/lit/ - Literature

I've read the Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Teahouse, To Live, Red Sorghum and one of the stories from the Ah Cheng book out of the modern section.

I'd recommend starting with The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China by Lu Xun, even if you only read a few of the stories from it. The Real Story of Ah-Q and Diary of a Madman are probably the most important from that collection, but my favorites were honestly from the last section, Old Stories Retold. They were old stories - old myths and legends in Chinese history - retold, sometimes with a modern bent. I was least fond of the more politically-inclined ones in the middle section, Hesitation, but I feel like that was because I was damn unfamiliar with modern Chinese history when I first read it. I probably missed a large part of the subtleties there.

The introduction in the Penguin edition is really great for familiarizing you with the basics of Lu Xun's life and background on China at the time he was writing, but you may want to read a bit more about it on the side. There's still a huge amount of footnotes in the Penguin one though.

>>1925510
And here's me again, again. Finished The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China by Lu Xun and also finished up Today I Wrote Nothing by Daniil Kharms, which I'd been reading on for a while.

I adored so many of the stories in the Lu Xun collection. "Diary of a Madman," "In Memoriam," and "The Real Story of Ah-Q" were my favorites, along with all the ones in the last section, Old Stories Retold. There's just something about when authors rework old myths and legends that I love (Ryunosuke Akutagawa's stories, for example). Plus, as I'm pretty unfamiliar with Chinese mythology and folklore, most of the stories in that last section were completely new to me, which probably helped my love of them. Lu Xun really has a hold on crowd mentality, as well as the trappings of small villages. I learned a lot of things from this book, from society's restrictions on men's hair in early twentieth century China to a blind Russian poet who spoke Esperanto. There's just so much of everything packed into this collection. Probably going to check out some additional translations of his complete works later on.

For the Kharms book - I had already read a bit of his work because of a link someone posted on /lit/ forever ago (http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm).). Those that I read made me extremely eager to pick up more of his work. This book includes his poetry, journal entries, stories, as well as "The Old Woman". I don't think I have many words to explain how much I love his stories. As soon I read them I feel like I have to share them with everybody (and I actually did go around reading some of the shorter ones to people). I couldn't even begin to name all my favorites, there are dozens and dozens. I will say though, that ending with "Rehabilitation" was an absolutely excellent finale. I've discovered my enjoyment of absurdist literature with Kharms, so I'll definitely be delving into that soon.