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Border Town: A Novel (1936)

by Shen Congwen(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0061436917 (ISBN13: 9780061436918)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Harper Perennial

review 1: An evocative novel by an author who was chosen for the Nobel prize, but died before it was awarded. The story is very simple. Cuicui (Green Jade) leads a quiet life with her grandfather, a ferryman, transporting passengers across a small stream near a frontier town. Since Cuicui is thirteen, she is almost ready for marriage and draws the attention of two sons of a wealthy merchant. Although published in 1934, the book has the timeless feel of a fairy tale. I was particularly intrigued by the fairy tale-like implications of marriage. If a young man is choosing between the daughters of a ferryman and a miller, he is actually deciding whether he is to spend his life as a miller or a ferrymen. The translator asserts that he could not duplicate the author’s exquisite ... morepainterly style. However, I do not entirely agree. I found that many of the scenes in the book evoked for me the elegant lines of a classical Chinese painting.
review 2: I felt extremely lucky to understand a bit of Chinese so I could read the original text and not the translation. One word to conclude my feeling about this book: BEAUTIFUL! I think it’s more than just beautiful. It is a love story that’s so pure as if such pureness is no longer existed in our world today. That’s why I found it so beautiful and moving. It’s the beautiful souls and humanity touched me dearly. Of course Shen’s writing is admirable. He has the ability to transform the most ordinary into something extraordinary. His sensitivity towards beauty and humanity is doubtless and his highly lyrical writing style is truly an artistic expression. In fact, I've always seen Shen as an artist and he truly is. Nothing is loud, lots of nuances and subtleties were embedded in his writing that certainly required time and a heart to grasp. Though Shen is portraying an idealized and if not an idyllic world, because it's so quiet and plain, it makes me feel quite realistic. From Shen's perspective, life is fragile and intangible because of its mutable nature and the ending reveals it all. Don't know why, sadness always permeates life in an inexplicable way, almost like something that's inescapable...... Overall I enjoy so much reading Shen's works simply because I see so much life that I deeply resonate with. less

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