The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan: A Novel of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia) [Hardcover]

Wang Anyi (Author), Michael Berry (Translator), and Susan Chan Egan (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231143427 | ISBN-13: 978-0231143424 | Publication Date: February 15, 2008

Set in post-World War II Shanghai, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow follows the adventures of Wang Qiyao, a girl born of the longtong, the crowded, labyrinthine alleys of Shanghai's working-class neighborhoods.

Infatuated with the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood, Wang Qiyao seeks fame in the Miss Shanghai beauty pageant, and this fleeting moment of stardom becomes the pinnacle of her life. During the next four decades, Wang Qiyao indulges in the decadent pleasures of pre-liberation Shanghai, secretly playing mahjong during the antirightist Movement and exchanging lovers on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Surviving the vicissitudes of modern Chinese history, Wang Qiyao emerges in the 1980s as a purveyor of "old Shanghai"—a living incarnation of a new, commodified nostalgia that prizes splendor and sophistication—only to become embroiled in a tragedy that echoes the pulpy Hollywood noirs of her youth.

From the violent persecution of communism to the liberalism and openness of the age of reform, this sorrowful tale of old China versus new, of perseverance in the face of adversity, is a timeless rendering of our never-ending quest for transformation and beauty.

(8/31/08)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Enamored by Hollywood in prerevolutionary China, Wang Qiyao serendipitously poses for a photograph that is chosen for the cover of Shanghai Life magazine. Dubbed A Proper Young Lady of Shanghai, she wins second runner-up in a 1946 beauty pageant and is soon mistress to a wealthy benefactor. After his death, marriage in her fallen state is out of the question, and Wang Qiyao embarks on a lonely, decades-long journey through Shanghai's myriad longtang, or vast neighborhoods inside enclosed alleys. In a beautifully constructed cyclical narrative from Wang Anyi (Baotown), fashion serves as the lens through which Wang Qiyao analyzes her descent from fleeting fame to desperate anonymity. Charting her fortunes becomes a metaphor for a vanished way of Shanghai life in this ingenious tale: friends and lovers come and go, Maoist China undergoes immense social and political changes (none explicitly detailed), yet Wang Qiyao finds that [t]here are only so many designs, and their rotation is what defines fashion. Only sometimes a cycle drags on too long. As the novel builds to its tragic conclusion, the manner in which character types and events recur against the city's shifting backdrop is impossible to forget. (Mar.)
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Review

Wang Anyi attempts to encapsulate the essence of her metropolis amid decades of twentieth-century vicissitudes. The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai is unquestionably the most acclaimed novel by one of China's most well-known authors. Michael Berry's translation is executed with care and is true to the original style.

(Robin Visser, assistant professor of Asian studies, University of North Carolina 5/4/08)

A beautifully constructed cyclical narrative... the manner in which character types and events recur against the city's shifting backdrop is impossible to forget.

(Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) May/June 09)

Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan's graceful translation... helps us understand why Wang Anyi is one of the most critically acclaimed writers in the Chinese-speaking world.

(Francine Prose New York Times Book Review )

A genuine classic.

(Bradley Winterton Taipei Times )

Spellbinding, colorful... a page-turner right up to the end.

(Helene Williams Historical Novels Review )

Certain to take a preeminent place in China's literary canon... The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is at last available in a masterful English translation.

(World Literature Today )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (February 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231143427
• ISBN-13: 978-0231143424
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #757,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent author ..., July 21, 2010

By 

Oldie But Goodie (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia) (Paperback)

This book is about Shanghai and the people who reside there. Anyi Wang not only describes the physical atmosphere so well you can vividly visualize it, but she evokes the emotion of the city. You can FEEL Shanghai - the activity, the secret lives, the energy. There were times I stopped reading so as to fully formulate the images she was painting in my mind's eye, not just the physical but the emotional as well, understanding the characters more deeply.

Anyi is eloquent and provocative. Her characters are fully fleshed out, both the good and the bad. When you are finished with the book, even those characters who act reprehensibly at times are still human. You feel for them, for their circumstances. All her characters make mistakes but most all are redeemed, as they pay the price for their decisions.

The story is winding, multi-faceted, covers a few decades and often spell-binding. Definitely a book for a leisurely read and one for those who like personal detail, to fully understand a character.

Recommended for mature teens and adults. The reason I say mature teens is because it is not a fast-paced book. The teen would have to be a perceptive person with an active mind who enjoys a slow, deep read.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Shanghai fiction, January 18, 2009

By 

Chris Miller "Chris Miller" (Chicago, Il USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan: A Novel of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia) (Hardcover)

Like some other classics of Shanghai fiction, this novel focuses on the the inner life of a smart, attractive, but somewhat materialistic girl/woman, and narrow scope is both the problem - and the blessing --of the novel. A problem for the reader who is curious about what's happening in the world outside the heroine, Wang Qiyao's, kitchen and bedroom -- especially to all the interesting secondary characters who arrive and then drop out of sight. But a blessing for the reader who savors intense moments of personal interaction that seem so perfectly drawn . It was popular enough in China to have been made into a feature film, but what it really calls for is a cook book and a line of cosmetics or designer jeans.

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive...., October 6, 2011

By 

RSeale - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan: A Novel of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia) (Hardcover)

I am not sure whether to give Ms. Wang or Berry/Egan (translators) the most credit. This is a heck of a book. It can seem slow at times but the author/translators provide a very deep and profound look into the heroine's, and Shanghai's, soul. This is very difficult to do as a writer and it will be one of the few books I am motivated to go back and read a second time -just for the enjoyment of the prose.