Northern Sichuan
Tags
Summary
Here are the routines of agrarian life, the honest and old-fashioned customs of the people, a peerless love in troubled times, and the treacherous shifts of a changing era. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom; loyalty, filial piety, integrity, and shame; repression and indulgence; resilience and struggle; plainness and cunning; intrigue and killing; suffering and conscience; forgiveness and acceptance; birth and multiplication; love and hate—all are washed and clarified amid the shifting currents of time and circumstance.
The novel spans fifty years, with vivid plotting and a multitude of characters; realism and the magical, pastoral song and epic, the rough and the delicate, fine carving and bold splashes of color together form a magnificent canvas of an era.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who enjoy family sagas and rural narratives and are willing to read a long novel
- Readers interested in social change in northern Sichuan in the first half of the 20th century
- Those who want to feel the conflicts of ethics and human feeling in agrarian society through fiction
- Readers who prefer epic works with rich ensemble casts and large narrative spans
Not a good fit for
- Readers who prefer short stories or fast-paced urban themes and lack patience for long novels
- Readers hoping for light, bright stories and unwilling to face depictions of suffering and intrigue
- Readers who find large casts and complex family relationships daunting
Reading tips
- Before starting, skim the table of contents or the opening character introductions and jot down the relationships among the main members of the Qin and Gui families to avoid confusion midway.
- Read in stages along the timeline, pausing after each period to sort out how characters' fates correspond to historical events.
- Slow down at magical or lyrical passages and note how they echo the realistic plot before and after, rather than skipping them.
- After finishing, pick the character who impressed you most and revisit all their appearances to appreciate the author's choices in characterization.
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
- 引子
- 第一章
- 第二章
- 第三章
- 第四章
- 第五章
- 第六章
- 第七章
- 第八章
- 第九章
- 第十章
- 第十一章
- 第十二章
- 第十三章
- 第十四章
- 第十五章
- 第十六章
- 第十七章
- 第十八章
- 第十九章
- 第二十章
- 第二十一章
- 第二十二章
- 第二十三章
- 第二十四章
- 第二十五章
- 第二十六章
- 第二十七章
- 第二十八章
- 第二十九章
- 第三十章
- 第三十一章
- 第三十二章
- 第三十三章
- 第三十四章
- 第三十五章
- 第三十六章
- 第三十七章
- 第三十八章
- 第三十九章
- 第四十章
- 第四十一章
- 第四十二章
- 第四十三章
- 第四十四章
- 第四十五章
- 第四十六章
- 第四十七章
- 第四十八章
- 第四十九章
- 第五十章
- 第五十一章
- 第五十二章
- 第五十三章
- 第五十四章
- 第五十五章
- 第五十六章
- 第五十七章
- 第五十八章
- 第五十九章
- 第六十章
- 尾声
- 让土地开口说话（后记）
FAQ
There are so many characters—what if I get confused while reading?
The book mentions an interweaving of realism and the magical—will that be hard to understand?
I'm not familiar with the local background of northern Sichuan. Will that affect my reading?
Comments
Find this book
This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Wang Yong is a Chinese author whose works span a notably wide range of subjects. Public information about him is limited, and his nationality, dates of birth and death, and educational background are not clearly recorded. Twenty-five of his works are held in the collection, covering foreign literature, finance, culture, history, biography, and politics. Judging from his representative works, he has written reflective books on living wisely such as The Wisdom of Life, as well as studies on the methods and theoretical debates of new structural economics. He has also addressed cultural history in Ten Lectures on the Circulation of East Asian Culture and specialized historical research on the environment and agricultural development of the middle and lower Yangtze region during the Han, Jin, and Southern Dynasties. His output further includes a biography, Zhen Yongsu: A Path of Study, Success Through Perseverance, and political works such as American Politics and Foreign Policy Decision-Making. Overall, his writing balances thoughtfulness, scholarship, and readability for a variety of readers.
