A review by sidharthvardhan
The True Story of Ah Q by Xun Lu

3.0

This, Lu Xun's only novel is rather popular in China. There 'Ah-Q' is a mocking expression for someone who is finds meaningless spiritual victories in his defeats and loses. This is exactly what character of Ah-Q is constantly doing, finding spiritual victory whenever he is being beaten by people, which is a rather frequent occurance. The metaphor is rather strong - how many nations, cultures and individuals find something to be proud of in their most humiliating loses?

The writing seems to be strongly inspired by Gogol -the similar dark humour, similar display of humanity as something pathetic and similar use of deceptively simple looking story containing lots of allusions and metaphors, to understand which you need to have deep knowledge of Chinese culture.