Crescent Moon and Other Stories (Panda Books) [Paperback]

She Lao (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Chinese (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: China Books & Periodicals; 1st edition (December 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0835113345
• ISBN-13: 978-0835113342
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,517,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Title Story is Excellent, July 23, 2007

By 

D. Goodpasture (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Crescent Moon and Other Stories (Panda Books) (Paperback)

"Crescent Moon" is a very powerful short story, about 40 pages, in which a young girl's father dies leaving her and her mother to fend for themselves. It is told in the first person from the point of view of the young girl. Neither she nor her mother is named. The Crescent Moon provides the only consistency in her life. It is the 1930s in China and times are tough. The mother works hard but never makes enough to subsist so she accepts a series of undesirable marriages and ultimately ends up prostituting in order to keep her daughter in school.

The daughter finds after graduation that her opportunities are also very limited. She is very proud and cynical and refuses to play the hand that fate has dealt her, i.e. becoming a mistress or a cleaning woman. She scorns love as an illusion of the bourgeoisie and becomes a prostitute because she feels it allows her control over her life and enables her to support her mother, who is now too old to prostitute. This very profound short story bares uncanny similarities to a novella called Woman at Point Zero written by Egyptian psychiatrist Nawal El Saadawi in the 1970s. I can not help wondering if Saadawi was inspired by Lao She. Both Lao She's and Saadawi's protagonists execrate their hypocritical societies. Woman at Point Zero also bares uncanny similarities to Li Ang's short story "Curvaceous Dolls" in which the protagonist is stalked by a pair of judgmental eyes.

I have been reading through the original Chinese version of the story with the help of my Chinese study-partner. We've noticed that the original Chinese version is more crude and contains some details not found in Shapiro's English translation. I don't know if this was out of fear of offending the Anglophone audience or embarrassing Republican Era China.

Another short story in this anthology, "A Vision" is also excellent. It is also about a woman who due to circumstances beyond her control spirals into a life of prostitution and then dies after a series of abortions. The difference is that the story is told by her childhood love, who for social reasons could not marry her.

What makes "Crescent Moon" so powerful is that it is told in the first person and is void of names and identifying details. This makes it a universal story. I'd say it's like the literary equivalent of Bruce Lee's one inch power punch.