Qian Zhongshu (1910–1998)

It's been called one of the greatest Chinese novels of the 20th century, and rightly so, for its literary sophistication, biting comedy of manners, and the tragic implications of social relations in 1930s China. There is no happy or sentimental resolution to the slow-motion collapse of the failed university-lecturer protagonist's failed marriage to a dull woman. Qian's observations are keen and details telling, such as this concise portrait of a woman sitting in a restaurant filing her nails show more (substitute Chinese woman in Starbucks today fiddling with iPhone): "She raised her head, her face filled with an expression of solemn unapproachability, as though having been wronged by men in a previous life, she was still keeping her guard up in this one. She looked him over a moment, shot her red lips over toward the left, then lowered her head and continued filing away at her nails." show less

If this book had been written by a foreigner, the writer would have been accused of racism at worst, or cultural chauvinism at least. In reviewing it, I am conscious that I will lay myself open to the same charges because Qian Zhongshu sees many of the same features and voices many of the same criticisms that foreigners do about Chinese culture. Published in 1947 at the height of the civil war in China, Qian Zhongshu’s classic Chinese novel is an extended examination of Chinese mores and show more culture, in which that culture is subjected to a savage critique which is at once bitterly accurate and very funny...

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An odyssey within the late 1930s China that masterfully exposes the many contradictions of the aspiring middle class through the trials and tribulations (and mostly poor decisions) of an disillusioned anti-hero. It provides insights into many facets of daily life - from the provincial academic world to the complex web of family relationships and obligations and the rules of courtship and marriage - through humor and satire certainly, but also through very thoughtful, intelligent and acute show more observations. A great read. show less

An odd book, sometimes clunky, but which ultimately stuck with me. The clunkiness is fairly straightforward: it reads more like a series of novellas parodying familiar genres (the tourist novella, the road trip novella, the campus novel, the romantic comedy, the romantic farce). Each of them has its merits, and they do hold together, just, but the structure is very odd.

That said, the parody and satire on both West and East (and West-in-East and East-in-West) is great. I'm unsure of the show more commentators' attempts to turn the book into a kind of existentialist zeitgeist thing about "what it means to be a 20th century Chinese man". I'm very sure that readers of twentieth century Anglofiction will enjoy it, as will any academics anywhere at anytime. show less