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akujunkanOnly one week behind...probably because I had to read another 2,000+ pages of excerpts last week, making it rather hard to tackle more than one book for pleasure, which happened to be:
1) Raise The Red Lantern – Su Tong
I realise this novella has been made into an award-winning film. I've never seen it, so I can't comment on how compares to the novella. Still, Su's My Life As Emperor remains one of the top five books I've read this past year, so I was looking forward to reading this one. Emperor is still the vastly superior of the three Su works available in English (the rather perplexing Rice being the third). Lantern's three novellas revisit the same subjects near and to Su's heart; namely the alienation and declining fortunes of families and individuals during periods of social upheaval in Chinese history. Of the three, “Wives And Concubines” (the original title of “Raise The Red Lantern”) is my favorite; “Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes,” an overly-long and rather tedious fictional family history, is the worst; and “Opium Family” falls somewhere in the middle--not great by Su standards by better than most short stories. My final verdict is that, while Lantern is a very good book indeed, it just doesn't come close to the greatness of Emperor.
SBS: One of these days I'll make a new list of the books I actually have with me here in Homeland, Central.
That will be all.
1) Raise The Red Lantern – Su Tong
I realise this novella has been made into an award-winning film. I've never seen it, so I can't comment on how compares to the novella. Still, Su's My Life As Emperor remains one of the top five books I've read this past year, so I was looking forward to reading this one. Emperor is still the vastly superior of the three Su works available in English (the rather perplexing Rice being the third). Lantern's three novellas revisit the same subjects near and to Su's heart; namely the alienation and declining fortunes of families and individuals during periods of social upheaval in Chinese history. Of the three, “Wives And Concubines” (the original title of “Raise The Red Lantern”) is my favorite; “Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes,” an overly-long and rather tedious fictional family history, is the worst; and “Opium Family” falls somewhere in the middle--not great by Su standards by better than most short stories. My final verdict is that, while Lantern is a very good book indeed, it just doesn't come close to the greatness of Emperor.
SBS: One of these days I'll make a new list of the books I actually have with me here in Homeland, Central.
That will be all.