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Love in a Fallen City (New York Review Books Classics)
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Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
Author: Eileen Chang
Publisher: NYRB Classics
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Our Price: $10.17
You Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
Author: Eileen Chang
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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Love in a Fallen City (New York Review Books Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.1348
EAN: 9781590171783
ISBN: 1590171780
Label: NYRB Classics
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2006-10-10
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Product Release Date: 2006-10-10
Studio: NYRB Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.1348
EAN: 9781590171783
ISBN: 1590171780
Label: NYRB Classics
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2006-10-10
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Product Release Date: 2006-10-10
Studio: NYRB Classics
Editorial Review of Love in a Fallen City (New York Review Books Classics)
A New York Review Books Original
“[A] giant of modern Chinese literature” –The New York Times
"With language as sharp as a knife edge, Eileen Chang cut open a huge divide in Chinese culture, between the classical patriarchy and our troubled modernity. She was one of the very few able truly to connect that divide, just as her heroines often disappeared inside it. She is the fallen angel of Chinese literature, and now, with these excellent new translations, English readers can discover why she is so revered by Chinese readers everywhere." –Ang Lee
Eileen Chang is one of the great writers of twentieth-century China, where she enjoys a passionate following both on the mainland and in Taiwan. At the heart of Chang’s achievement is her short fiction—tales of love, longing, and the shifting and endlessly treacherous shoals of family life. Written when Chang was still in her twenties, these extraordinary stories combine an unsettled, probing, utterly contemporary sensibility, keenly alert to sexual politics and psychological ambiguity, with an intense lyricism that echoes the classics of Chinese literature. Love in a Fallen City, the first collection in English of this dazzling body of work, introduces American readers to the stark and glamorous vision of a modern master.
“[A] giant of modern Chinese literature” –The New York Times
"With language as sharp as a knife edge, Eileen Chang cut open a huge divide in Chinese culture, between the classical patriarchy and our troubled modernity. She was one of the very few able truly to connect that divide, just as her heroines often disappeared inside it. She is the fallen angel of Chinese literature, and now, with these excellent new translations, English readers can discover why she is so revered by Chinese readers everywhere." –Ang Lee
Eileen Chang is one of the great writers of twentieth-century China, where she enjoys a passionate following both on the mainland and in Taiwan. At the heart of Chang’s achievement is her short fiction—tales of love, longing, and the shifting and endlessly treacherous shoals of family life. Written when Chang was still in her twenties, these extraordinary stories combine an unsettled, probing, utterly contemporary sensibility, keenly alert to sexual politics and psychological ambiguity, with an intense lyricism that echoes the classics of Chinese literature. Love in a Fallen City, the first collection in English of this dazzling body of work, introduces American readers to the stark and glamorous vision of a modern master.
Customer Reviews of Love in a Fallen City (New York Review Books Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Love In a Fallen City
Review: Often brandished as a feminist writer for her conscious choice to put female leads in her short stories, to me, Elieen Chang is actually more of a hopeless-romantic. The heroines within the collection of short stories, like Eileen Chang herself are elitists-one of a handful of people having money, leisure, and education. And like Elieen Chang, her heroines are searching for love in a turbulent time of change and chaos in Post-WWII China.
Her characters don't care for women equality or political agendas, they have enough on their plates when they are free to pursue their own love lives rather than to be arranged married, which is radically new for that era. Armed with elitist ammos of idealism and wit, these heroines are able to charm their lovers and seducers to be their eventual husbands. And through their quest for romance, the heroines overcome heavy obstacles of archaic traditions, portrayed by old-school fathers or menacing mother-in-laws.
Love in a Fallen City can be appreciated more in the backdrop of Chinese history. Shanghai is the frontier of modernizing China, struggling to break free from the feudalistic traditions of the past, particularly confining to women. As an introspective, intelligent, hopeless-romantic woman writer, Elieen Chang has already overcome barriers by creating characters that are just learning how to play the game of love.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Spare and Bleak
Review: There is no room for a fullfilled romance here. Broken dreams, shared pain and loss. Oh could love get worse? Well yes especially when it was the woman you were dating that turned you onto Zhang Aileen and then created her own real life version of these stories.
Since the release of Ang Lee's Lust Caution which was based on one of Zhang's short stories, interest in this unusual and reclusive writer has been revived. This collection of short stories is a collection of characters whose fatal flaws and their circumstances conspire against them to shatter any illusion of love. They are so sad and you are thrilled when there is a glimmer of love and softness between them.
The stories all have a common theme: that love will never triumph between lonely people - that their loneliness brings them together for the wrong reasons and will also ultimately keep them apart.
The translator has done an amazing job of preserving the spartan nature of the prose and maintaining the author's voice - these stories are emotionally draining - but not heavy going. The characters are finely drawn and there is a lightness of language that evokes the fragility of love.
Review Summary: Love In a Fallen City
Review: Often brandished as a feminist writer for her conscious choice to put female leads in her short stories, to me, Elieen Chang is actually more of a hopeless-romantic. The heroines within the collection of short stories, like Eileen Chang herself are elitists-one of a handful of people having money, leisure, and education. And like Elieen Chang, her heroines are searching for love in a turbulent time of change and chaos in Post-WWII China.
Her characters don't care for women equality or political agendas, they have enough on their plates when they are free to pursue their own love lives rather than to be arranged married, which is radically new for that era. Armed with elitist ammos of idealism and wit, these heroines are able to charm their lovers and seducers to be their eventual husbands. And through their quest for romance, the heroines overcome heavy obstacles of archaic traditions, portrayed by old-school fathers or menacing mother-in-laws.
Love in a Fallen City can be appreciated more in the backdrop of Chinese history. Shanghai is the frontier of modernizing China, struggling to break free from the feudalistic traditions of the past, particularly confining to women. As an introspective, intelligent, hopeless-romantic woman writer, Elieen Chang has already overcome barriers by creating characters that are just learning how to play the game of love.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Spare and Bleak
Review: There is no room for a fullfilled romance here. Broken dreams, shared pain and loss. Oh could love get worse? Well yes especially when it was the woman you were dating that turned you onto Zhang Aileen and then created her own real life version of these stories.
Since the release of Ang Lee's Lust Caution which was based on one of Zhang's short stories, interest in this unusual and reclusive writer has been revived. This collection of short stories is a collection of characters whose fatal flaws and their circumstances conspire against them to shatter any illusion of love. They are so sad and you are thrilled when there is a glimmer of love and softness between them.
The stories all have a common theme: that love will never triumph between lonely people - that their loneliness brings them together for the wrong reasons and will also ultimately keep them apart.
The translator has done an amazing job of preserving the spartan nature of the prose and maintaining the author's voice - these stories are emotionally draining - but not heavy going. The characters are finely drawn and there is a lightness of language that evokes the fragility of love.