Balzac and the Little Chinese
Seamstress (2000) by Dai
Sijie
I
had heard about this novel for years, but never grabbed it until
recently, when I saw it in audiobook form at the library. And as you
may already know, I keep finding myself reading fiction and histories
about China's Cultural Revolution, and I find the stories of this
period fascinating. Well, Balzac
takes place while the Revolution is unfolding, and offers a unique
perspective on what life was like for those young people exiled to
the countryside for "re-education."
Sijie tells the story of Luo and his friend, the unnamed narrator,
who as teenagers are sent to Phoenix Mountain because their parents
have been branded "enemies of the state" for their
bourgeois lifetyles. Living in a hut in the peasants' village,
working in the fields, and carrying animal waste haven't erased their
memories of culture and education, and when they discover that a
friend in another village has a secret suitcase full of books, they
become obsessed with stealing it.
Meanwhile, the boys meet a famous tailor's daughter, only known as
"the little seamstress," and when she becomes Luo's
girlfriend, he decides to make her more "cultured" by
reading the Balzac novel the friend lent him. Over the course of
several months, the boys split their time working and telling stories
to the villagers based on the films they've seen and the books
they've read. And while they ultimately do steal the suitcase full of
books, they lose the woman they both love when the seamstress runs
off to the city, having become fascinated by the culture and
education the boys introduced her to.
One
of the great things about this novel is that it dwells on the beauty
and transcendance of great novels. The narrator, for instance,
describes various Balzac novels in great detail, emphasizing the
richness of the written word and its use as a balm to the mind that
looks for knowledge wherever it can find it. Balzac
emphasizes the Cultural Revolution's disastrous effect on reading and
culture in China at the time, but also insists that the human thirst
for knowledge and beatuy can never be extinguished.
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