正红旗下

正红旗下

by Lao She

清朝末年，社会动荡，民风腐化，旗人们的生活也日见窘迫。庚子年间，随着义和团的到来，老北京顺民们看似平静的生活陡起波澜，而此后发生的一系列事件更让老百姓百思不解、颜面扫地，官军和团民围攻东交民巷，旗兵们尽了职责，报国寺的老方丈也带着满腔的怨恨走进了熊熊烈火……面对这破碎的河山、残存的家园，经受了劫掠的老北京只能将这段历史永远地铭记在心。随着老舍先生的笔在舞台上呈现一个个鲜活的人物——温和老实的父亲、勤俭朴实的母亲、尖刻自大的姑母、吃喝玩乐的大姐夫、蛮横无理的大姐婆婆、无过是福的大姐公公、聪明能干的福海二哥、奸滑钻营的多老大、性格直率的多老二、正直善良的老王掌柜，倔强耿直的王十成、养尊处优的定大爷、逍遥自在的博胜之、能说会道的索老四、身残“志坚”的查二爷、妄自尊大的牛牧师……一朝子民，他们在自己的世界里都活得有滋有味无忧无虑，可当他们赖以支柱的大清王朝摇摇欲坠破碎飘零时，他们的命运就同样不济了……

Genres: Chinese Literature, China, Biography

82 pages, ebook

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.

[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

[Jacob Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Hibiscus · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unfinished semi-autobiographic noire story.

[DL · Rating 5 out of 5]

omg