Six long stories, all written in the 1980s by a vigorously engage
Chinese writer who bluntly renders the inequities of a
tradition-bound culture indifferent to the rights of women and of
the Cultural Revolution's persecution of city dwellers sent to
peasant villages for "rustification." Though they share such
agendas, Zhu Lin's vivid stories display an impressive variety of
tones and styles, ranging from the harsh realism of "The Festival
of Graves" (in which a woman is forced, for political reasons, to
undergo a late-term abortion) to the buoyant comedy of "Flap-Eared
Hulk and His Bobtail Dog" to the suggestive allegory of the
legend-like, delicate title piece. A distinguished work from a very
accomplished contemporary. (Kirkus Reviews)
Jiangnan, that part of east-central China watered by the Yangzi
River, is the ironically Edenic setting for these six powerful
tales of devotion, betrayal, and defilement. Zhu Lin, a uniquely
angry female voice on China's literary scene, takes a particular
interest in the plight of young women whose exceptional qualities
condemn them to exploitation by men. No other contemporary Chinese
writer renders the hostility of rural society toward women in such
stark and ultimately tragic terms. Serpents tyrannize the innocent
in this fictional Jiangnan garden. The title story refers to a
fragrant, blood-red flower known as the snake's pillow, which
symbolizes an innocent girl betrayed and violated by a male figure
of authority. Immersed in the heady and sensual imagery of the
natural world, Zhu Lin's female protagonists invite comparisons not
only with Eve but also with Thomas Hardy's Tess. Zhu Lin has said
of her fiction that its purpose is to "summon the souls" of readers
who have lost themselves in the turbulence of a society in the
transition to modernity--and then to restore these lost souls to
the bodies they have left. An evocation of both flesh and spirit,
these Jiangnan stories give voice to the complex and disturbing
experience of women in a changing society.
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