Customer Reviews

The Embroidered Couch

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A delightful peek into life in the Late Ming Dynasty; almost anything went, or came. This is a book for serious research, joyful pleasure and good old-fashioned fun for everybody. Mature -- really mature -- themes, so it is not a gift for anyone until you have read it yourself. Guilty pleasures no more ... read this today.

This remarkable classic of Chinese literature dates back to the late Ming era, just over 400 years ago. Don't expect a proper Confucian allegory, though. This brief novel contains vivid descriptions of sexual play as explicit as anything on the bookshelves today.

It centers on Easterngate and his wife, Jin. After a tragic earlier marriage, Easterngate devotes himself to ensuring her physical pleasure in every way he can. So, when Jin sees Dali and falls for him, Easterngate arranges for her to take her pleasure with him. Since Dali has been Easterngate's catamite for many years, Easterngate can assure Jin of Dali's manly endowments and erotic eagerness. Jin tests that eagerness, riding herself so raw on him that she offers him rear entry so he can continue. Then, in the second chapter, Dali's widowed mother enters the mix and creates chances for loving between women as well as threesomes of various kinds, with many more vignettes than space allows. Then, in the last few pages, Heaven's retribution smites the sinners - a hasty afterthought to allow this to pass as a moralistic fable.

Despite this book's age, the goings-on have a wholly modern feel to them, encompassing a wide range of adult activities. Although modern and readable, the translation seems never wholly to settle into one style. Its literary voice alternates with earthy crudities, but never fuses them into a single style. Still, this translation offers a unique look at another era and culture, and reminds modern readers that people are the same everywhere. Times and tastes change, but the human animal's urges and outlets do not.

-- wiredweird