What do you think?
Rate this book
Chinese Shadows
The second of Leys's trilogy on China's Cultural Revolution, describing the cultural and political upheaval under Mao's regime and expressing criticism of its Western supporters.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
10 people are currently reading
669 people want to read
About the author
Simon Leys
52 books74 followersSimon Leys is the pen-name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993. He died in Sydney in 2014.
Writing in three languages - French, Chinese and English - he played an important political role in revealing the true nature of the Cultural Revolution. His many prizes include the Prix Renaudot, Prix mondial Cino Del Duca and the Christina Stead Prize.
Writing in three languages - French, Chinese and English - he played an important political role in revealing the true nature of the Cultural Revolution. His many prizes include the Prix Renaudot, Prix mondial Cino Del Duca and the Christina Stead Prize.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 10, 2023
Something of a period piece this, as it was written after the author returned from a 6-month visit to China in 1972. Simon Leys was the penname of the Belgian-Australian academic Pierre Ryckmans. He was a Sinologist, a Mandarin speaker and very much a Sinophile. In this book he struggles to control his anger at what the Maoists were doing to China. He says himself that the book is not objective, because objectivity requires either detachment or indifference, and he is incapable of either where China is concerned. Ryckmans of course arrived after 5 years of the Cultural Revolution, “the most gigantic frenzy China had known since the Taiping Rebellion.”
The first half of the book is a sort of tour of the main Chinese cities. At this time foreigners were not permitted to travel into the countryside, save for a few “model” villages set up specifically to be shown to visitors. Almost all of the cities described had suffered massive destruction during the Cultural Revolution, with temples and other historic buildings being targeted. The housing stock appeared ramshackle. Clearly it was a low priority for the regime, but in addition;
“The political climate does not encourage people to smarten up their flats or houses…better not live in a way that might be qualified as “bourgeois”; any individual initiative to make life more pleasant or agreeable may bring suspicion or cause criticism. The wise man lives in a hovel and sews patches on his trousers.”
Apart from the physical destruction;
"It is probable that the Cultural Revolution has left other, even deeper scars on Chinese minds and feelings. It represented after all, the climax of …twenty years of systematic training in aggression, of legitimizing violence and hatred. The daily witnessing of looting, revenge, cruelties, humiliations…the obligation to be present at, if not to take an active part in, the public denunciation of neighbours, friends, fellow workers and parents, all this must have put its mark on the society as a whole."
Ryckmans notes that Nadezhda Mandelstam made similar observations about the USSR under Stalin.
The second half of the book looks at various sectors of society – the bureaucracy, the universities, cultural life etc. I found this the more interesting part of the book, in particular the surreal nature of a society where something proclaimed as absolute truth is the next day denounced as the vilest heresy. It was “vital not to miss the turn”, and as a result turgid Maoist propaganda was read avidly by those seeking to judge the direction of flow. If this all sounds a bit like Orwell’s 1984, the author praises that book as being incredibly prescient about daily life in Maoist China. At one point he quotes from the People’s Daily, which incited the masses “to rebel…without transgressing Party discipline and while respecting the authority of their superiors.” That’s a good example of Orwellian doublespeak!
Ryckmans is appalled by the destruction of Chinese cultural life – theatre, opera and literature in particular. He also lambasts the numerous Western “intellectuals” who constantly praised Mao and claimed that the Maoist state was a new Utopia.
This book is an interesting snapshot of a particular time and place, but one that still has relevance today. Ideological fanatics are still with us.
The first half of the book is a sort of tour of the main Chinese cities. At this time foreigners were not permitted to travel into the countryside, save for a few “model” villages set up specifically to be shown to visitors. Almost all of the cities described had suffered massive destruction during the Cultural Revolution, with temples and other historic buildings being targeted. The housing stock appeared ramshackle. Clearly it was a low priority for the regime, but in addition;
“The political climate does not encourage people to smarten up their flats or houses…better not live in a way that might be qualified as “bourgeois”; any individual initiative to make life more pleasant or agreeable may bring suspicion or cause criticism. The wise man lives in a hovel and sews patches on his trousers.”
Apart from the physical destruction;
"It is probable that the Cultural Revolution has left other, even deeper scars on Chinese minds and feelings. It represented after all, the climax of …twenty years of systematic training in aggression, of legitimizing violence and hatred. The daily witnessing of looting, revenge, cruelties, humiliations…the obligation to be present at, if not to take an active part in, the public denunciation of neighbours, friends, fellow workers and parents, all this must have put its mark on the society as a whole."
Ryckmans notes that Nadezhda Mandelstam made similar observations about the USSR under Stalin.
The second half of the book looks at various sectors of society – the bureaucracy, the universities, cultural life etc. I found this the more interesting part of the book, in particular the surreal nature of a society where something proclaimed as absolute truth is the next day denounced as the vilest heresy. It was “vital not to miss the turn”, and as a result turgid Maoist propaganda was read avidly by those seeking to judge the direction of flow. If this all sounds a bit like Orwell’s 1984, the author praises that book as being incredibly prescient about daily life in Maoist China. At one point he quotes from the People’s Daily, which incited the masses “to rebel…without transgressing Party discipline and while respecting the authority of their superiors.” That’s a good example of Orwellian doublespeak!
Ryckmans is appalled by the destruction of Chinese cultural life – theatre, opera and literature in particular. He also lambasts the numerous Western “intellectuals” who constantly praised Mao and claimed that the Maoist state was a new Utopia.
This book is an interesting snapshot of a particular time and place, but one that still has relevance today. Ideological fanatics are still with us.
October 28, 2020
Ladies and gentlemen, in this review, I'm going to talk about two things, make a review of this magnificent book and make some things clear.
I recognize that I had my doubts about including these comments that have nothing to do with the review of this book, but due to recent events I do it delighted. There aren't usually many people who have stopped being my friend at Goodreads. During my time at Goodreads, it may be about six, or eight people who for different reasons have ceased to be friends with me. I'm surprised the last two people have done it these last few days. I can understand that the first person did it, because I wrote to that person in his native language thanks to the translator who has the Microsoft Word processor (partly thanks to him I managed to finish my criticisms, otherwise it would be impossible to write them) more or less the post I wrote to him was like this "hello I did not know that there wereso many writers of your country I likeyour readings very much, and if you want to answer me you can do it in your language, because I will be able to answer you in your own language and of course praise your readings " as goodreads users can see nothing serious, but I understand that this user felt overwhelmed by what I take advantage of to express my sincereisculpas, as I was very clumsy and had to realize that per per example that person did not wish to have a communication with me. The first case might be justified, but the second case doesn't make sense to me at least. That person accepted my invitation to be my friend at Goodreads that day and curiously began to say that she liked many of the books I had read, but I have the feeling that after writing my review of RobertGraves' "King Jesus" https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... something must have displeased her, because she stopped following me and suspected, that what she didn't like is that she was frank about it. So I warn people and give goodreads users advice before asking me for friendship, or accept my friend request should consider one thing. I am Catholic (perhaps not very good) but I am and I have traditional political tendencies (I will not say conservatives, because otherwise Juan Manuel de Prada https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... would be angry and rightly so with me) and moral rules that determine my tastes for books and my way of analyzing them and that makes my analysis as it is. So, if you don't like those kind of people, you don't have to ask me for friendship. I'm very proud of the way I am and I'm not going to change it just to be more popular. I can change certain things, but the essentials I'm going to leave. This leads me to be critical of certain current books and certain existing ideologies sponsored by a hatred of Christianity and which makes me critical of them. But I'm free to choose what kind of user I want to be with. Some will wonder, because I have not accepted them as friends in Goodreads and it is because my readings are incompatible with theirs and that I do not think we can have anything in common and that is why I have not accepted them as friends. Clearly, there's a group of writers I don't like and if you like congratulations, but I don't have to like them. If you put four stars or more into a Dan Brown novel, or books like Pullman's, Dawkins's, Harris's or other authors. If, for example, they are writers of an ideology hostile to the way I see life, I will not accept you either. It is clear that I wish to avoid any conflict and wish to primate a certain mostly Catholic, or Christian user (since I have become not only a collector of Catholic and Christian writers but also of Catholic and Christian users), although I do not brazen other types of profiles as long as I am not hostile to the way I see life. For example, I am a great lover of Poland and I really like his women so it is normal for me to ask users of that country for friendship. I have always been fascinated by the women described by Sienkiewicz https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... in his novels and I have been fascinated by that country so I have followed people from that country more. Nor do I reject the possibility of finding a partner. It is true that I am in love with a woman, but that person made it very clear to me that I did not want to know absolutely anything about me so that at this moment I am free to start any relationship with a woman, but that is not my goal but to read as many books as I can and as said that person to which I so much want to share it with all the goodread users who wish to read them outside of their race, creed, and sex.
However, from now on I will be more cautious when it comes to asking people for friendships and I recommend that people think about it before asking me for friendship and be clear about what I have written in this review. However, if I have already accepted you I guarantee you unless you do something that I was very angry about (I actually stopped being friends with four people in Goodreads, they didn't even attack me, but they attacked what I loved most and that's why I stopped being their friend. On twitter I have never blocked anyone, I may have asked to see fewer twitters of the person in question, but I have never blocked anyone, despite receiving very strong attacks and the same has happened to me on facebook). As for people I haven't accepted as friends, don't be sad. They may not be my friends, but they can follow me, and if they wish they can write to me and I will gladly answer the message they write to me as long as what you write to me is respectful and it is possible even if you are so firmly determined to be my friends that I finally came to accept them. I do ask you not to attack my religious beliefs and not to be hostile towards me. Finally, I wanted to point out, that it is true that there are many people I have not accepted as a friend at Goodreads, but I have never ignored an invitation. I've always been very respectful of who my friend wanted to be. That's why I ask you to be a Goodreads user that if you want to be my goodreads friend, consider this writing before asking me for friendship or accepting an invitation from me to be my friend. I sincerely thank you and God bless you.
After these very long indications we will talk about a book and a very interesting writer, who is not in my own way of seeing recognized enough. One of the observations some users have kindly told me is that they have barely heard of the books I read. This is because today's literature does not end up pleasing me as much as the old one, although there are also writers of enormous worth alone, that you have to know where to look for them. I also give goodreads users advice and it's that they don't despise an author because they haven't heard of him, or because he's not a current writer. There are great authors who wrote novels and who remain hidden from the common user. This is the case with Simon Leys. It is curious because I am a person who does not have much sympathy for Belgium, due to several factors including the Hispanophobia that this country feels towards my country, even though Spain was key in defining its identity, as a country. Without the courageous effort and blood poured by the Spanish thirds today Belgium would be either another Dutch province, or it would be part of France. The war against the United Provinces and the Revolution of 1830 make it possible for Belgium to exist today despite the secessionist movements carried out by Flemish and Walloons, who wish to further divide the country. Another thing for which this country does not enjoy my sympathies is because it is one of the most irreligious and secularized areas of the West. His society also shows the failure of multiculturalism, which is the opposite of universality, which is what should be aspired to. Belgium today is a sanctuary for terrorists of all kinds, especially Islamists and jihadists. Molenbeek is where the acts of terrorism that have terrified the French were committed. The last reason I dislike this country is because euthanasia is a common practice (partly they have been carried away by the lousy example of the neighbouring country. We see euthanasia often practiced in these countries on the elderly and sick incurable so many of their elders have to flee to Germany, so that they do not kill them.
That's why I feel special malquerence for that country, but yet it has its good things among them its magnificent painting, its football team, the writer Timmermans https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... and other good things that this country possesses is Simon Leys. I knew or heard about Leys reading the wonderful supplement called ALBA. Laws other than being Catholic has been one of the most hostile critics of Maoism and has denounced his crimes. In this world we are used to seeing Nazism, Nazism, the far right stigmatized or denounced. Less unfortunately Soviet communism, although there is strong denunciation literature, but it is not so common that there are books against Chinese communism, even though most of the dead of communism have been provoked by Chinese communism.
Other than that Simon Leys I had a greater knowledge thanks to a brilliant article published in the digital Catholic weekly Catholic World Report https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2... (here you can see https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... biography of Simon Leys https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...) however I intempt with the work of Simon Leys two years ago, when I read him https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... chaplinous jewelry when I read him"The Death of Napoleon" to an alternative story in which Napoleon withhe still escapes St. Helena, but the double that replaced him dies and everyone thinks Napoleon, so he cannot prove his identity and has to live like a normal citizen. Despite the bitter end this wonderful tale is tinged with a great sense of humor and was brought to the big screen very worthily with the title My Napoleon or"The Emperor's new colthes" https://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film9... (perhaps it is Napoleon's best alternative story with the permission of the wonderful novel written by my friend Manuel Alfonseca"Jacob's Ladder" or"Jacob's Scale" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...) also published a title that was behind him, counting one of the Dutch's greatest shames their goldingnesque experience on the stylingor the"Lord of Flies" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... where the author fiercely portrays the saves perpetrated by Dutch colonialism, counting the shipwreck of a ship the Batavia https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... however what is Leys is known is for being one of the most energetic opponents of Chinese communism. In this Mao case. This book of which we elaborate criticism is the second of a trilogy and shows the visit of Laws to Communist China in 1972. At first Leys was an admirer of the Chinese Revolution (in fact it seems that Leys in writing this book remains left-wing for some things he says, but perhaps the fairest thing is to compare him to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... writer who wrote a https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... George Orwell https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...), but he got something out of it in the 1950s and became the whip of European intellectuals who worshipped Maoism. In fact, the Goodreads user would have to do something that I haven't done and it's reading"The Boss's New Clothes" a critique of the cultural revolution, making an acute reference to Hans Christian Andersen and his counterpart tale https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... In this book that we deal with without mentioning them, although for contemporaries it will be more than obvious Laws makes a critique of European intellectuals, including politicians among them to Richard Nixon who perform something very similar to allies in the second world war come toan alliance with Mao to defeat the Soviet Union and there is also a subtle critique of one of Europe's most damaging politicians Valery Giscard D'Estaign. It talks about Beijing's urban deterioration, and how the movement of foreign people who are invited by the PC has been restricted. A China. According to Leys everything is based on a huge conglomerate of lies. It also attacks the false religious freedom practiced by the Chinese communist regime and how temples have been closed (in the use of temples as party headquarters, or in the obligation to ask for permits to organize acts). He also defends and uses against Mao the writers he relies on as Lu Xun https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (while he has disposed of his followers and uses them at convenience) who was immortalized for dying before Mao came to power, but as he ended up with his heirs. He tends to repeat himself a little when it comes to talking about Li Xioqui's purges, and as depending on the outcome Mao gets rid of his followers at convenience. Since it has no ideology and there is only one principle to hold on to power. Leys describes Maoism as a lay religion, in fact, it often uses it compared to a monastery like the compound in Hong Kong or talking about the climate of denunciation that prevails. He speaks to us against officials and their false deference and describes us as are the other cities as declined by the opulence of Guangzhou where the customs of yesteryear can no longer be performed. As Shang Hai the progressive city par excellence and which allowed the triumph of communism has been crushed. We see Mao's nepotism with his nephews and his wife Chiang Ching's daughter. He also comments on the purges made to his followers such as Liao Biao or Deng Chao and the purges made of writers to which hell is made mere existence. Of course there are comments on the havoc of the Cultural Revolution and the deterioration of academic institutions and the contempt that the regime feels as education (the best-selling book is about raising pigs and a philosophy book that attacks Nietszche, Bergson and surprises communist Sartre despite being Mao's unconditional). Where you seek not to suspend anyone by eliminating quality education. In fact, Mao's great contempt for education is shown. There are two very good appendices where he analyzes the trial of Chiang Ching and the band of the four, although Leys comments that this would not have been possible without Mao's collusion,
I recognize that I had my doubts about including these comments that have nothing to do with the review of this book, but due to recent events I do it delighted. There aren't usually many people who have stopped being my friend at Goodreads. During my time at Goodreads, it may be about six, or eight people who for different reasons have ceased to be friends with me. I'm surprised the last two people have done it these last few days. I can understand that the first person did it, because I wrote to that person in his native language thanks to the translator who has the Microsoft Word processor (partly thanks to him I managed to finish my criticisms, otherwise it would be impossible to write them) more or less the post I wrote to him was like this "hello I did not know that there wereso many writers of your country I likeyour readings very much, and if you want to answer me you can do it in your language, because I will be able to answer you in your own language and of course praise your readings " as goodreads users can see nothing serious, but I understand that this user felt overwhelmed by what I take advantage of to express my sincereisculpas, as I was very clumsy and had to realize that per per example that person did not wish to have a communication with me. The first case might be justified, but the second case doesn't make sense to me at least. That person accepted my invitation to be my friend at Goodreads that day and curiously began to say that she liked many of the books I had read, but I have the feeling that after writing my review of RobertGraves' "King Jesus" https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... something must have displeased her, because she stopped following me and suspected, that what she didn't like is that she was frank about it. So I warn people and give goodreads users advice before asking me for friendship, or accept my friend request should consider one thing. I am Catholic (perhaps not very good) but I am and I have traditional political tendencies (I will not say conservatives, because otherwise Juan Manuel de Prada https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... would be angry and rightly so with me) and moral rules that determine my tastes for books and my way of analyzing them and that makes my analysis as it is. So, if you don't like those kind of people, you don't have to ask me for friendship. I'm very proud of the way I am and I'm not going to change it just to be more popular. I can change certain things, but the essentials I'm going to leave. This leads me to be critical of certain current books and certain existing ideologies sponsored by a hatred of Christianity and which makes me critical of them. But I'm free to choose what kind of user I want to be with. Some will wonder, because I have not accepted them as friends in Goodreads and it is because my readings are incompatible with theirs and that I do not think we can have anything in common and that is why I have not accepted them as friends. Clearly, there's a group of writers I don't like and if you like congratulations, but I don't have to like them. If you put four stars or more into a Dan Brown novel, or books like Pullman's, Dawkins's, Harris's or other authors. If, for example, they are writers of an ideology hostile to the way I see life, I will not accept you either. It is clear that I wish to avoid any conflict and wish to primate a certain mostly Catholic, or Christian user (since I have become not only a collector of Catholic and Christian writers but also of Catholic and Christian users), although I do not brazen other types of profiles as long as I am not hostile to the way I see life. For example, I am a great lover of Poland and I really like his women so it is normal for me to ask users of that country for friendship. I have always been fascinated by the women described by Sienkiewicz https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... in his novels and I have been fascinated by that country so I have followed people from that country more. Nor do I reject the possibility of finding a partner. It is true that I am in love with a woman, but that person made it very clear to me that I did not want to know absolutely anything about me so that at this moment I am free to start any relationship with a woman, but that is not my goal but to read as many books as I can and as said that person to which I so much want to share it with all the goodread users who wish to read them outside of their race, creed, and sex.
However, from now on I will be more cautious when it comes to asking people for friendships and I recommend that people think about it before asking me for friendship and be clear about what I have written in this review. However, if I have already accepted you I guarantee you unless you do something that I was very angry about (I actually stopped being friends with four people in Goodreads, they didn't even attack me, but they attacked what I loved most and that's why I stopped being their friend. On twitter I have never blocked anyone, I may have asked to see fewer twitters of the person in question, but I have never blocked anyone, despite receiving very strong attacks and the same has happened to me on facebook). As for people I haven't accepted as friends, don't be sad. They may not be my friends, but they can follow me, and if they wish they can write to me and I will gladly answer the message they write to me as long as what you write to me is respectful and it is possible even if you are so firmly determined to be my friends that I finally came to accept them. I do ask you not to attack my religious beliefs and not to be hostile towards me. Finally, I wanted to point out, that it is true that there are many people I have not accepted as a friend at Goodreads, but I have never ignored an invitation. I've always been very respectful of who my friend wanted to be. That's why I ask you to be a Goodreads user that if you want to be my goodreads friend, consider this writing before asking me for friendship or accepting an invitation from me to be my friend. I sincerely thank you and God bless you.
After these very long indications we will talk about a book and a very interesting writer, who is not in my own way of seeing recognized enough. One of the observations some users have kindly told me is that they have barely heard of the books I read. This is because today's literature does not end up pleasing me as much as the old one, although there are also writers of enormous worth alone, that you have to know where to look for them. I also give goodreads users advice and it's that they don't despise an author because they haven't heard of him, or because he's not a current writer. There are great authors who wrote novels and who remain hidden from the common user. This is the case with Simon Leys. It is curious because I am a person who does not have much sympathy for Belgium, due to several factors including the Hispanophobia that this country feels towards my country, even though Spain was key in defining its identity, as a country. Without the courageous effort and blood poured by the Spanish thirds today Belgium would be either another Dutch province, or it would be part of France. The war against the United Provinces and the Revolution of 1830 make it possible for Belgium to exist today despite the secessionist movements carried out by Flemish and Walloons, who wish to further divide the country. Another thing for which this country does not enjoy my sympathies is because it is one of the most irreligious and secularized areas of the West. His society also shows the failure of multiculturalism, which is the opposite of universality, which is what should be aspired to. Belgium today is a sanctuary for terrorists of all kinds, especially Islamists and jihadists. Molenbeek is where the acts of terrorism that have terrified the French were committed. The last reason I dislike this country is because euthanasia is a common practice (partly they have been carried away by the lousy example of the neighbouring country. We see euthanasia often practiced in these countries on the elderly and sick incurable so many of their elders have to flee to Germany, so that they do not kill them.
That's why I feel special malquerence for that country, but yet it has its good things among them its magnificent painting, its football team, the writer Timmermans https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... and other good things that this country possesses is Simon Leys. I knew or heard about Leys reading the wonderful supplement called ALBA. Laws other than being Catholic has been one of the most hostile critics of Maoism and has denounced his crimes. In this world we are used to seeing Nazism, Nazism, the far right stigmatized or denounced. Less unfortunately Soviet communism, although there is strong denunciation literature, but it is not so common that there are books against Chinese communism, even though most of the dead of communism have been provoked by Chinese communism.
Other than that Simon Leys I had a greater knowledge thanks to a brilliant article published in the digital Catholic weekly Catholic World Report https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2... (here you can see https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... biography of Simon Leys https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...) however I intempt with the work of Simon Leys two years ago, when I read him https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... chaplinous jewelry when I read him"The Death of Napoleon" to an alternative story in which Napoleon withhe still escapes St. Helena, but the double that replaced him dies and everyone thinks Napoleon, so he cannot prove his identity and has to live like a normal citizen. Despite the bitter end this wonderful tale is tinged with a great sense of humor and was brought to the big screen very worthily with the title My Napoleon or"The Emperor's new colthes" https://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film9... (perhaps it is Napoleon's best alternative story with the permission of the wonderful novel written by my friend Manuel Alfonseca"Jacob's Ladder" or"Jacob's Scale" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...) also published a title that was behind him, counting one of the Dutch's greatest shames their goldingnesque experience on the stylingor the"Lord of Flies" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... where the author fiercely portrays the saves perpetrated by Dutch colonialism, counting the shipwreck of a ship the Batavia https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... however what is Leys is known is for being one of the most energetic opponents of Chinese communism. In this Mao case. This book of which we elaborate criticism is the second of a trilogy and shows the visit of Laws to Communist China in 1972. At first Leys was an admirer of the Chinese Revolution (in fact it seems that Leys in writing this book remains left-wing for some things he says, but perhaps the fairest thing is to compare him to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... writer who wrote a https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... George Orwell https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...), but he got something out of it in the 1950s and became the whip of European intellectuals who worshipped Maoism. In fact, the Goodreads user would have to do something that I haven't done and it's reading"The Boss's New Clothes" a critique of the cultural revolution, making an acute reference to Hans Christian Andersen and his counterpart tale https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... In this book that we deal with without mentioning them, although for contemporaries it will be more than obvious Laws makes a critique of European intellectuals, including politicians among them to Richard Nixon who perform something very similar to allies in the second world war come toan alliance with Mao to defeat the Soviet Union and there is also a subtle critique of one of Europe's most damaging politicians Valery Giscard D'Estaign. It talks about Beijing's urban deterioration, and how the movement of foreign people who are invited by the PC has been restricted. A China. According to Leys everything is based on a huge conglomerate of lies. It also attacks the false religious freedom practiced by the Chinese communist regime and how temples have been closed (in the use of temples as party headquarters, or in the obligation to ask for permits to organize acts). He also defends and uses against Mao the writers he relies on as Lu Xun https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (while he has disposed of his followers and uses them at convenience) who was immortalized for dying before Mao came to power, but as he ended up with his heirs. He tends to repeat himself a little when it comes to talking about Li Xioqui's purges, and as depending on the outcome Mao gets rid of his followers at convenience. Since it has no ideology and there is only one principle to hold on to power. Leys describes Maoism as a lay religion, in fact, it often uses it compared to a monastery like the compound in Hong Kong or talking about the climate of denunciation that prevails. He speaks to us against officials and their false deference and describes us as are the other cities as declined by the opulence of Guangzhou where the customs of yesteryear can no longer be performed. As Shang Hai the progressive city par excellence and which allowed the triumph of communism has been crushed. We see Mao's nepotism with his nephews and his wife Chiang Ching's daughter. He also comments on the purges made to his followers such as Liao Biao or Deng Chao and the purges made of writers to which hell is made mere existence. Of course there are comments on the havoc of the Cultural Revolution and the deterioration of academic institutions and the contempt that the regime feels as education (the best-selling book is about raising pigs and a philosophy book that attacks Nietszche, Bergson and surprises communist Sartre despite being Mao's unconditional). Where you seek not to suspend anyone by eliminating quality education. In fact, Mao's great contempt for education is shown. There are two very good appendices where he analyzes the trial of Chiang Ching and the band of the four, although Leys comments that this would not have been possible without Mao's collusion,
August 31, 2020
"La sinología es la rama del conocimiento que estudia la historia de la civilización china; y en especial la cultura, su lengua y su literatura. Fascinado por un viaje de juventud, Pierre Ryckmans decidió mudarse en los años sesenta al gigante asiático para estudiar de primera mano las pinturas y los clásicos de la escritura china, convirtiéndose con el paso del tiempo en una figura intelectual de vanguardia en occidente. Aferrado a los valores de la justicia y el deber, Ryckmans no pudo evitar detallar de primera mano los acontecimientos de la ‘Revolución Cultural’, lo que le granjeó potentes enemigos. Tuvo que cambiar su nombre de publicación por el de Simon Leys para poder permanecer en China sin levantar sospechas, y en Europa (en especial en Francia) debió hacer frente a una intelligentsia maoísta que, a raíz del mayo del 68, había conseguido una gran ascendencia política, social y cultural.
Nacida a partir de un viaje realizado en 1972, ‘Sombras Chinescas’ es la crónica clarividente de la vida cotidiana de una China que vivía a la sombra de un gigante político que, como el rey en el cuento de Hans Christian Andersen, iba desnudo a pesar de que muchos dijeran que podían ver su fabuloso traje nuevo. Leys es el niño que nos hace abrir los ojos a la realidad, lejana y compleja para nosotros, los occidentales, pero también hermosa e inabarcable en su riqueza." Julen Sarasola
Nacida a partir de un viaje realizado en 1972, ‘Sombras Chinescas’ es la crónica clarividente de la vida cotidiana de una China que vivía a la sombra de un gigante político que, como el rey en el cuento de Hans Christian Andersen, iba desnudo a pesar de que muchos dijeran que podían ver su fabuloso traje nuevo. Leys es el niño que nos hace abrir los ojos a la realidad, lejana y compleja para nosotros, los occidentales, pero también hermosa e inabarcable en su riqueza." Julen Sarasola
May 23, 2019
A few years ago I really enjoyed reading Hall of Uselessness by Simon Leys (the pen-name of Sinologist Pierre Ryckmans), and having read other glowing reviews of his work, including the volume under review here, I will slowly hunt them down and read them.
Chinese Shadows consists of a selection of impressions from a six-month visit to China in 1974, when the country was still endeavouring to recover from the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. Ryckmans casts a critical eye over not only the state of the country at that time, but at the standard of critical commentary coming from the West about China and its recent history.
The book has longer and shorter vignettes and reflections on just how badly the Maoist experiment had gone wrong, and how all totalitarian societies end up with the same problems, no matter whether they espouse a leftist or a rightist philosophy (Ryckmans has a lot of fun with the forms of words used by the Chinese government and bureaucracy "sometimes,...leftism is a rightist error").
Ryckmans has several larger points to make in this work. The first is that the first thing that suffers under totalitarian rule is culture. This applies especially to Communist totalitarian regimes, where all of history must lead to the inevitable success of the revolution. When, as had happened in China, some heroes of that history needed to be purged, or the importance of an historical moment changed, one needed to try to change history. This resulted in China in the closure of museums, the destruction of monuments, and the censorship of literature and opera, to the extent that the only theatre that could be shown was that written by Mao's wife, the only books on the shelves were those by Stalin or Mao, and Ryckmans could not visit any University classes or academics in his entire six month sojourn. The destructive power of this sort of repression on a culture is hard to gauge.
The reaction of the lower functionaries in a system where white can be black, and the established structure and hierarchy can change in an instant, is another theme in this book. Ryckmans is constantly frustrated in his attempts to visit archaeological sites, or to meet people, or even in the simple act of asking directions. This, as he explains, is down to the natural fear of functionaries to give him permission to do something when the view of the regime is unclear on whether permission is allowed. It is easier, and safer for the flunky involved, to do nothing and admit nothing. As he writes of the cadres - "...we should consider how unrewarding and dangerous their job is....Directives from on high are deliberately ambiguous; in case of failure, the leaders thus have a fall-back position, while those who applied the policy are stranded and unprotected, and can be sacrificed to the rancor of the masses. It is unfair to criticize Maoist bureaucrats for their slowness and inertia: most often nonaction is their best chance of survival."
Ryckmans is more scathing of those apologists in the West who were writing paeans about China at the time - as he writes about one of them "She could have written in Europe, without leaving her room, if she had had some issues of Peking Review at her disposal; she would have gotten the same results. Her China experience was limited to a visit of a few weeks, and to three dozen interviews." He points out that many of the so-called Sinologists cannot speak or read the language, and have no understanding of the history or culture of China. Yet it is their views that were in the ascendancy at the time of writing.
All of the above smacks of the polemic, but Chinese Shadows is much more than that: an elegy to what was lost during the Cultural Revolution, a celebration of innate Chinese cheerfulness, and a corrective to a flawed Western understanding of Chinese history - "If the start of the industrial revolution in Europe had coincided with one of those times when China was wide open to the outside world - which was its normal historical situation - China would never have been out-distanced in the modern 'race to progress'....In fact, because of this fatal historical accident - the establishment of the isolationist and totalitarian Ming system...China confronted the modern world blind and paralyzed, with the worst possible political heritage."
As a reminder of the path taken by China to get to where she is today, and as a book that still has a lot to give the reader, Chinese Shadows is worth picking up.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Chinese Shadows consists of a selection of impressions from a six-month visit to China in 1974, when the country was still endeavouring to recover from the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. Ryckmans casts a critical eye over not only the state of the country at that time, but at the standard of critical commentary coming from the West about China and its recent history.
The book has longer and shorter vignettes and reflections on just how badly the Maoist experiment had gone wrong, and how all totalitarian societies end up with the same problems, no matter whether they espouse a leftist or a rightist philosophy (Ryckmans has a lot of fun with the forms of words used by the Chinese government and bureaucracy "sometimes,...leftism is a rightist error").
Ryckmans has several larger points to make in this work. The first is that the first thing that suffers under totalitarian rule is culture. This applies especially to Communist totalitarian regimes, where all of history must lead to the inevitable success of the revolution. When, as had happened in China, some heroes of that history needed to be purged, or the importance of an historical moment changed, one needed to try to change history. This resulted in China in the closure of museums, the destruction of monuments, and the censorship of literature and opera, to the extent that the only theatre that could be shown was that written by Mao's wife, the only books on the shelves were those by Stalin or Mao, and Ryckmans could not visit any University classes or academics in his entire six month sojourn. The destructive power of this sort of repression on a culture is hard to gauge.
The reaction of the lower functionaries in a system where white can be black, and the established structure and hierarchy can change in an instant, is another theme in this book. Ryckmans is constantly frustrated in his attempts to visit archaeological sites, or to meet people, or even in the simple act of asking directions. This, as he explains, is down to the natural fear of functionaries to give him permission to do something when the view of the regime is unclear on whether permission is allowed. It is easier, and safer for the flunky involved, to do nothing and admit nothing. As he writes of the cadres - "...we should consider how unrewarding and dangerous their job is....Directives from on high are deliberately ambiguous; in case of failure, the leaders thus have a fall-back position, while those who applied the policy are stranded and unprotected, and can be sacrificed to the rancor of the masses. It is unfair to criticize Maoist bureaucrats for their slowness and inertia: most often nonaction is their best chance of survival."
Ryckmans is more scathing of those apologists in the West who were writing paeans about China at the time - as he writes about one of them "She could have written in Europe, without leaving her room, if she had had some issues of Peking Review at her disposal; she would have gotten the same results. Her China experience was limited to a visit of a few weeks, and to three dozen interviews." He points out that many of the so-called Sinologists cannot speak or read the language, and have no understanding of the history or culture of China. Yet it is their views that were in the ascendancy at the time of writing.
All of the above smacks of the polemic, but Chinese Shadows is much more than that: an elegy to what was lost during the Cultural Revolution, a celebration of innate Chinese cheerfulness, and a corrective to a flawed Western understanding of Chinese history - "If the start of the industrial revolution in Europe had coincided with one of those times when China was wide open to the outside world - which was its normal historical situation - China would never have been out-distanced in the modern 'race to progress'....In fact, because of this fatal historical accident - the establishment of the isolationist and totalitarian Ming system...China confronted the modern world blind and paralyzed, with the worst possible political heritage."
As a reminder of the path taken by China to get to where she is today, and as a book that still has a lot to give the reader, Chinese Shadows is worth picking up.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Read
December 8, 2014"I can only paint shadows, and is it not in their very nature to be weightless?"
"Beneath this welcoming veneer lies, unchanged, a harsh and dour reality, the reality I saw before most of its present cosmetics had been applied -- and foreigners who had stayed in Peking two or three years before me had seen it in the raw."
"ghastly diplomatic ghetto."
"There is quite a stock of these touching and funny anecdotes; it would be amusing to collect them."
"Here, since the travelers know nothing, nothing surprises them."
"Who can guarantee that one of these days they will not convert this mystical place into a Monument to Sino-Albanian Friendship, a Permanent Exhibition of Imperialist Atrocities, a Coney Island of the Class Struggle?"
"Some practices that were in vogue during the Cultural Revolution have been discouraged: speed contests in reciting the "Quotations" (some champions could give them not only in the right order, but also backward) and Quotation Calisthenics (where movements followed not a tune, but quotations from Chairman Mao: bend the arm on this phrase, flex the legs on that one, and so on) are out of favor now."
"Air travel in China is full of unexpected charms, but if one is in a hurry, better take the train. The charm of air travel -- apart from the apple or the banana (sometimes both) that one gets during the flight -- is that one never knows when one will depart of when one will arrive, or even where one will land. The element of surprise, nay adventure, give back to air travel some of its former romance."
"In the same way, this insignificant granitic phallus receives all its enormous significance from the blasphemous stupidity of its location."
"The vast boulevards call to mind the false airports which cargo-cult devotees in New Guinea hack out of the jungle in the hope that this will persuade their gods to send planes full of treasure: one is sometimes tempted to believe that the building of the Autobahns, now used only by a few dismal cyclists or donkey carts, might similarly be part of a magic ritual, as if miles of macadam might generate the sudden appearance of hordes of hooting, stinking, triumphant cars -- simultaneously the nightmare of the consumer society and dream of the socialist one."
"the city has been destroyed not under the pressure of existing traffic, but in prevision of traffic yet to come."
"The hotel for foreigners in Tientsin is worth the journey. This monstrous and gloomy construction, a relic of the imperialist era, is usually empty; an army of idle servants yawns and naps along the corridors."
"So there I went: a small factory with about a hundred workmen sculpting billiard balls, polishing seashells, and gluing fake ostrich feathers on plastic objects, making out of a bewildering variety of sickening materials huge quantities of trinkets depicting "Chairman Mao surrounded by peasants, soldiers and workers," "Souvenirs of Yenan," and "Greetings from Shaoshan."
"In the nightmare of its endless corridors, the weight of its triple velvet curtains, the perpetual gloom of its vast lounges filled with gray-covered furniture, I could feel almost physically the permanent presence of the man whom Osip Mandelstam (paying for it with his life) called "the hillman in the Kremlin the wide-chested Ossete."
"This museum has been twinned. There are two identical sections, completely and entirely alike in all respects. All the objects to be seen have been made in two sets, so that more visitors can be accommodated at the same time."
"For instance, the duck pond is not an ordinary duck pond but "the duck pond where Chairman Mao used to swim when he was a boy"; the meadow that appears to the ordinary visitor to be a common pasture is "the pasture to which Chairman Mao led the cows." And so on."
"Instead of our death-ghettoes, our corpse quarters, here the whole earth is a vast and welcoming cemetery."
"This is a good example of Chinese pragmatism: rather than have to write and rewrite the history of the party, according to purges and successive crises (as the Russians do), better not write it at all."
"As always, in China, individual thoughtfulness and subtlety victoriously counterbalance the stupidity and obscurantism of the system."
"Their conversations are suspect: they talk about gastronomy and fashions! ... these maneuvers go on until the day when Chen lays open their evil ways in a striking wall inscription entitled "What Is Concealed by Candy and Cigarettes."
"After the man-as-small-cog-in-the-machine (Lei Feng), here we have the man-as-match."
"Existentialism is an expression of the corrupt decadence and despairing pessimism of the monopolistic-bourgeois class in the imperialist period."
"such splendid orderliness"
"In cities one can still distinguish between four-pocket men in jeeps, four-pocket men in black limousines with curtains, and four-pocket men who have black limousines with curtains and a jeep in front."
"the outer darkness."
"The Peoples Daily may well give you the solution to a certain problem, but it also gives the opposite solution to the same problem at a different time."
"their denials are contradicted by reality."
"fat cows and lean cows follow each other in a seasonal rhythm."
"Sometimes a copy can be located in a Chinese bookshop, but then it is kept in a special glass case, locked of course, offered to the curious public somewhat like a two-headed calf pickled in formaldehyde and shown off in a glass bottle...
Bookshops have completely changed their interior layout: they are now set up like pharmacies, with a counter between the customers and the shelves. On those shelves, which only attendants can reach, only a few dozen titles are displayed, and since the shop must appear to be full with even that scant choice, books are put flat on the shelves, in lines, with the same title endlessly repeated, like sardine cans or tins of peas in a supermarket."
"As for the writer, he is sitting on a melting iceberg; he is merely an anachronism, a hangover from the bourgeois age, as surely doomed as the hippopotamus." -- George Orwell
"In this field, I have assembled a long, dismaying, mind-boggling collection of anecdotes."
"We scrutinize slides of innumerable microscopes and simulate polite interest in the unintelligible swarming patterns."
"marked the twilight"
"(Note that since the beginning of the Revolution in Education students are not called "students" (xuesheng) anymore, but "studiers" (xueyuan), on the model of butcher, baker, candlestickmaker."
"...and the Papaoshan cemetery (which appears to be abandoned) still bears the marks of that violence. Many steles are pushed over and broken, some painted rod or smeared with tar, and pieces of stone are lying about on the ground."
"Dictionary of idees recues: applying Flaubert's method, one could compile and enormous volume of the expressions that make up the wooden language of Maoist ideology. The people's struggles are always "fearless" and "victorious." The Albanian, Vietnamese, etc., masses are always "heroic"; the Rumanians, Zambians, etc., are always "fraternal." In his public appearances, Mao always shows a "pink and radiant face," and the sigh of him invariable fills onlookers with "feelings of shining love and boundless enthusiasm." The Chinese Communist Party is, of course, "great, glorious, and infallible"; the class enemy, "ever watchful," must be exposed "without pity." The adversary's designs, always "shameful," must be opposed "resolutely"; his crimes are "odious and unforgivable." The successes of "building-up" of socialism are "prodigious," "immense," "always greater" (in case of failure, one speaks only of "new" or "growing" success)."
"The Red Guards were indignant that "red" could be used to mean "stop" in traffic-control procedures, and during the Cultural Revolution they suggested that signals be inverted; according to them, the revolutionary traffic should stop on the green, and proceed forward on the red."
"Still, under this too-perfect mimicry of a quiet provincial parish fifty years ago -- with paper flowers and painted plaster Sacred Hearts -- there lurks something murky, something perhaps even rather horrible."
"an acquired, deliberate ugliness, which becomes in some way shrill."
"Chou is the only member of China's ruling clique who has never taken advantage of his position to have his poems published. Think about it: it shows uncommon strength of character."
"Exoticism is not dead. At the turn of the century, during his dreamy Asiatic dilly-dallying, Pierre Loti was entranced by the sight of pale blobs, exquisitely fringed with purple, in the dark arch of a yamen; they turned out to be a string of cut-off human hands; the little girls, or boys, whom be bought here and there to while away the speen of an Oriental night amused him with their chatter of lovebirds and their painted faces reminiscent of dwarfs painted on folding screens."
"macadam wastes."
"confusionism."
"Beneath this welcoming veneer lies, unchanged, a harsh and dour reality, the reality I saw before most of its present cosmetics had been applied -- and foreigners who had stayed in Peking two or three years before me had seen it in the raw."
"ghastly diplomatic ghetto."
"There is quite a stock of these touching and funny anecdotes; it would be amusing to collect them."
"Here, since the travelers know nothing, nothing surprises them."
"Who can guarantee that one of these days they will not convert this mystical place into a Monument to Sino-Albanian Friendship, a Permanent Exhibition of Imperialist Atrocities, a Coney Island of the Class Struggle?"
"Some practices that were in vogue during the Cultural Revolution have been discouraged: speed contests in reciting the "Quotations" (some champions could give them not only in the right order, but also backward) and Quotation Calisthenics (where movements followed not a tune, but quotations from Chairman Mao: bend the arm on this phrase, flex the legs on that one, and so on) are out of favor now."
"Air travel in China is full of unexpected charms, but if one is in a hurry, better take the train. The charm of air travel -- apart from the apple or the banana (sometimes both) that one gets during the flight -- is that one never knows when one will depart of when one will arrive, or even where one will land. The element of surprise, nay adventure, give back to air travel some of its former romance."
"In the same way, this insignificant granitic phallus receives all its enormous significance from the blasphemous stupidity of its location."
"The vast boulevards call to mind the false airports which cargo-cult devotees in New Guinea hack out of the jungle in the hope that this will persuade their gods to send planes full of treasure: one is sometimes tempted to believe that the building of the Autobahns, now used only by a few dismal cyclists or donkey carts, might similarly be part of a magic ritual, as if miles of macadam might generate the sudden appearance of hordes of hooting, stinking, triumphant cars -- simultaneously the nightmare of the consumer society and dream of the socialist one."
"the city has been destroyed not under the pressure of existing traffic, but in prevision of traffic yet to come."
"The hotel for foreigners in Tientsin is worth the journey. This monstrous and gloomy construction, a relic of the imperialist era, is usually empty; an army of idle servants yawns and naps along the corridors."
"So there I went: a small factory with about a hundred workmen sculpting billiard balls, polishing seashells, and gluing fake ostrich feathers on plastic objects, making out of a bewildering variety of sickening materials huge quantities of trinkets depicting "Chairman Mao surrounded by peasants, soldiers and workers," "Souvenirs of Yenan," and "Greetings from Shaoshan."
"In the nightmare of its endless corridors, the weight of its triple velvet curtains, the perpetual gloom of its vast lounges filled with gray-covered furniture, I could feel almost physically the permanent presence of the man whom Osip Mandelstam (paying for it with his life) called "the hillman in the Kremlin the wide-chested Ossete."
"This museum has been twinned. There are two identical sections, completely and entirely alike in all respects. All the objects to be seen have been made in two sets, so that more visitors can be accommodated at the same time."
"For instance, the duck pond is not an ordinary duck pond but "the duck pond where Chairman Mao used to swim when he was a boy"; the meadow that appears to the ordinary visitor to be a common pasture is "the pasture to which Chairman Mao led the cows." And so on."
"Instead of our death-ghettoes, our corpse quarters, here the whole earth is a vast and welcoming cemetery."
"This is a good example of Chinese pragmatism: rather than have to write and rewrite the history of the party, according to purges and successive crises (as the Russians do), better not write it at all."
"As always, in China, individual thoughtfulness and subtlety victoriously counterbalance the stupidity and obscurantism of the system."
"Their conversations are suspect: they talk about gastronomy and fashions! ... these maneuvers go on until the day when Chen lays open their evil ways in a striking wall inscription entitled "What Is Concealed by Candy and Cigarettes."
"After the man-as-small-cog-in-the-machine (Lei Feng), here we have the man-as-match."
"Existentialism is an expression of the corrupt decadence and despairing pessimism of the monopolistic-bourgeois class in the imperialist period."
"such splendid orderliness"
"In cities one can still distinguish between four-pocket men in jeeps, four-pocket men in black limousines with curtains, and four-pocket men who have black limousines with curtains and a jeep in front."
"the outer darkness."
"The Peoples Daily may well give you the solution to a certain problem, but it also gives the opposite solution to the same problem at a different time."
"their denials are contradicted by reality."
"fat cows and lean cows follow each other in a seasonal rhythm."
"Sometimes a copy can be located in a Chinese bookshop, but then it is kept in a special glass case, locked of course, offered to the curious public somewhat like a two-headed calf pickled in formaldehyde and shown off in a glass bottle...
Bookshops have completely changed their interior layout: they are now set up like pharmacies, with a counter between the customers and the shelves. On those shelves, which only attendants can reach, only a few dozen titles are displayed, and since the shop must appear to be full with even that scant choice, books are put flat on the shelves, in lines, with the same title endlessly repeated, like sardine cans or tins of peas in a supermarket."
"As for the writer, he is sitting on a melting iceberg; he is merely an anachronism, a hangover from the bourgeois age, as surely doomed as the hippopotamus." -- George Orwell
"In this field, I have assembled a long, dismaying, mind-boggling collection of anecdotes."
"We scrutinize slides of innumerable microscopes and simulate polite interest in the unintelligible swarming patterns."
"marked the twilight"
"(Note that since the beginning of the Revolution in Education students are not called "students" (xuesheng) anymore, but "studiers" (xueyuan), on the model of butcher, baker, candlestickmaker."
"...and the Papaoshan cemetery (which appears to be abandoned) still bears the marks of that violence. Many steles are pushed over and broken, some painted rod or smeared with tar, and pieces of stone are lying about on the ground."
"Dictionary of idees recues: applying Flaubert's method, one could compile and enormous volume of the expressions that make up the wooden language of Maoist ideology. The people's struggles are always "fearless" and "victorious." The Albanian, Vietnamese, etc., masses are always "heroic"; the Rumanians, Zambians, etc., are always "fraternal." In his public appearances, Mao always shows a "pink and radiant face," and the sigh of him invariable fills onlookers with "feelings of shining love and boundless enthusiasm." The Chinese Communist Party is, of course, "great, glorious, and infallible"; the class enemy, "ever watchful," must be exposed "without pity." The adversary's designs, always "shameful," must be opposed "resolutely"; his crimes are "odious and unforgivable." The successes of "building-up" of socialism are "prodigious," "immense," "always greater" (in case of failure, one speaks only of "new" or "growing" success)."
"The Red Guards were indignant that "red" could be used to mean "stop" in traffic-control procedures, and during the Cultural Revolution they suggested that signals be inverted; according to them, the revolutionary traffic should stop on the green, and proceed forward on the red."
"Still, under this too-perfect mimicry of a quiet provincial parish fifty years ago -- with paper flowers and painted plaster Sacred Hearts -- there lurks something murky, something perhaps even rather horrible."
"an acquired, deliberate ugliness, which becomes in some way shrill."
"Chou is the only member of China's ruling clique who has never taken advantage of his position to have his poems published. Think about it: it shows uncommon strength of character."
"Exoticism is not dead. At the turn of the century, during his dreamy Asiatic dilly-dallying, Pierre Loti was entranced by the sight of pale blobs, exquisitely fringed with purple, in the dark arch of a yamen; they turned out to be a string of cut-off human hands; the little girls, or boys, whom be bought here and there to while away the speen of an Oriental night amused him with their chatter of lovebirds and their painted faces reminiscent of dwarfs painted on folding screens."
"macadam wastes."
"confusionism."
July 11, 2020
No aprendo. Cada vez que veo una novela que recoge la experiencia viajando por China de un extranjero me siento atraido por el deseo de contrastar y comparar experiencias. Soy consciente, y más si el viaje del autor se da en la China maoísta, de que entro en terreno peligroso, pero me armo de valor y me lanzo a la piscina. ¿Cuál es el problema? Que la piscina está llena de guijarros de orientalismo y pinchos de propaganda política.
Si le pongo 3 estrellas, y no menos, es porque entre el soporífero panfleto político de Simón Leys asoman algunos discretos párrafos y capítulos interesantes que apartan la cuestión política y se centra en los temas de los que el autor es experto: arte chino. Sin profundizar demasiado en el tema, Leys reflexiona acerca de la censura de la revolución cultural y la desfiguración de las ciudades (y sus monumentos) que dan una perspectiva amplia de un periodo del que es difícil encontrar visiones extranjeras.
Si le pongo 3 estrellas, y no menos, es porque entre el soporífero panfleto político de Simón Leys asoman algunos discretos párrafos y capítulos interesantes que apartan la cuestión política y se centra en los temas de los que el autor es experto: arte chino. Sin profundizar demasiado en el tema, Leys reflexiona acerca de la censura de la revolución cultural y la desfiguración de las ciudades (y sus monumentos) que dan una perspectiva amplia de un periodo del que es difícil encontrar visiones extranjeras.
October 20, 2020
Para quienes hemos vivido bajo una dictadura lo considero una lectura esencial. Toca puntos importantes como el lenguaje, el poder de la propaganda y la unidad monolítica. Uno de los puntos que también me llamó la atención es su conocimiento con respecto a la cultura en China y como para los regímenes totalitarios el legado histórico y cultural se convierte en una piedra en el zapato conforme los intereses del partido y esa inercia por parte de la población la ve desaparecer. Otra cosa que él menciona y es muy cierta, es el tema de los diplomáticos y cómo desconocen la realidad del país mientras el sistema totalitario mantiene sus negocios y se perpetúa en el poder. Tristemente todo lo que dice continúa vigente en países de corte autoritario. Disfruté mucho éste libro.
November 9, 2021
The author compares his lengthy stays in China before and after the Cultural Revolution. The result is a damning critique of Maoist China in 1972. If the next US war is to be against the Communist Asians, I thought it would help to learn about the enemy. Let's hope it never comes to pass.
July 1, 2017
Not very enticing at first, but will give someone a superficial view of the Maoist China and the impact of the Cultural Revolution.
January 1, 2021
Link a mi reseña en Actualidad Económica: https://chesnutstreet.wordpress.com/2...
Librazo.
Librazo.
July 22, 2023
I came across this book from an article on the five “Best Books on the Chinese Communist Party” (https://fivebooks.com/best-books/rich...). Despite it being published in the 1970s, I quickly realized that this book might well be the most well-written, perceptive, and insightful book on contemporary China I’ve read so far.
In the world of international observers on China, Pierre Ryckmans (who uses “Simon Leys” as his pen name) is one of a kind. A sinologist by training, he possesses a deep knowledge of Chinese history, classical culture, and the Chinese language. He is also an informed observer of Chinese politics during the Mao era, thanks to the time he spent in Hong Kong reading newspapers from the Mainland and interviewing refugees who crossed the border. Equipped with an in-depth understanding of both the “old” and the “new” China, he is able to take a long-term view on what Maoism did to China. This forms the basis of his bitter but witty criticism of apologists of Maoism in the West, whom he accuses of using China merely as a vehicle for venting their frustrations with their own societies. In the 60s and 70s, people in the West who praised Maoism tended to portray China as a pristine land ruled by a benevolent despot where the experiment of socialism, which was already aborted in the Soviet Union, could be carried on. Ryckmans, by contrast, uses his sojourn in China during the later stage of the Cultural Revolution to show how Maoist authorities destroyed the historical legacies of an ancient, “feudal” China without addressing the real burden of Chinese history—the inequality between the ruler and the ruled. Under the ease certain Western intellectuals felt giving whatever shape to Maoism as they saw fit, without even making an effort to learn what daily life is like for the average Chinese citizen, Ryckmans argues, lies a deep—though perhaps unconscious—contempt for China.
In the world of international observers on China, Pierre Ryckmans (who uses “Simon Leys” as his pen name) is one of a kind. A sinologist by training, he possesses a deep knowledge of Chinese history, classical culture, and the Chinese language. He is also an informed observer of Chinese politics during the Mao era, thanks to the time he spent in Hong Kong reading newspapers from the Mainland and interviewing refugees who crossed the border. Equipped with an in-depth understanding of both the “old” and the “new” China, he is able to take a long-term view on what Maoism did to China. This forms the basis of his bitter but witty criticism of apologists of Maoism in the West, whom he accuses of using China merely as a vehicle for venting their frustrations with their own societies. In the 60s and 70s, people in the West who praised Maoism tended to portray China as a pristine land ruled by a benevolent despot where the experiment of socialism, which was already aborted in the Soviet Union, could be carried on. Ryckmans, by contrast, uses his sojourn in China during the later stage of the Cultural Revolution to show how Maoist authorities destroyed the historical legacies of an ancient, “feudal” China without addressing the real burden of Chinese history—the inequality between the ruler and the ruled. Under the ease certain Western intellectuals felt giving whatever shape to Maoism as they saw fit, without even making an effort to learn what daily life is like for the average Chinese citizen, Ryckmans argues, lies a deep—though perhaps unconscious—contempt for China.
August 23, 2008
a disturbing look at Mao's China
June 26, 2021
In het Nederlands: Chinese schimmen.
July 23, 2015
I was able to borrow a copy of this book through and inter-library loan and skimmed through it in a weekend. How sad to read of the destruction of centuries of culture and history by the Maoists.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews