Flowers in the Mirror by Li Ju-chen (.ePUB)
File Size: 2.5 MB
Flowers in the Mirror by Li Ju-chen, Lin Tai-yi (translator)
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 2.5mb
Overview: Regarded as one of the most original works in nineteenth-century Chinese literature, Flowers in the Mirror has been virtually unknown in European languages heretofore. The author wields effective satire in an elaborate framework of fantastic adventure based on the involvement of “flower spirits” in historical circumstances surrounding the usurping reign of the Empress Wu (684-705).
In a manner reminiscent of Swift, he gives imaginative force to his social commentary by devising a fantasy travelogue to strange lands whose customs and practices satirize those of the China of his day. It is in such places as the Country of Two-Faced People and the Country of Women, where men suffer the anguish of bound feet, and the allegorical realms of the last chapters which focus on the deadly sins, that Li beguilingly voices his aspirations for an ideal society and pleads the feminist cause.
Western literature can claim no parallel for this book, unless, in the words of the translator, “we think of a work which has the combined nature of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Gulliver’s Travels, Aesop’s Fables and the Odyssey, with Alice in Wonderland thrown in for good measure.” She adds, “Flowers in the Mirror takes its place with perhaps a dozen other works in the domain of the Chinese novel.” Miss Lin has rendered a smooth and accurate translation from the Chinese, and has edited the lengthy original version with the Western reader in mind.
Genre: Fiction > General Fiction/Classics
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