Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Penguin Classics) by Pu Songling (PDF)

Description

Exquisite and amusing miniatures regarded as the pinnacle of classical Chinese fictionWith their elegant prose, witty wordplay and subtle charm, the 104 stories in this selection from The Strange Tales of Pu Songling (1640-1715) reveal a world in which nothing is as it seems. Here a Taoist monk conjures up a magical pear tree, a scholar recounts his previous incarnations, a woman out-foxes the fox-spirit that possesses her, a child bride gives birth to a thimble-sized baby, a ghostly city appears out of nowhere and a heartless daughter-in-law is turned into a pig. In his tales of humans coupling with shape-shifting spirits, bizarre phenomena, haunted buildings and enchanted objects, Pu Songling pushes back the boundaries of human experience and enlightens as he entertains.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Magical and wondrously entertaining . . . Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio overflows with ghosts, demons, monsters, monks, magicians, revived corpses, gods and fox-spirits. . . . [It] calls to mind a collection of mildly racy club stories or lost episodes of The Twilight Zone. . . . Fast paced, surprisingly light in tone, emotionally cool, wryly humorous—these uncanny tales, often just one or two pages long, might almost be adult bedtime stories. . . . Reading this beloved classic provides a particularly enjoyable way to help celebrate Chinese New Year.” —The Washington Post About the Author PU SONGLING (1645-1715) was a poor, undistinguished scholar who had an uneventful life. He took the lowest degree, the bachelor’s, before he was twenty, but ten years later, he still had not succeeded in passing the second, the master’s degree, due to his neglect of the standard fields of academic study. His loss of personal status is the world’s gain, however, because his overriding interest was in tales of the supernatural, and his collected works, the bible of Chinese supernatural folktales.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This classical book is, first of all, a feast to the eyes, having over a hundred pictures, one for each tale, describing its content in the best Chinese tradition, depicting typical gardens with gnarled oak-trees, plum-blossoms, castles with curved roofs, and beautiful and handsome people wearing all kinds of ornate gowns. Then the reader discovers that he or she is about to read over a hundred stories,- some of them one-page-short, a few longer than twelve pages,- which makes it a pleasant task for busy people who can’t read two hours daily. One can just keep the book near the bed and read one or two stories before falling asleep. And gradually the reader realizes that he or she is becoming acquainted with the whole atmosphere of old China,- their believes, their daily life, their exquisite landscapes and gardens, their habits of courtship and marriage, and their occult traditions,-their magic-weapons, their monsters, their wise snakes, mice and birds, their capacities of knowing the future in advance, their ghosts, usually of deceased young people,- people dying and coming back to life in their own bodies or in bodies of recently dead people, or reincarnating in new bodies,- their spirits of foxes, usually appearing in the form of seductive beautiful maidens, actually mixing with the living people, but after their death appearing as foxes, just as we in the west had the “Were-Wolves”,- just to name a few of all those marvels. Reading the stories reminds one of the celebrated “Thousand Arabian Nights”,- “Aladdin”,- even “Harry Potter” for adults, and the interesting thing is that the author claims it’s not a work of fiction, but true stories he’d accumulated from his neighbors, relatives and friends, making the reading even more fascinating, as if you were reading a gossip-column in an ancient Chinese journal… This is the best gift for people who aren’t great readers, yet like to peek occasionally into strange cultures, bizarre events, romantic tales, without investing too much effort and time. The style is very enjoyable, and the only thing that saddened me was,- reaching the book’s end, even after 450 pages and 104 stories. I screamed for more! Of course, I’ve already taken care to supply myself with some more classical Chinese books… Luckily there are several of them on the market, well-translated, all of them celebrated masterpieces.

⭐First of all, the quality of physical book itself is lacking.The pages are very thin, not quite as thin as Bible pages, but getting close. For example if you were to hold onto the side of a page to turn the page, but held onto it too tightly or for too long, it leaves a wrinkle from your fingers that doesn’t exactly go away. The cover is not much better when it comes to thickness, and my first one arrived damaged. Although it was packaged poorly, the other two books in the box arrived OK, so it says to me that maybe this book just wasn’t strong enough to hold up like the other two, which were the quality of an average trade paperback.Now for the actual content of the book.The book is great. It starts off with an Introduction, then all the stories, and at the end there is an Author’s Forward. But the best part is that after the Author’s Forward, there is an extensive Glossary, and then extensive Notes on every single story! These must be good for people who are really looking to dive into the book on a deep level.The stories themselves are good. At first it starts off without so many fox stories, and then a little ways through almost every story has a fox, which can get predictable. There is nothing wrong with this and it dodges a repetitive feeling. Some of the stories can be very anticlimactic, but once you get used to this it can be charming.Physical Book: 2.5 starsBook Content: 5 stars

⭐A fun read into the dark curiosities and twists of the the ancient human mind

⭐A fun read of short folklore stories from rural china. Intriguing and paints a very different world that what I was expecting. Wonderful read.

⭐As a Chinese, I find these supernatural tales penned by one of ancient China’s finest and most imaginative storytellers – Master Pu Songling, proved to be fascinating reading, particularly in a cold and windy night and alone by oneself…! I had read the Chinese version and look forward to reading the English translation to compare how faithful the selection had been rendered into a Western language. Pu Songling was a Chinese scholar and he had passed the country’s highest examination – the Jinshi – given an official post. On his retirement from official duties after serving his lifetime, he retired to a thatched hut in the midst of fragrant pines and there spent the rest of his retirement collecting and editing the present volume – Tales of Liaozhai (Chinese title) sometime between 1640-1715, shortly after the Manchu Ch’ing Dynasty (AD1644-1912). Such Liaozhai tales proves to be fascinating among the Chinese people at the teahouses and streetcorners at night…fox-fairies, ghosts and other strange and wandering spirits which vigorously meting out rewards and punishments to either good or erring mortals! Based on popular legends and folklore of the day, these paranormal collection of tales were retold under the able penmanship of the retired Master Pu Songling, especially in an era of strict censorship and which were strictly scrutinized by the alien Manchu rulers and their corrupted officials. Under a lonely bean oil lamp, the dedicated Master Pu Songling labored with love and care to produce for his contemporaries and even his fellow countrymen years to come these strange tales… Finest reading, highly recommended and provide an insight into the Chinese mind and for that, there is no equal to this day. Thanks.

⭐Delightful collection of short stories for anybody interested in old Chinese literature or simply looking for strange stories to enjoy during moments of relaxation. The writing style is perfect for the general reader, while included inside are a few illustrations copied from original woodblock paintings, which makes up for the rather delicate paper the book is made out of. Five Stars.

⭐Firstly, this was not the book I reviewed, the review of which was rejected – The Kalevala.This is a completely different book from the Orient consisting of many short tales of magic.It is illustrated, but, reading on Kindle, these are in mid-chapter and spoil the flow.An excellent book.Now, if, Amazon let me, I shall revisit The Kalevala…

⭐Let me say where I’m coming from with this review – I’ve a deep amateur interest in Chinese history and culture. Now that’s out of the way …….this is a fabulous book. I can’t read or speak Chinese but the translation seems to me to be spot on – literate but not difficult and with enough clarity to make the stories very readable and enjoyable. What stories they are, fusing the everyday with the supernatural and other-wordly, in an accepting and magical way. Each tale is short and told without judgement or authorial comment. They read, in fact, as modern short stories. If you share my interest in China you’ll love this.

⭐This Penguin edition has 104 of the 550. An entertaining read, the tales vary in style and theme, nice mixture of quirky, and down to earth tales, covers an array of themes and some are better suited for adults. This Penguin edition also comes with an informative introduction, glossary and maps.

⭐Some of these stories do shine through to this Western reader, with no knowledge of Chinese literature and culture, in the way they are described in the introduction, but for many of them, I came away wondering ‘well what’? I think I would need to have a broader background to appreciate them – or maybe read them singly, not all at one time

⭐Excellent collection of strange Chinese tales – one of my favourite books in classical Chinese literature. The stories are entertaining and sometimes moralising, excellent easy way to understand some folk/buddhist and Daoist themes in traditional Chinese folk beliefs. It’s a shame that this is the only one of the works of Pu Songling which still survives.

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