51 - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie, 184 pages, Random House, 2001
WHY I PICKED IT: Picked it up in Powell's Books in Portland
ELAPSED TIME: 2 days
RATING: Very Good
This story was both a learning experience and a joy to read. I didn't know of Mao Zedong's "re-education" efforts of sending the children of the bourgeois to remote villages to learn the value of real work... the lost intellectual opportunity for a generation of children through the rejection of literature and science is sad.
Despite this backdrop, the protagonist and his best friend Luo, survive and find joy in secreted books (including Balzak's Ursule Mirouet), and a friendship with the daughter of the region's tailor.
I enjoyed this story and would wholeheartedly recommend it.
This blog is a simple review of every book that I read... For all books I’ll tell you why I picked it, how long it took me to read it, and give it a rating (burn it, not good, meh, good, very good, and required reading). I ask (encourage?) all readers of my blog to post their thoughts of any of the books in my comments :). Thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment