Three-Legged Horse

by Cheng Ch'ing-Wen, 郑清文

Here are twelve moving short stories about Taiwan and its people by one of the island's most popular writers, Cheng Ch'ing-wen. Focusing primarily on village life and the effects of modernization on Taiwan in the postwar years, Cheng is one of the most respected of the island's "nativist" writers, yet this is his first book to be translated into English. This anthology represents the best of his fictional efforts across a forty-year span and encompasses his major themes: the tensions between men and women, parents and children, city and village, tradition and modernity. Taken individually, each story presents a moving portrait of paralysis, frustration, or self-realization. Together, they weave a complex tapestry of life in a rapidly changing country.

Cheng Ch'ing-wen's stories tell of men grappling with their fears and frustrations, from "The River Suite," in which a ferryman-championed throughout his small town for twice saving a drowning person-lacks the courage to confess his love to a young woman before she dies, to "Spring Rain," in which a man struggles to come to terms with his seemingly rootless life as both an orphaned child and an infertile husband. Here too are illustrations of the changing place of women in Taiwan, as they take on more powerful roles and awaken to a sense of their own sexuality: a woman forcibly separated from her husband by her jealous mother-in-law walks for hours through the night to see him on his birthday, only to turn back and go straight home before her absence is noticed; a disappointed young female scholar with a deformed hand comes to realize--after many painful rejections--that loneliness is not reason enough to become intimate with a man. And generations clash in "Thunder God's Gonna Getcha," as a mother's cruelty is repaid years later by a son's coldness.

Death reverberates throughout these stories as characters recall deceased spouses, lovers, relatives, and friends in vivid detail. The focus, however, is not on the dead but on the living. In the title story, an old man carves exquisite lame horses as both a penance for having terrorized a town as a police officer during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan in World War II and a memorial to his deceased wife, who was nobler and more courageous than he. This book is a kind of gallery of three-legged horses: portraits of people maimed and transformed-for better or worse-by the suffering that life brings.

Genres: Short Stories, China

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 1998

About the author

Cheng Ch'ing-wen (鄭清文), born September 16, 1932, is a Taiwanese writer and a graduate of National Taiwan University. He worked at the government-run Hua Nan Bank for forty years. His works in English are generally under the transliteration Cheng Ch'ing-Wen and that is how he is described in many English-language publications published in Taiwan. The transliteration Tzeng Ching-wen is also used.

He is a leader of the Taiwanese "nativist" movement. Zheng [or Cheng] is a speaker of the Min Nan or Taiwanese "dialect" of Chinese. He graduated from elementary school in Taiwan with six years of instruction in Japanese, and only thereafter began to learn to write in Chinese[.]

A collection of twelve of his short stories, Three-Legged Horse, was made available in English in 1998, and was a finalist for the 1999 Kiriyama Prize for translation.

He has written both novels, short stories, and works for children. His three works for children (Swallow Heart Berries, Sky Lanterns/Mother, and Picking Peaches) are populated with birds, insects, and other animals that all have the ability to speak, in a manner common to fairy tales.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd say that "Secrets", "God of Thunder", the eponymous story, and "The Coconut Palms" are all worth reading. I think I forgot about the other ones, kind of, except for the vibes. There is a lot of meandering and people stuck inside their own heads (not a bad thing!)—for what it's worth, I more admire Huang Chun-ming's ability to create vivid and whimsical scenes, like Ah-fu and his family and the Sandwich Man, all of which have stuck with me. Cheng is another Taiwanese nativist author, whose has a special penchant for simple (but not stilted) prose and characters capable of deep introspection. The weird thing is that the best story here ("Three-Legged Horse") is a recollection/reconstruction of events that occurred during the Japanese colonial period rather than during the decades post-Feb 28th. Maybe there's more to say on that (identity, nation, etc), but I'm too lazy.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of simply told vignettes about village life in Taiwan is undoubtedly accurate as to time and place and therefore, I suppose it was worthwhile to publish them, but the life described is so mundane that one can only be thankful for not having been a part of the scene. I gave up about two thirds of the way through.

[maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

gorgeous and very cleanly written. subtle and intelligent social and political commentary that seamlessly fit into the lush and complicated lives of these vivid and complex people. my favorite part was how it featured people who THINK a LOT and come to absolutely no clarity about anything and also, in spades, the enduring and mystifying nature of love....

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the stories but didn't finish all of them. They weren't unforgettable but they had a simplicity that made them enjoyable and the y had a flavour that Is definitely eastern.