavior she is a star student, for the Japanese occupy Hong Kong leaving her without a transcript or any means of support. Because of her wretched upbringing Lute sees herself as quite alone and more than capable of dealing with the adversities of war and the indifference of her relatives the Cheungs. Her final triumph is to secure steamship tickets back to Shanghai, more for her physical love for the city itself rather than family attachment.

The novel's pace is so slow that it almost seems to be happening in real time; yet, I did like it for its marvelous visual evocations and acceptance of absurdities; I am happy to have persevered until the end.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading The Fall of the Pagoda, I wasn't so sure about The Book of Change, Eileen Chang's second installment of her autobiographical novel written in English. The first 80 pages or so retold the last chapters in the Fall of the Pagoda, but this time with some added excitement (like when her relative was gunned down in broad daylight in Shanghai for collaborating with the Japanese; we'd see this theme again in Lust, Caution). Once Lute, Chang's protagonist, sails off to Hong Kong to study, the book vividly describes the years before the Japanese invasion as well as the opening months of Japanese occupation. The student interactions reminded me again of Lust, Caution. One of my favorite scenes, which was only briefly mentioned in the forward, but actually took up quite a chunk of the novel, occurred when Lute's mother arrives in Hong Kong and stays for weeks at the Repulse Bay Hotel. Memories of Love in a Fallen City (a novella written by Chang) flashed into my mind when I reached that part of the book. The Book of Change is classic Chang, minus the romantic relations central to her most famous novels and novellas, Lust, Caution, Love in a Fallen City, and Red Rose, White Rose.

[吕不理 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ive grown my interest in Chang since last year and I find her own life much more intriguing than her other stories. I choose the book of change as the source text and Pihui, Zhao’s translated version for my translation study. Undoubtedly Chinese language can better demonstrate her writing talent. She was supposed to translate her work in Chinese herself but she eventually decided not to. Anyways, zhao’s translation is of great quality and reasonably retained Chang’s literary style.
I used to believe that the gift an artist owns is also the curse she/he has to endure. Chang experienced too much and with her once prestigious household and her sharp sense, it only got worse. Her famous love affair with Hu is not what hurt her most, it’s her mother who she once relied on that broke her heart.
I will keep reading Chang’s more work this year.

[Maya Liang · Rating 3 out of 5]

之前讀過小團圓，易經這本細碎疲累。

[渺渺青云外，滚滚红尘中 · Rating 5 out of 5]

见雷峰塔短评

[Yujia Huang · Rating 5 out of 5]

应该早点就读张爱玲的