Helpful Score: 1
Beautiful tale about the power of literary genius that takes place in the most unlikely of settings: China's Cultural Revolution. Teenaged sons of persecuted intellectuals are classified as "city youth" and sent to the mountains for "re-education" among the rural poor. One of the two roommates falls in love with the local tailor's daughter, famed throughout the mountainside for her beauty. The narrator owns a violin, and the two of them acquire a stash of translated Western masterpieces, and the Little Seamstress is transformed from a barely literate peasant into a cultured treasure; and then she teaches the boys a lesson.
Unlike many other great books about the Cultural Revolution (Life And Death In Shanghai by Nien Cheng, Wild Swans by Judy Chang, and other so-called scar literature), Dai Sijie focuses less on the back and spirit breaking labor and abuse aspects and more on the optimism of 19 year olds in love, stolen moments of pleasure, and the restorative powers of literary classics.
Unlike many other great books about the Cultural Revolution (Life And Death In Shanghai by Nien Cheng, Wild Swans by Judy Chang, and other so-called scar literature), Dai Sijie focuses less on the back and spirit breaking labor and abuse aspects and more on the optimism of 19 year olds in love, stolen moments of pleasure, and the restorative powers of literary classics.
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