A review by bradleys
Border Town by Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Congwen Shen

2.0

Though frequently compared to [a:Lu Xun|7509399|Lu Xun|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1426653622p2/7509399.jpg] in his impact on modern Chinese literature, Shen's chef d'œuvre pales in comparison to both the tragic-realist depiction of rural living in [a:Mao Dun|4833374|Mao Dun|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1459718274p2/4833374.jpg]'s seminal "[b:Spring Silkworms|487991|The Shop of the Lin Family & Spring Silkworms|Mao Dun|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347345941l/487991._SY75_.jpg|476264]" or the radical redefinition of the literary norms made manifest in Lu's corpus. Border Town's saving grace is the rich depiction of the inner live of its otherwise unrealistically perfect characters.