Le journal d'un fou

by Lu Xun

"A Madman's Diary" (simplified Chinese: 狂人日记; traditional Chinese: 狂人日記; pinyin: Kuángrén Rìjì; Wade–Giles: K'uang-jen Jih-chi) was written in 1918 by Lu Xun, commonly considered one of the greatest writers in 20th-century Chinese literature. This short story is considered to be one of the first and most influential modern works written in vernacular Chinese. "A Madman's Diary" is an attempt by Lu Xun to describe the effects of feudal values upon the Chinese people. He uses an analogy of cannibalism to describe the way such outdated values eat away at the individual. The story would become a cornerstone of the New Culture Movement.

Genres: China, Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Chinese Literature, Literature, Asia

108 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1926

About the author

Lu Xun (鲁迅) or Lu Hsün (Wade-Giles), was the pen name of Zhou Shuren (September 25, 1881 – October 19, 1936), a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. Writing in Vernacular Chinese as well as Classical Chinese, Lu Xun was a novelist, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.


For the Traditional Chinese profile: here.
For the Simplified Chinese profile: 鲁迅

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the title story, rather than read the book (which might have made a difference). The madness of the protagonist was delineated very quickly and like ripples from a stone dropped into a pool, it rapidly and obsessively spread out with more and more detail. But the stone that sunk to the depths? The original causation factor? That was missing which left the book frustratingly without depth. Perhaps this is what madness looks like, it certainly isn't madness explained.

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tonight there is no moon at all, I know that this bodes ill. This morning when I went out cautiously, Mr. Chao had a strange look in his eyes, as if he were afraid of me, as if he wanted to murder me...All the people I passed were like that."



What did I just read? With images of cannibalism and conformity, the title story of Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman and Other Stories was disturbingly powerful. It is one of the shortest stories in the collection, but one that I read a number of times. The ending provides clues to the narrator's madness and paranoia, "Perhaps there are still children who have not eaten men? Save the children. . . ."

This is a remarkable collection. While "Diary of a Madman" is the story that is most talked about, it is very well worthwhile to read all the stories. Many of them feel like snapshots of daily life, specifically in a time of political upheaval and social change, in early 20th century rural and provincial China. Stories that resonated include "Kung I-Chi," "An Incident," "My Old Home," "The True Story of Ah-Q,""A Happy Family," "The New Year's Sacrifice," "A Happy Family" and "Misanthrope." 4.25 stars

"It's hard to live so no one will mourn for your death." "Misanthrope"

[Whitaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of 26 short stories by Lu Xun.

The most well-known is the story that gives the collection its name, "Diary of a Madman", where Lu Xun uses the madman's paranoiac fear of cannibalism as a metaphor for the way Chinese society ate up its people. Here, he works a hyperbolic vein generally similar to that used by Jonathan Swift in "A Modest Proposal". He returns to the metaphor of cannibalism from time to time, most notably and tragically in "Medicine", where the cure for tuberculosis prescribed by Chinese medicine (a quackery particularly despised by Lu Xun) was a bun soaked in human blood. Needless to say, the cure fails, and the young boy dies despite his family's desperate attempts to save his life.

The stories provide an insightful look into another world, specifically, the China of the late 19th/early 20th century, in the years after the end of the Taiping Rebellion. The crushing weight of traditional Chinese culture ("The Eternal Lamp", "Diary of a Madman"), the stultifying demands of the Imperial Examination system forcing students to memorise dead classics ("The White Light", "Kong Yiji"), the place of women in society ("The New Year Sacrifice", "Mourning the Dead"), and the constant struggle to make a living ("Ah Q: The Real Story", "Dragonboat Festival", "The Venerable Schoolmaster Gao"): these are the targets of Lu Xun's pen.

There are a number of real gems here, in addition to the most well-known one. The later stories are better, in my view, than the earlier ones, which I found too bitty. These were my favourites (a full listing of the short stories in this collection is at the bottom of this review):
• "Ah Q: The Real Story": The tragi-comedy of an itinerant vagrant in a small Chinese village. A bit of a coward and a thug, Ah Q alternately swaggers around or gets beaten up depending on his circumstances at the time.
• "Village Opera": One of the semi-autobiographical stories in the book, this tells of a trip by the young Lu Xun to watch a Chinese opera in the evening. The Chinese countryside, the play of the young boys, are all wonderfully evoked.
• "New Year's Sacrifice": A heart-rending tale of a widow who is married off by her mother-in-law. She loses her second husband and then her son. As remarriage was considered deeply, wrongly contrary to Confucian mores, she is unable to find acceptance back into society. A scathing look at the victims of traditional Confucian morality.
• "The Venerable Schoolmaster Gao": Lu Xun again in a semi-comedic vein. Gao takes on a job as a history teacher, a subject of which he knows next to nothing. The story accounts his half-hearted attempts to prepare for class, and the humour comes from his vain-glorious musings that contrast with his actual, pathetic state.
• "The Loner": The loner of the story attempts to stick to his morals but, to avoid starvation, eventually gives in to the endemic corruption of Chinese society.
• "Mourning the Dead": A man and a woman attempt to defy tradition by living together against the wishes of her family. Ostracised from society, they inevitably fall into poverty, which brings about quarrels, frustration, and the end of the relationship.
• "Divorce": A woman seeks proper restitution from her husband's family after being divorced by her husband. This is a neatly sarcastic look at the power-brokers in a small Chinese village.

A word on the translation: Lyell has made the translation choice of using English colloquialisms to capture the informality and plain language of Lu Xun's writing. This has the inevitable result of inducing a certain cultural dissonance for the reader. However, it's arguably a very decent and reasonable method for giving the reader some sense of the innovativeness of Lu Xun's writing, which controversially marked a deliberate break with the florid classical style (denoted in Lyell's translation by the use of italics and a Shakespearean-ish syntax). As a key characteristic of his works, to use a more neutral register and NOT represent this aspect of the work would have been another form of "betrayal". In choosing which betrayal to make—and the choices are, perforce, mutually exclusive—I can understand why Lyell chose to make this one. As one of those intractable translation dilemmas, I don't think a perfect solution to square this circle exists.

The stories in this edition are as follows:
• A Madman's Diary
• Remembrances of the Past
• Kong Yiji
• Medicine
• Tomorrow
• An Unimportant Affair
• The Story of Hair
• A Passing Storm
• Hometown
• Ah Q: The Real Story
• Dragonboat Festival
• The White Light
• Some Rabbits and a Cat
• A Comedy of Ducks
• Village Opera
• New Year's Sacrifice
• Upstairs in a Wineshop
• A Happy Family
• Soap
• The Eternal Lamp
• A Warning to the People
• The Venerable Schoolmaster Gao
• The Loner
• Mourning the Dead
• Brothers
• Divorce

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of my Fall 2017 Best Of Chinese Literature project; more here, and a cool list of books here.

Borrows the dogs from Gogol, but Lu Xun is a more concerned with cannibalism than Spanish kings. Tells a story about a revolutionary killed and eaten; that actually happened, so. The ironic thing is that it was during the Cultural Revolution, forty years after this story called for a cultural revolution. Lu was writing in 1918, and his madman finds the command - EAT PEOPLE - in Confucius. It was among the first to use the Chinese vernacular, instead of the stilted classical, and it's about the weight of tradition crushing the people; Lu was a revolutionary, and he became a hero of the Communist movement.

[Yules · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary. This version is more focused than the original Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gógol, clearly critiquing Confucian society as primitive, inhumane, a place where people “eat” their own.

Both stories contain, as the title indicates, diaries of men who descend into madness. In Gogol’s original, the narrator, in addition to his other hallucinations, becomes temporally delusional, recording months out of order and writing dates like “34 March. February, 349.” In Lu Xun’s version, there are no dates at all, as though all Confucian history were compressed. As though this is simply how Chinese culture has functioned for millennia, centuries indistinguishable from one another.

Gogol’s narrator has no friends or family – he is untethered from society and eventually from reality. But Lu Xun’s has an elder brother who cares for him, and whom he suspects of wanting to eat him. Confucianism values filial piety even to the point where children are expected to sacrifice themselves for their families. This is not about alienation. The call is coming from inside the house.

The frame narrative (in classical Chinese as opposed to the madman’s vernacular) tells us that the madman has since recovered. This is also a departure from Gogol, whose own madman ends up trapped in an asylum from which he will never escape. Lu Xun’s use of the device can be read in multiple ways. Perhaps there is an opening for “recovery,” a new era in China in which Lu Xun himself played a large part. Or perhaps his madman has regressed back into Confucian cannibalistic culture, as he is said to have moved on and taken an “official post.” Or perhaps he has just been eaten.

I also enjoyed this modern-day parody of Lu Xun’s version: https://thaichinesept.wixsite.com/tra...

[Bren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me he leído este relato gracias a la recomendación de una amiga, no se ni como expresarme para reseñarlo.

Lo primero es que me ha encantado la manera de escribir de Lu Xun, es excepcional, siempre he creído que cuando alguien es capaz de poner tanto en tan pocas palabras es digno de una gran alabanza.

El relato se supone es el diario de los delirios de un hombre que se cree rodeado de caníbales, hasta ahí por supuesto expresa toda la locura del que se habla en el título, ha resultado por lo menos curioso entrar a la mente enajenada de este personaje.

Sin embargo, desde mi muy particular punto de vista, el autor ha querido de alguna manera expresar la manera en que la una persona diferente se ve rodeada de la mundanidad familiar de los demás, es decir, ir contracorriente con respecto al mundo, poniendo el canibalismo como algo que la mayoría hace por defecto y lo poco que puede llegar a pertenecer socialmente alguien que no sigue la norma.

Un relato interesante y entretenido.

[rory (jess' version) · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is truly ahead of its time! i love the allusion to how lu xun crafted society's prejudice toward those who have mental illnesses in this story. although mental illness and the practice of cannibalism are not the same, i think it goes way beyond what the words meant, showing how the latter is an immoral practice and comparing it to the former as if being mentally unstable is a sin you have to bear throughout your life. i also wanted to say how the madman is called 'madman' but not his name depicts alienation and saneism. lu xun pried open the stigmatization and discrimination of society toward people with mental illness, and the irony and hypocrisy with which society treats them as if they are not human, when in fact, the act of marginalizing them is in its form inhumane.

[leti lo yeti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Racconto breve dall'atmosfera soffocante. Ho apprezzato le metafore nel testo.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short, rather scathing and often chilling commentary on the depersonalizing effects of mindless societal adherence.

This book is not preachy--its almost a stream of consciousness style. As the title suggests, it's recorded in a journal style.

Very elegantly plotted, with the ending known at the beginning--it's a testament to the quality of the writing that knowing the end results actually makes the plot progression more suspenseful and the resolution more chilling.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first work I've read of Lu Xun, who became my favorite contemporary Chinese author when I learnt to appreciate his irony and incisiveness.

[Pianobikes · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Antes me limitaba a escuchar sus razonamientos, sin que mis ideas se aclararan; hoy sé que cuando mi hermano exponía sus razones no sólo sus labios rebosaban grasa humana, sino que además su mente estaba dominada por la idea de comer hombre” ~ Diario de un loco de Lu Xun.

Diario de un loco es un breve relato contado en primera persona sobre un hombre que se considera rodeado de caníbales y que cree que todos quieren comérselo y que cree que el resto han querido tildarlo de “loco”. “Si con capaces de comer hombre, ¿por qué no iban a comerme a mi?”, se pregunta el protagonista quien, a medida que avanza el relato, va incorporando a más conocidos en la lista de posible caníbales de los que mantenerse al margen.

Elegí este relato para finalizar mi reto ABC de @babelioespanol y la verdad que lo leí más perdida que un pulpo en un garaje. No entendí nada. Así que estuve buceando por internet en busca de una explicación a tan raro relato y me encuentro con que la historia es un eufemismo. Al parecer Lu Xun quiso criticar la sociedad confuciana de su época plagada de “caníbales” que querían convencerlo de su idoneidad. Visto así ya es otra cosa.

[Vicky Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Waking Those in the Iron House
Lu Xun wanted to connect with the larger world, and the Chinese of his generation were aware that Japan had moved ahead in all areas. They saw Japan as a window to the West. So, Lu Xun went to school in Japan, despite his family's protest. They asked that he change his name so as not to shame the family. He would go on to become a writer; mentioning the problems China suffered with like the Civil Service Exam system, superstition, traditional medicine, poverty, binding women's feet, and reluctance to change.

In 1918, Lu Xun first published Diary of a Madman. This was only a year before the May Fourth (1919) Revolution in Tiananmen Square. Sandwiched there among Western contemporaries like H. G. Wells, C.S. Lewis, Agatha Christie, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce; he published works that would provide no closure, since they were more questions about the then current state of affairs in China. They would reverberate through the coming decades, perhaps resounding in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The book was written little more than a decade and a half after the Boxer Rebellion.

In later years Chairman Mao anointed Lu Xun as his great predecessor. This effort at rehabilitating Lu Xun's legacy and absorbing his work into the classrooms and textbooks of the country was an unusual political stance since he wrote about problems that were still current. Of course, Mao read selectively and pushed his work in a selective way, trying to control public perception of the meaning behind what had become recognized as world literature.

Lu Xun was writing with a biting satire in an attempt to push the culture forward. He knew multiple languages and did many translations. He is seen today as a dark warrior with a pen writing against the traditional Confucianist Culture. He was as much repulsed by Chinese tradition as he was attracted to it. But, he always wrote directly, never attempting to make the reader comfortable. He wrote in the language of the common people. He was one of the most important literary figures of the 20th Century.

The first story, Diary of a Madman, reads like a case study with a creepy sort of ambiguous twist at the end. The stories that I remember most besides that were The New Year's Sacrifice, An Incident, A Happy Family, which is really humorous, and The Misanthrope. All of the stories have much to offer in terms of perspective on China, historically and today. It was an attempt, as Lu Xun himself alluded to in the preface, to waken sleepers who were trapped in an iron house without windows and doors. He asked the question, should we let them sleep so as not to disturb them?

[Blixen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tutti vogliono carne umana e tutti temono al tempo stesso di essere divorati dagli altri...

Il Club Norvegese del Libro inseriva questo testo tra le cento opere migliori di sempre. Tralasciando le ragioni per cui mi sono imbattuta in questa lista e nel fantomatico gruppo in questione, visto che nei miei incubi ricorrenti oltre al cadere da una rupe, c'è l 'uomo del Club degli Editori che mi fa firmare un contratto e io non riesco a fermare la mia mano, devo dire che non lo avrei mai inserito in una lista con solo cento titoli, ma è pur vero che ho scoperto un nuovo autore, considerato un grande esponente della letteratura cinese del XX secolo: Lu Xun. Quando i nomi cinesi sono così semplici da scrivere e da ricordare ci vorresti tenere su un corso.
La storia prende spunto dal ritrovamento di un diario, scritto da un amico della voce narrante. L'uomo in questione era fuggito dal suo villaggio dopo un periodo di follia e nel diario si ritrovano i vaneggiamenti che lo avevano condotto alla pazzia. Egli credeva che gli uomini del villaggio fossero cannibali e avidi di nuovi corpi con cui sfamarsi. A mano a mano prende coscienza che questo è un segreto solo per lui, infatti tutti si nutrono della deliziosa carne umana clandestinamente e non riescono a farne a meno.

Lu Xun attraverso questa metafora vuole denunciare la cultura cinese dell'epoca che divorava gli uomini togliendo loro la possibilità di essere individui veri, uomini veri. Il folle, come ci ha insegnato Shakespeare, è l'unico savio, guarda oltre e fugge proprio per rimanere integro nel corpo e nelle speranze.

I loro piani erano ben studiati: mi avevano messo l'etichetta di pazzo. Nel futuro, quando sarei finito divorato, non solo non avrebbero avuto problemi, ma la gente addirittura gli sarebbe stata grata.


Sono riflessioni interessanti e perciò ringrazio gli amici norvegesi per essersi presi la briga di stilare una classifica mondiale dando spazio anche a questo autore. Touchè.

[Tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una historia corta que se lee muy rápido.

No sé siente como un texto de literatura asiática, quizá por que todo gira en torno a las vivencias que un loco transcribe en su diario y no se centra en las normas tan rígidas e impersonales de esta sociedad.

[Tote Cabana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me encanta descubrir nuevos autores, nuevos para mi obviamente, porque este tiene muchos años. No había tenido la oportunidad de leer a este autor y seguiré buscando sus obras. En cuanto a este relato me gustó mucho ese aire oscuro y de locura un tanto perturbador, sobretodo por el tema tan fuerte como el canibalismo narrado por la recopilación de un diario de un enfermo mental que sufría de una manía persecutoria.

[Nuria · Rating 4 out of 5]

RECOMENDADO.
Relato corto contado a modo de diario, de un hombre en pleno brote paranoico.
Describe y transmite al angustia del enfermo ante sus delirios persecutorios. En pocas páginas te pones en la piel del protagonista, y sientes cómo te miran los demás, conspiran contra ti, susurran sobre ti mires donde mires; eres el centro de la diana.
Un relato inquietante y perturbador.

[efimeratrama · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este relato lo que tiene de breve lo tiene de desconcertante.
Recomendado

[Danesda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Da escalofríos
video reseña completa en:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm86pYUubc1/

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recenty completed an online course on edX HarvardX: HUM12.2x Modern Masterpieces of World Literature (https://www.edx.org/course/modern-mas...) which introduced me to Lu Xun. I didn't recall having heard of him before and thinking this to be a gaping hole in my knowledge of world literature I have been setting about recitifying it.

First a bit about the author - Lu Xun (1881- 1936) grew up in a family whose wealth was declinging rapidly . He was educated at government schools, went to study in Japan both lack of funds ended this. In his lifetime he saw the long-standing Qing Dynasty Empire committed to ancient traditions give way in 1911 to a revolutionary but flawed republic, which led him, as one of many intellectuals dissatisfied with the direction of the new government, to take part in the New Culture movement. He never joined the Chinese Communist Party. In 1918 Lu wrote the first short story published in his name, Diary of a Madman, for the magazine New Youth. The story was praised for its anti-traditionalism, its synthesis of Chinese and foreign conventions and ideas, and its skillful narration, and Lu became recognized as one of the leading writers of the New Culture Movement. Nobel laureate Kenzaburō Ōe describes him as "The greatest writer Asia produced in the twentieth century". The 3 yearly Chinese Lu Xun Literary Prize is named after him. His stories satirized outmoded and fossilised traditions and conventions while revealing reservations about China’s new directions. His narrative experimentation and use of vernacular language helped to modernize Chinese writing. His work was inspired by his familiarity with foreign languages and literature - the story was inspired by the work of the same name by Gogol whose "Dead Souls" he translated.

The story, “The Diary of a Madman” is available online at https://www.marxists.org/archive/lu-x... . It is highly ambiguous, with an unreliable narrator and unreliable preface. Is it an allegorical attack on ancient Confucian values or the ravings of a delusional voice? Whether you read it straightforwardly as the diary of the man suffering from a persecution complex, or as a more politically charged narrative, it certainly holds yours attention as the narrator's madness spirals onward. 13 short sections constitute the diary read by the narrator of the preface. The diary purports to be that of the now recovered, once sick brother of the narrator's friend. They chronicle the spiralling suspicion he feels for those around him from the neighbour's dog to one of his tenants to a woman in the street to his own brother, analysing it as being due to the fact that they are all man-eaters, even to the point of rationalising his own little sister's death to having been eaten by their brother.
ashrambings verdict 4* Very pleased I "discovered" this author

[Samuel Fuente · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le pongo un cuatro porque es interesante, aunque en realidad es un 3,5.

El relato, de primera, podemos hacer varias conexiones:
- Diario de un viejo loco, de Gogol, que también trata de un funcionario que se cree un soberano. Hay una clara analogía con este relato.
- Diario de un viejo loco de Tanizaki, que en este caso trata la depredación sexual, tal como sucede en La Llave, también en formato de diario y con un enfermo de por medio (mental y físicamente). Aunque con un trasfondo sexual, la temática es la misma.
- Pero no se acaba aquí, hay un relato de Horacio Quiroga, de Cuentos de Amor, de Locura y de Muerte, El Perro Rabioso, en formato de diario y trata de un perro rabioso que contagia a un hombre, enloqueciéndose.

Parece ser que este género se popularizó en la multiplicación de relatos sobre locos a través de Gogol. Aunque en este relato, como si fuera un tema nimio y absurdo, pienso que de fondo el loco dice un verdad de algún modo: cuando habla de hombres comiendo hombre, en realidad está hablando de la explotación (la tradición, el feudalismo, y una nueva, el capitalismo), lo cual trasciende bajo varias frases que contextualizadas dentro del canibalismo dan a entender esto. Debajo de la locura, ¿quizás haya esta lectura? Como en: "nosotros podemos hoy romper con la costumbre y tratar de mejorar; podemos decir: ¡Esto no puede ser! Hermano, estoy seguro de que tú puedes decirlo; anteayer, cuando el arrendatario quería que le rebajases el alquiler, dijiste que no podía ser." También porque el final es decisivo como mensaje de esperanza al hablar de los niños, como un preludio publicitario del socialismo. Quizás esté patinando..., pero me ha parecido que hay un juego, como en el Quijote, de que el loco dice la verdad...

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read this book, I just read one story and, honestly, I read that one story online (thank you MARXISTS.ORG!) but I like to record my reactions on GOODREADS so...

And, of course it was "A Madman's Diary" - considered the first modern piece of Chinese fiction. Go read it - it's right under that link above and is pretty short. Obviously intended as political allegory, it concerns the written record of a young man who, in the throes of madness, extrapolates the tyranny of old, rural values into a paranoid belief that the world is secretly filled with cannibals (noting, in the text, actual historic moments of real cannibalism in Chinese history), including his own brother. "Save the children..." indeed.

Nicely done - I liked the resonances with Gogol's similarly titled tale and I especially liked the bit where the young man, looking through his history books, begins to realize that written between the lines of all books is the secret message "Eat People"! Will probably do a podcast of this on PSEUDOPOD as part of an Asian Horror retrospective - at which, no doubt, high brows will get all sniffy and presume I am "missing the point of the thing". Ahhhh... fun!

[Kristin]

2015 {YES I AM BEHIND...stuff it} PopSugar Challenge with my fellow crustaceans Karly, Jess, Heather, and Nenia


A book of short stories - Diary of a Madman and Other Stories - Xun, Lu

DNF at 21%

I've tried with this one, I really have, but it is just sooo boring and bizarre that I never have the desire to pick it up without reluctance. I'm sure it's a cultural or generational thing, but the proverbs go over my head or fall flat of being profound. All in all, I rather spend what little reading time I have anymore on something I actually enjoy reading.

[Vanya Prodanova · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ох, честно, не знам какво прочетох... До последно цялата книга ми беше една голяма чуденка. Напомня журнал - събрани на едно място статии, фолклор, писма, презентации и истории, свързани с Китай от началото на 20 век... И това е, което мисля, че успях да разбера. Имаше една две истории (да ги наречем така), които звучаха нормално и представяха живота на обикновените хора в Китай, но това е, останалото ми дойде като тотално мазало и вероятно, за да разбера какво прочетох, ще ми се наложи да прочета някъде из нета обяснение.

[Coleccionista de finales tristes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Habrá acaso niños que no hayan comido hombre? Hay que salvar a los niños...

Lu Xun fue Zhōu Shùren (1881-1936), quién estudió Medicina en Japón y en 1909 regresó a China y se incorporó a la revista Nueva Juventud, donde se publicó por primera vez “El diario de un loco”

[Jimi Gilroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Diary of a Madman is one of my favorite stories. Lu Xun was one of the first Chinese authors to write in bai hua (colloquial speech) and he is an expert writer and observer of dialogue.

[Rafa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiene mucha más fuerza que el original de Gogol.

[Daniel Polansky]

A collection of short stories from a (the?) giant of 20th century Chinese letters. Much of it functions as a veiled if comprehensible satire of a civilization in rapid upheaval, and even if you don’t get all the references to Romance of the Three Kingdoms there’s still a lot of fun to be had in watching the author tweak the evils and pretensions of his age (traditional medicine comes in for a lot of abuse). But beyond political parody there is a sad joy in watching Lu describe the tragedies of his fellow citizens, grappling with his own failures and the failures of his age. In short, this is a master of the form reworking the Western-style short story into his own vernacular. Strong rec

[almxne]

por supuesto fue una recomendación de andrea

[bokvald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Läste inte nåra ”other stories”, vet inte vad goodreads snackar om

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I keep rereading it! A very short story. Amazing and EXTREMELY thought provoking!