Diary of a Madman and Other Stories

The story begins with the narrator's visit to a pair of brothers who were close friends of his during his school years. The older brother informs him that the younger one suffered from a mental illness but got better and took a job in another city. During the time of his illness the brother kept a diary that the narrator is allowed to read. This is the "madman's diary" . The diary tells of the protagonist's growing obsession with the cannibalism which he believes is routinely practiced by those around him. He is convinced that sooner or later he will be eaten. As his paranoia increases, and with it his sense that cannibalism is widespread and prevalent even within his family, he despairs of saving himself.

I listened to the title story, rather than read the book (which might have made a difference). The madness of the protagonist was delineated very quickly and like ripples from a stone dropped into a pool, it rapidly and obsessively spread out with more and more detail. But the stone that sunk to the depths? The original causation factor? That was missing which left the book frustratingly without depth. Perhaps this is what madness looks like, it certainly isn't madness explained.

Very short story. Man studies Confucian classics, thinks people are going to eat him. There's a bit of a political metaphor.

�EEEEEEE­©E­E! (Save the children!)

Comprising Lu Xun’s two published collections of short stories, Cheering From the Sidelines, (1922) and Wondering Where to Turn (1925), these translations by William Lyell reveal Lu Xun as one of the supreme masters of the short story to rank alongside Chekhov and Maupassant, and the greatest writer of modern China, at once that country’s Dickens and Joyce.

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