Scan barcode
A review by jakeyjake
Rickshaw Boy by Lao She
4.0
I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Lao She's novella Cat Country in 2013, but it was only this year that I finally read Lao She's two most famous works (Rickshaw Boy, and the play Teahouse).
This is a sad story. Worth reading, but depressing at times. There are moments when Xiangzi seems like he's on the up-and-up, but they never last long. If you've read Yu Hua's To Live, you have the general flavor of hope and endurance battered down by a lifetime of hardships. But this story takes place well before that one. Xiangzi has such small ambition—to own his own rickshaw and maybe have a wife—but everything from abduction and theft to rich manipulative women get in his way.
This is a sad story. Worth reading, but depressing at times. There are moments when Xiangzi seems like he's on the up-and-up, but they never last long. If you've read Yu Hua's To Live, you have the general flavor of hope and endurance battered down by a lifetime of hardships. But this story takes place well before that one. Xiangzi has such small ambition—to own his own rickshaw and maybe have a wife—but everything from abduction and theft to rich manipulative women get in his way.