Scan barcode
jakeyjake's review
4.0
Lu Xun's writings can be strange and depressing, but reading them in the context of a failing China, Lu Xun's short stories are powerful and show a profound hope that China will rise above her current problems.
emolyfrog's review
The stories in this collection are fascinating. He repeats many themes in different variations (the crowd and the sick man, cannibalism, etc), which makes them very interesting to analyze. Though I don't necessarily agree with many of the conclusions of his stories, they are definitely masterfully done.
jthhhhhhhh's review
3.0
Lu Xun is considered by many to be the greatest modern Chinese writer (he died in the 1930s). His hometown is Shaoxing, which is where I am living right now, so I thought I should read this. A lot of it is sort of classic short story sad AND classic Chinese sad, which makes for stories that read like "A man had a hard life, and everyone made fun of him, and he died and everyone forgot him."
His foreword is actually very optimistic and stirring, and the final story in the collection, the one about opera, is funny, wistful, and sweet. Probably his most famous story, "the True Story of Ah Q," is funny, almost black-humor funny, but ends on quite a dark note.
P.S. I think this is the only translation available (Selected Stories of Lu Xun uses the same one as this Chinese/English one), but this printing, from a Chinese publisher, is riddled with typos.
His foreword is actually very optimistic and stirring, and the final story in the collection, the one about opera, is funny, wistful, and sweet. Probably his most famous story, "the True Story of Ah Q," is funny, almost black-humor funny, but ends on quite a dark note.
P.S. I think this is the only translation available (Selected Stories of Lu Xun uses the same one as this Chinese/English one), but this printing, from a Chinese publisher, is riddled with typos.
More...