MOMENT IN PEKING: A Chinese Novel

by Lin Yutang ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 1939

One feels that for the first time it is possible to get inside the minds and hearts of contemporary Chinese, not in their political and economic life, as one does through Carl Crow, but in their intimate personal lives. Nora Waln gave us some some sense of that life, but she, after all was an outsider. Pearl Buck for the first time took away the stage props, and made the Chinese living, moving human beings. But Lin Yutang, in this novel of China, written in English but adhering closely to the Chinese manner, has taken us into the inner courts of family life, has told the story of peking upper-class girls, an official's household, with marriages and intermarriages confusing class issues and creating revolutionary situations. One sees how they see, thinks as they think; watches the new ideals smash the old traditions. Not strictly a novel in the English sense, it still forms a pattern of its own.

Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1939

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: John Day

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1939

Categories: FICTION