kexiaoyun3's review against another edition
dark
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
levi_masuli's review
3.0
A collection of short stories situated during China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The very title of this book made me expect a Solzhenitsyn/Orwell type of political battering.
The Execution of Mayor Yin, 3 stars- This being the title story, I expected a lot from it. Truth to say, it was fine. A mayor who served whole-heartedly during the revolution became the object of doubt when he disobeyed the Party's order to collective the farms. The mayor, seeing that the call for collectivization will induce starvation among the citizens, made proposals for minimum retention of private property. He was eventually branded as a rightist, and was executed. We know that he will be executed (hence the title). The drama revolves around the reasons, the circumstances, of his death.
Chairman Mao Is a Rotten Egg, 2 stars- About two Chinese parents whose sole child uttered a blasphemous phrase, "Chairman Mao is a rotten egg." What would the communist officials do to the child? Punish him? Punish the parents? Punish the teacher? Or must it be punished it the first place? These are the baffling questions the story raised.
Night Duty, 2 stars- Some sort of a whoddunit story, but has undertones of how a socialist state deals with crime, specifically theft, and hunger amidst the difficulties of the revolution.
Residency Check, 2 stars- A promiscuous, but nonetheless care-free and naive woman became the subject to random late-night residency checks, meant to catch the woman in the 'act' of adultery. A story of how some people judge others who do not comply to their respective moral tastes.
Jen Hsui-Lan, 3 stars- A story about Jen Hsui-lan, an active member of the Party who eventually became a political enemy because of her extremist political tendencies. The plot revolves around how the townspeople, from the oldest to the youngest, search for fugitive Jen Hsui-lan around the city, even without knowing what she particularly did. There is a plot twist towards the end. All I can say is this is a sad, sad one.
The Big Fish, 2 stars- A very short comical story about an old man who wanted a buy a big fish for his family's dinner, but was not given the right to buy the fish, because foreign visitors are going to visit the market, with the officials wishing to present their best products for the said visitors.
Keng Erh in Peking, 5 stars- My favorite story. It seems as if the other stories are child's play compared to this one. It is about Keng Erh, an intellectual bachelor who studied in the US, looking back at his 49 years of existence. It is about his heartbreaks and his vertiginous solitude. The thing I particularly liked in the story is how Chen Jo-hsi managed to focus the story on the character itself and not on the political environment, while at the same time giving subtle criticisms. Unlike the other stories, it was heartbreaking and not annoying, and political ranting was shown and not told.
Nixon's Press Corps- Nixon is visiting China, and everyone in China are making preparations. A woman was told to demolish her clothes rack because it is an eye-sore. She displays her little rebellion by refusing to do so.
All in all the collection is tolerable. Nonetheless there still remains a certain amount of bitterness and sarcastic edge to the stories, making them somewhat less believable. I also understand that these stories come from the perspective of a privileged middle-class writer, and its aim is to highlight the struggle of the individual amidst the repressive force of the State. But let me just stress: why do middle-class writers often write about what we expect them to write? I mean, there is nothing new in this collection. Solzhenitsyn, Orwell, Zamyatin, Kundera, among others, are already in the bitter fray. It is becoming stale.
The Execution of Mayor Yin, 3 stars- This being the title story, I expected a lot from it. Truth to say, it was fine. A mayor who served whole-heartedly during the revolution became the object of doubt when he disobeyed the Party's order to collective the farms. The mayor, seeing that the call for collectivization will induce starvation among the citizens, made proposals for minimum retention of private property. He was eventually branded as a rightist, and was executed. We know that he will be executed (hence the title). The drama revolves around the reasons, the circumstances, of his death.
Chairman Mao Is a Rotten Egg, 2 stars- About two Chinese parents whose sole child uttered a blasphemous phrase, "Chairman Mao is a rotten egg." What would the communist officials do to the child? Punish him? Punish the parents? Punish the teacher? Or must it be punished it the first place? These are the baffling questions the story raised.
Night Duty, 2 stars- Some sort of a whoddunit story, but has undertones of how a socialist state deals with crime, specifically theft, and hunger amidst the difficulties of the revolution.
Residency Check, 2 stars- A promiscuous, but nonetheless care-free and naive woman became the subject to random late-night residency checks, meant to catch the woman in the 'act' of adultery. A story of how some people judge others who do not comply to their respective moral tastes.
Jen Hsui-Lan, 3 stars- A story about Jen Hsui-lan, an active member of the Party who eventually became a political enemy because of her extremist political tendencies. The plot revolves around how the townspeople, from the oldest to the youngest, search for fugitive Jen Hsui-lan around the city, even without knowing what she particularly did. There is a plot twist towards the end. All I can say is this is a sad, sad one.
The Big Fish, 2 stars- A very short comical story about an old man who wanted a buy a big fish for his family's dinner, but was not given the right to buy the fish, because foreign visitors are going to visit the market, with the officials wishing to present their best products for the said visitors.
Keng Erh in Peking, 5 stars- My favorite story. It seems as if the other stories are child's play compared to this one. It is about Keng Erh, an intellectual bachelor who studied in the US, looking back at his 49 years of existence. It is about his heartbreaks and his vertiginous solitude. The thing I particularly liked in the story is how Chen Jo-hsi managed to focus the story on the character itself and not on the political environment, while at the same time giving subtle criticisms. Unlike the other stories, it was heartbreaking and not annoying, and political ranting was shown and not told.
Nixon's Press Corps- Nixon is visiting China, and everyone in China are making preparations. A woman was told to demolish her clothes rack because it is an eye-sore. She displays her little rebellion by refusing to do so.
All in all the collection is tolerable. Nonetheless there still remains a certain amount of bitterness and sarcastic edge to the stories, making them somewhat less believable. I also understand that these stories come from the perspective of a privileged middle-class writer, and its aim is to highlight the struggle of the individual amidst the repressive force of the State. But let me just stress: why do middle-class writers often write about what we expect them to write? I mean, there is nothing new in this collection. Solzhenitsyn, Orwell, Zamyatin, Kundera, among others, are already in the bitter fray. It is becoming stale.
jesstootired's review
4.0
A very matter of fact set of stories about life in Cultural Revolution China. Each story demonstrates an insanity of the CR, but does so almost without apology. It's almost as if the author is saying "Here it is, take what you will from it." I enjoyed it very much, but also overall found the stories to be desperately sad.
sarahscire's review against another edition
4.0
First and only required reading for Chinese Literature that I actually enjoyed. The nuances of the language were conveyed semi-accurately which is much more than I can say for a lot of other works.
jeeleongkoh's review
4.0
The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a collection of eight stories. They tell, in a powerful and subtle manner, how Mao's disastrous experiment affected--destroyed--the lives of ordinary people. Their dominant tone is not denunciatory or self-righteous, but empathetic and observant when narrated in the third person, and self-protectively detached or complicit when narrated in the first. Many of the narrators share Chen's background: a former overseas scholar who returned from the USA to support the motherland. Despite their idealistic patriotism, they are doubly suspicious in Maoist ideology, first, for being an intellectual, second, for being an ex-American imperialist. These stories trace, in part, the disillusionment of these repatriates, who are sent to farms to be "re-educated" by labor.
The loss of idealism forms a painful backdrop to the strongest story of the collection "Geng Er in Beijing." The story stands out for its length and complexity, and also for the fact that it is not driven by a crisis, the way short stories usually achieve their direct impact. Instead, the crises in Geng Er's life are already over before the story begins. He loved and lost a woman to the Workers' Propaganda Corps. He loved a second woman but was prevented from marrying her by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The life he leads now is a much diminished thing, brightened only by the lucky chance of securing one of 20 bowls of hot mutton soup in a popular restaurant.
Chen does not comment on her characters, but lets their situations speak for themselves. It is an art of selection and organization, and often succeeds brilliantly. Both "The Execution of Mayor Yin" and "Ren Xiulan" end with a scene that is also an indelible image. "Residency Check" appears to be inconclusive--why does Leng not divorce his apparently adulterous wife?--until one realizes that its very inconclusiveness is a part of the writer's tact. In this story about the destructive effects of prying curiosity, to keep private affairs private is a public statement.
The loss of idealism forms a painful backdrop to the strongest story of the collection "Geng Er in Beijing." The story stands out for its length and complexity, and also for the fact that it is not driven by a crisis, the way short stories usually achieve their direct impact. Instead, the crises in Geng Er's life are already over before the story begins. He loved and lost a woman to the Workers' Propaganda Corps. He loved a second woman but was prevented from marrying her by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The life he leads now is a much diminished thing, brightened only by the lucky chance of securing one of 20 bowls of hot mutton soup in a popular restaurant.
Chen does not comment on her characters, but lets their situations speak for themselves. It is an art of selection and organization, and often succeeds brilliantly. Both "The Execution of Mayor Yin" and "Ren Xiulan" end with a scene that is also an indelible image. "Residency Check" appears to be inconclusive--why does Leng not divorce his apparently adulterous wife?--until one realizes that its very inconclusiveness is a part of the writer's tact. In this story about the destructive effects of prying curiosity, to keep private affairs private is a public statement.
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