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正红旗下

by Lao She, Лао Шъ, София Катърова (преводач)

Beneath the Red Banner by Lao She, one of modern China's best loved writers, is an autobiographical novel published after his death. The author of Camel Xiangzi (Rickshaw Boy) and the drama Teahouse, Lao She died in 1966, leaving Beneath the Red Banner unfinished. It is an account of life in Beijing at the turn of the century and is told with great wit and warmth, candour and sympathy.
(back cover)

Genres: Chinese Literature, China, Biography

266 pages, Paperback

First published February 26, 1982

About the author

Lao She (Chinese: 老舍; pinyin: Lǎo Shě; Wade–Giles: Lao She; February 3, 1899 – August 24, 1966) was the pen name of Shu Qingchun (simplified Chinese: 舒庆春; traditional Chinese: 舒慶春; pinyin: Shū Qìngchūn; Manchu surname: Sumuru), a noted Chinese novelist and dramatist. He was one of the most significant figures of 20th-century Chinese literature, and best known for his novel Rickshaw Boy and the play Teahouse (茶館). He was of Manchu ethnicity. His works are known especially for their vivid use of the Beijing dialect.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bequest of a doomed rare bird

The ivory billed woodpecker is a rare bird indeed. Just imagine that you looked for it over decades, then located it, only to see it fly headlong into a large plate-glass window and die. I feel rather the same way about Lao She. In the century of China's turmoil between 1850 and 1950, only a few topnotch writers could emerge, people like Lu Xun, Mao Dun and Shen Congwen. Lao She was one of this small group. He grew to be a rare bird in the forest of literature, but was captured and killed. Eventually politics cornered him. His humanistic, humorous style did not please party bosses. He doomed himself by being born a Manchu in pre-revolutionary times, by writing of life as he saw it before the Revolution, rather than life as Socialist Realism decreed it to be. And he served the Communist Party, he believed in the changes that convulsed China. They hounded him to death during the Cultural Revolution: I believe he drowned himself. What a loss!

Lao She couldn't write a bad story. On the other hand, he could. These two contradictory statements are illustrated perfectly in the unfinished BENEATH THE RED BANNER, which at 212 pages, is only a fraction of the novel he planned to write. The first part, which deals with a character's first month on this ball of dirt, takes up 121 pages, a fantastically interesting description of life among the impoverished Manchu bannermen in Beijing in the last years of the 19th century. It oozes humor, color, reality, and earthy dialogue. OK, maybe it isn't deep philosophy, maybe there are no psychologically-revealing characterizations, but you can't get enough. This is what Lao She excelled at. His stories are genuine monuments to a certain period in Chinese history, that long-vanished Beijing life---poverty, corruption, polished bourgeois manners, stewed pork, orchid scented tobacco, esoteric hobbies and secret societies---still lives on his pages. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, the mood and tone change. The author begins to write `politically correct' descriptions and to idealize propaganda-poster characters without any criticism, certainly without a humorous glint in his eye. Bad, greedy foreigners, sleazy Chinese running dogs, heroic bare-chested rebels---I felt sorry for Lao She, who obviously had to toe the line. It didn't help him in the end: his past caught up with him. Although you can buy this book as a single book, it really is two books. One is vintage Lao She, the other is Lao She Lite. I wonder what the book would have been if he could really have written as he wanted. We will never know.

[Jacob Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

paints a vivid picture of life in China and such, shame it is not finished

[吕不理 · Rating 5 out of 5]

喜欢看他写北京。因为趵突泉和五月的青岛 很长一段时间觉得这人是山东人 怎么写散文跟写小说完全不一样呢。语言风格太特别了 不仅仅是京腔更是那种用朴素的话写真实的感受 揉进去的是自己的想法儿 在人人都写观点情况下 关注感受的好可贵。

没卵用 被评为人民艺术家也没用的 看到最后戛然而止的地方让人欲求不满啊。

[Elsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

残本更觉唏嘘

[Hibiscus · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unfinished semi-autobiographic noire story.

[DL · Rating 5 out of 5]

omg