Word: ah
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It’s not uncommon for freshmen to exit Annenberg feeling like they’ve left a time warp (where did the last two hours just go? Ah, lost to that stained-glass refectory forever). But at yesterday evening's Study Break with University President Drew G. Faust (sorry Drew, Larry was a better dancer: see left, with the original caption) and Dean Thomas A. Dingman ’67, students entered a parallel universe of chocolate crepes, hot apple cider, and….a dance floor waiting to be thronged with freshmen letting...
...about Chinese literature - good news if you think, as I do, that the country's growing global profile should be matched by greater awareness of its cultural offerings. But to me the best news of all is the recent publication, as a Penguin Classic, of The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China. It's a work that has nothing to do with introducing an up-and-coming writer, but rather seeks to widen appreciation of the long-dead Lu Xun - the pen name of Zhou Shuren, who succumbed to tuberculosis...
...Chinese letters who deserves to be much more widely read outside his homeland. This affordable volume comprises, over 416 pages, his complete fiction. Julia Lovell's are arguably the most accessible translations yet of such famous stories as "The Divorce," "New Year's Sacrifice" and the eponymous tale of Ah-Q (an opportunistic, inept sometime participant in the 1911 Revolution). Together, they give Lu Xun his best shot to date of achieving renown beyond the Chinese world. If it succeeds in this, the book could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published...
...England's George Orwell is another essential writer, and one with whom Lu Xun shares important traits. Each introduced new terms into the political lexicon: Ah-Q-ism (a proclivity for self-delusion) is as readily understood in China as references to Big Brother are elsewhere. Each author spent most of his adult life as an independent thinker of the left, criticizing dogmatism and hypocrisy wherever it appeared on the political spectrum. Each championed plain forms of writing. And each penned an ironic novella about a revolution that claimed to be about changing everything, but ended up altering only...
...Wolf Totem (if you don't mind slow-paced tales), I Love Dollars (no caveat there, it's a rollicking read) and other contemporary Chinese works in translation. But if you want to get the most out of them, you'll need to know about The Real Story of Ah-Q. In fact, there's only one thing missing from the collection, and that's a sticker on the front proclaiming READ ME FIRST...