Thursday, August 29, 2019
Book Birthday Giveaway Entry Ends August 31!
Oct. 1, 2019 Update: The winners were notified and signed copies of the book were put in the mail to them on Sept. 26, 2019.
Please use the contact form (on the right) to enter your name and address for a lucky draw on September 1, 2019.
Deadline for entries is 5:00 pm Pacific Time on Saturday, August 31, 2019. Good Luck!
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Li Xiangjun and "The Peach Blossom Fan"
As
I previously mentioned, Li Xiangjun 李香君 (1624 – 1653) is one of the three leading characters of my upcoming
novel. She was among the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai 秦淮八艷 and the subject
of Ming scholar Hou Fangyu’s 侯方域’s
literary essay titled Biography of Lady
Li 李姬傳.
The premises where Li used to reside and ply
her trade as a courtesan (she was a celebrated kunqu opera singer) were called Villa of Alluring Fragrance 媚香樓, which was located along the banks of the
Qinhuai River, a glitzy pleasure district of Nanjing in the late-Ming dynasty. The
above photographs show the reconstructed building at No. 38, Bank Note Vault
Street, Qinhuai, Nanjing 南京秦淮區鈔庫街三十八号.
If
you have read Kong Shangren’s 孔尚任’s iconic
historical play The Peach Blossom Fan 桃花扇, you would already be familiar with the real-life heroine Li
Xiangjun. This classical play is a dramatized narrative based on Hou’s essay Biography of Lady Li and is a poetic weaving
of the tragic love affair between Hou and Li with the collapse of the Ming
dynasty.
I’ve recently stumbled across a poem
written by renowned writer and philosopher Lin Yutang 林語堂 (1895 – 1976), which gives a reflective and laudatory description
of Li Xiangjun’s character, with gibes targeting men in general. He inscribed this
poem on a scroll portrait of Li Xiangjun that he had privately commissioned.
林語堂之”為香君題詩”:-
香君一個娘子,血染桃花扇子,
義氣照耀千古,羞煞鬚眉漢子。
香君一個娘子,性格是個蠻子,
懸在齋中壁上,教我知所觀止。
如今天下男子,誰復是個蠻子,
大家朝秦暮楚,成個什麼樣子。
當今這個天下,都是騙子販子,
我思古代美人,不至出甚亂子。
My Translation:
Lin Yutang’s Ode to Xiangjun:-
Xiangjun
is a woman, her blood spilt on the peach blossom fan.
Her
moral virtue lights up history, and shames the macho men.
Xiangjun
is a woman, and she has grit aplenty.
I
have her painting hung on the wall, to teach me humility.
Take
a look at all the men, is there any with intrepidity?
They’re
all wishy-washy; what have become of them!
The
world these days, is filled with crooks and shams.
I
can’t go wrong admiring, beauties in a distant time-span.
Monday, August 5, 2019
Book Review - "The Family Romanov" by Candace Fleming
A
breezy and concise historical account of Russia’s last imperial reign of Tsar Nicholas
II, this non-fiction history book reads a lot like a novel.
Like
with many other similar stretches of history, when viewed in retrospect, the
course of events would seem to be so natural and predictable that it makes one
wonder, had things been handled with more compassion and less hubris by those
in power, if the odds of averting tragedies and disasters could’ve increased.
The Family Romanov gives an
intimate account of the lives of the Romanov family members, namely, Nicholas,
his wife Alexandra, and their four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Marie and
Anastasia and one son-and-heir Alexei. The account starts with the 1884
courtship between teenagers Nicholas and Alix of Hesse (who was Queen
Victoria’s granddaughter), and carries us through to the tragic end of the
whole family in July 1918.
Juxtaposing
narratives of the opulent, hedonistic lifestyle of the Imperial family side by
side with anecdotes of the peasant class’s everyday scourge of abject poverty, oppression
and despair, the author presents a poignant picture of two diametrically
opposite worlds, worlds inhabited by two classes that are distinguished by
birth and destiny. Exaggerated sense of entitlement and obtuseness of the
privileged ruling class becomes the cause of its own ultimate undoing.
I’m
just puzzled as to why the French-educated Romanovs had not learned from the
downfall of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
It
is interesting to note that it was not until July 2007 that the remains of
Alexei and of one of his sisters were finally found. (The remains of the other
five family members had been uncovered in 1991.)
I’m
giving this well-researched book 4 full stars.
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