Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Qian Zhongshu was one of twentieth-century China's most ingenious literary stylists, one whose insights into the ironies and travesties of modern China remain stunningly fresh. Between the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Communist takeover in 1949, Qian wrote a brilliant series of short stories, essays, and a comedic novel that continue to inspire generations of Chinese readers.With this long-awaited translation, English-language readers can immerse themselves in the invention and satirical wit of one of the world's great literary cosmopolitans. This collection brings together Qian's best short works, combining his iconoclastic essays on the "book of life" from Written in the Margins of Life (1941) with the four masterful short stories of Human, Beast, Ghost (1946). His essays elucidate substantive issues through deceptively simple subjects-the significance of windows versus doors, for example, or the blind spots of literary critics—and assert the primacy of critical and creative independence. His stories blur the boundaries between humans, beasts, and ghosts as they struggle through life, death, and resurrection. Christopher G. Rea situates these works within China's wartime politics and Qian's literary vision, highlighting significant changes that Qian Zhongshu made to different editions of his writings and providing unprecedented insight into the author's creative process.

Literature & Fiction

QIAN, ZHONGSHU

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

Qian Zhongshu was one of twentieth-century China's most ingenious literary stylists, one whose insights into the ironies and travesties of modern China remain stunningly fresh. Between the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Communist takeover in 1949, Qian wrote a brilliant series of short stories, essays, and a comedic novel that continue to inspire generations of Chinese readers. With this long-awaited translation, English-language readers can immerse themselves in the invention and satirical wit of one of the world's great literary cosmopolitans. This collection brings together Qian's best short works, combining his iconoclastic essays on the "book of life" from Written in the Margins of Life (1941) with the four masterful short stories of Human, Beast, Ghost (1946). His essays elucidate substantive issues through deceptively simple subjects-the significance of windows versus doors, for example, or the blind spots of literary critics—and assert the primacy of critical and creative independence. His stories blur the boundaries between humans, beasts, and ghosts as they struggle through life, death, and resurrection. Christopher G. Rea situates these works within China's wartime politics and Qian's literary vision, highlighting significant changes that Qian Zhongshu made to different editions of his writings and providing unprecedented insight into the author's creative process.

Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays

This translation of 65 pieces from Qian Zhongshu's Guanzhui bian (Limited Views) makes available for the first time in English a representative selection from Qian's massive four-volume collection of essays and reading notes on the classics of early Chinese literature. First published in 1979, it has been hailed as one of the most insightful and comprehensive treatments of themes and motifs in early Chinese writing to appear in this century. Scholar, novelist, and essayist Qian Zhongshu (b. 1910) is arguably contemporary China's foremost man of letters, and Limited Views is recognized as the culmination of his study of literature in both the Chinese and the Western traditions.

Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series)

Harvard University Asia Center

Fortress Besieged

The greatest Chinese novel of the twentieth century, Fortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy, and middle-class Chinese society in the Republican era. Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, our hapless hero Fang Hung-chien (á la Emma Bovary), with no particular goal in life and with a bogus degree from a fake American university in hand, returns home to Shanghai. On the French liner home, he meets two Chinese beauties, Miss Su and Miss Pao. Qian writes, "With Miss Pao it wasn't a matter of heart or soul. She hadn't any change of heart, since she didn't have a heart." In a sort of painful comedy, Fang obtains a teaching post at a newly established university where the effete pseudo-intellectuals he encounters in academia become the butt of Qian's merciless satire. Soon Fang is trapped into a marriage of Nabokovian proportions of distress and absurdity. Recalling Fielding's Tom Jones in its farcical litany of misadventures and Flaubert's "style indirect libre," Fortress Besieged is its own unique feast of delights.

Jeanne Kelly

Nathan K. Mao

Literary

New Directions

Die Umzingelte Festung: Ein Chinesischer Gesellschaftsroman

Unknown

Fortress Besieged is the sole long novel written by Qian Zhongshu, and can be labeled a classic of modern Chinese literature. This book vividly reveals the mindset of Chinese intellectuals at the beginning of the anti-Japanese war, reflecting their behavior, ethics and the confusion that abounded within this distinct social class during this turmultuous period of China's history. This novel describes life's realities and atmosphere during that time from a unique perspective. In addition to its distinct historical background, this novel reveals the frailty of the those living in this period, which still stirs the emotions of elites today. The first edition of this novel was published in Shanghai Chenguang Publishing Company in 1947. Fortress Besieged is a distinctive satiric-styled novel within modern Chinese literature, and is praised as the new edition of 'The Scholars.'

Fortress Besieged (Chinese Edition)

Peoples Literature Publishing House

《围城》三十年来横贯常销畅销小说之首“围在城里的人想逃出来，城外的人想冲进去。对婚姻也罢，职业也罢，人生的愿望大都如此。”----杨绛《围城》是钱钟书W一的一部长篇小说，堪称中国现当代长篇小说的经典。小说塑造了抗战开初一类知识分子的群像，生动反映了在国家特定时期，特殊人群的行为操守、以及困惑。从另一个角度记述了当时的情景、氛围。虽然有具体的历史背景，但这部小说揭示的只是人群的弱点，在今天依然能够引起人们的共鸣。第一版于1947年由上海晨光出版公司出版。《围城》是中国现代文学史上一部风格独特的讽刺小说。被誉为“新儒林外史”。《围城》经典语录：123、可实在是生活太无聊，现成的女朋友太缺乏了，好比睡不着的人，顾不得安眠药片的害处，先要图眼前的舒服。4、同行最不宜结婚，因为彼此是行家，谁也哄不倒谁，丈夫不回莫测高深地崇拜太太，太太也不会盲目地崇拜丈夫，婚姻的基础就不牢固。5、女人原是天生的政治动物。虚虚实实，以退为进，这些政治手腕，女人生下来全有。女人学政治，那真是以后天发展先天，锦上添花了。······女人不必学政治，而现在的政治家要成功，都得学女人。政治舞台上的戏剧全是反串。6.鸿渐赞美他夫人柔顺，是在报告订婚的家信里。方遯翁看完信，叫得像母鸡下了蛋，一分钟内全家知道这消息。……重印前记序围城附录：记钱钟书与《围城》…………杨绛钟书创作的基调是讽刺。社会、人生、心理、道德的病态，都逃不出他敏锐的观察力。他那枝魔杖般的笔，又犀利，又机智，又俏皮，汩汩地流泻出无穷无尽的笑料和幽默，皮里阳秋，包藏着可悲可鄙的内核，冷中有热，热中有冷，喜剧性和可悲性难分难解，嬉笑怒骂，“道是无情却有情”。杨绛：我认为《管锥篇》、《谈艺录》的作者是个好学深思的钟书，《槐聚诗存》的作者是个‘忧时伤生’的钟书，《围城》的作者呢，就是个‘痴气’旺盛的钟书。——柯灵《围城》是中国近代文学中Z有趣和Z用心营造的小说，可能亦是Z伟大的一部。——夏志清为读者提供更为开阔精神的智慧世界的，是钱钟书的长篇小说《围城》。它也许是中国现代长篇小说中展示了Z为丰富的知识界众生相和Z舒展的文化智慧联想的作品之一。——杨义

BESIEGED CITY

Contemporary

Cypress Book Co Ltd Import

This book includes 24 English works of Mr. Qian Zhongshu, inclusive of his Bachelor thesis for Oxford University and other articles published in some English magazines. More involved in the content of classical Chinese and Western classical literature. The book also includes Mr. Qian's correspondences and extremely valuable speeches.

A Collection of Qian Zhongshu's English Essays

Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

Wei cheng (Fortress Besieged, in traditional Chinese, NOT in English)

Shu Lin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by QIAN, ZHONGSHU. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by QIAN, ZHONGSHU

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by QIAN, ZHONGSHU. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays

Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series)

Fortress Besieged

Die Umzingelte Festung: Ein Chinesischer Gesellschaftsroman

Fortress Besieged (Chinese Edition)

BESIEGED CITY

A Collection of Qian Zhongshu's English Essays

Wei cheng (Fortress Besieged, in traditional Chinese, NOT in English)