Rene Leys

by Victor Segalen

Other authorsIan Buruma, J.A. Underwood (Translator)
Paperback, 2003

Status

Available

Call number

843.912

Collection

Publication

NYRB Classics (2003), Paperback, 240 pages

Description

In this entrancing story of spiritual adventure, a Westerner in Peking seeks the mystery at the heart of the Forbidden City. He takes as a tutor in Chinese the young Belgian René Leys, who claims to be in the know about strange goings-on in the Imperial Palace: love affairs, family quarrels, conspiracies that threaten the very existence of the empire. But whether truth-teller or trickster, the elusive and ever-charming René presents his increasingly dazzled disciple with a visionary glimpse of " an essential palace built upon the most magnificent foundations."

User reviews

LibraryThing member V.V.Harding

Pierre Ryckmans, whom I admire more day by day as I read his essays collected as The Hall of Uselessness, took his pen name of Simon Leys from the title character of this book, and one wondered why, and who Victor Segalen is.

Rene Leys is a well-wrought, innovative, and consistently compelling
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novel about the way China can capture a westerner's imagination, a certain kind of westerner, open to the culture and history of the ancient kingdom, and with a touch of romance to the soul.

The novel immerses its readers in the world –- and it is truly a world of its own -- of early 20th-century "Pei-King" at the end of the imperial rule, arriving at a surprising and somewhat disconcerting denouement. It's impossible to say much more about the plot without saying too much; at least in part it's a sort of mystery.

The translation by J. A. Underwood is effortless and attractive, and you should not read either of the two prefaces, by the translator and by Ian Buruma, in advance, or the book will not be able to operate as it was designed to –- go directly to the novel itself.

Rene Leys has been reissued in a beautiful new NY Books edition, so well designed and of such quality materials that, after so many novels on near-newsprint, it's a small separate pleasure. But not on the scale of the work itself –- highly recommended, and the internet will provide useful and enjoyable images, including diagrams of the Beijing imperial palace at the time.
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LibraryThing member greeniezona
I can't even begin to describe how thoroughly enthralled I was by this novel. (And how happy I was to not have read the introduction before reading the book.) An entrancing account of China in 1911 from a European perspective, this is a book of being on the outside looking in, and of romanticizing
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the unknown. And was absolutely a pleasure to read. Recommended very highly, this is the best fiction I've read in quite a while!
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Language

Original language

French

Original publication date

1922

Physical description

240 p.; 7.99 inches

ISBN

1590170415 / 9781590170410

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