Night Dressage
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Summary
Stories such as "Going to See the Snake Show," "Dark Red and Withered White," and "Red Flower Field" quietly trace one person's inner journey from youth to middle age, from countryside to city and then periodically back to the countryside—full of tenderness, yet revealing from different angles the individual's frailty, helplessness, and desolate sorrow.
Works like "Nosebleed," "The Blue-and-White Vase and My Hand," "Red Mouth, White Teeth," "Face Changing," "The Ass's Skin," "The Big Case," "And Then Sure Enough," and "High Noon" carry clear symbolic and metaphorical overtones, touching on the theme of human alienation and deformation through slightly comic plots and exaggerated language, with absurdity and critique lurking beneath narratives that stir waves in a small pond.
"A Date at Nippori," "Lovers' Sentiments," "How Long Is a Gaze," "The Swallowing-and-Spitting Chronicle," "Wednesday with Xinyi," "Articulation Performance," and "I Want You to Look Good" tell stories of love and desire against a modern urban backdrop, showing the careful calculation between lovers, the cold betrayal between spouses, and the exhaustion and bewilderment of extramarital affairs, slowly lifting the veil on urbanites' emotional barrenness and spiritual loneliness.
Pieces such as "Absolute Magnitude" and "The Seven-Story Pagoda," whether set in the city or focused on the countryside, all train their pens on the battle between material desire and spiritual pursuit, their lines brimming with a romantic idealism that looks up at the starry sky.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who enjoy short stories and prefer concise narratives
- Readers interested in rural-urban experience and the individual's spiritual condition
- Readers who want to understand the range of Zhu Hui's short fiction over the years
- Readers drawn to urban emotion and absurd symbolic writing
Not a good fit for
- Readers who only read long novels and need sustained plot
- Readers expecting light, sweet stories and unwilling to face the absurd and the bleak
Reading tips
- Read the rural and youthful-memory section first, then the urban-emotion and symbolic pieces, comparing shifts in the author's perspective.
- After each story, summarize its core conflict in one sentence to grasp the structural center of gravity of short fiction.
- Slow down on strongly symbolic pieces and watch for recurring objects and details.
About the publisher
Writers Publishing House is a Chinese publisher focused mainly on literary publishing. Its output covers classical literature, foreign literature, folk literature and Eastern philosophy, with some extension into popular reading such as social fiction and parenting books. Its catalogue contains more than 900 titles, including representative works such as Dream of the Red Chamber and its edited editions, Shakespeare's Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and foreign literary classics such as The Brothers Karamazov and Lost Illusions. In terms of authors, it includes classical writers such as Cao Xueqin and Gao E, foreign masters such as William Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Balzac, and translations by translators such as Zhu Shenghao, Geng Jizhi and Fu Lei. Overall, its publishing profile balances Chinese and foreign literary classics, emphasizes quality translations, and serves both academic and general readers; publicly available information on its specific publishing plans is limited.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 作者简介
- 关于写作的乱想（代序）
- 鼻血
- 暗红与枯白
- 青花大瓶和我的手
- 看蛇展去
- 变脸
- 红口白牙
- 红花地
- 驴皮记
- 相约日暮里
- 和辛夷在一起的星期三
- 大案
- 吞吐记
- 郎情妾意
- 视线有多长
- 吐字表演
- 要你好看
- 绝对星等
- 然后果然
- 七层宝塔
- 午时三刻
FAQ
How many works are collected in this book?
I haven't read any other works by Zhu Hui. Can I start with this book?
What are the urban-emotion pieces in the book mainly about?
Comments
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About the author
Zhu Hui was born in Xinghua, Jiangsu, in 1963 and graduated from Hohai University in 1985. He is a member of the China Writers Association and vice chairman of the Jiangsu Writers Association, and serves as editor-in-chief of the magazine Yuhua. He is primarily a fiction writer, author of the novels My Expression, The Horn Comb, Heaven Knows and White Horse, while his short story The Seven-Story Pagoda won the Seventh Lu Xun Literary Prize. Twenty-one of his works are included in the collection, covering not only fiction but also Chinese painting, poetry, Chinese characters and folk customs, with categories ranging from classic works and social novels to literary appreciation and social sciences. His writing attends to real life and the many facets of society in a calm, meticulous style that weaves observation of cultural tradition into his narratives. Public information is limited, and the overall arc and evolution of his writing remain to be further studied.
