Sneaking around Chairman Mao
The last person who read this book was eating a danish.
Little greasy philo-pastried crumbs stick in the crevices of its open spine. Someone else picked their ear, spreading an uninspired debree of wax beside the script. Pages permanently pressed into corners for lack of a bookmark.
The wonders of library books.
The latest one I picked up called Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is beautiful. Both on the inside and out.
Frustration with the computer cataloguing system led me to browze the bookshelves on foot. A red oriental flowered pattern drew in my eye. The tiny red shoes on the cover and the words, "National Bestseller" finalized my decision.
It's fictional - with some truth to it, as all good fiction books are said to be. The hotel manager from Pretty Woman once told me that "fiction is more accurate than non-fiction" when I sold him a sandwich in a downtown bistro.
The story explores two young men's pressing desires to obtain cultural material during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. A concept of "re-education," enforced by Chairman Mao's China, turned people's working lives and cultural passions upside down. Books were banned, and those who held prestigious positions were either imprisoned or ripped from city life to work as manual labourers.
I added to the book's grafitti by lightly marking my favourite sections in pencil. But I promise, after I copy them down, I'll rub them out!
"There was no road to the mountain, only a narrow pathway threading steeply through great walls of craggy rock. For a glimpse of a car, the sound of a horn, a whiff of restaurant food, indeed for any sign of civilisation, you had to tramp across rugged mountain terrain for two days."
"It was not hard to imagine the scene: the bug-infested bed upon which Four-Eyes lay, fighting to stay awake in case the old man happened to sing snatches of sincere, authentic folk songs in his sleep, while the lice swarmed out of their hiding places to attack in the dark, sucking his blood, skating on the slippery lenses of his spectacles, which he hadn't removed for the night."
" 'You shouldn't lose hope either. As for me, although I seem to be busy knitting this blue sweater, what I'm really doing is composing poems in my head, while my hands are occupied.' "
"Suddenly the fruit falls, streaking through the air towards me, slicing the surface of the water like an arrow with barely a splash.
In the days before his detention, my father used to say that dancing was not something that could be taught, and he was right. The same is true of diving and writing poetry, for the best divers and poets are self-taught. Some people can spend their lives having lessons and still resemble stones when the hurtle through the air. They never achieve the lightness of dropping fruit."
-Dai Sijie
Little greasy philo-pastried crumbs stick in the crevices of its open spine. Someone else picked their ear, spreading an uninspired debree of wax beside the script. Pages permanently pressed into corners for lack of a bookmark.
The wonders of library books.
The latest one I picked up called Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is beautiful. Both on the inside and out.
Frustration with the computer cataloguing system led me to browze the bookshelves on foot. A red oriental flowered pattern drew in my eye. The tiny red shoes on the cover and the words, "National Bestseller" finalized my decision.
It's fictional - with some truth to it, as all good fiction books are said to be. The hotel manager from Pretty Woman once told me that "fiction is more accurate than non-fiction" when I sold him a sandwich in a downtown bistro.
The story explores two young men's pressing desires to obtain cultural material during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. A concept of "re-education," enforced by Chairman Mao's China, turned people's working lives and cultural passions upside down. Books were banned, and those who held prestigious positions were either imprisoned or ripped from city life to work as manual labourers.
I added to the book's grafitti by lightly marking my favourite sections in pencil. But I promise, after I copy them down, I'll rub them out!
"There was no road to the mountain, only a narrow pathway threading steeply through great walls of craggy rock. For a glimpse of a car, the sound of a horn, a whiff of restaurant food, indeed for any sign of civilisation, you had to tramp across rugged mountain terrain for two days."
"It was not hard to imagine the scene: the bug-infested bed upon which Four-Eyes lay, fighting to stay awake in case the old man happened to sing snatches of sincere, authentic folk songs in his sleep, while the lice swarmed out of their hiding places to attack in the dark, sucking his blood, skating on the slippery lenses of his spectacles, which he hadn't removed for the night."
" 'You shouldn't lose hope either. As for me, although I seem to be busy knitting this blue sweater, what I'm really doing is composing poems in my head, while my hands are occupied.' "
"Suddenly the fruit falls, streaking through the air towards me, slicing the surface of the water like an arrow with barely a splash.
In the days before his detention, my father used to say that dancing was not something that could be taught, and he was right. The same is true of diving and writing poetry, for the best divers and poets are self-taught. Some people can spend their lives having lessons and still resemble stones when the hurtle through the air. They never achieve the lightness of dropping fruit."
-Dai Sijie
posted by Janey Llewellin at 4:25 PM
1 Comments:
I haven't seen it, but there is a foreign film based on the novel -- same title.
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