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2 books match the query 'Janssen, Ronald R.'
Dialogues in Paradise
Can Xue
Northwestern University Press, 1989
The thirteen stories of Dialogues in Paradise are eloquent in a way the West associates with both the modern and the ancient: the dark oracles of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the paranoid mystery of Kafka, the moving stream of Woolf. The work of Can Xue (a pseudonym of Changsa writer Deng Xiao-hua) renews our consciousness of the long tradition of the irrational in our literature, where dreams and reality constitute one territory, its borders open, the passage back and forth barely discernible. She fuses lyrical purity with the darkest visions of the grotesque and the result is a unique literary experience.
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Old Floating Cloud
Two NovellasCan Xue
Northwestern University Press, 1991
Old Floating Cloud brings together two of Can Xue’s early novellas, Yellow Mud Street and the titular Old Floating Cloud.
Yellow Mud Street tells of a street, its people, and a strange event that happens there. The street is dilapidated, though it once saw better times. The “S” Machinery Factory, which used to run day and night, is rusty and decaying, though people still deceive themselves into thinking this factory is a fine place, the envy of “foreign devils” and an important connection with “the authorities.” One day, “a thing” appears. No one is sure if it is a person, a flash of light, or a cloud of will-o'-the-wisp. It prompts rumor, superstition, political slogans, and an investigation by the authorities. A chorus of paranoid preoccupations wind up and down Yellow Mud Street, in a series of muttered refrains that build to a screaming frenzy.
Old Floating Cloud is the ruthlessly unsentimental story of a man who has an affair with his neighbor's wife. Can Xue describes the damage people do to each other, their obsessions, their lack of connection, and their attempts to exert power over one another. Lovers are not the only targets of Can Xue’s biting humor. Resentment flares between parents and children, in-laws spy, and employees abase themselves before their bosses. Like Yellow Mud Street, this novella teems with insects, excrement, and distorted bodies—visceral reminders of our earthbound state.
Yellow Mud Street tells of a street, its people, and a strange event that happens there. The street is dilapidated, though it once saw better times. The “S” Machinery Factory, which used to run day and night, is rusty and decaying, though people still deceive themselves into thinking this factory is a fine place, the envy of “foreign devils” and an important connection with “the authorities.” One day, “a thing” appears. No one is sure if it is a person, a flash of light, or a cloud of will-o'-the-wisp. It prompts rumor, superstition, political slogans, and an investigation by the authorities. A chorus of paranoid preoccupations wind up and down Yellow Mud Street, in a series of muttered refrains that build to a screaming frenzy.
Old Floating Cloud is the ruthlessly unsentimental story of a man who has an affair with his neighbor's wife. Can Xue describes the damage people do to each other, their obsessions, their lack of connection, and their attempts to exert power over one another. Lovers are not the only targets of Can Xue’s biting humor. Resentment flares between parents and children, in-laws spy, and employees abase themselves before their bosses. Like Yellow Mud Street, this novella teems with insects, excrement, and distorted bodies—visceral reminders of our earthbound state.
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