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In this Ming-era novel, historical narrative, raucous humor, and
the supernatural are interwoven to tell the tale of an unsuccessful
attempt to overthrow the Song dynasty. A poor young girl meets an
old woman who gives her a magic book that allows her to create rice
and money. Her father, terrified that his daughter's demonic nature
might be discovered, marries her off. Forced to flee, she and
others with supernatural abilities find themselves in the midst of
a grotesque version of a historical uprising, in which facts are
intermingled with slapstick humor and wild fictions. Attributed to
the writer Luo Guanzhong, Quelling the Demons' Revolt is centered
on the events of the rebellion led by Wang Ze in 1047-48. But it is
a distorted, humorous version, in which Wang Ze's lieutenants show
up as a comical peddler and a mysterious Daoist priest and a
celebrated warrior appears despite having died many years earlier.
Rather than fantastic adventures and supernatural marvels, the
author points to human vanities and fixations as well as social
injustice, warning of the vulnerability of any pursuit of order in
a world plagued by demonic forces as well as mundane corruption.
Although the story takes place long before the era in which it was
written, ultimately Quelling the Demons' Revolt is the story of the
Ming dynasty in Song masquerade, presciently warning of the
dynasty's downfall. The novel is divided into chapters, but in many
ways it is an arrangement of self-contained stories that draw on
vernacular storytelling. This translation offers English-speaking
readers a spirited example of social critique combined with caustic
humor from the era of Luo Guanzhong.
In his preface, the anonymous author of Courtesans and Opium
describes his book as an act of penance for thirty years spent
patronizing the brothels of Yangzhou. Written in the 1840s, his
story is filled with vice and dark consequence, portraying the
hazards of the city's seedy underbelly and warning others against
the example of the Fool. Chinese literature's first true "city
novel," Courtesans and Opium recounts the illustrious career of a
debauched soul enveloped by enthralling pursuits and romantic
illusions. While socially acceptable marriages were arranged and
often loveless, brothels offered men accomplished courtesans who
served as both enchanting companions and sensual lovers. These
professional sirens dressed in the latest styles and dripped with
gold, silver, and jewels. From an early age, they were taught to
excel at various arts and graces, which transformed the brothel
into a kind of club for men to meet, exchange gossip, and smoke
opium at their leisure. The Fool's fable follows five sworn
brothers and their respective relationships with Yangzhou
courtesans, revealing in acute detail the lurid materialism of this
dangerous world-its violence and corruption as well as its
seductive but illusory promise. Never before translated into
English, Courtesans and Opium offers a brilliant window into the
decadence of nineteenth-century China.
In the 300 years since its initial publication, Li Yu's book has
been widely read in China, where it is recognized as a benchmark of
erotic literature and currently enjoys the distinction of being a
banned-in-Beijing classic.
In the three hundred years since its initial publication, Li Yu's
The Carnal Prayer Mat has been widely read in China, where it is
recognized as a benchmark of erotic literature and currently enjoys
the distinction of being a banned-in-Beijing classic. The story
centers on Scholar Vesperus, a handsome orphan and student of Zen.
Before taking his monastic vows, Vesperus embarks on a career of
licentiousness. His adventures as "hero of the boudoir, a champion
of sex" take both comic and calamitous turns, until eventually he
attains "enlightenment on the carnal prayer mat".
Li Yu, 1610-1680, was a brilliant comic writer and entertainer,
a thoroughgoing professional whose life was in his work-plays,
stories, a novel, criticism, essays, and poems. Patrick Hanan
places him in the society of his day, where even his precarious
livelihood, his constant search for patronage, did not dampen his
versatility, his irreverent wit, or his jocund spirit. Li was also
an epicure, an inventor, a pundit, and a designer of houses and
gardens. He was an exceptional figure in Chinese culture for two
reasons: his disregard of the authority of tradition, and his
dedication to the cause of comedy.
Hanan uses the term "invention" in his title in several ways:
Li Yu's invention of himself, his public image-his originality and
inventiveness in a multitude of fields and the literary products of
his inventiveness. With expert and entertaining translations Hanan
explores the key features of Li Yu's work, summarizing, describing,
and quoting extensively to convey Li's virtuosity, his
unconventionality, his irreverence, his ribaldry. This is a
splendid introduction to the art and persona of a Chinese master of
style and ingenuity.
Published within a few months of each other in 1906, Stones in the
Sea by Fu Lin and The Sea of Regret by Wu Jianren take opposite
sides in the heated turn-of-the-century debate over the place of
romantic and sexual love and passion in Chinese life. The Sea of
Regret, which came to be the most popular short novel of this
period, is a response to the less well-known but equally
significant Stones in the Sea. Taken together, this pair of novels
provides a fascinating portrait of early twentieth-century China's
struggle with its own cultural, ethical, and sexual redefinition.
Patrick Hanan's masterful translation brings together these novels
-- neither of which has before been available in any foreign
language -- in a single volume, with a valuable introduction and
notes. A tour de force in the art of translation. 'The Sea of
Regret' is not only accurate, but, in the typical Hanan fashion, it
is succinct and elegant as well. Impeccable work from an eminent
scholar of Chinese fiction and a master of prose. --Lee Ou-fan Lee,
UCLA These two short novels are especially interesting for their
insights into the debate in educated circles concerning marriage,
family, and the status of women. The chaos in China caused by the
Boxer Rebellion of 1900 is also vividly rendered in both works.
Readers will find not only intrinsic interest but also historical
relevance in these early modern novels. --Michael S. Duke,
University of British Columbia Patrick Hanan is Victor S. Thomas
Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. He is the
author of The Chinese Vernacular Story and The Invention of Li Yu
and the translator of The Carnal Prayer Mat and A Tower for the
Summer Heat.
Li Yu, considered a master of comedy in Chinese literature, was a
novelist, playwright, and essayist in the 17th century. In this
collection, patrick Hanan has translated six of the twelve stories
in the Sh'ier lou collection, which is one of the most famous
individual collections of vernacular stories from pre-modern China.
With Hanan's introduction and notes, and containing Li Yu's
emphasis marks, notes, and critiques, this volume should be of
interest to students of Chinese literature and general readers
alike.
Falling in love, with all its accompanying problems, was a subject
of obsessive interest among writers and readers in the Ming
Dynasty, when society held strictly to arranged marriages. The
stories in this engaging collection all deal with this theme in
very different ways, sometimes comically, sometimes tragically.
They portray young people choosing their own lovers, resorting to
ingenious stratagems and risky escapades in defiance of
contemporary mores. Chosen to represent the best works from the
great age of the vernacular story, they offer an admirable
introduction to the world of Chinese fiction in this era. All of
the stories in ""Falling in Love"" have been translated especially
for this volume, and most appear here in translation for the first
time. They are taken from two works, ""Constant Words to Awaken the
World"" (Xing shi heng yan) and a related collection, ""The Rocks
Nod Their Heads"" (Shi dian tou), both published in the early
seventeenth century.
"It's such a pity! I, too used to think of money and love as
entirely separate things." So begins this popular autobiographical
novel, written by litterateur, inventor, and business tycoon Chen
Diexian (1879-1940), a remarkable intellectual whose life spanned
the old China and the new. Chen's novel is the story of his youth,
and in it he chooses to focus on his amorous and erotic
development-a rare subject in Chinese literature-revealing his
passage from innocent boy, surrounded by females, to young man,
armed with a new attitude toward money, business, and the women in
his life. Chen's unusual narrative, intimately combining romance
and exhibitionism, unfolds to us an intriguing material reality as
well as a powerful emotional world and may well be the first
extended account of Chinese childhood and youth. The novel is built
on our narrator's relationships with the central women in his life:
his mother; an affectionate nanny; his devoted wife by an arranged
marriage; a tragic peasant girl; and above all, the girl next door
and his most enduring love, known-after the instrument she plays-as
Koto. Patrick Hanan's graceful translation brings us Chen's story
at its disarming best, a popular romance that is at the same time
original and distinctive in both voice and theme. First serialized
in Shanghai in 1913, The Money Demon appears in English for the
first time; included in an appendix is "The Koto Story," a short
epilogue to the novel.
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