王氏之死

by Jonathan D. Spence, 史景迁, 张祝馨 (Translator)

清代郯城，一个名不见经传的山东小县，默默无闻，但多灾多难。妇人王氏，一个疑案记录中昙花一现的受害人，在飘雪纷纷的夜晚，惨死于丈夫之手。

利用县官回忆录、地方县志与《聊斋志异》，史景迁还原了17世纪末这个边缘县城的生存样貌：普通百姓挣扎于战乱、贫困和地方暴力中，没有官场人脉帮忙应对，也没有强大的宗族可以倚赖；无名女性没有法术和金钱做靠山，婚姻可能是毫无欢乐的陷阱，舆论与道德的纠缠随时将她们置于死地。

穿梭于聊斋的幻梦与郯城的苦难之间，他们在崩解的现实中，苦求肉身与道德的基本生存，在亦真亦幻的志怪故事中渴望正义的降临。这是一个有关幻想、肉欲与不安的故事，是对当时的郯城恰如其分的注解。在人鬼莫辨的世界，人们详实而真切地体味命运的尖厉。

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Asia, Classics, School, Literature

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Jonathan D. Spence is a historian specializing in Chinese history. His self-selected Chinese name is Shǐ Jǐngqiān (simplified Chinese: 史景迁; traditional Chinese: 史景遷), which roughly translates to "A historian who admires Sima Qian."

He has been Sterling Professor of History at Yale University since 1993. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history.

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book I’ve had for years and not read. I have to say I was under the impression it was completely different than what it was. It was a very early micro-history of the T’an Ch’eng area of North-eastern China. I thought this book was a close look at the live and death of one woman in this area, but in fact it was a series of different tales and histories, from within the span of about 20 years within this area. Spence sets out by saying how this book does not focus on a position of note, and that no one famous comes from it. This however, I would disagree with. The area seems to have suffered immense hardship in the period leading up to the time of the stories. It suffered thousands of its residents being killed by the Manchu, famine, the White Lotus uprising and an earthquake! Its population at the start of the book was only a third of what it was 60 years earlier. It was also very close to the location of my favourite Chinese author, Pu Songling’s hometown. Spence also said that he would not focus on the elite class, however many of the people in his stories had servants or could read and write. Sure signs they were not a part of the populace at large. However, despite not exactly coinciding with Spence’s stated purpose this was a VERY enjoyable book, easy to read, and very insightful. Without a doubt it is one that I would recommend to anyone who was interested in learning more about Imperial Chinese history it is easily accessible, well researched and well written. For his sources Spence used the local history, a memoir of the local magistrate, and the stories of Pu Songling. The later are fictional stories, frequently involving fox spirits, ghosts and magic that make for a startling contrast beside the tales of famine, hardship and banditry that exist in the non-fictionalised accounts. However, even the stories represent real life and Spence frequently gives the fictional account and then a matching historical episode. As such this gives an insight into life and culture of the time that is quite remarkable. As someone who is particularly interested in the supernatural tales of China and the belief in magic, it was interesting to see these tales put into their social, rather than religious, context. It also inspired me to keep studying my Chinese as Pu Songling’s tales are at the top of my list of things I want to be able to read in the original Chinese! There is also much than can be learned about the lives of women from this book. Spence tells the stories of women who are considered virtuous and those who are not and end up being killed for their immoral ways. The restrictions, and also the opportunities, for these women were quite interesting. He looked at the lives of widows who had to raise children on their own, and the interference of their husband’s family. He also looked at the options of women who wished to escape marriages, which were virtually non-existent. Because he focused on such a small area the detail was dramatic and there were lots of specific examples given instead of wide generalisations. He also included a rather telling list of the prices for visiting prostitutes versus the prices for buying a wife, or the wife of another. The book also covered the economic hardships of life. There were two proverbs quoted about cannibalism which I found most interesting they were, “To have the bodies of ones close relations eaten by someone else is not as good as eating them oneself, so as to prolong one’s own life for a few days” and “It makes more sense to eat one’s father, elder brother or husband so as to preserve one’s own life, rather than have the whole family die”. It was a rather morbid book, apart from a few of Pu Songling’s tales most of the people’s lives were very hard and short. But despite this it was a fascinating read.

[Missy J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Warning! Adjust your expectations for this book.
This isn't a story about a Woman Wang and how she died. Instead, JDS chose to focus on two little towns in China (Pei and Tancheng) during the turbulent times when the Ming dynasty fell apart and the Manchus from the Qing gained power. These two towns hold historical chronicles of their citizens and JDS focuses on several themes, such as land taxation, widowhood, the law and how it "protects" women. Most of the time I couldn't follow what was going on in the book, because I wasn't aware until 50% through the book that this wasn't a story, but more of a report of how the little people lived during that time.

[Niko · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit of a catfish for me. The description makes it seem like a quaint historical fiction, when in actuality The Death of Woman Wang is a micro-history book, detailing life in the county of t’an-ch’eng, China during the 17th century.

The book started off slow for me, but really picked up toward the end, when it assumed a more narrative, less dense voice.

I also appreciate all of the insight on the life of women from this corner of the world in those years. Love the recognition of the common battle for power and freedom.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Everything I have read by Spence reminds me why I love Chinese history and why I decided to get into this field in the first place. He is not just a superb historian but he is also a hell of a good writer. He writes with the passion and intensity of a journalist like Edgar Snow, yet his works are all thoroughly researched in historiography. This book was a great breath of fresh air. Don't get me wrong, I like a 400-page Mark Elliot tome just as much as the next aspiring sinologist, but a book like The Death of Woman Wang just invigorates me. It reminds me why Chinese history is so relentlessly fascinating.

[Anh Phan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5.0 love this microhistory account of Tangcheng, a small province far north of China that suffered many natural disasters and historical unrest, especially during the violent transition to the Qing Dynasty.

The first half was more the kind of history which concerned with facts, numbers, statistics, etc. The latter focused on stories, court cases, etc. to tease out the (perceived or recorded) lives of the women of Tangcheng. Spence's historical intervention was interesting because he juxtaposed accounts of two local historians with Pu Songling's fiction. This brought out what people wanted the world to be vs. what actually happened.

Though I'm not convinced with Spence's fictive flair at the end, from the perspective of woman Wang, as it seemed ridden with Orientalist symbolism. It was also a bit too abrupt and short to say much about woman Wang, too impersonal and aesthetically idealized, so the likely intended effect of sympathy was lost. All the same, it got me thinking about what history, and history writing, could do to give voice to those lost in written records, i.e., non-male and/or illiterate.

Almost finished Ch. 2 "The Land" but imma call it a day and hit "Finished" to get the Goodreads ranking =))

[Lisajean · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very detailed picture of provincial life in 17th century China. I appreciate it as background information to add depth to my reading of Chinese literature, but it is rather dry.

[Marguerite · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yet another tedious read, I seem to be on a roll. It’s nothing like what I’d expected. Its the dry and somewhat history of events in 17th century China. Yawn.

[Sofía · Rating 1 out of 5]

un libro incoherente, es muy confuso y sinceramente difícil de entender. 0'5

[Resh · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was interesting!

[Raymond Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

A micro-historical work that straddles the line between history and literature. Through local chronicles, memoirs of local officials, and Pu Songling's Liaozhai Zhiyi, Jonathan Spence restores a picture of a small town in late seventeen century Shandong to the reader.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's more of a historical reconstruction of 17th century Chinese life than a narrative strictly speaking, and Spence's erudition on the subject is frighteningly comprehensive. He does for rural Chinese peasant life what Umberto Eco does for the middle ages and Borges does for mazes and metafictions, though the results are always a bit more dry and detached, really just more academic, than what someone with a stronger fictional sensibility would develop. The little vignettes and characters he develops are ways of exploring this world, never really ends unto themselves. Spence is interested in the material conditions much more than he is the emotional ones, because that is ultimately what we have the greatest record of from this time and place. If you want to learn about how Chinese peasants lived, and how many of them still continue to live; caught in a web of corruption and extortionate taxation from which there is little reprieve or justice, this is a good place to start.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only twenty-five pages into this but already loving it. A portrait of an unremarkable and overlooked county in rural China in the late 17th century, the details are just stunning. Cormac McCarthy may have taken shit for his depiction of cannibalism in a post-apocalyptic landscape in The Road, but the descriptions of cannibalism during a particularly bad famine here make it look almost timid by comparison.

"...groping for words to describe [the famine], the local farmers rationalized their despair in proverb form... 'It makes more sense to eat one's father, elder brother, or husband so as to preserve one's own life, rather than have the whole family die.' Out in the countryside, says the Local History, the closest friends no longer dared walk out to the fields together."

[y w · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm writing a story that sets stage around the fall of Ming Dynasty. This book gives me a vivid picture of the life (and mostly grievances and struggles) of common people in a place of no importance, which you wouldn't get from the official historical narratives made by the scholar officials that focused on royal families, celebrities, and major events.

[TS K · Rating 4 out of 5]

明末清初的山东农村人于我而言，是既熟悉又陌生的。
说熟悉，或是因为书中的那个古代社会并未走远，当下徐州丰县被铁链锁住的女性，恰与本书内容遥相呼应。
说陌生，或是因为历史的镜头似乎永远只对准大人物，故事背景一定是京��或江南；同样的，在当下也只有北上广深才配代表中国，这大大地限制了我对于苦难的想象。
书中很多资料来自当年郯城县令黄六鸿的晚年回忆录，他对王氏一案的判决也确实令我拍案叫绝：真是太中国了。
黄县令一定很得意于自己的妥帖。
但他一定想不到，几���年后，他的故事会在大洋彼岸被再次讲述，而作者把全书最华丽，最梦幻，最具想象力的一段mashup留给了那个「死有余辜」的王氏。
我们也因此得以跨越时间空间，与史书上的贞洁烈女以外的普通女性建立些许情感联系。

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

a magnificent little book. and strange.

the book tells the story of some ordinary people in a poor county in eastern/northeastern china around 1670: t’an-ch’eng county, in shantung province - a place full of suffering, ravaged by earthquake, floods, drought, locusts, famine, bandits, and war. (i’m using spence’s spellings of names.)

the book focuses on three stories:

- there’s a widow whose vicious and not-too-bright in-laws beat her young child to death based on a misunderstanding of the law, which they believe will cause them to inherit her property (“the widow”).

- there’s a feud among neighbors about land that results in some killings and a curious quest for justice (the victims’ family is afraid to bring a charge against the perpetrator, so they bring a charge against a third party, who is forced to implicate the perpetrator in order to clear his own name)(“the feud”).

- there’s woman wang, who is murdered in her home by her husband after she ran away with another man, was abandoned by that man, and lived for a while in a nearby temple (“the woman who ran away”). the husband says a neighbor did it.

spence provides a lot of historical detail with these stories - about taxes, crimes and punishments, rules of inheritance, farming practices, examination questions … you come away feeling immersed in that time and place. that’s good. but sometimes it’s a lot to digest. (many paragraphs are a full page long; some are longer.) still, sometimes it is very effective. by the middle of chapter 2 you have read so much about the various taxes these people are subject to - and payment methods and timing and related fees and scams - that you are a little worn out yourself, and can almost feel the weight of all those taxes pressing down on you.

spence has three main sources of written records as material - a local historian (feng), a local magistrate (huang), and a local fiction writer (p’u sung-ling, who today is famous throughout and beyond china and is wonderful).

some things that make the book strange:

- it’s a hybrid - a narrative that is so dense with facts as to feel at times like a textbook.

- many of p’u sung-ling’s short stories are included in the book, as illustrations or for context. several of these run to 6 or 8 pages. that’s a big chunk of a short book. (the stories are very good, and they provide good context.)

- spence includes a weird dream-sequence near the very end - it’s a collage of images, mostly taken from p’u sung-ling’s writings, a few from the magistrate’s report of the crime scene. the effect is eerie, as intended. it’s a bold and unusual choice, and mostly i like it. but it feels a little like spence himself intruding on the story.

- woman wang makes her appearance very late - on page 116.

some interesting facts from the book:

- when the magistrate prays for protection from the plague of locusts (1671), he does not pray to the lord of all; he prays to the city god - and asks him to petition the lord of all.

- the legal code of the ch’ing provided that if a widow remarried, her former husband’s property and her original dowry became the property of the former husband’s family. this was intended to discourage remarriage/encourage fidelity and chastity among widows. in practice it meant the former husband’s family would often force her to remarry against her will, so they could get back that property (and be relieved of responsibility for her upkeep).

- among the methods the magistrate used to determine the real murderer was pouring boiling water on a pile of dung found at the crime scene. the husband claimed it was donkey, but the scent from the steam proved it was human.

the preface does a good job of providing context and meaning to the book. here’s how it ends:

“for though feng and huang take us surprisingly far into the zones of private anger and misery that were so much a part of their community, they were not concerned with penetrating into the realms of loneliness, sensuality, and dreams that were also a part of t’an-cheng. whereas it was just those realms that obsessed p’u sung-ling, and i have accordingly drawn on him in three of his many dimensions: as a recorder of shantung memories; as a teller of tales; and as a molder of images, sometimes of astonishing grace or power. it was by combining some of these images in montage form, it seemed to me, that we might break out beyond the other sources from that lost world, and come near to expressing what might have been in the mind of woman wang as she slept before death.

“….i would guess there were many women like her, as there must have been many counties like t’an-ch’eng, passively suffering, paying their taxes, but receiving little in return.

“my reactions to woman wang have been ambiguous and profound. she has been to me like one of those stones that one sees shimmering through the water at low tide and picks up from the waves almost with regret, knowing that in a few moments the colors suffusing the stone will fade and disappear as the stone dries in the sun. but in this case the colors and veins did not fade; rather they grew sharper as they lay in my hand, and now and again i knew it was the stone itself that was passing on warmth to the living flesh that held it.”

[Alex Helling · Rating 3 out of 5]

What was life like for ordinary people in China in the 17th century? In The Death of Woman Wang Jonathan Spence gives us a glimpse. It is a somewhat grim look, there is a lot of suffering; abuse, a harsh legal system, an economy barely afloat, along with natural disaster and famine. This is a very local history limited to just a few years from 1668-1672 in the county of T’an-ch’eng in Shantung near the start of the Qing dynasty. The focus is on the very micro level; individual events in peoples lives that caught the attention of a couple of writers, including the local magistrate, during the period.

Spence tells us a bit about the literati whose writings he is using as ‘the observers’; about the taxes, crops and land system; the lives of women in ‘the widow’; justice, local squabbles, and societal instability; and finally about the titular woman Wang herself. Through each short stories and anecdotes are interwoven. This has the advantage of keeping it feeling personal.

The little stories are easy to read and usually only take a few pages with Spence providing some context for them. But the approach has downsides too one of the issues with the anecdotes is the in the way Spence has woven them it is difficult to tell where Spence spills over from narrative from his sources and into explanation. I originally thought all the bits in the stories were just directly taken accounts but once they get into explanation they cant be. Spence has chosen where his book takes place due to the wealth of the sources, but both because his sources are sifting what to include in their accounts rather than them being official records, and because Spence admits T’an-ch’eng is particularly poor, and unusual in being in decline we may get a more negative view of life than was the norm (I rather hope so given how miserable it sounds!)

The ending is abrupt. A short account of the trial following the murder of woman Wang. There is nothing to draw together what we have read. For someone with little background in local history this left me hanging; did things improve in T’an-ch’eng? What was the book trying to demonstrate? Or perhaps it is meaningless, it just is. It is a short book so there would certainly have been space to add it in.

As a short book this is worth reading for anyone interested in pre-modern China. Or indeed for those interested in China up to the beginning of the Communist era – although almost 300 years before this is the system that was overthrown in the 20th Century. Much of rural life would have been the same right up to the cementing of communism.

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small segment of time and place

I read this book as I settled in to teach an intensive English course in Xi’an back in 1982. The real China surrounding me overwhelmed my reading and I very soon forgot what it was about. I thought many times afterward to re-read it, but have only gotten to do it just now. Well, 43 years is a mite slow, I admit.

The time is the seventeenth century and the place is a small county in Shandong Province. The Ming dynasty has been overthrown (1644), but the area of concern, over some 50 years, from 1650 to 1690, has been ravaged by war, famine, locusts, bandits, floods and disease. Anything else that could have happened? Yes, drought. The population is much reduced; killed, starved, drowned and fled. Most histories of China concentrate on the top level of society—the emperors, the movers and shakers, generals and mandarins, and their modes of operation. In contrast, this interesting compilation based on writings of the time, looks at what life was like for the common person albeit in a somewhat scattered style. Getting such information was no doubt difficult but the author was lucky enough to find two officials of the time and place who kept more than standard records of goings on. In addition he had recourse to the work of Pu Songling, a writer of tales in that era, still well-known today in Chinese literature. He inserts quite a large number of illustrative tales and observations of the famous writer, though they are not quite area-specific. Spence looks at the scene in four different directions which are delineated at the start. The problems of farming and tax collection come under scrutiny as well as tales of violence, a widow’s lot and a murder. I felt that perhaps the title of the book is misleading because the woman Wang’s story only begins on page 116 in a book of 139 pages! It’s more a book about a lot of people’s lives in a difficult, dangerous era. You may find that it's rather diffuse, but I thought it was well worth the time spent.
If you are interested in Chinese history and society below the top, official level, this is definitely a book you should read.

[Christin's_Bookshelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was supposed to be required reading for a class on imperial Chinese history but I never got around to it in time, but I figured I'd still read it because it's short and a little interesting.

This book is a microhistory of a small rural village during the early 17th century Qing China. The beginning of the book focuses mainly on the geography, and issues of early Qing China such as natural disasters, and failures of the Qing to address rural poverty. Later, the book describes different stories of women in the village, and the limited roles, and violence they were often subject to.

Because of the narrow lens of this book, I would never have read it or understood it without the entire semester of context I know have, but having that information it was interesting to learn more about Qing China through a novel-like view instead of a textbook or lecture. More importantly, this book was a window into what it was like to be a women in China, something we covered little of. The author himself claims that he is unsure how the story of Woman Wang connects to greater Qing China, which I would agree with, but that it is a story that sticks with you. This book tells the stories of multiple women, it often leads to their deaths.

This book also brought to my attention how specific Chinese law can be, and how interconnected it is with their values of filial piety. This book discusses how the punishments for murder and assault vary tremendously depending on who the person is, what they've done to you, if it's a matter of revenge, and what type of revenge.

Overall interesting enough, but not something I would've pursued without the class.

[Zhijing Jin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a historian, the author skillfully depicts a story of the death of woman Wang in a small village in China in the 1600s, and reflects many historical elements.

Key elements:
- Endlessly frequent hunger by natural disasters which interrupt the agricultural harvests. (According to the regional record, the normal cycle is 6 years of harvesting, and 6 years of starvation.)
- Stressful taxes, exacerbated by the uprises and wars.
- Man-dominating society where women cannot independently feed themselves, and can only loyally belong to one man in their entire lifetime.
- Immature moral philosophy understanding, where killing is not a big thing.

Statistics:
- Originally this village has 200K people, and then decreases to 60K.
- The agricultural area decreases by 2/3.
- 1668, By an earthquake, 10K people died.
- 1622, Uprising in the end of the Ming Dynasty cheats villagers to join the army to eliminate poverty, but most people died in war.
- 1640, pests (蝗虫) destroy the crops. People eat each other.
- 1641, robbers come to rob the village.
- 1643, Manchuria people conquers the village, and killed several 10K people. Only 20-30% lived.
- 1649, flood destroys crops
- 1651, flood destroy crops again
- 1652, 1659, flood again.
- 1648, 1650, 1651, robbery again.
- Admin takes 1.5 years to decide to cut 30% tax for the village.

As a result:
- Suicide rate, domestic violence
- Superstitious

---
Echo with other books:
- White Deer Plain about natural disasters: "传说又一年二伏天降��火，大如铜盆小如豆粒的火团火球倾泻下来，房屋焚为灰烬；人和牛马猪羊犬全被烧焦，无法搭救无计逃遁自然无一幸免；祠堂里的神轴和椽子檩条又一齐化为灰烬，村庄的历史又一次成为空白。至於蝗虫成精，疫疠滋漫，已经成为小灾小祸而不值一谈了。活在今天的白鹿村的老者平静地说，这个村子的住户永远超不过二百，人口冒不过一千，如果超出便有灾祸降临。"
- White Deer Plain about taxes: "杨排长讲了话，征粮的规矩是一亩一斗，不论水地旱地更不按“天时地利人和”六个等级摊派。"
---
- See more of my review in 饥饿的盛世 [My Review], 白鹿原 [My Review]
- Related books: 聊斋志异

[Vincent Fong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting mix of historical documents and ghost stories (as well as the translation), though sometimes the later part is a bit irrelevant.

The ending paragraph of the introduction is so powerful:
My reactions to woman Wang have been ambiguous and profound. She has been to me like one of those stones that one sees shimmering through the water at low tide and picks up from the waves almost with regret, knowing that in a few moments the colors suffusing the stone will fade and disappear as the stone dried in the sun. but in this case the colors and veins did not fade; rather they grew sharper as they lay in my hand, and now and again I knew it was the stone itself that was passing on warmth to the living flesh that held it.

Marked the feeling of reading a mystery fiction with a sorrow ending for me.

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting overview of a small county in Shandong Province in the mid-to-late 1600s. This feels like one of Spence's first works, and may have been a college thesis, but is still not a total waste of time to read. The first three of five chapters in the book feels like a non-fiction survey of the county, going through acreage, population, farming concerns and tax collection laws. The last two chapters are quotes and rifts on fiction written in the county at the time, and are the most interesting part of the book. I would have enjoyed this book more if it were merely a translation of the fiction written at the time, instead of Spence's mixture of fact, fiction, and overly-long quotes.

[Suzanne]

This was an assigned book from my kid’s Chinese history class, which she encouraged me also to read. It’s a grim history of a desolate county in seventeenth century China.

By page 4 the author is quoting local sayings: “It makes more sense to eat one’s father, elder brother, or husband so as to preserve one’s own life, rather than have the whole family die” and “To have the bodies of one’s close relatives eaten by someone else is not as good as eating them oneself, so as to prolong one’s own life for a few days.” As I said: grim.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my Ancient Greek class that was this year about the way history is recorded and retold. This book, by an esteemed Yale history professor, traces the micro history of a village in China during the 17th century. He uses three sources: two documentary and one lyrical. The last, stories by the short story writer of the time, P'u Sung-ing, were my favorite. Little fables with ironic endings that belied the harsh conditions of the times.

[Linzee G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt as though this was a very personal inlook to Chinese history. As though the characters in the stories told were people I knew. The author did a great job of taking these hundreds of years old tales and presenting them in a way that reminds us that these people were human. He also touched on a group of people in regions that are overlooked or outshined by other historic events, which I appreciate, because every human’s story is important in the study of human history.

[Nightkid · Rating 3 out of 5]

　　這是一部格局小得不能再小的史書，主要講述17世紀之際山東省郯城的地方史，穿插其中的只是數名小小的縣官、地方仕紳，亦少不了名列烈女傳的眾多婦女們。
　　書名雖名為《婦人王氏之死》，但女主角直至倒數第二章才姍姍來遲，全書也在王氏死亡後、丈夫受審後戛然而止。坦白說，我不太喜歡全書的編排，雖然先說明地區的社會、經濟、生活狀況是讓讀者融入作者筆下歷史情境的基本條件，但我認為把王氏的故事放在最前，似乎會較吸引。畢竟，說了大半天，內容仍然與書名配搭不了，頗讓身為讀者的我感到困惑。
　　至於封底文案提到的探討婦女的情慾世界云云，一開始還讓我以為這是一部婦女史，但閱畢全書後，自會明白不過是美麗的誤會。誠然，書中有地方史志記載的貞烈婦女的生活片段，但仍未足夠，至於所謂情慾，我也不過是看到王氏與情夫私奔的極精簡情節罷了。

[Krayfish1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting look into mid-1600's Chinese society. It's a few stories from a poor province illustrated with contemporaneous fiction stories from Pu Songling. The author writes a dream sequence for a woman about to be murdered by her husband, which is weird, but the rest of the book is excellent. It's also short.

[Cheyenne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the attempt of crafting a micro-history of China, as opposed to a broad one, but there is such a thing as too much detail. Aside from the fun stories placed throughout the book, the entire work reads like a tax report combined with a census. Woman Wang is not even mentioned until the last twenty or so pages.

[Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was a bit out of my expectation that first 70% of the book wasn't talking about woman wang. So I couldnt follow the book, at the beginning and wonder what i was reading at all. Need to have a re-read to get the message by the author. But the way where jonathan spence threads all the historical material together is always interesting and entertaining.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another short book. But a big story. Again, my knowledge of ancient China is too limited. Something I will be working on in future reading!

Am I going to live long enough to get all this reading done!?!?!? *sob*

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely crammed with the esoteric details of a particular and rather unremarkable corner of rural 17th Century China. And yet in the ordinary there are insights, and this book is quite effective at bringing to life an era that might otherwise have been subsumed by the centuries that followed...