In 1940s Shanghai beautiful young Jiazhi spends her days playing mahjong and drinking tea with high society ladies But China is occupied by invading Japanese forces and in wartime things are not always what they seem. Jiazhi s life is a front A patriotic student radical her mission is to seduce a powerful employee of the occupying government and lead him to the assassin s bullet Yet as she waits for him to arrive at their liasion Jiazhi begins to wonder if she is cut out to be a femme fatake and coldly take Mr Yi to his death Or is she beginning to fall in love with him A passionate tale of espionage deception and love accompanied here by four further short stories by Eileen Chang Lust Caution and Other StoriesEileen Chang is the English name for Chinese author site_link who was born to a prominent family in Shanghai one of her great grandfathers was Li Hongzhang in 1920. She went to a prestigious girls school in Shanghai where she changed her name from Chang Ying to Chang Ai ling to match her English name Eileen Afterwards she attended the University of Hong Kong but had to go back to Shanghai when Hong Kong fell to Japan during WWII While in Shanghai she was briefly married to Hu Lancheng the notorious Japanese collaborator but later got a divorce. After WWII ended she returned to Hong Kong and later immigrated to the United States in 1955 She married a scriptwriter in 1956 and worked as a screenwriter herself for a Hong Kong film studio Eileen Chang is the English name for Chinese author site_link who was born to a prominent family in Shanghai one of her great grandfathers was Li Hongzhang in 1920. She went to a prestigious girls school in Shanghai where she changed her name from Chang Ying to Chang Ai ling to match her English name Eileen Afterwards she attended the University of Hong Kong but had to go back to Shanghai when Hong Kong fell to Japan during WWII While in Shanghai she was briefly married to Hu Lancheng the notorious Japanese collaborator but later got a divorce. After WWII ended she returned to Hong Kong and later immigrated to the United States in 1955 She married a scriptwriter in 1956 and worked as a screenwriter herself for a Hong Kong film studio for a number of years before her husband s death in 1967 She moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1972 and became a hermit of sorts during her last years She passed away alone in her apartment in 1995 site_link Ein Stern weniger als f nf nur weil wie der Nachwort es nochmals hervorhebt keine bersetzung die volle kulturelle Tiefe der Stories erfassen kann Aber eine ganz arge Empfehlung ansonsten 9780141034386 I don t know whether to give this book 1 or 2 stars. I would like to be in the position to give a thorough review but since this book was too small and the same problems were present throughout the whole thing this isn t gonna be the case. If you made it this far congratulations Till next time take care 9780141034386 Really wanted to like these stories but the writing just did nothing for me I found myself having to reread sentences because it wasn t going in Each story had a different translator aswell so maybe this had a jarring effect On the surface the individual summaries of each of the stories sound like plots that I tend to enjoy But although the stories are well written the writing style just wasn t flowing for me 9780141034386 The title story in this collection promises to be gripping and intensely atmospheric I m not sure those descriptors put readers in the right frame of mind for what they re really going to get which is five of the quietest most understated slice of life stories I ve ever read. Set in post war China they all play out against the backdrop of political financial and social unrest but these wider issues are never the focus of the narrative Instead Chang uses them as a catalyst to shine a light on the entirely domestic affairs of love family and friendship By doing so she examines the idea albeit subtly that it s the quiet mundane interactions of everyday life that occupy the greatest part of people s focus and attention even in times of great unrest. As a collection the stories do work well together as each of them is concerned to a greater or lesser extent with the role of women within Chinese society class divides national identity and the post war shift from a traditional patriarchal society towards a liberal Westernised way of living It was the translation itself that became a stumbling block however Given how many stylistic choices are necessary when converting prose from one language to another I found it very odd that Penguin chose to compile stories that have all been translated by a different person With six people in all having worked on the conversion from Chinese there is a jarring inconsistency to the narrative voice which reads as dry and pragmatic in one story and evocative and flowery in the next I strongly suspect that newly commissioned cohesive translations would have worked better. I can t say I got a huge amount of enjoyment out of reading this book With very little plot to grapple with and an uneven writing style it was difficult to feel any kind of emotional connection to the characters That said I was consistently intrigued by the themes Chang was touching on there were some fantastic passages dotted throughout with particularly good use of imagery and I m willing to give her some benefit of the doubt where the erratic translation is concerned Perhaps I d have better luck with one of her novels 9780141034386 Literature in Republican era China was dominated by concerns of Nation Progress and Revolution themes that promised national salvation through literature by the like of noted authors such as Lu Xun Mao Dun Ding Ling or Guo Moruo Literature that deviated from this aim was often disparaged or looked down on for its bourgeois tendencies and its lack of concern for the future of China the quality of the literature notwithstanding Eileen Chang Zhang Ailing was one such author looked down on by the May Fourth writers for her portrayals of love and life in wartime Shanghai or Hong Kong However in this collection it becomes evidently clear that Chang s literary worth was understated by her peers during her lifetime and that she is a noted artist of the human condition The highlight of the collection is of course Lust Caution both a taught atmospheric spy story and a powerful story of love and betrayal Lust Caution is typical of Chang s work in that the major historical events of the period serve primarily as a backdrop to a much personal and revealing story of human emotions heightened by the historical setting This is also seen in Sealed Off and Love In A Fallen City both of which use the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and the fall of Hong Kong respectively to further the emotional and human stories In a few sentences Chang captures perfectly the sights and sounds of 1940s Shanghai the struggles of occupation and collaboration and the psychological drama to which a double agent is subjected Jiazhi the spy in question is tasked with luring Mr Yi a noted collaborator to his death but her feelings interfere and ultimately spare him Immediately the difference between Chang and certain patriotic writers becomes clear the war is not so black and white there is too much ambiguity too many complications for the story to resolve itself in a patriotic way Chang then is able to firmly respond to her contemporary political critics with this short story as Julia Lovell writes in the afterword to this edition for In Lust Caution the loud public questions war revolution national survival that Chang had for decades been accused of sidelining are freely given centre stage then exposed as transient alienating and finally subordinate to the quiet private themes of emotional loyalty vanity and betrayal Chang s continued development and exploration of these private themes are further showcased in the four further stories accompanying Lust Caution All of them are set against the familiar backdrop of Republican Shanghai that heady crazy city half foreign and half Chinese but the characters are distinctively Chang s creations Of them the highlights are possibly Steamed Osmanthus Flower and Great Felicity both of which focus not only on women s roles in Republican China but also provide a window into life at the time In Steamed Osmanthus Flower Ah Xiao swelters in an Indian Summer while she contends with the difficulties of being employed by a foreigner Great Felicity highlights the tensions between the generations during this time of great upheaval in China as a wedding between a New Style family and one of the old gentry class. In all of the her stories presented here Eileen Chang refutes her peers criticism that she was a banal boudoir realist and instead proves herself to be a powerful writer and one who was than able to portray the struggles of human life regardless of the historical setting Reality was never as clearcut as the May Fourth and revolutionary writers would have hoped instead Chang captures the true clamour and complications of life in all its forms 9780141034386 Lust Caution and Other Stories is a series of short stories set in 1940 s in Shanghai a port city that became the battleground between the Japanese and the Chinese leading to a socio political crisis that impacted lives The tittle story of this collection has a film adaptation by Oscar Winning Director Ang Lee which renewed interest in Eileen Chang s writings It is a story that looks at multiple layers the elite social structure of Shanghai then the student uprising against the Japanese forces youth and marriages filled with social niceties. There are four other short novellas in this collection each one lush with sensuality and evocative narratives I loved Chang s other collection Love in a Fallen City which too is set in Shanghai in the backdrop of war and the resulting fissures on the socio cultural fabric of Shanghai The magic in her writing lies in the details that is captured with an economy of words and leaves one gasping with the effect I can only say this Go read Eileen Chang read all her work if you can A word of caution though those looking for stories per se will not take to this they should go for her Love in a Fallen City This one is for readers who love to submerge themselves in the narrative and the world it takes them to 9780141034386 Lust Caution In the Waiting Room Great Felicity Steamed Osmanthus Flower Ah Xiao s Unhappy Autumn Traces of LoveEditor s AfterwordA Guide to Pronunciation 9780141034386 I expected something completely different from this book It s neither gripping nor filled with lust these are slice of slife short stories without much of a narrative with an unusual setting for a Western reader I felt a got a sense of ww2 Shanghai and the writing was elegant if a little bit too adjective filled but I found the stories quite confusing after a few pages my mind would always start to wander and I had to force myself to pay attention It s really interesting to me that this kind of writing was really selling well because it seems like the antithesis of what should be commercially successful I m not racing to read of Eileen Chang but it was a nice reminder to read authors from countries I usually neglect reading from 9780141034386 J ai d j lu deux autres livres de Zhang Ailing et et dans les deux cas j ai t absolument et compl tement impressionn par son criture g niale Zhang Ailing tait une crivaine si incroyablement dou e que m me la lecture de son uvre me donne l impression d tre un d chet sans talent Vraiment je ne sais m me pas comment exprimer quel point cette femme tait absolument talentueuse Veuillez lire ses livres 9780141034386 From the title novella alone Chang seems a marvellously slippery writer trading in gaps and spaces the unseen and the unspoken but somehow deeply felt Lust Caution starts in media res and without the character list it would have taken me some time to catch up with the premise involving as it does a long laid plot and a playing of roles In that sense the text itself is dependent on the paratext of dramatis personae which also includes pronunciation of the Chinese names and mini biographies of the characters which serve to supplement the story as told interestingly though this addition is added by the translator Julia Lovell not the author so already there is a sort of writerly collaboration taking place before we ve even read a word And Chang s opening is itself layered Though it was still daylight the hot lamp was shining full beam over the majong table Diamond rings flashed under its glare as their wearers clacked and reshuffled their tiles The tablecloth tied down over the table legs stretched out into a sleek plain of blinding white. The vivid materiality of the scene with its sounds and sights is also full of ominous words whose sinister sense charges the scene with a kind of dreadful foresight hot lamp full beam flashed glare tied down blinding for this is Shanghai ruled by a wartime collaborationist government with the Japanese and not everyone is prepared not to resist. Set amidst the fraught politics is Jiazhi young beautiful a student actress and in the most dangerous perhaps role of her lifeThis is a story where the on page footprint is only a guide to the deeper submerged narrative So little happens yet so much happens I love the jittery instability of this text definitely one for readers willing to pay close attention to the freight of words and the acute spaces between them And what a feat of delicate translation an excellent choice for Women in Translation month 9780141034386
| Lust, Caution and Other Stories By Eileen Chang |
| 0141034386 |
| 9780141034386 |
| English |
| 162 |
| Paperback |