All praise to Columbia’s Modern Chinese Literature Series for bringing us an essential Asian masterpiece.
An intellectual hero’s alienation and disintegration are painstakingly dramatized in this classic Taiwanese novel, completed in 1945 but not previously translated into English.
Zhouliu Wu (1900–76), a prominent journalist also renowned for his politically inflected fiction, focuses with unnerving intensity on the psyche of his protagonist Hu Taiming, who grows up in a Taiwanese village near the end of the prolonged (1895–1945) Japanese occupation of that island nation (formerly Formosa). Taiming’s beloved grandfather “Old Hu” labors to ensure his grandson’s education in the Chinese classics—but everything indigenous to their culture is either reviled or suppressed by Japanese authorities. The lingering cultural shock exacts a heavy toll. Taiming’s father Hu Wenqing, a respected physician, falls into adultery, takes a concubine and finds his wealth and property drained by government demands and fragmented by his extended families’ greed. Taiming’s scientific and mathematical studies, followed by abortive teaching positions, take him backward and forward to mainland China, Japan (primarily Nanjing), then again to his increasingly embattled and impoverished village, from which he commutes to Taipei to serve as a (drafted) Homeland Defense “Volunteer” after Japan’s attack on the U.S. provokes a ruinous Pacific War. Meanwhile, Taiming falls pointlessly in love with a Japanese girl, briefly marries a Taiwanese “new woman” (whose ardent nationalist activism endangers both their lives) and survives to see his nearest and dearest family members buried, compromised by the imperatives of assimilation, or swallowed up in Japan’s militaristic frenzy. The concluding pages grow increasingly discursive, before the author recovers, producing a stunning ironic ending. For most of its length, however, the novel offers a rich panorama filled with telling economic and political details (e.g., the pathetic attempts of Taiming’s brother Zhigang to “become” Japanese; orders requiring rice farmers to adopt agricultural problems that make it impossible for them to meet quotas). The cumulative effect is devastating.
All praise to Columbia’s Modern Chinese Literature Series for bringing us an essential Asian masterpiece.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-231-13728-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
