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Title: A Dictionary of Maqiao by Shaogong Han, Julia Lovell, Han Shaogong ISBN: 0-231-12744-8 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: May this book find its way to many, many readers.
Comment: Thank you, Han Shaogong, for a wonderful, thought-provoking novel. The fiction you deliver, cloaked in the garb of a regional history, transcends time, place, and language to offer an incredibly precise and well-crafted definition of 'being.' Your point concerning the importance of defining experience and expression on a scale less grand than that of global village is well-delivered and it imbues A Dictionary of Maqiao with a message of hope. As more readers come to this book, may it gain the recognition it deserves. We in Western culture are lucky to have this story available to us in translation.
Rating: 5
Summary: This book takes me back to my home and my childhood
Comment: This book takes me back to my home, a village in Southern Hunan Province, China, and to my childhood. When I was reading, the stories and the people jump out of the book onto my memory. It reminds me of my childhood friends, my relatives, the village doctors, the traveling smith and craftsmen.
When I was 6 or 7 years old, I often grazed water buffalos with my friends in the slops of Wuling (Five Peaks) Mountain. One day we saw a World War II bomb delivered by the Japanese airplane. We were so curious, excited and naïve. We moved it to the grain yard of our agricultural production brigade on the buffalos?back. Fortunately, the explosive was already gone possibly because of aging and weathering. This book forces me to recall the detail of this incident and reassure that nobody was hurt by our ignorance.
During that time our village was often visited by a locksmith, who is the one spoke "xiang qi?accent. He was tall with broad shoulders and white beard. He carried two cabinets covered by glasses on a bamboo pole. Whenever he came, we surrounded his workshop area in the grain yard. He was always accompanied by a young boy of our age. I never figured out why that boy would play with us while the locksmith was making the 5 or 10 cent deals with the adults. The visit was usually about two to three hours. Then they left for other villages. We saw them off in sun and in rain. They did not take away anything from us. But they brought us excitements every time.
In our area, we had village doctors they used to practice Chinese medicine in Jianxi province. They always told us that people from Jianxi province were our relatives. We greeted each other "Lao Biao? I would always have remembered them because I was often sent by my mom to ask for medicine help when our family members felt unease.
Our village also hosted two youngsters from the city. At that time, there were about 16 or 17 years old. They worked hard to learn and to grow up. I didn't know what was their feeling when they lived in our village. But I know the villagers are still talking about them and wishing them well.
I never had the habit to keep a dairy for my past. I have forgot many things about my childhood. The author of this book recorded the language I have used and the stories I have experienced. It reminds me many of my happiness and sadness.
If you want to understand Chinese society, Chinese people, and the rural areas in China, I recommend you read this book. The writing is crisp, the information is practical, and the stories are true. The translation is great.
At this pint, a pop-rice master is walking towards me from the book, with the black, bomb-shaped and air-tight rice cooker, the charcoal stove and the bellow on his shoulder. The black soot covers his face. His smiling reveals only his eyes and teeth. I hear the explosion of the air. Now, I am going to put a bag of popcorn in my microwave so that I will progress with the book and step back to my hometown with my uncle.
Rating: 5
Summary: Maqiao Mysteries
Comment: This masterful and quite heady novel tackles the history of a fictitious town buried deep in China, a place protected by rivers and mountains. When a a "sent-down" worker from the city joins a group of urbanites to live in the town, they discover a place that's almost a metaphor for Chinese life -- cast in reverse.
Han Shaogong guides the reader through the fictitious author's "dictionary" of Maqiao, which acquaints us with a baffling set of customs, and a people who view themselves as a kind of "Middle Kingdom," in which the outside world is shunned. The novel becomes an inventive expose of Shaogong's sometimes profound insights into the restrictions of culture and language. The book's episodes can be rigorously dry or unexpectedly moving.
The diligent reader will be rewarded. The depth and honesty of Shaogong's insights reach to the present day, and his small town of Maqiao is certain to leave a deep impression. This prize-winning novel is a dictionary that compels your interest and enjoyment..
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Title: Chronicle of a Blood Merchant : A Novel by Yu Hua ISBN: 037542220X Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Red-Color News Soldier by Li Zhensheng ISBN: 0714843083 Publisher: Phaidon Press Inc. Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Candy by Mian Mian ISBN: 0316563560 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: To Live : A Novel by Yu Hua ISBN: 1400031869 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Globalization and Cultural Trends in China by Kang Liu, Liu Kang ISBN: 0824827597 Publisher: University of Hawaii Press Pub. Date: January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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