This was an interesting story with an unusual setting – China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1970s – following two teenaged boys who are being “re-educated” in the country for the crime of being part of the bourgeoisie, as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement. In a political and social atmosphere that punishes independent thought and romantic ideals, celebrating ignorance and encouraging violence against dissenters, the boys discover a stash of forbidden classic Western literature and are transformed. Perhaps the best part of this story is the twist at the end, where they discover its true power that is so feared by the authorities: that this transformative power can’t be leashed to serve their own needs alone.

 

Audiobook, borrowed from my public library via Overdrive, with an excellent reading by BD Wong.

 

I read this for The 16 Tasks of the Festive Season; Square 7: December 10th & 13th: Book themes for International Human Rights Day: Read a book originally written in another language (i.e., not in English and not in your mother tongue), –OR– a book written by anyone not anglo-saxon, –OR– any story revolving around the rights of others either being defended or abused –OR– Read a book set in New York City, or The Netherlands (home of the UN and UN World Court respectively). This book fits several of the requirements: written by a Chinese author in French, with a theme of human rights and civil liberty abuses.

2 1/2 stars

I liked a lot about this book, and the main character, and it's premise of reading forbidden western books in communist China, but I was filled with dismay by the approach the author took to the abortion. I understand that in communist China, the Little Seamstress would have felt that she had no choice but to get an abortion, but the way the abortion was presented too lightly. The ending of the book was not very satisfying either, I couldn't believe Luo would burn the books for anything less than avoiding discovery, and even then... I was also confused by the sudden character POV switch near the end.

There were scenes I liked. At the beginning when Luo and the main character (whose name, if we were ever told it, I can't remember) saved the MC's violin by saying that he had played a concerto called "Mozart Loves Chairman Mao." That was interesting and served to show what a weird environment they were living in that claiming such an outrageous title for a Mozart piece could save a violin. I liked it when they stole the books from Four-Eyes, and I really liked the scene when they were fixing the village chairman's cavity, but given my high expectations for the book, I was quite disappointed.

Good for cultural understanding, nothing for feminism in here.

This is a coming of age story set in a remote set of villages during the Cultural Revolution.  The tone is whimsical and humourous.  Where it looks at the oppression of the cultural revolution it looks at the small oppressions and not the big things.

It is first and foremost a book on the liberating power of literature.  In particular, it is inspired by 19th century French novels (unsurprising, given the title).  The book actually was originally written in French and shares a lot of good things with the 19th century novels it references, although it is very much a modern work.

Its really very good.  Sharply drawn with a sense of absurdity and full of a yearning for freedom and a love of literature.  It very much stands at a crossroads of modern Chinese and Western culture.

Well worth reading.

Sometimes a story has such an unsatisfying ending that I would rather have not read it at all.

Of course, there were times when the journey was worth it (eg. abandoned fanfic WIPs), but the denouement of Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress left me highly annoyed. I have questions that will never be answered, mainly on what will happen to the main characters – the two boys Ma and Lou, and their seamstress friend.

But now that I have given it some thought, this story was never about the two boys in the first place. It was about books and the seamstress girl - and when that story ended, so did the book. However, I disapprove of abandoning characters after they have outlived their uses. It’s so lazy.

During the Cultural Revolution in China, when Mao Zedong was at the pinnacle of his glory, he launched a campaign that would leave the country profoundly altered. The universities were closed and all the ‘young intellectuals’, meaning boys and girls who had graduated from high school, were sent to the countryside to be ‘reeducated by the poor peasants’.

Thus you have Ma and Lou, two of many boys sent to rural provinces for the benefit of this “re-education.” It was a time when books were forbidden, except those written by the Great Leader Mao himself or his cronies, and of course our main characters stumbled upon a stash of hidden, forbidden books, some of whom were written by the French author Balzac.

The time setting and cultural environment was fascinating, so alien by today’s standards in the civilised parts of the world.

We were surprised to see how the alarm clock seized the imagination of the peasants. It became an object of veneration, almost. Everyone came to consult the clock, as though our house on stilts were a temple.

Some decisions made by Dai Sijie in the writing of this book was rather strange, imo. Near the end there was a sudden shift of perspectives – most of the tale had narrated by Ma, but suddenly there was a section by Lou, the seamstress, and a random village person, for no discernable reason. He has also created Ma and Lou as the means for books to reach the seamstress, and having done so, cared for them no longer, and if the reader has gotten invested, too bad. As for how the books affected the seamstress – is a different story entirely, but it would’ve been nice to know.