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Six Records Of A Floating Life by Shen Fu
This is the assorted memoirs of a gentleman who lived in Soochow in China at around 1800 ad. Only four of the records are known to exist. They deal in turn with The Joys Of The Marriage Chamber, the Pleasures of Leisure, the Sorrows of Misfortune and The Delights of Roaming Afar. Along the way, we are treated to snippets of chinese culture, history and literature and taken to see some of the grand estates and gardens around at the time.
There isn't a plot as such, except for the fragmented tale of Shen Fu's struggles to placate his angry father. The reason this book has survived is because it gives a snapshot of chinese life at that time. We are lucky that this translation has been carried out with an understanding of chinese culture. So often, translations and commentaries fall into the trap of interpreting what they see from a western perspective, making embarrassing mistakes. Here, China is portrayed as a dignified, educated and cultured society, but one which is prone to all the excesses of such - mainly alcoholism, fraud, bad debt, prostitution and corruption. It is these which drag Shen Fu into poverty and sickness, disowned from his family. His wife met an early death, and so, eventually, did he.
This is a tragic, human, poignant account of a failed civil servant, not far sighted enough to save money instead of spending it on drink, but with the vision to set down his life and environment for prosperity. He suffered by his inability to make good what he had, and yet what he produced survived all the riches he saw round him. We should be grateful for his efforts and sorry for his pains.
This is the assorted memoirs of a gentleman who lived in Soochow in China at around 1800 ad. Only four of the records are known to exist. They deal in turn with The Joys Of The Marriage Chamber, the Pleasures of Leisure, the Sorrows of Misfortune and The Delights of Roaming Afar. Along the way, we are treated to snippets of chinese culture, history and literature and taken to see some of the grand estates and gardens around at the time.
There isn't a plot as such, except for the fragmented tale of Shen Fu's struggles to placate his angry father. The reason this book has survived is because it gives a snapshot of chinese life at that time. We are lucky that this translation has been carried out with an understanding of chinese culture. So often, translations and commentaries fall into the trap of interpreting what they see from a western perspective, making embarrassing mistakes. Here, China is portrayed as a dignified, educated and cultured society, but one which is prone to all the excesses of such - mainly alcoholism, fraud, bad debt, prostitution and corruption. It is these which drag Shen Fu into poverty and sickness, disowned from his family. His wife met an early death, and so, eventually, did he.
This is a tragic, human, poignant account of a failed civil servant, not far sighted enough to save money instead of spending it on drink, but with the vision to set down his life and environment for prosperity. He suffered by his inability to make good what he had, and yet what he produced survived all the riches he saw round him. We should be grateful for his efforts and sorry for his pains.
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