Customer Reviews

Under the Red Flag (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ha Jin has created a collection of stories that are absolutely remarkable. "The Emperor" is a short story that ranks right beside The Lord of the Flies. With a ferocity not seen much these days, Ha Jin's short stories are forged in the same class as Dubliners by James Joyce, especially Joyce's "The Dead," but with a voice crossed between Hemminway and Dostoevsky

Ha Jin excels in writing vignettes that are simply refreshing to the non-Chinese reader. There are, however, better choices. I recommend the other collections like Ocean of Words and Bridegroom, which are more original and better written. Skip his novels, they tend to drag with unnecessary descriptions.

I am a huge fan of Ha Jin. I've read A Good Fall, A Free Life, and Bridegroom. I'm currently working on finishing my Ha Jin collection - this is the latest addition. I really enjoyed the collection of stories which chronicle the lives of various Chinese citizens during Mao's time in a rural town. I recommend it to anyone who would like to read about how the other side lived.

Though the stories in The Bridegroom, Ocean of Words, and A Good Fall are better written, this is still a fabulous collection of short fiction by any standard.

Portraying not the overall country of China during the post Cultural Revolution period, but instead portraying the everyday lives of the citizens farther from the major cities. Some of the stories are rather funny and light hearted, but many others are grim and serious. Overall there is a nice mix in this collection and it is well worth a read.

Highly recommended.

In these short satirical and sometimes cruel stories Ha Jin brushes realistic paintings of daily life in a Chinese village under the Cultural Revolution.

Political power (of the Communist Party) is an all important factor in people's lives.
But the Party is not a monolith. There are factions within the Party Committees who are loosely based on older human clans or cliques. Members try to exploit the personal shortcomings of adversaries who don't follow `the right path', to settle family quarrels (`Leniency Toward Those Who Confess; Severity To Those Who Refuse.')

Also, old customs and ways of thinking continue to haunt human relations.
There are the Confucian gender preferences (`the daughter had drowned herself and her baby girl because her husband and parents-in-law had scolded her for being unable to bear them a boy'), Buddhism (`How wise were Buddha's words: Desire and lust were the source of disaster'), the deeply ingrained factor of not to loose (or save) one's face and even fortune tellers.

Into the bargain, of course, there is sex (matchmakers, adultery, problems with mating of humans and even animals).

These short stories shine through their `social realism' and their human touch.
Highly recommended.

Ha Jin excels in writing vignettes that are simply refreshing to the non-Chinese reader. There are, however, better choices. I recommend the other collections like Ocean of Words and Bridegroom, which are more original and better written. Skip his novels, they tend to drag with unnecessary descriptions.

I like to leave this lovely book in our bathroom at home, so when Arsenal are playing at home, my girlfriend has something to read. If you've got a wet paint warning, our your house has been left devestated by a jam raid, or maybe tuna town is inaccessbile by skin boat, or the Beetle is up on blocks, this is the book for you and yours. Thoroughly satisflying.