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Title: The Carnal Prayer Mat by Yu Li, Patrick Hanan ISBN: 0-8248-1798-2 Publisher: University of Hawaii Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Beware of wrong Ingram description
Comment: Please note that the Ingram description shown above is for a different book. The Carnal Prayer Mat is about a lecherous Chinese scholar, not the memoirs of some Viennese schoolteacher.
Rating: 5
Summary: classic Chinese erotica
Comment: This is a bona fide world classic in literature. It stands as a classic both in erotica and pure (if such a thing exists) literature. This fable follows the sexual exploits of Scholar Vesperus who learns to find wisdom on the Carnal Prayer Mat so to speak. He refuses to learn spiritual wisdom through earnest prayer and hence learns his lessons the hard way. (pun not intended) He has his many affairs and shamelessly cheats on his wife. He even becomes a bigamist with a second wife in another town. The trickery involved is hysterical. It is reminiscent of The DeCameron of Boccaccio in the sneakiness of the characters. The humor is also a fabulous trait. Honest Quan gaining revenge is the moralistic turn. The Golden Rule was never so funny. Vesperus steals Honest Quans wife so Honest Quan debauches Vesperus wife. Li Yu strikes a moralistic posture in telling this tale but one can not help but feel that he had a smashing good time writing this book. Each chapter ends with a moral to the action. It merely adds to the humor. One can not help but feel that Li Yu is yanking the readers chain. The names for sexual positions and the numerous jokes on penis size are exquisite. He is having too much fun with the story. The reader also is having too much fun to be preoccuppied with the morals of each chapter. Of course, Vesperus does ultimately come to wisdom in the end. We should be grateful that he did learn the hard way. It was a lot more entertaining for us. This book will really dispell a lot of Western prejudices that hold the Chinese to be demure and asexual. (Well, there are over a billion people in China so they must know something about sex, but I wont go there.) I suggest this book to anyone interested in erotica and to anyone smallminded enough to doubt the wonderful sensuality and sexuality of classic Chinese literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: A classic and a hoot, too!
Comment: The best thing about THE CARNAL PRAYER MAT is not just that it's sexually adventurous -- it's that it's one of the FUNNIEST, craziest works of its kind. There are moments that are strikingly sophisticated and "modern", followed up by sexual antics that are as outrageous as anything in a Franz von Bayros print. Hong Kong's movie industry took the hint and has put out a series of (very) loose film adaptations (SEX AND ZEN, I-III), but the book remains forever tongue-in-cheekishly brilliant. A great choice for people who are getting fed up with acres of drippingly solemn Anne Rice-derived nonsense.
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Title: Tower for the Summer Heat by Yu Li, Patrick Hanan ISBN: 0231113854 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.50 |
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Title: The Golden Days (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 1) by Cao Xueqin, Hsueh-Chin Tsao, David Hawkes, O Kao, John Minford, Hsueh-Ch'in Ts'ao ISBN: 0140442936 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1974 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Six Records of a Floating Life (Penguin Classics) by Shen Fu, Leonard Pratt, Chiang Su-Hui ISBN: 0140444297 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1983 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: K: The Art of Love by Hong Ying, Henry Zhao, Nicky Harman ISBN: 0714530727 Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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