Rear dust jacket notes: "Lu Wenfu is an engagingly honest and sympathetic voice among China's major writers. His outstanding novella The Gourmet and the other stories in this collection chronicle the immediate history of China, from the Revolution to the mid-eighties, with a timeless ease that befits their setting among Suzhou's ancient and elegant canals and gardens. Under Lu Wenfu's incisive yet tolerant eye, the wonton sellers, rickshaw pullers, teachers, hedonists and bureacrats of his beloved city try to adapt to the recurring upheavals of four decades of revolution. The results are comic, moving and always surprising, as we catch a glimpse of today's China from within - beyond the retaining wall of slogans, campaigns and political movements."
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Most of the stories in this collection at least touch upon China's wrenching anti-Rightist campaigns of the '50s, '60s and '70s, if not have them as a central subject. The novella-length title story is suffused with exquisite irony: the errand boy of a rich gourmet becomes a restaurant manager after the revolution, then in today's new political climate finds that his former master's gluttony, which he reviles, is indispensable to his business. "The Boundary Wall" is a quietly hilarious piece about the huffery and puffery that occurs when a committee sets out to accomplish a project. "Graduation," the only story not told in a distinctly male voice, is a vivid, immediate and poignant tale about an old woman's unwillingness to relinquish the ties to her past, painful as it was. "World of Dreams, a Valediction," is a poetic, almost ethereal, evocation of Lu's home city. Readers around the world will be glad that a voice of this caliber has been allowed to speak again.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Chinese
Original Language: Chinese
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful suprize,
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This review is from: The Gourmet and Other Stories of Modern China (Hardcover)
This book was a wonderful surpize with a selection of short stories set in China. Remarkable insights into the real life culture of a certain part of China that makes you want to visit. While labeled as a dissident, the author obviously has great love for the country and it people. If he is living in exile, they are missing a great talent. The writing is engagingly simple but the impact is simply enchanting. No doubt readers will have their favorite stories; mine was the one about the re-building of a destroyed wall. Certainly humorous and wonderfully satirical. Definitely worth reading and re reading. My used copy was in great shape.
4.0 out of 5 stars
World Literature - Excellent choice,
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This review is from: The Gourmet and Other Stories of Modern China (Hardcover)
I used this book for a World Literature project, and found it to be an exquisite account of the land and culture of China during the very intense years of the Cultural Revolution. I would recommend this book, though in future I would get a new copy. It's amazing that this was a library discard!
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