Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Blythe's Book 17: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress



I think that in recent years the books I've loved the most are often the ones that have taught me about something I previously knew nothing about-- for instance, learning about circus life in Like Water for Elephants, or about the practice of footbinding in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Even though the storyline of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was relatively simplistic, its appeal, for me, was in the fact that it was about China's Cultural Revolution. Did you know that in the 1970's (you read that correctly-- thirty something years ago) educated young men from the cities were sent to live in the countryside where they were reeducated by peasants? I surely didn't. Even teenagers who were relatively uneducated were often sent, if their parents were considered elitist. So all of a sudden the sons of doctors, dentists, teachers, lawyers, etc. were sent away from their families and forced to live with peasants who taught them about labor, self-sufficiency, and communism. Books were outlawed; returning home before the appointed time (chosen when the village elders thought one was sufficiently educated) was forbidden. I should be fair and say that the writing in this book is lyrical (a cheesy but appropriate word); that the story is heartwarming, funny, and entertaining throughout; that the ending made me smile. All of this is true, but it didn't hold a candle to the emotions I felt as I envisioned the narrator and his friend and companion, Luo, as they experienced life in the rural mountain village they had been exiled to. Their position dismayed me, and this new information about Chinese history amazed me, but it was their love of books and their appreciation for beauty in life that kept me reading.

1 comment:

  1. I've found the same thing - I love to come away from a book with learning having been done that didn't seem like learning, more like, observing a culture/practice/part of history that wasn't known to me before I read it through a character's eyes. Perhaps all readers feel that way - we read to escape as much as we read to experience something.

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