Product Description

Here is one of those rare novels, so captivatingly original, so absurdly funny, surprising and moving, that it crosses all boundaries. In 1971 Mao's campaign against the intellectuals is at its height. Our narrator and his best friend, Luo, distinctly unintellectual but guilty of being the sons of doctors, have been sent to a remote mountain village to be 'reeducated'. The kind of education that takes place among the peasants of Phoenix Mountain involves carting buckets of excrement up and down precipitous, foggy paths, but the two seventeen-year-olds have a violin and their sense of humour to keep them going. Further distraction is provided by the attractive daughter of the local tailor, possessor of a particularly fine pair of feet. Their true re-education starts, however, when they discover a comrade's hidden stash of classics of great nineteenth-century Western literature - Balzac, Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy and others, in Chinese translation. They need all their ingenuity to get their hands on the forbidden books, but when they do their lives are turned upside down. And not only their lives: after listening to their dangerously seductive retellings of Balzac, the Little Seamstress will never be the same again. Without betraying the truth of what happened, Dai Sijie transforms the bleak events of China's Cultural Revolution into an enchanting and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit and the magical power of great storytelling.

Product Details

• Published on: 2003-09
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 199 pages

Le Figaro
'If you can only read one novel, choose this one, it's worth a hundred'.

The Spectator
'An enchanting tale from a pernicious period in Chinese history. Sijie has written a jewel of world literature.'

The Scotsman
'Wholly delightful, intelligent, funny and unexpected. A remarkable book, offering sheer delight.'

Customer Reviews

How love and literature triumph over grey political dogma
This book is a gem, set during the dark days of China's Cultural Revolution, in which novels, particularly novels from the non-communist world, were banned. Two young men from 'bourgeois' families are sent to the remote mountains of Szechuan for a political 're-education' which takes the form of sharing the back-breaking and frequently dangerous work of the peasants. During their stay on Phoenix Mountain the young men's 're-education' takes on another form as they discover an illicit cache of European classic novels, including the works of Balzac and Flaubert. Through the pages of these novels they are able to enter a world of sensuality and sensitivity far removed from the harshness of Mao's China. They use the stories learned from Balzac to win the attention of the book's most delightful character, the Little Seamstress herself, a wild and beautiful mountain flower. The effect on the Little Seamstress of the French stories, the way she too is re-educated, generates one of the most important and poignant strands of this novel's plot. There are many moments of humour in Sijie's book - for instance, when the character Four-Eyes attempts to turn a bawdy folk-song into Maoist propaganda. There are moments too of stunning beauty, as in Sijie's description of the Little Seamstress swimming in the mountain pool, and moments towards the end of the novel of intense pathos. Despite the book's short length, Sijie manages to achieve a narrative of great emotional power as he celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the face of tyranny: Mao's great ideological apparatus is no match for the capacity of young men to fool around, cheat authority, and pursue friendship and love - and Sijie shows that no grey life-denying dogma can ever repress the great tide of life that surges through every appearance in this beautiful novel of the Little Seamstress herself.

Superficialy Simple, Perhaps It's A Not-So-Hidden Allegory?
Set in the midst of China's Cultural Revolution in 1971, this debut from Sijie (who himself was sent to be reeducated from '71-'74) tells the story of two urban teenage boys who are sent to reeducation camp and the beautiful peasant seamstress they meet and become enamored of. Through a series of semi-adventures the boys end up with a secret cache of translated popular French novels (Balzac, Dumas, et al). As corrupting pieces of bourgeois culture they are dangerous totems to posses. However as tools to engineer mental escape from the mind-numbing rigors of manual labor, they are worth their weight in gold to the boys.

One of the boys comes up with the notion that reading these sophisticated and thrilling stories to the seamstress will help improve and transform her beyond her humble roots. And it does, though not in the way that they (or the reader) may expect. On its surface it's a simple tale told in elegant and simple prose. If that were all there were to it, I'd dismiss it as so much fluff, however... there is too much symbolism involved to leave it at that. From the boy's assigned task of hauling pails of excrement up a hill, to the seamstresses encounter with a snake, there are many many indications of another level of meaning.

One could make a good case that the one boy symbolizes China's late '90s headlong rush into embracing Western values, and the other boy is his complicit accomplice. Together they use their gift of gab to fill the uneducated peasant girl's head with visions of a world beyond her imagining, via the stories they tell based on the French novels. The one boy plays a game with her of tossing his glittering keychain (symbolic of the riches waiting back in the city) into the water, where she dives for it, scarring her hand in one attempt. But she doesn't learn her lesson, as the boy and temptation lead her to further suffering (she has an abortion). Finally, she is transformed and exhibits the true selfishness necessary to get ahead in the newly urbanizing China. That's just off the top of my head, but I think there's definitely something there, otherwise it's just a cute little story.

Different
The story of two students forced to work as manual labourers during the cultural revolution gives a fascinating insight into the chinese way of life during that period.The story runs along at a brisk pace until two thirds of the way through when it seems to jump several months at once. It's as though the publishers demanded the story be finished and so it was a rush job to tie up all the loose ends and finish on time. Having said that I still thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone looking for something slightly unusual.`