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

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

Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused: Fiction from Today's China
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Book Summary Information

Editor: Howard Goldblatt
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1996-02-15
ISBN: 0802134491
Number of pages: 322
Publisher: Grove Press

Book Reviews of Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused: Fiction from Today's China

Book Review: Colossal Disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars

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.

Summary of Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused: Fiction from Today's China

Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused is a showcase for 20 writers from the new literary generation in China. Hard-core realism, experimental prose, and black humor; exoticism and eroticism;shocking tales of brutality, tender evocations of love, and engrossing mysteries all coexist in an anthology that spans nearly a decade, ten years that have witnessed a dizzying array of societal and political changes. Almost all of the stories appear in English translation for the first time. Includes Shi Tiesheng, "First Person"; Hong Ying, "The Field"; Su Tong, "The Brothers Shu"; Wang Meng, "A String of Choices"; Li Rui, "Sham Marriage"; Duo Duo, "The Day I Got to Xi'an"; Chen Ran, "Sunshine Between the Lips"; Li Xiao, "Grass on the Rooftop"; Yu Hua, The Past and the Punishments"; Mo Yan, "The Cure"; Ai Bei, "Green Earth Mother"; Cao Naiqian, "When I Think of You Late at Night, There's Nothing I Can Do"; Can Xue, "The Summons"; Bi Feiyu, "The Ancestor"; Yang Zhengguang, "Moonlight over the Field of Ghosts"; Ge Fei, "Remembering Mr. Wu You"; Chen Cun, "Footsteps on the Roof"; Chi Li, "Willow Waist"; Kong Jiesheng, "The Sleeping Lion"; Wang Xiangfu, "Fritter Hollow Chronicles."

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