Search - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Quick read. Charming coming-of-age type story of a teenaged boy during the Maoist re-education of China. Literature lovers will especially appreciate this one.

I loved this book! It's a beautiful little gem of a book! It's like a fairy-tale, set in the mountains of China during an unlikely period for a fairy-tale; the "re-education" reign of Chairman Mao. I highly recommend it, and I'm not relisting it, because I want my husband to read it, my son to read it.... It's one of those books that you read and want everyone you love to read it, too.
Claudielou

I loved the style of writing of this book. It reminded me of Pearl S. Buck. A wonderful story of two young men sent to the countryside during the re-education of upper class during the Communist Revolution of Mao. But the story is really the story of fine literature and the effect that it has on everyone regardless of their party affiliation. It also tells the story of youth coming of age in very trying times. A very quick read.

I picked this book up on a whim at the buy 3 for the price of 2 table at a book store. The boys in the book struggle with their past "rich" life with their parents to learning how to live on the mountain side. While trying to survive, through hard labor, they entertain the villagers with their stories from movies they've seen. As they live in the village, one of the boys meets a girl who he wishes he can love through the stories he knows in his movies and books he's read. Its a quick read that I enjoyed.

A heartwarming story about two Chinese youths sent to the mountains for "re-education" during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Humorous, sad, and ironic, it's a lovely read.

I would call this a coming of age story, but yet the narrator and his friend Luo are already 18 years old when they are sent away from there families as part of the Chinese Re-Education program. This took them away from their families and lives with very little hope of ever seen them again. But that is not what this book was really about for me, it was more a story of hope, of love, of lust, of friendship, of betrayal and how books when you don't have access to them, mean the world to you. They can be your savior and your burden, but you are willing to risk everything for them. How when you have so very little, you can still have a whole world available to you.

From Publishers Weekly
The Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao Zedong altered Chinese history in the 1960s and '70s, forcibly sending hundreds of thousands of Chinese intellectuals to peasant villages for "re-education." This moving, often wrenching short novel by a writer who was himself re-educated in the '70s tells how two young men weather years of banishment, emphasizing the power of literature to free the mind. Sijie's unnamed 17-year-old protagonist and his best friend, Luo, are bourgeois doctors' sons, and so condemned to serve four years in a remote mountain village, carrying pails of excrement daily up a hill. Only their ingenuity helps them to survive. The two friends are good at storytelling, and the village headman commands them to put on "oral cinema shows" for the villagers, reciting the plots and dialogue of movies. When another city boy leaves the mountains, the friends steal a suitcase full of forbidden books he has been hiding, knowing he will be afraid to call the authorities. Enchanted by the prose of a host of European writers, they dare to tell the story of The Count of Monte Cristo to the village tailor and to read Balzac to his shy and beautiful young daughter. Luo, who adores the Little Seamstress, dreams of transforming her from a simple country girl into a sophisticated lover with his foreign tales. He succeeds beyond his expectations, but the result is not what he might have hoped for, and leads to an unexpected, droll and poignant conclusion. The warmth and humor of Sijie's prose and the clarity of Rilke's translation distinguish this slim first novel, a wonderfully human tale. (Sept. 17)Forecast: Sijie's debut was a best-seller and prize winner in France in 2000, and rights have been sold in 19 countries

A very human glimpse inside China during the Cultural Revolution.

Two friends are brought to a remote village to "lose" their intellect and culture, but instead they make new friends and gain a whole new respect for their countrymen. Simply written and easy to read. Another great coming-of-age story.

wonderful read.. lots of information about China's cultural revolution from the point of view of 2 young men....some love interests, some humor.

A delightful, quick read. I became totally engrossed with the characters and the relationship between the two boys as friends and their interactions with the one's girlfriend. I would recommend it, but I will warn you I didn't quite understand the end of the novel.

A look into another culture and the difficulties overcome. A serious read with no humor to recommend it.

Beautifully written, full of imagination and depth in its depiction of the craziness of Communist China, but with a cynical, dark ending that steals away the satisfying meaning of the earlier part of the book.

A too-short gem inspired by The Cultural Revolution.

quick read, could've used a little more depth.

A delightful story about the Chinese cultural revolution and how people seek to understand.

Fast read with a insights into Communist China's "Cultural Revolution."

This is a good story.

An interesting story about life in communist china during Mao's reign.

Awesome book!