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Available
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Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (2010), Paperback, 448 pages
Description
Lu Xun is arguably the greatest writer of modern China, an is considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature. This new translation presents some of Lu Xun's best known short stories, including 'The Real Story of Ah-Q' and 'Diary of a Madman'.
User reviews
LibraryThing member xuebi
The complete prose works of Lu Xun are rightly counted as among the pinnacles of Chinese modern literature. Collected here, they show the progression of Lu's writings from the start of ther Xinhai revolution to the 30s or so. Highlights include Diary of a Madman - a scathing attack on the blind
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obedience to traditions that the new intellectuals blamed for China's woes; the title story (The Real Story of Ah-Q), and New Year's Sacrifice. To gain a better understanding of twentieth-century China and its history is to read Lu Xun. Show Less
LibraryThing member mnicol
Not sure how well these stories – mostly pretty depressing – are translated. I got the book because Leslie T. Chang referred to one of them, My Old Home, in an article for the New York Review in 2022. And then I saw Jeffrey Wasserstrom had puffed a translation by Julia Lovell which "could be
So we have: “Hope, I thought to myself, is an intangible presence that can neither be affirmed nor denied – a path that exists only where others have already passed. January 1921" (from "The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun (Penguin Classics)" by Lu Xun, translator Julia Lovell).
Chang translates the same passage infinitely better – she comments that ‘Lu Xun’s story has one of the most famous endings in modern Chinese literature:’ – “I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.”
Then the second last ‘old story retold’, where the tired hero sat at the foot of a tree to rest his feet!
The Lovell introduction is good, however, with a useful chronology and references. The Kindle is not the greatest – when you tap a footnote it defines the number. The section on Lu Xun in Wasserstom’s book on modern Chinese history is also helpful.
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considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published."So we have: “Hope, I thought to myself, is an intangible presence that can neither be affirmed nor denied – a path that exists only where others have already passed. January 1921" (from "The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun (Penguin Classics)" by Lu Xun, translator Julia Lovell).
Chang translates the same passage infinitely better – she comments that ‘Lu Xun’s story has one of the most famous endings in modern Chinese literature:’ – “I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.”
Then the second last ‘old story retold’, where the tired hero sat at the foot of a tree to rest his feet!
The Lovell introduction is good, however, with a useful chronology and references. The Kindle is not the greatest – when you tap a footnote it defines the number. The section on Lu Xun in Wasserstom’s book on modern Chinese history is also helpful.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
2009 (English: Lovell)
Physical description
448 p.; 7.78 inches
ISBN
9780140455489