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...
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...
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 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...
Its 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. Chens 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...
Its such a pity I, too used to think of money and love as entirely separate things.
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...
Falling in love, with all its accompanying problems, was a subject of obsessive interest among writers and readers in the Ming Dynasty, when societ...
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...
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...
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...
Li Yu, 1610-1680, was a brilliant comic writer and entertainer, a thoroughgoing professional whose life was in his work-plays, stories, a novel, c...
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 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...
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...
In this Ming-era novel, historical narrative, raucous humor, and the supernatural are interwoven to tell the tale of an unsuccessful attempt to overth...