Fortress Besieged
Title | Fortress Besieged PDF eBook |
Author | Zhongshu Qian |
Publisher | New Directions Publishing |
Pages | 420 |
Release | 2004 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 9780811215527 |
A classic of Chinese literature, this magnificent litany of mishaps begins on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, when Fang Hung-chien, with no particular goal in life and a bogus degree from a fake university in hand, returns home to Shanghai, meeting two Chinese beauties, Miss Su and Miss Pao, on the way. Fang eventually obtains a teaching post at a newly established university in the interior, where he encounters effete pseudo-intellectuals. Soon he falls into a marriage of Nabokovian proportions of distress and absurdity.
Fortress Besieged (New Directions Classic)
Title | Fortress Besieged (New Directions Classic) PDF eBook |
Author | Qian Zhongshu |
Publisher | New Directions Publishing |
Pages | 420 |
Release | 2004-02-17 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 081122354X |
The greatest Chinese novel of the twentieth century, Fortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy, and middle-class Chinese society in the Republican era. Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, our hapless hero Fang Hung-chien (á la Emma Bovary), with no particular goal in life and with a bogus degree from a fake American university in hand, returns home to Shanghai. On the French liner home, he meets two Chinese beauties, Miss Su and Miss Pao. Qian writes, "With Miss Pao it wasn't a matter of heart or soul. She hadn't any change of heart, since she didn't have a heart." In a sort of painful comedy, Fang obtains a teaching post at a newly established university where the effete pseudo-intellectuals he encounters in academia become the butt of Qian's merciless satire. Soon Fang is trapped into a marriage of Nabokovian proportions of distress and absurdity. Recalling Fielding's Tom Jones in its farcical litany of misadventures and Flaubert's "style indirect libre," Fortress Besieged is its own unique feast of delights.
Fortress Besieged
Title | Fortress Besieged PDF eBook |
Author | Zhongshu Qian |
Publisher | |
Pages | 418 |
Release | 2003 |
Genre | China |
ISBN |
Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts
Title | Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts PDF eBook |
Author | Zhongshu Qian |
Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Pages | 233 |
Release | 2010-12-15 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 0231526547 |
Qian Zhongshu was one of twentieth-century China's most ingenious literary stylists, one whose insights into the ironies and travesties of modern China remain stunningly fresh. Between the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Communist takeover in 1949, Qian wrote a brilliant series of short stories, essays, and a comedic novel that continue to inspire generations of Chinese readers. With this long-awaited translation, English-language readers can immerse themselves in the invention and satirical wit of one of the world's great literary cosmopolitans. This collection brings together Qian's best short works, combining his iconoclastic essays on the "book of life" from Written in the Margins of Life (1941) with the four masterful short stories of Human, Beast, Ghost (1946). His essays elucidate substantive issues through deceptively simple subjects-the significance of windows versus doors, for example, or the blind spots of literary critics and assert the primacy of critical and creative independence. His stories blur the boundaries between humans, beasts, and ghosts as they struggle through life, death, and resurrection. Christopher G. Rea situates these works within China's wartime politics and Qian's literary vision, highlighting significant changes that Qian Zhongshu made to different editions of his writings and providing unprecedented insight into the author's creative process.
Enigma of China
Title | Enigma of China PDF eBook |
Author | Qiu Xiaolong |
Publisher | Macmillan |
Pages | 289 |
Release | 2013-06-18 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 125002580X |
The eighth novel in Qiu Xiaolong's acclaimed Chinese crime series sees Inspector Chen confronted by a terrible choice between Party politics or his principles - with his career at stake
Fortress Besieged
Title | Fortress Besieged PDF eBook |
Author | Chung-shu Chien |
Publisher | |
Pages | 377 |
Release | 1989 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
Rhodes Besieged
Title | Rhodes Besieged PDF eBook |
Author | Robert Douglas Smith |
Publisher | History Press |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2011 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9780752461786 |
Rhodes besieged