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بلزاك والحائكة الصينية الصغيرة
In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for reeducation during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.
204 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Dai Sijie
12 books282 followersDai Sijie was born in China in 1954. He grew up working in his fathers tailor shop. He himself became a skilled tailor. The Maoist government sent him to a reeducation camp in rural Sichuan from 1971 to 1974, during the Cultural Revolution. After his return, he was able to complete high school and university, where he studied art history.
In 1984, he left China for France on a scholarship. There, he acquired a passion for movies and became a director. Before turning to writing, he made three critically acclaimed feature-length films: China, My Sorrow (1989) (original title: Chine, ma douleur), Le mangeur de lune and Tang, le onzième. He also wrote and directed an adaptation of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, released in 2002. He lives in Paris and writes in French.
His novel, Par une nuit où la lune ne s'est pas levée (Once on a moonless night), was published in 2007.
L'acrobatie aérienne de Confucius was published in 2008.
His first book, Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress) (2000), was made into a movie, in 2002, which he himself adapted and directed. It recounts the story of a pair of friends who become good friends with a local seamstress while spending time in a countryside village, where they have been sent for 're-education' during the Cultural Revolution (see Down to the Countryside Movement). They steal a suitcase filled with classic Western novels from another man being reeducated, and decide to enrich the seamstress' life by exposing her to great literature. These novels also serve to sustain the two companions during this difficult time. The story principally deals with the cultural universality of great literature and its redeeming power. The novel has been translated into twenty-five languages, and finally into his mother tongue after the movie adaptation.
His second book, Le Complexe de Di won the Prix Femina for 2003. It recounts the travels of a Chinese man whose philosophy has been influenced by French psychoanalyst thought. The title is a play on "le complexe d'Oedipe", or "the Oedipus complex". The English translation (released in 2005) is titled Mr. Muo's Traveling Couch.
In 1984, he left China for France on a scholarship. There, he acquired a passion for movies and became a director. Before turning to writing, he made three critically acclaimed feature-length films: China, My Sorrow (1989) (original title: Chine, ma douleur), Le mangeur de lune and Tang, le onzième. He also wrote and directed an adaptation of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, released in 2002. He lives in Paris and writes in French.
His novel, Par une nuit où la lune ne s'est pas levée (Once on a moonless night), was published in 2007.
L'acrobatie aérienne de Confucius was published in 2008.
His first book, Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress) (2000), was made into a movie, in 2002, which he himself adapted and directed. It recounts the story of a pair of friends who become good friends with a local seamstress while spending time in a countryside village, where they have been sent for 're-education' during the Cultural Revolution (see Down to the Countryside Movement). They steal a suitcase filled with classic Western novels from another man being reeducated, and decide to enrich the seamstress' life by exposing her to great literature. These novels also serve to sustain the two companions during this difficult time. The story principally deals with the cultural universality of great literature and its redeeming power. The novel has been translated into twenty-five languages, and finally into his mother tongue after the movie adaptation.
His second book, Le Complexe de Di won the Prix Femina for 2003. It recounts the travels of a Chinese man whose philosophy has been influenced by French psychoanalyst thought. The title is a play on "le complexe d'Oedipe", or "the Oedipus complex". The English translation (released in 2005) is titled Mr. Muo's Traveling Couch.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,616 reviews
March 31, 2017
Two urban Chinese boys, 17 and 18 when the story starts, are sent to a farming village to do rural work as part of their “re-education” under Mao’s cultural revolution. Their terms are indefinite because their parents, doctors and dentists, were considered bourgeois enemies of the people.
The author was himself “re-educated” in China between 1971 and 1974 and has lived in France since 1984. (The book is translated from the French.) All the universities were closed and all boys and girls who had graduated from high school were sent off. Math, physics and chemistry were dropped from the school curriculum and replaced by agricultural and industrial texts.
The work the boys do is brutal farm work, done by all the peasants in this village. They are human pack animals carrying buckets of human and animal excrement up hills to fertilize fields; plowing in mud behind water buffalo; working naked on their hands and knees in a coal mine. They are in an isolated village so lost in time that people are barefoot and there are no doctors or dentists;
But there is a gleam of hope. One boy has brought his violin and instead of it being destroyed, he entertains the villagers by playing “Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao.” His companion has a pocket watch that no one in the village has ever seen and he’s also a great storyteller, so much so that the headman sends the boys off to a distant village for two days a month to watch movies and come back to the village to relate the plots.
They encounter and steal a trove of forbidden western books – Balzac, Stendhal, Dumas, Flaubert, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Kipling, Bronte and Melville. The narrator thinks that Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland was particularly life-changing for him.
There’s some romance when both boys fall in love with the tailor’s daughter, the seamstress. With the brutal lives of the peasants as background, the real theme is the enlightenment that comes from reading and how it can change lives.
The author was himself “re-educated” in China between 1971 and 1974 and has lived in France since 1984. (The book is translated from the French.) All the universities were closed and all boys and girls who had graduated from high school were sent off. Math, physics and chemistry were dropped from the school curriculum and replaced by agricultural and industrial texts.
The work the boys do is brutal farm work, done by all the peasants in this village. They are human pack animals carrying buckets of human and animal excrement up hills to fertilize fields; plowing in mud behind water buffalo; working naked on their hands and knees in a coal mine. They are in an isolated village so lost in time that people are barefoot and there are no doctors or dentists;
But there is a gleam of hope. One boy has brought his violin and instead of it being destroyed, he entertains the villagers by playing “Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao.” His companion has a pocket watch that no one in the village has ever seen and he’s also a great storyteller, so much so that the headman sends the boys off to a distant village for two days a month to watch movies and come back to the village to relate the plots.
They encounter and steal a trove of forbidden western books – Balzac, Stendhal, Dumas, Flaubert, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Kipling, Bronte and Melville. The narrator thinks that Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland was particularly life-changing for him.
There’s some romance when both boys fall in love with the tailor’s daughter, the seamstress. With the brutal lives of the peasants as background, the real theme is the enlightenment that comes from reading and how it can change lives.
June 5, 2024
This slim novel is a semi-autobiographical tale of two teenage boys who are the children of medical professionals in the western Chinese city of Chengdu. Given their background and the fact that they have attended high school, the boys are deemed to be intellectuals and in need of "re-education" by the Chinese Communist Party, who are in the latter part of the Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s. The boys are sent to work with peasants in the mountains of far western China, near Tibet.
The unnamed narrator is a musician who tricks the peasantry into believing a piece by Mozart is the composer's tribute to Chairman Mao. His friend, Luo, the only named character in the book, is a natural actor/performer. The two boys discover a secret suitcase full of forbidden Western books, which is carefully guarded by their friend, dubbed Four-Eyes since he is the only person in the village who wears glasses.
The boys share their love of Western literature by narrating and acting out scenes from books and movies. They are particularly fond of two French authors, Balzac and Dumas.
They also both fall in love with the daughter of the local tailor, who is known simply as the Little Seamstress. Unfortunately, the boys' love of Western culture does not encompass any elements of feminism. They both view her as a beautiful object to be won. The Little Seamstress is the one who suffers from their hypocritical embrace of Western culture, but then is ultimately freed by it.
This story is somewhat frustrating in its contradictory ideals. One of the main themes is that of cultural superiority, which the author presents both ways. The protagonists clearly embody the notion that Western culture is superior to Chinese culture, and they look down on the uneducated peasants who know nothing outside of their own little village. At the same time, the Communist Party officials clearly embrace the view that Chinese culture is superior to Western culture. They dismiss all non-Marxist Western culture as "reactionary." Western books are considered contraband, and anyone found harboring such vessels of reactionary ideas is subject to severe punishment.
Unfortunately this attitude is still alive and well in modern China, and growing more extreme under the current Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping, who has instituted re-education camps in Western China in an attempt to wipe out minority cultures. Today there are approximately one million people in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang who are being imprisoned and re-educated for the simple crime of being a minority. In this sense, the main theme of this novel is still highly relevant today, and gives me chills just to think about.
While the author takes a nuanced approach to the issue of cultural superiority, presenting characters with contradictory views, all of whom are ultimately hypocritical, the issue of the objectification of women is not as well conveyed. The Little Seamstress is apparently not deserving of a name. She is an object to be lusted after and pays the price for being the object of this lust. However, in the last couple of pages the Little Seamstress ends up being the character who has grown the most and has the brightest opportunity for the future. Is this a last-page embrace of feminism after a book full of male objectification of women? I'm honestly not sure.
The author himself is drawing from his own experiences as a boy being re-educated during the Cultural Revolution in the mountains of western China. He emigrated to France in the mid-1980s and became both an author and a filmmaker. He wrote "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" in French and also directed the movie adaptation of the same name. I actually saw the movie first and was struck by the gorgeous natural beauty of the mountain setting and just had to check out the book. This natural beauty isn't quite conveyed in the novel. The author's writing style is sparse and poetic, but light on description.
Ultimately this novel is mostly successful in conveying its simple story of this snapshot in Chinese history. It certainly provokes a lot of thought about cultural differences and the ongoing problems when one culture tries to suppress or denigrate another.
The unnamed narrator is a musician who tricks the peasantry into believing a piece by Mozart is the composer's tribute to Chairman Mao. His friend, Luo, the only named character in the book, is a natural actor/performer. The two boys discover a secret suitcase full of forbidden Western books, which is carefully guarded by their friend, dubbed Four-Eyes since he is the only person in the village who wears glasses.
The boys share their love of Western literature by narrating and acting out scenes from books and movies. They are particularly fond of two French authors, Balzac and Dumas.
They also both fall in love with the daughter of the local tailor, who is known simply as the Little Seamstress. Unfortunately, the boys' love of Western culture does not encompass any elements of feminism. They both view her as a beautiful object to be won. The Little Seamstress is the one who suffers from their hypocritical embrace of Western culture, but then is ultimately freed by it.
This story is somewhat frustrating in its contradictory ideals. One of the main themes is that of cultural superiority, which the author presents both ways. The protagonists clearly embody the notion that Western culture is superior to Chinese culture, and they look down on the uneducated peasants who know nothing outside of their own little village. At the same time, the Communist Party officials clearly embrace the view that Chinese culture is superior to Western culture. They dismiss all non-Marxist Western culture as "reactionary." Western books are considered contraband, and anyone found harboring such vessels of reactionary ideas is subject to severe punishment.
Unfortunately this attitude is still alive and well in modern China, and growing more extreme under the current Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping, who has instituted re-education camps in Western China in an attempt to wipe out minority cultures. Today there are approximately one million people in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang who are being imprisoned and re-educated for the simple crime of being a minority. In this sense, the main theme of this novel is still highly relevant today, and gives me chills just to think about.
While the author takes a nuanced approach to the issue of cultural superiority, presenting characters with contradictory views, all of whom are ultimately hypocritical, the issue of the objectification of women is not as well conveyed. The Little Seamstress is apparently not deserving of a name. She is an object to be lusted after and pays the price for being the object of this lust. However, in the last couple of pages the Little Seamstress ends up being the character who has grown the most and has the brightest opportunity for the future. Is this a last-page embrace of feminism after a book full of male objectification of women? I'm honestly not sure.
The author himself is drawing from his own experiences as a boy being re-educated during the Cultural Revolution in the mountains of western China. He emigrated to France in the mid-1980s and became both an author and a filmmaker. He wrote "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" in French and also directed the movie adaptation of the same name. I actually saw the movie first and was struck by the gorgeous natural beauty of the mountain setting and just had to check out the book. This natural beauty isn't quite conveyed in the novel. The author's writing style is sparse and poetic, but light on description.
Ultimately this novel is mostly successful in conveying its simple story of this snapshot in Chinese history. It certainly provokes a lot of thought about cultural differences and the ongoing problems when one culture tries to suppress or denigrate another.
March 8, 2008
On its surface, this book has all the ingredients for a really interesting read: a fascinating historical period, potentially interesting characters, and the frequently quite compelling topic of the use or function of literature within literature. Unfortunately, I felt like Sijie failed to live up to the greatness of his own project.
The Cultural Revolution is supposedly the force that propels this story forward. It is, after all, the reason for which the main character and his best friend Luo are sent to the countryside for their re-education; however, I get the feeling that none of this could actually have happened during the Cultural Revolution, which presents an interesting dilemma and calls the entire book into question. The Revolution, the Communist Party and their respective trappings are sometimes present, but often conspicuously absent from the story, giving the characters a convenient freedom when it is needed and the story a sort of lamely suspenseful tone when things seem to be lagging a bit. In the end, it seems like the Cultural Revolution and the re-education process are just sort of there to make the story interesting, in spite of the seminal role that they should be playing in the text. One gets the impression that perhaps Sijie took on a bit too much.
The characters and story are also woefully underdeveloped. I read the book over the course of one day in part because it was a quick read that kept me vaguely interested, but also because the novel reads like a half fleshed-out outline of a future project. There is a lack of detail and development that I found particularly bothersome, especially as I felt like it would have been particularly interesting if the novelist had attempted to pay homage to the authors that his two young heroes admire. Unfortunately, Sijie's writing was far too inferior to do such a thing. Furthermore, he often fails to maintain a consistent tone, which vacillates between casual and lofty without any real reason for a switch.
I've rated this book three stars; in spite of my review, I did still enjoy it to a certain degree. Enough, obviously, to plow through it in a day. Would I read it again? No. Would I recommend it to anyone? Probably not. Was it decent? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, yeah, it was decent. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't say that it was a good book by any means. To be honest, I was suspicious of anything carrying the label 'best-seller' prior to picking this one up. I am now even more leery of that qualification.
The Cultural Revolution is supposedly the force that propels this story forward. It is, after all, the reason for which the main character and his best friend Luo are sent to the countryside for their re-education; however, I get the feeling that none of this could actually have happened during the Cultural Revolution, which presents an interesting dilemma and calls the entire book into question. The Revolution, the Communist Party and their respective trappings are sometimes present, but often conspicuously absent from the story, giving the characters a convenient freedom when it is needed and the story a sort of lamely suspenseful tone when things seem to be lagging a bit. In the end, it seems like the Cultural Revolution and the re-education process are just sort of there to make the story interesting, in spite of the seminal role that they should be playing in the text. One gets the impression that perhaps Sijie took on a bit too much.
The characters and story are also woefully underdeveloped. I read the book over the course of one day in part because it was a quick read that kept me vaguely interested, but also because the novel reads like a half fleshed-out outline of a future project. There is a lack of detail and development that I found particularly bothersome, especially as I felt like it would have been particularly interesting if the novelist had attempted to pay homage to the authors that his two young heroes admire. Unfortunately, Sijie's writing was far too inferior to do such a thing. Furthermore, he often fails to maintain a consistent tone, which vacillates between casual and lofty without any real reason for a switch.
I've rated this book three stars; in spite of my review, I did still enjoy it to a certain degree. Enough, obviously, to plow through it in a day. Would I read it again? No. Would I recommend it to anyone? Probably not. Was it decent? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, yeah, it was decent. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't say that it was a good book by any means. To be honest, I was suspicious of anything carrying the label 'best-seller' prior to picking this one up. I am now even more leery of that qualification.
October 27, 2016
Set during the early 1970’s, when Mao sent the intellectuals to the provinces to be re-educated to life as peasants, two young men are assigned to a small, remote village. One plays a violin. The other has a gift for telling stories. They endure the labors assigned by the opium growers who rule the area, and are desperate for any sort of intellectual stimulation. The local chief assigns them to travel two days to the nearest town in which films are shown, then report back to the town the entirety of the films. There is another reclamation project in the town, Four Eyes. He has a hidden trove of books, and when they do him a service he allows them to borrow a novel by Balzac. This is manna from heaven for them and they plan how they might acquire more books from Four Eyes. The Little Seamstress of the title is a beautiful young woman, who becomes lover to one of the young men (both are in their late teens). She is the uneducated daughter of a local tailor, a man of some status in this area. They share their tale of Balzac with her. Other characters enter the picture, a lice-ridden hermit, Four Eyes’ mother, and the town leader.
Spoiler alert here – do not read further if you want to learn plot details for yourself.
Little Seamstress becomes pregnant. While the responsible boy is away on town business the friend takes her to the nearest town to help her get an abortion. He would like nothing more than to woo her for himself, but, ultimately, his kindness goes unrewarded, as, having gotten a sense, even if at one remove, that there is a world beyond her little village, the Little Seamstress leaves to seek her fortune in the big city. The boys are left high and dry.
The final few chapters are told from alternating points of view, the Seamstress, the old miller, the younger lad. It is a bit jarring, if illuminating.
The story has a beauty to it that bears some close inspection. I am certain that I could dissect the many details of the story for symbolic payload. I have not done that. I get the feeling though that there is richness there beyond the surface simplicity of the tale. This is a quick and pretty read, and is heartily recommended.
Spoiler alert here – do not read further if you want to learn plot details for yourself.
Little Seamstress becomes pregnant. While the responsible boy is away on town business the friend takes her to the nearest town to help her get an abortion. He would like nothing more than to woo her for himself, but, ultimately, his kindness goes unrewarded, as, having gotten a sense, even if at one remove, that there is a world beyond her little village, the Little Seamstress leaves to seek her fortune in the big city. The boys are left high and dry.
The final few chapters are told from alternating points of view, the Seamstress, the old miller, the younger lad. It is a bit jarring, if illuminating.
The story has a beauty to it that bears some close inspection. I am certain that I could dissect the many details of the story for symbolic payload. I have not done that. I get the feeling though that there is richness there beyond the surface simplicity of the tale. This is a quick and pretty read, and is heartily recommended.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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December 17, 2012A charming book, written with astute quickness, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is both erudite and approachable. It is full of details that absolutely make the scenes pop with vividness, but it does not dawdle over what is not necessary. It is a story with a point.
Which is where this book falls apart. Despite its captivation of the reader, its quick pace, its interesting plot, this short novel begins to come apart when perspectives are suddenly shifted (why?) and then again at the end. I think that the problem is that this book gives great argument against the very thing that it lauds, only it does not seem to realize it. It is a book so enraptured in its cute story, its nice little package, that it fails to truly consider what it is saying.
Alas, the ending is something of a disappointment that tempers the enthusiastic praise I can otherwise heap on it. Don't expect much from this little book, despite its great efforts to convince you there is something to expect, and you shall enjoy it as you blaze through the pages. Set aside a few hours to read this one non-stop, and schedule something immediately afterward to wash the taste of the ending away.
Which is where this book falls apart. Despite its captivation of the reader, its quick pace, its interesting plot, this short novel begins to come apart when perspectives are suddenly shifted (why?) and then again at the end. I think that the problem is that this book gives great argument against the very thing that it lauds, only it does not seem to realize it. It is a book so enraptured in its cute story, its nice little package, that it fails to truly consider what it is saying.
Alas, the ending is something of a disappointment that tempers the enthusiastic praise I can otherwise heap on it. Don't expect much from this little book, despite its great efforts to convince you there is something to expect, and you shall enjoy it as you blaze through the pages. Set aside a few hours to read this one non-stop, and schedule something immediately afterward to wash the taste of the ending away.
May 6, 2015
This is a gentle, magical book, quite unlike any other I have ever read. The author really gets into the minds of the two boys and the seamstress and the tiny, colourful life they create together despite the poverty of mountain village and the oppression of the Cultural Revolution. The ending is just perfect too.
June 22, 2017
Sweet charming story with a fable quality. The story revolves around a part of history that I feel somewhat ignorant about, the story takes place during the Chinese cultural revolution a time in history where communism was a means to suppress and take away individuality. Life is controlled under the regime of Mao Zedong chairman of the Chinese communist party and restrictions take place, where revolutionary literature is forbidden and higher learning is discouraged, a time when boys where taken away from their towns and then placed into primitive little villages with the sole purpose of reeducation. The main characters the two boys in this book find a surprising escape from their harsh daily activities when they stumble upon a suitcase full of forbidden works of western fiction and their whole world suddenly opens up.
I love the simplicity of this story and the quirky narrative with lots of traditional Chinese elements and traditions sprinkled in, that I felt instantly enchanted by it. Although the story is simple the message is a strong one, it shows the transformative power of books and literature and how it has the ability to change and provoke thoughts and thinking. I love how the ending ties the little Chinese seamstress to the main theme of the book and I adored the ending which left me feeling uplifted and joyous.
I love the simplicity of this story and the quirky narrative with lots of traditional Chinese elements and traditions sprinkled in, that I felt instantly enchanted by it. Although the story is simple the message is a strong one, it shows the transformative power of books and literature and how it has the ability to change and provoke thoughts and thinking. I love how the ending ties the little Chinese seamstress to the main theme of the book and I adored the ending which left me feeling uplifted and joyous.
October 23, 2014
لا أعرف ماذا تعني إعادة تأهيل ولكنه مصطلح يشعرك بالإهانة .. وكأن هؤلاء البشر غير مؤهلين للحياة ويتم إعادة تربيتهم من جديد عموما هذا النهج الذي إرتآه الزعيم ماو فوضع سياسة إعادة تأهيل الشباب المتعلم فأرسلهم للقرى على أساس أن الريف هي المعلم وهناك يجب أن يتعلم الإنسان كيف تكون هي الحياة .. وهكذا يذهب بطلا الرواية لو ورفيقه الراوي إلى القرية الواقعة قرب جبل طيور فينق السماء وتشاء الصدف أن آباءهم من الأطباء الذين اعتبرا من أعداء الشعب وفي مفارقة ساخرة والد ليو هو طبيب أسنان وقد سبق أن عالج الزعيم الصيني وفاخر بذلك مما جعل عقابه مضاعفا
يلتقي الشابان بخياطة صغيرة إبنة الخياط ويقع ليو في الحب وفي نفس الوقت تقع إيديهما على رواية أورسولا لبلزاك بعد شد وجذب مع أحد رفاق إعادة التأهيل ..
كما في رواية راوية الأفلام يمتلك ليو فضيلة القص ويستطيع بطريقته الخلابة أن يكسب انتباه السامعين كما استطاع بنفس الطريقة أن يجذب إليه قلب الخياطة الصغيرة ..
الرواية تشير إلى الوضع في الصين أبان الثورة الثقافية في عهد الزعيم الصيني ماو وكيف منع كل ما هو له علاقة بالغرب وخاصة نهج التعليم والكتب بطل الرواية عازف كمنجة وراوي أفلام هو وصديقه ليو وكلاهما شغف بالقراءة هذه الأمور الثلاثة كانت قادرة على هزم أي ثورة مزعومة القراءة وما تحدثه من تغير ملموس في العقل لذلك فإن أي نظام سياسي مهما بلغ جبروته لا يمكن أن يوقف التعطش للمعرفة وتلك الحروف التي كتبت على السترة الجلدية كانت بداية الحكاية ، حكاية هذا العشق الجميل للقراءة في ظل هذه الظروف والمعاناة التي يعيشها شباب التأهيل حكاية التوق الفطري للإنعتاق ، الكتاب كمصباح ضوء في مكان بالغ العتمة .. والحقيبة كمصباح علاء الدين السحري الذي جلب السحروالشعر والأدب من بلزاك إلى ستندال وفلوبير وغيرهم
كان الكاتب من الذكاء بأن يغلف النص روح الدعابة بحكم إنها كتبت على
لسان مراهق ،الأحلام والكوابيس جددت روح النص فتحت الأبواب للتأويلات لوجهات عديدة من هواجس اعتملت في قلب الفتى كالخوف الحب والصداقة والفقد الأحلام كانت عالم أخر وفتنة أخرى ..إشارات وساوس ..ورغبات .. الراوي يحلم بالخياطة على الرغم من إنه الحارس وليس الحبيب ، الرغبات المكبوتة لشاب مراهق الكاتب أبدع في تلمس هذا الجانب من شخصية الراوي الصغير من خلال أحلامه وكوابيسه
عن نهاية الرواية المفاجئة والمصير الذي اختارته الخياطة والتي تركت روايات بلزاك وفلوبير أثرها عليها بالإعتراف بها وبوجودها فهي لم تعد تلك الخياطة الصغيرة وكما يقولون هذا ما تفعله الروايات وإن كانت الروايات في رواية فلوبير مدام بوفاري ساقتها إلى التمرد والخيانة فإن مفهوم التحرر هنا الإستقلال والبحث عن الذات وإضافة قيمة حقيقية لمعنى الوجود ،
الجمال في الرواية إنه جمع متناقضات كثيرة حالة الجهل التي سادت بسبب حالة العداء تجاه المثقفين العلماء والأطباء وتجلى ذلك بوضوح في الطريقة التي وقع بها ليو فريسة للملاريا والطريقة التي تم بها علاج سن سيد القرية في حين أن ليو وصديقه أبناء لأطباء مرموقين عوقبوا بالسجن .. إلى جانب الشغف البرىء الفطري بعالم الكتاب والقراءة مقابل الجهل الذي كان يحيط بالشخصيات من كل حدب وصوب.. المشاهد الرائعة في الطبيعة الخلابة الساحرة في الريف إلى الأجواء المرعبة التي كان يسلكها الرفيقان للوصول لبيت الخياطة .. العلاقة الوطيدة بين الشابين وعلاقة الحب بين ليو الخياطة ثم العلاقة الثلاثية بين شخصيات الرواية
أخشي إنني ثرثرت كثيرا إلا أن
الكتاب بالنسبة لي هو جوهرة أدبية
وقد كان مثل قماشة من الحرير
تفردها وتستمتع بنعومتها
August 29, 2019
"كانت الروايات التي يقرأها "لو" عليّ تخلق فيّ الرغبة للارتماء بمياه السيل الطازجة. لماذا؟ لأنني كنت أتحرر من قيودي دفعةً واحدة! كما يحدث حين تنتاب المرء رغبةً لا يقوى على كبحها للإفصاح عمّا في قلبه."
تحذير: في المراجعة حرق لأحداث الرواية..
عندما بدأت بقراءة هذه الرواية لأول مرة، لم أكن أعلم شيئاً عن تاريخ الصين ولا أملك أدنى معلومة عن ذلك، وكانت أيضاً أول رواية آسيوية أقرؤها. لمّا ذكر كاتب الرواية بأن أحداثها تدور في نهاية ستينات القرن العشرين وبداية السبعينات. كنت أظن بأن ماو تسي تونغ رجل خيالي وبأن الثورة الثقافية وإعادة التأهيل هي اختراع من مخيّلة الكاتب! وكانت الصدمة عندما تبيّن لي العكس وبأن كل ذلك كان صحيحاً وحقيقياً!
في تلك الفترة، مُنعت المدارس وتوجّب على جميع الطلاب الخضوع للنظام إعادة التأهيل على أيدي الفلاحين في جبال وقرى الصين، بالأخص الطلاب الذين حُكم على ذويهم بأن يكونوا "أعداءً للشعب وللثورة".. تدور أحداث الرواية في إحدى الجبال البعيدة خلال فترة إعادة تأهيل لمؤلف الرواية -الذي لم يذكر اسمه- وصديقه لو، وكيف بدأا حياة التدريب والعمل في الحقول، وعلاقتهما برئيس القرية وباقي الفلاحين. تم تسليط الضوء على جهل سكّان القرية بكل شيء يدور خارجها، فهم لا يعرفون المُنبّه، ولا الكمان -الآلة الموسيقية، ولا أي شيء آخر! ويقوم رئيس القرية بإرسال الرواي وصديقه لو لمدينة أخرى حتى يشاهدان الأفلام ويعودان ليقصّانها على أهل القرية. ويتعرّف الصديقان على خيّاط المنطقة المشهور جداً وعلى ابنته الخيّاطة الصغيرة ويذهبان إلى منزلها باستمرار ليحكيا لها الأفلام، وتبدأ علاقة حُب بينها وبين لو. من جهة أخرى، يسكن في إحدى القرى شاب من عُمر الصديقان، يخضع لفترة إعادة تأهيل أيضاً، ويشكّ الصديقان بأن ذلك الفتى يُخفي حقيبة مليئة بالكتب، وكما هو معلوم -كانت الكتب الغربية ممنوعة خلال حكم ماو- وهنا يخطط الصديقان لسرقة هذه الحقيبة، وينجحان في ذلك، ويُصدما بكمية الروايات التي تحويها الحقيبة وبعناوينها الكثيرة، ويسهرا ليلاً لقرائتها سراً، ويقرآها أيضاً على الخيّاطة الصغيرة. وبعد ذلك يضطر لو لمغادرة الجبل لرؤية أهله لأمر عاجل، ويعتني الرواي بالخيّاطة الصغيرة، وخلال تلك الفترة، تكتشف بأنها حامل! ويقوم الرواي أيضاً بالوقوف إلى جانبها ومساعدتها وفعلاً نجح في مسعاه ووجد طبيباً يرضى بإجهاضها مقابل أن يأخذ رواية لبلزاك! وعندما شُفيت الخيّاطة الصغيرة وعاد لو، قامت هي بتغيير هيئتها وملابسها وقررت مغادرة الجبل وخوض تجربة حياة جديدة في المدينة...
تكمن أهمية هذه الرواية بتركيزها على تأثير القراءة والكتب على الإنسان وكيف أنها تفتح لنا آفاقاً جديدة كل يوم، فقد عانى الصديقان في البداية ليحصلا على الكتب، وتغيّر فكر الخيّاطة الصغيرة وتحرّرت من قيود الجهل لتصبح فتاة مثقفة لديها طموح وروح المغامرة وعدم خضوعها لسطوة شاب قادم من المدينة يستبيح جسدها ليتخلّى عنها بعد انتهاء تدريبه. وأيضاً تُرينا قسوة العمل في ظلام المناجم، وبعض عادات القرى والفلاحين، وأيضاً ترسم لنا ملامح جغرافية الجبال والطقس والحقول في الصين. وتبيين للوضع السياسي والثقافي في تلك الفترة. ورغم كل ذلك فهي سلسة وممتعة وفيها بعض اللقطات المُضحكة.
إحدى الروايات القليلة المميّزة التي تترك بصمات واضحة في الذاكرة والروح، فلا عجب بأنني اقرأها للمرة الثالثة.
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April 2, 2021
Based on a true story, this beautifully written little book is a testament to the struggle for intellectual freedom.
Written in a very descriptive , and living way, it tells of the story of two 17 year old boys in Mao's China who are among the millions of Chinese youth, forced to undergo 'Re-education' , a type of deathlike existance in China's re-education camps , carrying excrement up and down a mountain.
Their life is given meaning by their meeting up with a pretty , young seamstress , and the discovery of a book full of 19th century novels, in the intellectually stifling climate of Mao's China , where all litereature , other than Communist propaganda, is banned on penalty of death!
Based on a true story, it is a testament to the risks one will take for the life-giving force of free thought, and discovery , in an environment of the spiritual death of Maoist dictatorship.
Ultimately how totalitarian tyranny -slowly and steadily, like soil erosion, or the action of the tides-an erosion and corrosion of the human spirit. It cuts man off from all nourishment, from his metaphysical roots, from religious experience, from any feeling of in and as one with the world. It produces a dehydration of the soul , spiritual death.
Written in a very descriptive , and living way, it tells of the story of two 17 year old boys in Mao's China who are among the millions of Chinese youth, forced to undergo 'Re-education' , a type of deathlike existance in China's re-education camps , carrying excrement up and down a mountain.
Their life is given meaning by their meeting up with a pretty , young seamstress , and the discovery of a book full of 19th century novels, in the intellectually stifling climate of Mao's China , where all litereature , other than Communist propaganda, is banned on penalty of death!
Based on a true story, it is a testament to the risks one will take for the life-giving force of free thought, and discovery , in an environment of the spiritual death of Maoist dictatorship.
Ultimately how totalitarian tyranny -slowly and steadily, like soil erosion, or the action of the tides-an erosion and corrosion of the human spirit. It cuts man off from all nourishment, from his metaphysical roots, from religious experience, from any feeling of in and as one with the world. It produces a dehydration of the soul , spiritual death.
March 30, 2022
3.5 stars
The decade-long cultural revolution in China was a time of violence and mayhem. People were brutally killed for the slightest of deviances from the communist manifesto. Intellectuals were publicly humiliated, even murdered. In a chaotic attempt to wipe out capitalism and resuscitate Mao's communist ideology, many eccentric steps were taken. Millions of urban teenagers were forced to discontinue their formal education and stay in remote villages to work as farmhands. Thus began their re-education in far flung areas where they spent their years engaged in hard physical labour under strict vigilance of the communist regime. For those in elementary and middle schools, mathematics, physics and chemistry were scrapped from the curriculum and replaced by the basics of industry and agriculture. And yes, all other books except Mao's Little Red Book were banned. An entire generation was wasted, separating them from their families and depriving them of formal education.
This semi-autobiographical book by filmmaker Dai Sijie tells the story of two urban teenagers in the mid 1960's, the narrator and his friend Luo who are sent to a remote village to get re-educated. Their time there is made a little more bearable when they discover a hidden stash of French classics by Balzac, Dumas and the likes. This unexpected and forbidden treasure fills their bleak days with hope as they discover the allure of great literature. The two lonely boys also form a friendship with the daughter of the local tailor, "the little seamstress", who is "the region's reigning beauty". Together these three devour the literary delights -- rich in imagination and filled with passion -- a far cry from the communist fodder that they are brought up on.
In China, the public discourse on the cultural revolution is still under government scrutiny with an official version being promoted in textbooks and archives. The book is notable not only because it brings to light some closely-guarded dark chapters in China's history or because it does so without drenching the story in misery but also because it reaffirms the transformative power of great literature.
Some structural oddities made it only an average read for me. Firstly, an abrupt shift in perspective in the second half of the novel was disastrous. I could comprehend the purpose this change served but, on the whole, it made for an erratic experience. I don't want sound like a compulsive nitpicker but most of the chapters are structured in a way that the consequences of what happened are described in the first few paragraphs to lure in the reader and then an explanation of the episode follows. I liked the anticipation in the beginning and the trick worked more often than not but my appreciation reduced after a few repetitions. And finally, the ending, though fitting in the context of re-education, seemed hurriedly concocted. Sadly, I will remember it as a choppy ride when it could have been so much more.
The decade-long cultural revolution in China was a time of violence and mayhem. People were brutally killed for the slightest of deviances from the communist manifesto. Intellectuals were publicly humiliated, even murdered. In a chaotic attempt to wipe out capitalism and resuscitate Mao's communist ideology, many eccentric steps were taken. Millions of urban teenagers were forced to discontinue their formal education and stay in remote villages to work as farmhands. Thus began their re-education in far flung areas where they spent their years engaged in hard physical labour under strict vigilance of the communist regime. For those in elementary and middle schools, mathematics, physics and chemistry were scrapped from the curriculum and replaced by the basics of industry and agriculture. And yes, all other books except Mao's Little Red Book were banned. An entire generation was wasted, separating them from their families and depriving them of formal education.
This semi-autobiographical book by filmmaker Dai Sijie tells the story of two urban teenagers in the mid 1960's, the narrator and his friend Luo who are sent to a remote village to get re-educated. Their time there is made a little more bearable when they discover a hidden stash of French classics by Balzac, Dumas and the likes. This unexpected and forbidden treasure fills their bleak days with hope as they discover the allure of great literature. The two lonely boys also form a friendship with the daughter of the local tailor, "the little seamstress", who is "the region's reigning beauty". Together these three devour the literary delights -- rich in imagination and filled with passion -- a far cry from the communist fodder that they are brought up on.
In China, the public discourse on the cultural revolution is still under government scrutiny with an official version being promoted in textbooks and archives. The book is notable not only because it brings to light some closely-guarded dark chapters in China's history or because it does so without drenching the story in misery but also because it reaffirms the transformative power of great literature.
Some structural oddities made it only an average read for me. Firstly, an abrupt shift in perspective in the second half of the novel was disastrous. I could comprehend the purpose this change served but, on the whole, it made for an erratic experience. I don't want sound like a compulsive nitpicker but most of the chapters are structured in a way that the consequences of what happened are described in the first few paragraphs to lure in the reader and then an explanation of the episode follows. I liked the anticipation in the beginning and the trick worked more often than not but my appreciation reduced after a few repetitions. And finally, the ending, though fitting in the context of re-education, seemed hurriedly concocted. Sadly, I will remember it as a choppy ride when it could have been so much more.
August 12, 2011
This story is cute, kind of odd, and without much plot or character development. Dai Sijie's first novel tells the story about two teenage boys sent to the mountains in China for "re-education" under the Maoist regime. Sijie himself was re-educated from 1971 to 1974, which is when this novel takes place. While Sijie builds tension very well he never really delivers. Towards the end the perspective changes for what feels like absolutely no reason and I found myself saying, "what?!" in my head and having to flip back to figure out if I missed something (I didn't).
The story is told from the perspective of one of the boys, Ma, and is about his relationship with his friend Luo and their preoccupation with a young seamstress in a nearby village. Luo decides that the seamstress is too uncultured and uneducated for him and he is determined to educate her and make her more sophisticated so that they can be together. In the end, the plan works but she ends up becoming too cultured for him and longs for the life of the city.
I don't ever feel anything for these people. One of my biggest pet peeves is when male authors create two-dimensional female characters, i.e. the little seamstress. She actually could have been a lot more interesting had the author bothered to exert himself with her development. Which I guess makes me realize that Sijie seemed so concerned with showing off his erudition that he got too lazy to flesh out the characters or plot. Sijie is confused about what he wants this book to be so the reader never figures it out - and the ending, if nothing else, is solid evidence for this.
The story is told from the perspective of one of the boys, Ma, and is about his relationship with his friend Luo and their preoccupation with a young seamstress in a nearby village. Luo decides that the seamstress is too uncultured and uneducated for him and he is determined to educate her and make her more sophisticated so that they can be together. In the end, the plan works but she ends up becoming too cultured for him and longs for the life of the city.
I don't ever feel anything for these people. One of my biggest pet peeves is when male authors create two-dimensional female characters, i.e. the little seamstress. She actually could have been a lot more interesting had the author bothered to exert himself with her development. Which I guess makes me realize that Sijie seemed so concerned with showing off his erudition that he got too lazy to flesh out the characters or plot. Sijie is confused about what he wants this book to be so the reader never figures it out - and the ending, if nothing else, is solid evidence for this.
March 29, 2011
Imagine for a moment that all the books you own are taken from you, pulped or set ablaze, labeled as libelous, unworthy to what your new home now thinks and practices. What would you do? How would this make you feel? Then, as if the act of destruction upon your books was not enough, you, too, are taken to a place where you can be re-educated. All the mysteries or romances or science fiction or literary fiction that you one vigorously pumped into your brain was now going to be methodically replaced with doctrines and laws and philosophies that you not only don’t believe, but know are to be untrue. In time, you have to make some difficult decisions: Accept this new way of life and re-enter society, or remain the stalwart believer and remain in this place indefinitely.
I would like to think that I would remain the believer, dreaming of what I once had.
BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS has a similar backdrop. The story is about Luo and an unnamed narrator who have been relocated to Phoenix Mountain where they are to be re-educated. The proletariat has deemed their parents as “class enemies.” While performing meaningless manual labor upon the mountain, the boys discover that another of their compatriots, Four Eyes, has somehow smuggled a suitcase of books into the encampment. Literature of any kind is seen as reactionary, so the two boys are instantly eager to read these novels. After they have stolen a book by Balzac, they are whisked away to a world of limitless possibilities. They want more novels. As a responsibility to their re-education, they have to travel to different villages, sharing stories of the Chairman, but, in fact, they are trying to live the life they have experienced in Balzac’s novel.
One of the few people they entrust with their secret of literature is a seamstress. From the onset, Luo and the seamstress begin a relationship. For the most part, this relationship is only rudimentary to the story, until Four Eyes has been seen fit as being re-educated. Four Eyes is now able to leave Phoenix Mountain. And with Four Eyes leaving, the books are certainly to leave with him. Luo and the narrator devise a plan to steal the rest of the books. When they succeed, the world of literature explodes upon them like a starburst fired into a pitch dark night, illuminating Dostoevsky, Hugo, Dickens, Kipling, Emily Bronte, Tolstoy, Gogol, Flaubert, Dumas, Stendhal, Romain Rolland, and Rousseau. They have the makings of a fine library and dedicate different volumes to each other during Christmas and festive celebrations. Soon, the narrator develops a penchant for his own storytelling and is able to intertwine stories from the novels with stories of his own. Life seems tolerable now.
Then Luo’s mother gets sick. He has to leave the mountain. And the narrator is left to protect the little Chinese seamstress from all the suitors that lurk around her tiny hut. (I will not say what happens here, as it would give away the ending of the novel.)
The author, Dai Sijie, has woven an intricate tale--some autobiographical elements--around the power and majesty of storytelling. Sometimes nothing happens in the story, but that is Sijie’s way of sharing with the reader the power and beauty of language. When the plot does liven up, it is told with a steady hand. Throughout the novel, I could not help but think: Could I go from a world full of books to one without? Would I be able to keep the treasure of novels secret?
In the end, these are personal questions that only the reader may answer. In what many other reviewers have seen as “quaint” or schmaltzy, I find endearing.
A great read for lovers of books and the feelings they get after reading a remarkable story.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
I would like to think that I would remain the believer, dreaming of what I once had.
BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS has a similar backdrop. The story is about Luo and an unnamed narrator who have been relocated to Phoenix Mountain where they are to be re-educated. The proletariat has deemed their parents as “class enemies.” While performing meaningless manual labor upon the mountain, the boys discover that another of their compatriots, Four Eyes, has somehow smuggled a suitcase of books into the encampment. Literature of any kind is seen as reactionary, so the two boys are instantly eager to read these novels. After they have stolen a book by Balzac, they are whisked away to a world of limitless possibilities. They want more novels. As a responsibility to their re-education, they have to travel to different villages, sharing stories of the Chairman, but, in fact, they are trying to live the life they have experienced in Balzac’s novel.
One of the few people they entrust with their secret of literature is a seamstress. From the onset, Luo and the seamstress begin a relationship. For the most part, this relationship is only rudimentary to the story, until Four Eyes has been seen fit as being re-educated. Four Eyes is now able to leave Phoenix Mountain. And with Four Eyes leaving, the books are certainly to leave with him. Luo and the narrator devise a plan to steal the rest of the books. When they succeed, the world of literature explodes upon them like a starburst fired into a pitch dark night, illuminating Dostoevsky, Hugo, Dickens, Kipling, Emily Bronte, Tolstoy, Gogol, Flaubert, Dumas, Stendhal, Romain Rolland, and Rousseau. They have the makings of a fine library and dedicate different volumes to each other during Christmas and festive celebrations. Soon, the narrator develops a penchant for his own storytelling and is able to intertwine stories from the novels with stories of his own. Life seems tolerable now.
Then Luo’s mother gets sick. He has to leave the mountain. And the narrator is left to protect the little Chinese seamstress from all the suitors that lurk around her tiny hut. (I will not say what happens here, as it would give away the ending of the novel.)
The author, Dai Sijie, has woven an intricate tale--some autobiographical elements--around the power and majesty of storytelling. Sometimes nothing happens in the story, but that is Sijie’s way of sharing with the reader the power and beauty of language. When the plot does liven up, it is told with a steady hand. Throughout the novel, I could not help but think: Could I go from a world full of books to one without? Would I be able to keep the treasure of novels secret?
In the end, these are personal questions that only the reader may answer. In what many other reviewers have seen as “quaint” or schmaltzy, I find endearing.
A great read for lovers of books and the feelings they get after reading a remarkable story.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
December 16, 2023
- تجري الرواية في نهاية حقبة السيتينات حينما قرر الزعيم الشيوعي الصيني ماو الثورة "الثقافية" و"إعادة التأهيل" للمثقفين وأولادهم بإرسالهم الى الأرياف النائية! الكثير من الشعراء والأدباء والمتعلمين عملوا في هذه المرحلة في مناجم الفحم وحفر القبور وكنس الشوارع وحراثة الأرض لتبقى هذه المرحلة شاهدة على حماقات "ماو" العديدة (حرب الطيور احداها ايضاً).
- الراوي، والذي قد يكونه الكاتب نفسه، وصديقه "لو"، ابناء طبيبين تم ارسالهما الى "جبل الفينيق" لإعادة التأهيل في قرية متطورة جداً الى حد ان ابناءها لم يعرفوا الكمان وانبهروا بالمنبّه على شكل ديك! جزء من القصة يذكرنا برواية راوية الأفلام لكن مع أسبقية زمنية للرواية الصينية!
- "بلزاك" وكتبه، الكاتب الفرنسي المشهور، وأعتقد انه هنا يقوم مقام الرمز اكثر منه مقامه الشخصي، فهو كناية عن الأدب والقراءة بشكل عام والثقافة الغربية بشكل خاص. الكاتب من خلال الرواية يسلّط الضوء على أهمية القراءة من جهة وعلى أهمية هذه الكتب المترجمة الممنوعة، حمايتها ككنوز، وجهل العامة بها (المشهد الذي ظنّوا فيه ان الصورة من كتاب بلزاك هي صورة لينين او ستالين). تدخل "الخياطة الصغيرة" المشهد لنشهد تأثير القراءة في توسيع مدارك الفرد وآفاقه واحداث نغيير جوهري ولو في مكان ناءٍ.
- حسناً بلزاك عظيم والثقافة الغربية كذلك، لكنني اعيب على الكاتب الذي انتجت حضارته الكثير ان يغيّب كل هذا ويندهش ببلزاك بتغريبة كاملة! ذكرني بعض الشيء بطه حسين في قوله "علينا ان نصبح اوروبيين"
- الترجمة سيئة جداً، قرأتها بترجمة محمد عثمان، ترجمة تعجّ بالأخطاء اللغوية والإملائية (وبعضها ساذج جداً)، بالإضافة الى التحرير السيء، فعلى سبيل المثال:
ص19 "لم يكن بوسع عصافير الدوري المسكينة ولا عصافير الدوري المسكينة ولا عصافير السهل العادية"
ص147" كنت مغرماً بهذه اللعبة، ليس لأنها كانت تتيح لي ان اطرح على نفسي اسئلة تتعلق بمستقبلي وإنما لأنها كانت تتيح لي ان اطرح على نفسي اسئلة تتعلق بمستقبلي".
- بشكل عام الرواية جيدة، تعطي فكرة عن تلك الفترة السيئة في تاريخ الصين، وتعطينا فكرة عن الأمم التي تعلمت من اخطاءها وأصبحت رائدة في العالم لاحقاً على عكس غيرها!
- الراوي، والذي قد يكونه الكاتب نفسه، وصديقه "لو"، ابناء طبيبين تم ارسالهما الى "جبل الفينيق" لإعادة التأهيل في قرية متطورة جداً الى حد ان ابناءها لم يعرفوا الكمان وانبهروا بالمنبّه على شكل ديك! جزء من القصة يذكرنا برواية راوية الأفلام لكن مع أسبقية زمنية للرواية الصينية!
- "بلزاك" وكتبه، الكاتب الفرنسي المشهور، وأعتقد انه هنا يقوم مقام الرمز اكثر منه مقامه الشخصي، فهو كناية عن الأدب والقراءة بشكل عام والثقافة الغربية بشكل خاص. الكاتب من خلال الرواية يسلّط الضوء على أهمية القراءة من جهة وعلى أهمية هذه الكتب المترجمة الممنوعة، حمايتها ككنوز، وجهل العامة بها (المشهد الذي ظنّوا فيه ان الصورة من كتاب بلزاك هي صورة لينين او ستالين). تدخل "الخياطة الصغيرة" المشهد لنشهد تأثير القراءة في توسيع مدارك الفرد وآفاقه واحداث نغيير جوهري ولو في مكان ناءٍ.
- حسناً بلزاك عظيم والثقافة الغربية كذلك، لكنني اعيب على الكاتب الذي انتجت حضارته الكثير ان يغيّب كل هذا ويندهش ببلزاك بتغريبة كاملة! ذكرني بعض الشيء بطه حسين في قوله "علينا ان نصبح اوروبيين"
- الترجمة سيئة جداً، قرأتها بترجمة محمد عثمان، ترجمة تعجّ بالأخطاء اللغوية والإملائية (وبعضها ساذج جداً)، بالإضافة الى التحرير السيء، فعلى سبيل المثال:
ص19 "لم يكن بوسع عصافير الدوري المسكينة ولا عصافير الدوري المسكينة ولا عصافير السهل العادية"
ص147" كنت مغرماً بهذه اللعبة، ليس لأنها كانت تتيح لي ان اطرح على نفسي اسئلة تتعلق بمستقبلي وإنما لأنها كانت تتيح لي ان اطرح على نفسي اسئلة تتعلق بمستقبلي".
- بشكل عام الرواية جيدة، تعطي فكرة عن تلك الفترة السيئة في تاريخ الصين، وتعطينا فكرة عن الأمم التي تعلمت من اخطاءها وأصبحت رائدة في العالم لاحقاً على عكس غيرها!
November 24, 2019
Sinceramente, empecé este libro con unas ganas increíbles, dando por hecho las 4 o 5 estrellas, y me ha dejado algo desinflado.
Una de mis épocas históricas favoritas es la Revolución Cultural que tuvo lugar en China entre 1966 y 1976. Es un periodo de la historia que suele ser bastante desconocido en Occidente, algo con poco sentido, teniendo en cuenta su gran gravedad y las barbaridades que se hicieron. Siendo, además, un movimiento que se corrió por otras partes de Asia. Durante esta revolución, las personas con estudios, propiedades, gran nivel cultural o todo aquello que se considerara occidental, era considerada enemiga del gobierno, y por tanto tenía que ser reeducada.
Esperaba un libro que mostrara la realidad de esta época tan dura de una manera más cruda y la he sentido muy superficial. Quizás tiene más de fábula o de cuento que de novela, y por eso no ha entrado con profundida en la realidad de la situación y yo esperaba más, de ahí mi bajón inicial.
La historia gira en torno a dos chicos de ciudad, dos amigos de la infancia que son mandados a un pueblo perdido, para ser reeducados bajo la vida del campo. Ni que decir, que los libros estan prohibidos. Y será lo que estos dos chicos encuentren, un grupo de libros que les hará cambiar la forma de ver el mundo. Al conocer a una joven y analfabeta sastre, trataran de culturizarla a través de estas novelas.
Es una historia bonita, sencilla, que muestra bien el amor por los libros, y la habilidad de estos para abrir la mente, en todos los sentidos posibles. La pena es que los personajes no han terminado de calarme del todo. Y salvo la sastresilla, que es el único personaje que he terminado entendiendo, el resto no consiguieron atraparme.
El final, que me ha gustado mucho, me ha parecido necesario, oportuno y, sobre todo, entendible.
Una de mis épocas históricas favoritas es la Revolución Cultural que tuvo lugar en China entre 1966 y 1976. Es un periodo de la historia que suele ser bastante desconocido en Occidente, algo con poco sentido, teniendo en cuenta su gran gravedad y las barbaridades que se hicieron. Siendo, además, un movimiento que se corrió por otras partes de Asia. Durante esta revolución, las personas con estudios, propiedades, gran nivel cultural o todo aquello que se considerara occidental, era considerada enemiga del gobierno, y por tanto tenía que ser reeducada.
Esperaba un libro que mostrara la realidad de esta época tan dura de una manera más cruda y la he sentido muy superficial. Quizás tiene más de fábula o de cuento que de novela, y por eso no ha entrado con profundida en la realidad de la situación y yo esperaba más, de ahí mi bajón inicial.
La historia gira en torno a dos chicos de ciudad, dos amigos de la infancia que son mandados a un pueblo perdido, para ser reeducados bajo la vida del campo. Ni que decir, que los libros estan prohibidos. Y será lo que estos dos chicos encuentren, un grupo de libros que les hará cambiar la forma de ver el mundo. Al conocer a una joven y analfabeta sastre, trataran de culturizarla a través de estas novelas.
Es una historia bonita, sencilla, que muestra bien el amor por los libros, y la habilidad de estos para abrir la mente, en todos los sentidos posibles. La pena es que los personajes no han terminado de calarme del todo. Y salvo la sastresilla, que es el único personaje que he terminado entendiendo, el resto no consiguieron atraparme.
El final, que me ha gustado mucho, me ha parecido necesario, oportuno y, sobre todo, entendible.
May 27, 2008
One of the reasons why I join bookclubs is to encourage myself to read books I wouldn't normally read, to get me out of my comfort zone. And one of the hopes of any bookclub I think, for me at least, is to find a gem, a book that you had never wanted to read but, having read through coercion, have been spellbound by. This is that book. Descriptions of it that I'd read when it was first released had turned me off - it sounded boring - but with such low expectations I was so into this story that I read it in 3 days, 3 work days that is. In other words, I loved this book!
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is very short, a slim volume of only 184 pages, not a single one wasted. Set in 1971 over the course of a couple of years, it follows the story of the unnamed 17 year old narrator and his best friend Luo, a year older, sent into the countryside to be "re-educated" by the peasants.
Having never studied Chinese history, my knowledge and understanding of the last century in China is sketchy at best. Dai Sijie provides an insight into the re-education policy of Chairman Mao, something the author himself was subjected to before immigrating to France. The program, quite simply, removes the children of intellectuals, state enemies and "stinking scientific authorities", as the narrator's parents were classed, both being doctors (Luo's father is a successful dentist who was famous for fixing Mao's teeth), and sends them out to be re-educated along Revolutionary ideals.
The two young men are sent to Phoenix Mountain to be re-educated by the opium-farmers-turned-Communist-peasants. Because of their parents, there is a 3 in 1000 chance of them being returned to their families. The only possessions they have been allowed to keep on the Mountain are the narrator's violin and Luo's alarm clock, which quickly becomes a novelty.
The mountain has several villages, and at one lives the Tailor and his daughter, the Little Seamstress as they nickname her. Both find her delightful, beautiful, captivating, but it is Luo who starts a relationship with her.
At another village is Four-Eyes, the only person on the mountain who has glasses. He is the son of a writer and a poet, and has in his possession a secret suitcase which Luo and his friend discover by accident. The suitcase is full of forbidden texts by Western writers, from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo to Balzac's Pere Goiriot, from Dosteovsky to Bronte.
Neither Luo nor the narrator got the intellectual education they're being punished for, but they still recognise the treasure that Four-Eyes is in possession of, and hatch a plan to get hold of the suitcase. While worlds and values they never knew are opened up to the boys, it is the Little Seamstress they have the most impact on, in an almost ironic ending.
This story is often funny, with a light, effortless narrative spiced with tales of mischief. The visit to the old Miller, with his rippling stomach, is one such. The story could have been one of those depressing, melodrammatic books, full of an emphasis on hardship and persecution, the characters over-moralising and preachy. There's none of that here. The boys' escapades delight and entertain without seeming trite or naive, the flowing, light tone of the novel actually helps put the more gruesome or upsetting scenes in perspective.
Story-telling plays a large part in this story. Luo and the narrator are sent by the village headman to the nearest town of Yong Jing to watch North Korean films and return to retell the story to the village. When they get their hands on Four-Eyes' books, they read the forbidden stories to the Little Seamstress and her father.
After reading Jean-Christophe, the narrator says: "Without him I would never have understood the splendour of taking free and independent action as an individual. Up until this stolen encounter with Romain Rolland's hero, my poor educated and re-educated brains had been incapable of grasping the notion of one man standing up against the whole world. ... To me it was the ultimate book: once you had read it, neither your own life nor the world you lived in would ever look the same."
This may seem a bit like shovelling sentiment into your lap, but the book isn't like that, and the setting renders any such corniness obsolete. What might seem obvious to us was a revelation to the narrator and his friend Luo, and the Little Seamstress. What we can learn from stories, what was repressed by Mao's Cultural Revolution, burst from the pages of the stolen, secret stash of classics and had a profound impact on the characters' lives, indeed lifted them up from the mud of the mountain.
The only bit that I didn't like so much, as far as the book was written, was the three chapters towards the end that flesh out Luo and the Little Seamstress' relationship, as told from their perspective and, oddly, the Old Miller who spies them "coupling". It jarred a bit with me, the tone implying it's building up to something important, even tragic, without delivering. Almost as if the author, having written a novella, had to flesh out the story a bit and this was the only way he could. Not that I didn't want to know more about them, to make their relationship more solid and help connect the emotions that come at the end, but still. I'm ambivalent, I guess, about this "device".
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is very short, a slim volume of only 184 pages, not a single one wasted. Set in 1971 over the course of a couple of years, it follows the story of the unnamed 17 year old narrator and his best friend Luo, a year older, sent into the countryside to be "re-educated" by the peasants.
Having never studied Chinese history, my knowledge and understanding of the last century in China is sketchy at best. Dai Sijie provides an insight into the re-education policy of Chairman Mao, something the author himself was subjected to before immigrating to France. The program, quite simply, removes the children of intellectuals, state enemies and "stinking scientific authorities", as the narrator's parents were classed, both being doctors (Luo's father is a successful dentist who was famous for fixing Mao's teeth), and sends them out to be re-educated along Revolutionary ideals.
The two young men are sent to Phoenix Mountain to be re-educated by the opium-farmers-turned-Communist-peasants. Because of their parents, there is a 3 in 1000 chance of them being returned to their families. The only possessions they have been allowed to keep on the Mountain are the narrator's violin and Luo's alarm clock, which quickly becomes a novelty.
The mountain has several villages, and at one lives the Tailor and his daughter, the Little Seamstress as they nickname her. Both find her delightful, beautiful, captivating, but it is Luo who starts a relationship with her.
At another village is Four-Eyes, the only person on the mountain who has glasses. He is the son of a writer and a poet, and has in his possession a secret suitcase which Luo and his friend discover by accident. The suitcase is full of forbidden texts by Western writers, from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo to Balzac's Pere Goiriot, from Dosteovsky to Bronte.
Neither Luo nor the narrator got the intellectual education they're being punished for, but they still recognise the treasure that Four-Eyes is in possession of, and hatch a plan to get hold of the suitcase. While worlds and values they never knew are opened up to the boys, it is the Little Seamstress they have the most impact on, in an almost ironic ending.
This story is often funny, with a light, effortless narrative spiced with tales of mischief. The visit to the old Miller, with his rippling stomach, is one such. The story could have been one of those depressing, melodrammatic books, full of an emphasis on hardship and persecution, the characters over-moralising and preachy. There's none of that here. The boys' escapades delight and entertain without seeming trite or naive, the flowing, light tone of the novel actually helps put the more gruesome or upsetting scenes in perspective.
Story-telling plays a large part in this story. Luo and the narrator are sent by the village headman to the nearest town of Yong Jing to watch North Korean films and return to retell the story to the village. When they get their hands on Four-Eyes' books, they read the forbidden stories to the Little Seamstress and her father.
After reading Jean-Christophe, the narrator says: "Without him I would never have understood the splendour of taking free and independent action as an individual. Up until this stolen encounter with Romain Rolland's hero, my poor educated and re-educated brains had been incapable of grasping the notion of one man standing up against the whole world. ... To me it was the ultimate book: once you had read it, neither your own life nor the world you lived in would ever look the same."
This may seem a bit like shovelling sentiment into your lap, but the book isn't like that, and the setting renders any such corniness obsolete. What might seem obvious to us was a revelation to the narrator and his friend Luo, and the Little Seamstress. What we can learn from stories, what was repressed by Mao's Cultural Revolution, burst from the pages of the stolen, secret stash of classics and had a profound impact on the characters' lives, indeed lifted them up from the mud of the mountain.
The only bit that I didn't like so much, as far as the book was written, was the three chapters towards the end that flesh out Luo and the Little Seamstress' relationship, as told from their perspective and, oddly, the Old Miller who spies them "coupling". It jarred a bit with me, the tone implying it's building up to something important, even tragic, without delivering. Almost as if the author, having written a novella, had to flesh out the story a bit and this was the only way he could. Not that I didn't want to know more about them, to make their relationship more solid and help connect the emotions that come at the end, but still. I'm ambivalent, I guess, about this "device".
October 10, 2016
This is an enchanting tale about the mysteries of love and the eternal wonders of literature. Two teenage boys get exiled for re-education to a remote mountainous village during China's infamous cultural revolution. There they get to know the young daughter of a local tailor and stumble across a suitcase filled with banned western literature. While they find solace in the forbidden words of western literature they open a new world of opportunity to the seamstress and find an emotive escape from their otherwise horrible situation.
It's a poetic and and well written novel that is as humorous as it is poignant. It speaks of the strangeness of life and of the romantic longings of the human spirit.
It's a poetic and and well written novel that is as humorous as it is poignant. It speaks of the strangeness of life and of the romantic longings of the human spirit.
September 27, 2015
This is an outstanding exercise in more than just the pals' re-education and awakening to adulthood. It deserves 5 stars in the skill to expose the different ironic dichotomies. And not only in this Chinese period. A stilted way to say that it makes both political and personal counter-revolutions. This is truly a think piece.
The more you know about the Red Guard, Cultural Revolution and subsequent civil liberties and personal choices of rural peasant or relocated for purpose Chinese- beyond the dire states of 1967-1972 atrocity, the more you will see the diamond here. It is a diamond that is yet soft and delicate (impossible opposites?) which somehow intrinsically centers upon the nearly universal cores of our base human nature. Humans love words, romance, adventure, intrigue, entertainment for novelty, adornment, and attachments of infinite variety. Regardless of what and where and who will forbid them. Just as the taught will yearn to become teacher.
And so the most forbidden becomes the purpose and desire most cherished, yet hidden. And also when it is firmly established and the emotive value and wit of humor understood, so often will that fuel myriads of other choices that abandon the original simplicity.
Eventually forbidden word becomes distributed and more earnestly horded toward feeling and purpose than if it were not. The most cherished and precious love when given changing connotation and connections? It grows to a further and farther yearn. And will leave the simplicity of its beginnings quite behind within a newly grasped context that disdains the former and more limited choice ignorance.
Lovely, lovely illustration of the dichotomy inherent in knowledge. And the knowledge is NOT only of one type here, at that. Gem of a tale, masterpiece has nothing to do with size.
The more you know about the Red Guard, Cultural Revolution and subsequent civil liberties and personal choices of rural peasant or relocated for purpose Chinese- beyond the dire states of 1967-1972 atrocity, the more you will see the diamond here. It is a diamond that is yet soft and delicate (impossible opposites?) which somehow intrinsically centers upon the nearly universal cores of our base human nature. Humans love words, romance, adventure, intrigue, entertainment for novelty, adornment, and attachments of infinite variety. Regardless of what and where and who will forbid them. Just as the taught will yearn to become teacher.
And so the most forbidden becomes the purpose and desire most cherished, yet hidden. And also when it is firmly established and the emotive value and wit of humor understood, so often will that fuel myriads of other choices that abandon the original simplicity.
Eventually forbidden word becomes distributed and more earnestly horded toward feeling and purpose than if it were not. The most cherished and precious love when given changing connotation and connections? It grows to a further and farther yearn. And will leave the simplicity of its beginnings quite behind within a newly grasped context that disdains the former and more limited choice ignorance.
Lovely, lovely illustration of the dichotomy inherent in knowledge. And the knowledge is NOT only of one type here, at that. Gem of a tale, masterpiece has nothing to do with size.
May 26, 2013
الحقيقة أن قراءة رواية بهذا القدر من الجمال تدفعنا إلى التغنّي بالمقولة المبالغ فيها : " ما من حزن لا يستطيع الكتاب تخفيفه ". الكتاب الذي سيجعل من المحكوم عليهم بإعادة التأهيل قادرين على الصمود في ذلك الخراء - و إعادة التأهيل إحدى حماقات ماو التدميرية - و الذي كان قد تعرض لها الكاتب نفسه كما هو الحال للعديد من النشء المتعلم آنذاك - الشاعر الصيني الشهير يانغ ليان على سبيل المثال لا الحصر عمل حفاراً للقبور أثناء إعادة تأهيله - و بلزاك الذي يتقدم العنوان بكبرياء نابليوني لا يرمز لشيء باعتقادي سوى المعرفة و التي ستغدو طوق النجاة حيث سينكب البطلان اللذان أوكلت إليهما أعمال شاقة من قبيل العمل تحت الأرض في منجم و حرث الأرض كاملة بمساعدة ثور هزيل و ذلك لتطهيرهما من أي رجس رجعي. طالت تهمة عداء الشعب الصيني غالبية المثقفين حتى ذلك الذي قام بترجمة كتب بلزاك التي عثر عليها ليو وصاحبه ليتقنا بعد ذلك نزوة القصّ المباركة و يتلاعبا بشيخ القرية المسئول عن إعادة تأهيلهما و يسعى ليو للإيقاع بالخياطة الصغيرة بالتعاون مع كتب بلزاك بينما ستحرر هذه الكتب نفسها الخياطة. رواية جميلة جداً بشرط أن تقرأ بترجمة اليوسفي.
أشكر الصالون لهذا الترشيح الأكثر من موفق.
February 18, 2008
I thought this would be great (well, the cover was beautiful and it did have Balzac in it) but I was really unimpressed by it. It was a story and nothing more. I can't figure out why it's selling like hot cakes. Oh well.
May 28, 2016
“I was carried away, swept along by the mighty stream of words pouring from the hundreds of pages. To me it was the ultimate book: once you had read it, neither your own life nor the world you lived in would ever look the same.”
I heard about this book via a classmate that said it was his favourite book. Blindly I said I would give it a shot, and when I saw it at a thrift store for very cheap I bought it, two days later I decided to read it and then died. I am so angry and glad at this book, I hope to keep my emotions in check.
I do wish I had read it in the original French though, but the English translation was not bad.
This is the story of Chinese re-education during China’s Cultural Revolution. Two city boys are sent to a village to learn the way of life, since their parents are ‘enemies of the people” or something like that. Here they met a tailor, the tailor’s daughter, an ex-opium farmer turned communist, a guy nicknamed “Four-Eyes,” and a miller. The narrator and Lao (his best friend) come across Western classic books translated into Chinese (not sure which actual language, sorry), which are forbidden. They then embark on a long journey of self-discovery, as well as bettering the village.
The major theme of this book is the importance of literature and education not only to the individual, but also the community as a whole. Via these banned books, these re-educated people see a world they will no longer be allowed to be a part of, and discover love along the way. The narrator and Lao discover a suitcase with classics from Balzac to Dostoevsky, and begin the actual secret education they were blamed for.
There is this one phrase that surprised me of how much truth it could hold if we let it:
“The only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers — more’s the pity.”
Storytelling is another very big thing here, thanks to Lao’s skill they are treated well by the villagers, who want nothing more than to escape their monotonous lives via stories like the ones they are shown , like The Count of Monte Cristo.
And that is all I can say, except that I highly recommend it.
I heard about this book via a classmate that said it was his favourite book. Blindly I said I would give it a shot, and when I saw it at a thrift store for very cheap I bought it, two days later I decided to read it and then died. I am so angry and glad at this book, I hope to keep my emotions in check.
I do wish I had read it in the original French though, but the English translation was not bad.
This is the story of Chinese re-education during China’s Cultural Revolution. Two city boys are sent to a village to learn the way of life, since their parents are ‘enemies of the people” or something like that. Here they met a tailor, the tailor’s daughter, an ex-opium farmer turned communist, a guy nicknamed “Four-Eyes,” and a miller. The narrator and Lao (his best friend) come across Western classic books translated into Chinese (not sure which actual language, sorry), which are forbidden. They then embark on a long journey of self-discovery, as well as bettering the village.
The major theme of this book is the importance of literature and education not only to the individual, but also the community as a whole. Via these banned books, these re-educated people see a world they will no longer be allowed to be a part of, and discover love along the way. The narrator and Lao discover a suitcase with classics from Balzac to Dostoevsky, and begin the actual secret education they were blamed for.
There is this one phrase that surprised me of how much truth it could hold if we let it:
“The only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers — more’s the pity.”
Storytelling is another very big thing here, thanks to Lao’s skill they are treated well by the villagers, who want nothing more than to escape their monotonous lives via stories like the ones they are shown , like The Count of Monte Cristo.
And that is all I can say, except that I highly recommend it.
Read
March 30, 2025La letteratura rende liberi
Nella Cina di Mao e della rivoluzione culturale due giovani- figli di professionisti borgesi nemici del popolo- vengono allontanati dalle loro famiglie e dalle loro città e mandati sulle scabre e ostili Montagne della Fenice per essere rieducati secondo i rigidi dettami del Comunismo Reale.
Lì, in un ancestrale mondo contadino- violento e tragicamente lirico al contempo- conoscono la Piccola Sarta e trafugano una valigia di libri occidentali di autori francesi- tra cui Balzac, che Luo- la voce maschile che non narra la storia- ama all'esasperazione. Ovviamente sono libri proibiti, da leggersi di nascosto alla fiamma ballerina di improvvisate lanterne a squarciare il buio della notte e delle menti.
E, in quanto libri- e che libri-, operano un cambiamento nei tre giovani protagonisti, li modificano, li allontanano; generano desideri e nuove passioni, aspirazioni ad essere diversi, ad allontanarsi dal recinto del solito per tuffarsi nell'ignoto, costi quel che costi.
E' un libro lieve e leggero- non futile, né superficiale- sul potere della letteratura: venerando e terribile al contempo.
Come la libertà di pensiero, che da essa scaturisce.
Nella Cina di Mao e della rivoluzione culturale due giovani- figli di professionisti borgesi nemici del popolo- vengono allontanati dalle loro famiglie e dalle loro città e mandati sulle scabre e ostili Montagne della Fenice per essere rieducati secondo i rigidi dettami del Comunismo Reale.
Lì, in un ancestrale mondo contadino- violento e tragicamente lirico al contempo- conoscono la Piccola Sarta e trafugano una valigia di libri occidentali di autori francesi- tra cui Balzac, che Luo- la voce maschile che non narra la storia- ama all'esasperazione. Ovviamente sono libri proibiti, da leggersi di nascosto alla fiamma ballerina di improvvisate lanterne a squarciare il buio della notte e delle menti.
E, in quanto libri- e che libri-, operano un cambiamento nei tre giovani protagonisti, li modificano, li allontanano; generano desideri e nuove passioni, aspirazioni ad essere diversi, ad allontanarsi dal recinto del solito per tuffarsi nell'ignoto, costi quel che costi.
E' un libro lieve e leggero- non futile, né superficiale- sul potere della letteratura: venerando e terribile al contempo.
Come la libertà di pensiero, che da essa scaturisce.
October 26, 2025
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
One of the best little novels that I’ve read in a long time; about love mainly, taut, suspenseful. Descriptive of the difficulty of being young and intelligent during China’s (especially Mao’s) re-education program for city dwellers. How intelligent Chinese young people hunger for Western ideas.
I had not read many books on China, but I would guess this is one of the best ones by a contemporary writer. In light of what is happening in Hong Kong nowadays, this novel is highly relevant.
You identify and feel empathy with all the characters. There is not a boring moment or a moment that the author is lost in his narrative. This has to be one of the best books to have come out of Asia in recent decades.
One of the best little novels that I’ve read in a long time; about love mainly, taut, suspenseful. Descriptive of the difficulty of being young and intelligent during China’s (especially Mao’s) re-education program for city dwellers. How intelligent Chinese young people hunger for Western ideas.
I had not read many books on China, but I would guess this is one of the best ones by a contemporary writer. In light of what is happening in Hong Kong nowadays, this novel is highly relevant.
You identify and feel empathy with all the characters. There is not a boring moment or a moment that the author is lost in his narrative. This has to be one of the best books to have come out of Asia in recent decades.
June 17, 2015
Beautifully written story about youth during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
April 24, 2013
"يا لها من فتنة!!أحسست بنفسي أغيب في ضباب الثمالة!!"
هذا ما حدث لي تماما بعد الانتهاء من هذه الرواية، كالمتعة التي عبر عنها البطلان لحظة التقاء عيونهما بالكتب، في واحد من أجمل مشاهد الرواية...مشهد سرقة الكتب!!!0
هذه رواية يعجزني الحديث عنها...فمن أين أبدأ؟؟
من التقنية الروائية السينمائية التي أبدع فيها "داي سيجي"؟؟أم من الترجمة الجميلة التي حظيت بها؟؟أم من توزيع دور البطولة بمهارة فائقة على الشخوص فيها؟؟أم من النهاية ذات الدلالات التي تليق بتلخيص رؤية الكاتب؟؟أم من الفكرة التي نهضت من قلب تاريخ محدد "وهو هنا الصين إبان عهد ماوتسي تونج"، لتؤكد عالميتها ودوامها وملاءمتها لأي زمان ومكان؟؟
والأسئلة الكبيرة التي تجيب عنها الرواية برأيي هي: إلى أي مدى يمكن تقييد حرية الثقافة والفنون، والحجر على الثقافات المتعددة وعزلها والتقوقع ضمن ثقافة واحدة مرسومة من قبل سلطة ديكتاتوريّة؟؟ وكيف يتغلب شعب على تكوينه الثقافي البعيد عن الرغبات الإنسانية، ليكتسب معرفة تؤثر في أبسط جوانب حياته قبل أعقدها؟؟
والحقائق الكبرى التي تؤكدها...أن روح الطفولة كفيلة بكسر كل الحواجز مهما بلغت شدتها وعواقبها...فلا شيء يمنع الفن من التسرب خلالها...وأن الكتب، بل الفنون بكل أنواعها كفيلة بتغيير الواقع، فالحياة تبدو أرحب وأجمل وأوسع بها...والقراءة تحديدا تفتح المجال أمام الإنسان ليرسم مستقبلا مختلفا...وسحر الحكايا يمنح للحب سحرا من نوع خاص
"فما أن تنتهوا من القراءة...فلا حياتكم البائسة ولا العالم الصغير سيبقيان كما كانا من قبل"
سارد الحكايات وصديقه عازف الكمنجة، يتشاركان رحلةً إلى أحد الأرياف النائية، ليعاد تأهيلهما تحت إشراف الفلاحين الفقراء، ضمن الحملة التي أطلقها الزعيم الصيني "ماوتسي تونج"، والتي استهدفت أبناء الطبقة المثقفة في أواخر عام 1968، ويلتقيان هناك بالخياطة الصغيرة، وصاحب النظارة الأنفية، لتبدأ الحكايات في ظل ظروف رغم قسوتها لا تستطيع الحد من تلك الروح الوثابة التي تحاول كسر الحواجز والقيود، في سبيل التغلب على الواقع الذي يحظر الكتب والثقافة الغربية، ويفرض قوانين صارمة بحق من يتجاوزها.
تعددت النماذج التي قدمها "داي سيجي" من وحي الواقع، فاختلفت طريقة تعاملها مع الظروف، وتأثرها بها، والنهايات التي سعت لها وشهدتها
فمنهم الراغب بثقافة الغير، ولكنه يقف عند حدود ثقافته طمعا بمكسب عاجل أو هربا من قسوة الحال...مثل صاحب النظارة الأنفيّة
ومنهم من بلغ أقصى درجات المغامرة في الحصول عليها، وكان لها عظيم الأثر في منحه أحلاما محلقة، وأضافت لحياته معانٍ جديدة، ولكنه توقف عند ذلك، بل تخلص منها...كما فعل الشابان في نهاية الرواية
ومنهم من حمله التأثر بها على قلب حياته، كما فعلت الخياطة الصغيرة، والتي سميت الرواية باسمها، بعد أن تشربت روح "بلزاك" مع كل قصة من قصصه...أو كما سماه "لو"، إعادة التأهيل البلزاكي"!!!!0
فبضعة أشهر من المطالعة لم تذهب هدرا!!0
"هذا العجوز بلزاك ساحر حقيقي وضع يده اللامرئية على رأس هذه الفتاة فخضعت لتحول ما ولبثت حالمةً واستغرق منها ذلك وقتاً قبل أن تعود إلى ذاتها وتضع قدميها، على الأرض مجدداً. وانتهى بها الأمر إلى ارتداء سترتك التي واتتها على أية حال وقالت لي: ان ملامسة جسدها لكلمات بلزاك قد تكسبها السعادة والذكاء"
جو الرواية يعبق بروحٍ طفوليّة جميلة ساخرة...تغلّبت على بشاعة الحياة في تلك القرية وجعلتها ظلالا باهتة في خلفية اللوحة.
March 21, 2020
In 1971 two Chinese teenagers who scrape into Chairman Mao’s category of “young intellectuals” for being the sons of medical professionals are banished to the western mountainous region for re-education through manual labor. (This was autobiographical for Sijie, a filmmaker who has lived in France since age 30.) For descendants of “enemies of the state,” the chances of making it back home are three in 1000.
The narrator and his friend Luo keep their sanity through their experiences of art: the narrator’s violin, the films they see in a distant village and then come back and act out for the local peasants, and especially a suitcase full of Western literature that they beg, barter or steal from Four-Eyes, an acquaintance whose mother is a poet. They captivate the villagers by recounting plots from Balzac or Dumas novels. Having been raised on Communist propaganda, these young men thrill to stories of romance, and with the help of forbidden texts Luo seduces the seamstress with whom they are both infatuated. Balzac is even the direct means of her liberation in that his work convinces her of her worth as a woman.
This is the next book for my (now online) book club, and while the theme of the power of literature in a time of crisis certainly resonates, it’s not a particularly compelling book, partially because the stories Sijie references are not familiar and partially because only a few events stand out from this very subtle narrative, such as a buffalo sacrifice, a makeshift dental intervention (not a scene to read if you’re nervy in the dentist’s chair), and the seamstress diving for a key ring. This is a problem I sometimes have with novellas in translation: they’re over before you know it, and only hint at what could be potent messages.
A favorite passage:
“Picture, if you will, a boy of nineteen, still slumbering in the limbo of adolescence, having heard nothing but revolutionary blather about patriotism, Communism, ideology and propaganda all his life, falling headlong into a story of awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, of all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden from me.”
The narrator and his friend Luo keep their sanity through their experiences of art: the narrator’s violin, the films they see in a distant village and then come back and act out for the local peasants, and especially a suitcase full of Western literature that they beg, barter or steal from Four-Eyes, an acquaintance whose mother is a poet. They captivate the villagers by recounting plots from Balzac or Dumas novels. Having been raised on Communist propaganda, these young men thrill to stories of romance, and with the help of forbidden texts Luo seduces the seamstress with whom they are both infatuated. Balzac is even the direct means of her liberation in that his work convinces her of her worth as a woman.
This is the next book for my (now online) book club, and while the theme of the power of literature in a time of crisis certainly resonates, it’s not a particularly compelling book, partially because the stories Sijie references are not familiar and partially because only a few events stand out from this very subtle narrative, such as a buffalo sacrifice, a makeshift dental intervention (not a scene to read if you’re nervy in the dentist’s chair), and the seamstress diving for a key ring. This is a problem I sometimes have with novellas in translation: they’re over before you know it, and only hint at what could be potent messages.
A favorite passage:
“Picture, if you will, a boy of nineteen, still slumbering in the limbo of adolescence, having heard nothing but revolutionary blather about patriotism, Communism, ideology and propaganda all his life, falling headlong into a story of awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, of all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden from me.”
July 4, 2016
Balzac thật lợi hại. Đọc bao nhiêu năm mới thấy có ai đó cua được gái bằng tiểu thuyết. Balzac muôn năm, Balzac vô địch :))
Cập nhật ý kiến ý cò về cuốn này: Cuốn sách là một hồi chuông cảnh tỉnh cho bất cứ người đàn ông nào muốn bạn gái mình thông minh hơn, hiểu biết hơn này nọ. Đặc biệt là ước muốn bạn gái đọc nhiều sách là điều cấm kị, tuyệt đối cấm kị, cực lực cấm kị. Hậu quả sẽ rất khó lường. Ahihi
Cập nhật ý kiến ý cò về cuốn này: Cuốn sách là một hồi chuông cảnh tỉnh cho bất cứ người đàn ông nào muốn bạn gái mình thông minh hơn, hiểu biết hơn này nọ. Đặc biệt là ước muốn bạn gái đọc nhiều sách là điều cấm kị, tuyệt đối cấm kị, cực lực cấm kị. Hậu quả sẽ rất khó lường. Ahihi
May 5, 2008
I chose this excerpt from the book because it seems to sum up the changes seen in the characters:
“Picture if you will, a boy of nineteen still slumbering in the limbo of adolescence, having heard nothing but revolutionary blather about patriotism, Communism, and ideology and propaganda all his life, falling headlong into a story of awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, of all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden from me”
There is a series of revolutions taking place throughout this novel within the characters. You see them change as they bring new philosophies into their lives. Its an honest portrayal of the impact and the power of literature on the oppressed. How, for some people, we read for enjoyment, and for others, reading is a survival skill, to mentally survive mundane routines and oppressive, moody governments.
I’ve only done a brief reading of the Cultural Revolution in China, and this book has definitely sparked my interest in wanting to learn more about such a troubled time in such a powerful nation.
“Picture if you will, a boy of nineteen still slumbering in the limbo of adolescence, having heard nothing but revolutionary blather about patriotism, Communism, and ideology and propaganda all his life, falling headlong into a story of awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, of all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden from me”
There is a series of revolutions taking place throughout this novel within the characters. You see them change as they bring new philosophies into their lives. Its an honest portrayal of the impact and the power of literature on the oppressed. How, for some people, we read for enjoyment, and for others, reading is a survival skill, to mentally survive mundane routines and oppressive, moody governments.
I’ve only done a brief reading of the Cultural Revolution in China, and this book has definitely sparked my interest in wanting to learn more about such a troubled time in such a powerful nation.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,616 reviews