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meganbmooreSet during China’s cultural revolution in the 1970s, this semi-autobiographical book is about two young men exiled to the mountains for “re-education” due to their parents being considered enemies of the state. There, they discover a hidden stash of western classics, and both fall for a pretty seamstress who lives nearby.
Of the characters, only Luo, one of the boys, and friend of the narrator, the other boy, is named. This was a bit odd at first, but I eventually came to half-think that the narrator saw himself and the world around him as a bit of an extension of Luo, who sometimes seems to be very built-up in the narrator’s eyes.
I liked Dai Sijie’s writing, and especially liked the focus on different forms of storytelling, and how the boys’ “educating” the seamstress results in her making her own decisions, instead of the ones they wanted her to make (though I think Dai Sijie sees her changes in a more negative light than I do) but it never quite grabbed me.
Of the characters, only Luo, one of the boys, and friend of the narrator, the other boy, is named. This was a bit odd at first, but I eventually came to half-think that the narrator saw himself and the world around him as a bit of an extension of Luo, who sometimes seems to be very built-up in the narrator’s eyes.
I liked Dai Sijie’s writing, and especially liked the focus on different forms of storytelling, and how the boys’ “educating” the seamstress results in her making her own decisions, instead of the ones they wanted her to make (though I think Dai Sijie sees her changes in a more negative light than I do) but it never quite grabbed me.