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مختارات من حكايات لياوتشاي العجيبة
قد قام الكاتب الأديب بو سونغ لينغ بجمع القصص من مختلف مصادرها، ثم أعاد كتابتها بشكل يعكس الواقع الحقيقي لتلك الفترة بكل صورها. كلمة "لياوتشاي" الصينية تعني ملتقى أو مقهى شاي مؤقت، أعده صاحبه لاستقبال المحليين أو المارّين، ممن شهدوا أو سمعوا قصصا عجيبة غريبة، من قصص السحر والخيال والجن والعفاريت والأشباح والملائكة،
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First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Pu Songling
432 books90 followersPu Songling (simplified Chinese: 蒲松龄; traditional Chinese: 蒲松齡; pinyin: Pú Sōnglíng; Wade–Giles: P'u Sung-ling, June 5, 1640—February 25, 1715) was a Qing Dynasty Chinese writer, best known as the author of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.
Pu was born into a poor landlord-merchant family from Zichuan (淄川, now Zibo, Shandong). At the age of nineteen, he received the gongsheng degree in the civil service examination, but it was not until he was seventy-one that he received the xiucai degree.
He spent most of his life working as a private tutor, and collecting the stories that were later published in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Some critics attribute the Vernacular Chinese novel Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan to him.
Pu was born into a poor landlord-merchant family from Zichuan (淄川, now Zibo, Shandong). At the age of nineteen, he received the gongsheng degree in the civil service examination, but it was not until he was seventy-one that he received the xiucai degree.
He spent most of his life working as a private tutor, and collecting the stories that were later published in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Some critics attribute the Vernacular Chinese novel Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan to him.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 1, 2017
This rating applies to the first of four books in a set. A total rating, I hope, will come soon after the fourth is finished.
Collections like these are a bit hard to review, purely because in the end you're either juggling an act of comprehensivity, or curating a selection that you think would appeal to the reader. This set, I believe, aims for the former; the weakness of doing so for Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio (of which, the preface discloses, there are around 488 stories - perhaps even more, if one wishes to include variances in scholarship) is that so many of the stories repeat themselves.
While these stories make for great entertainment - indeed there have been several filmed versions, such as the Painted Skin films - they are also meant to be digested rather in selections. When one cobbles together all the transcribed works of Pu Songling, the sum total is a dizzying and frankly obtuse tome that irritates in how much it repeats itself.
The translations, I am told, are rather terrible - but then again my source is someone who doesn't have a background in translation anyways, and aside from that the preface is worth reading for those interested in the subject. It won't dispense of any scholarly knowledge, but - for one unacquainted with these works - I believe it is a good overview of why this collection exists, and furthermore why it is rightly included in the pantheon of classic Chinese literature.
Collections like these are a bit hard to review, purely because in the end you're either juggling an act of comprehensivity, or curating a selection that you think would appeal to the reader. This set, I believe, aims for the former; the weakness of doing so for Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio (of which, the preface discloses, there are around 488 stories - perhaps even more, if one wishes to include variances in scholarship) is that so many of the stories repeat themselves.
While these stories make for great entertainment - indeed there have been several filmed versions, such as the Painted Skin films - they are also meant to be digested rather in selections. When one cobbles together all the transcribed works of Pu Songling, the sum total is a dizzying and frankly obtuse tome that irritates in how much it repeats itself.
The translations, I am told, are rather terrible - but then again my source is someone who doesn't have a background in translation anyways, and aside from that the preface is worth reading for those interested in the subject. It won't dispense of any scholarly knowledge, but - for one unacquainted with these works - I believe it is a good overview of why this collection exists, and furthermore why it is rightly included in the pantheon of classic Chinese literature.
Displaying 1 of 1 review