Author : Han Shaogong
Publisher : Dial Press Trade Paperback
ISBN 13 : 0385339356
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (853 download)
Book Synopsis A Dictionary of Maqiao by : Han Shaogong
Download or read book A Dictionary of Maqiao written by Han Shaogong and published by Dial Press Trade Paperback. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the daring imagination of one of China’s greatest living novelists comes a work of startling power and originality–the story of a young man “displaced” to a small village in rural China during the 1960s. Told in the format of a dictionary, with a series of vignettes disguised as entries, A Dictionary of Maqiao is a novel of bold invention–and a fascinating, comic, deeply moving journey through the dark heart of the Cultural Revolution. Entries trace the wisdom and absurdities of Maqiao: the petty squabbles, family grudges, poverty, infidelities, fantasies, lunatics, bullies, superstitions, and especially the odd logic in their use of language–where the word for “beginning” is the same as the word for “end”; “little big brother” means older sister; to be “scientific” means to be lazy; and “streetsickness” is a disease afflicting villagers visiting urban areas. Filled with colorful characters–from a weeping ox to a man so poisonous that snakes die when they bite him–A Dictionary of Maqiao is both an important work of Chinese literature and a probing inquiry into the extraordinary power of language.