Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused: Fiction from Today's China (Paperback)

by Howard Goldblatt (Editor) "That year, in the fall, I was assigned housing..." (more)
Key Phrases: Shu Nong, Shu Gong, Old Shu (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In contrast to the utopian official literature of Communist China, the stories in this wide-ranging collection marshal wry humor, entangled sex, urban alienation, nasty village politics and frequent violence. Translated ably enough to keep up with the colloquial tone, most tales are told with straightforward familiarity, drawing readers into small communities and personal histories that are anything but heroic. "The Brothers Shu," by Su Tong (Raise the Red Lantern), is an urban tale of young lust and sibling rivalry in a sordid neighborhood around the ironically named Fragrant Cedar Street. That story's earthiness is matched by Wang Xiangfu's folksy "Fritter Hollow Chronicles," about peasants' vendettas and local politics, and by "The Cure," by Mo Yan (Red Sorghum; The Garlic Ballads), which details the fringe benefits of an execution. Personal alienation and disaffection are as likely to appear in stories with rural settings (Li Rui's "Sham Marriage") as they are to poison the lives of urban characters (Chen Cun's "Footsteps on the Roof"). Comedy takes an elegant and elaborate form in "A String of Choices," Wang Meng's tale of a toothache cure, and it assumes the burlesque of small-town propaganda fodder in Li Xiao's "Grass on the Rooftop." Editor Goldblatt has chosen not to expand the contributors' biographies or elaborate on the collection's post-Tiananmen context. He lets the stories speak for themselves, which, fortunately, they do, quietly and effectively.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
The 20 authors represented here range from Wang Meng, the former minister of culture, to Su Tong, whose Raise the Red Lantern has been immortalized on screen.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (February 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802134491
• ISBN-13: 978-0802134493
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #716,190 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Some Good Stories, Some Obscure Ones, April 19, 2009

By	Reader in Tokyo - See all my reviews

This book was published in 1995 and collected 20 short stories by as many writers from the PRC. The stories were published there between 1985 and 1994.

The oldest writers were Wang Meng (1934-), Cao Naiqian (1949-), Li Rui (1950-) and Li Xiao (1950-). The youngest were Su Tong (1963-), Bi Feiyu (1964-) and Ge Fei (1964-). Others included Kong Jiesheng (1952-), Can Xue (1953-), Chen Cun (1954-), Mo Yan (1956-) and Yu Hua (1960-). Five of the writers were women.

In his introduction, the editor mentioned a few literary trends in the years leading up to this anthology. They included "scar" literature of the 1970s, focused on suffering during the Cultural Revolution; "root-seeking" literature of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which sought in the past for answers to Chinese identity; and social reformist literature from the mid-1980s, which sought to criticize the government from within. More recent trends included, after June 1989, the replacement of progressive criticism by mockery; a greater urge toward independence from societal and political pressures; anxious introspection; and probing of darker aspects of life and behavior, depicting surface stability and underlying turmoil.

The editor claimed that a thread of misanthropy, pessimism and "anti-Confucian family relations" ran through many of the works in the anthology. He wasn't exaggerating. Subjects included corruption in the countryside (Ge Fei), sexual trauma (Chen Ran), and a range of sexual and moral dysfunctions in relations between husbands and wives, and parents and children, many of whom were backward peasants or townspeople (Su Tong, Bi Feiyu, Cao Naiqian, Li Rui, Yang Zhengguang, Wang Xiangfu). From this anthology alone, the reader could well get the impression that China was doomed.

Some of the stories specialized in a dreamlike atmosphere of mystery or dread, local variants of magical realism. One by Chen Cun, about a man who moved into what might be a haunted apartment, was realistic on the surface but full of unexplained actions. One by Shi Tiesheng involved a narrator who climbed stairs in a building, imagined or experienced a story about people he observed, and ended up joining the story. One by Can Xue involved a murderer who fled into the mountains, turning slowly into another type of being. In another, by Yu Hua, a stranger was called to visit an expert who was supposed to punish him, before an unexpected development occurred. It seemed to be the Chinese counterpart of Kafka's "In the Penal Colony."

The time of the stories often seemed to be after the Cultural Revolution or the near-present. On the other hand, one story focused on two Nationalist soldiers and a lover who were fleeing the Communists after defeat in the late 1940s.

The most impressive stories for me were Su Tong's black descriptions of family dysfunction in which survival seemed to favor the bad. Mo Yan's chilling story set during an earlier time of political executions, which showed humans behaving like animals. Kong Jiesheng's cryptic story about the looting of art treasures from an archaeological dig, which might've been suggesting something about the loss of cultural heritage. Bi Feiyu's story that showed the stupidity of superstition, as well as the changes in society reflected in an old relative's varied collection of footwear.

And finally, a story by the oldest author, a government minister and political survivor. In it, a narrator described all the methods he'd tried to eliminate a toothache -- Chinese, Western, natural -- accomplished through a complex native system of connections, gift-giving and special privileges. Yet the tooth still ached. Other stories in the collection were too formless or otherwise obscure to be read between the lines.

I wish there'd been more stories approaching the poignancy and clarity of earlier writers like Lu Xun and Xiao Hong at their best, the irony and wit of Lao She, or the wry sophistication of Eileen Chang. But those writers were from a more distant time. This collection wasn't without problems, but felt worthwhile for the glimpse it afforded of the dark visions of a decade between the 1980s and 90s.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Colossal Disappointment, October 7, 2004

By	McDisco "McDisco" (Boston) - See all my reviews

This book provides an awful snapshot of modern Chinese fiction. With a few notable exceptions--Mo Yan's muscular, hard-hitting story 'The Cure' primary among them--the selected pieces are overwritten to the point of nonsense.

Consider this brain-bending sentence from Bi Feiyu's "The Ancestor": "The sky secreted a viscous historical atmosphere."

Awkward phrasing and mistranslated phrases make nearly every story in this collection painful to read. I got the sense that the Chinese authors are begging to be taken so seriously that they fill the stories with big words strung together to the point that they end up incomprehensible.

How does a sky secrete anything? And how is an atmosphere viscous?

Chairman Mao most certainly would not be amused.

In fact, he'd probably send Comrade Goldblatt in for some re-education.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Collection of Stories and Authors, July 7, 2000

By	Shogun Len "tokieyasu" (old bethpage, new york USA) - See all my reviews

A read the stories in this book as part of my training before a month long journey to China.

This is a very interesting book if you are interested in views of modern China. If you are not into Chinese culture, you will probably not find these stories interesting.

The translation is good and easy to follow. The story shows many different points of view regarding life in China today.

So again, if you like Chinese culture you will really enjoy these short stories.