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Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes (Chinese: 一九三四年的逃亡; pinyin: Yījiǔsānsì Nián de Táowáng) is a novella by Su Tong, first published in 1987. In 1990 it was published by Yuan-Liou Publishing Co. [zh] (遠流出版公司) in a collection with the novella Raise the Red Lantern (which as titled under its original Chinese title, Wives and Concubines, which also was the title of the entire volume).

This, told in the first person, is about an impoverished peasant family.

The novella was translated into English by Michael S. Duke, and this translation was published as a collection of stories by Su Tong, named Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas, published by William Morrow & Company in 1993. This collection also includes the novellas Raise the Red Lantern and Opium Family.

Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes and Opium Family take place in a fictional location called "Maple Village". Yingjin Zhang of Indiana University compared Maple Village to Yoknapatawpha County. This location is in the south of the country.

Plot

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The narration focuses on Grandmother Jiang, who has a surname spelled "蔣" (Wade-Giles: Chiang). She is married to Chen Baonian (Chinese: 陳寶年, Wade-Giles: Ch'en Pao-nien) who goes to the city to do business. Jiang finds a woman Chen Baonian is cheating on her with, Huanzi (Chinese: 環子, W-G: Huan-tzu). Jiang and Huanzi get engaged in a conflict.

The story is set in the 1934. There is a narrator who talks about his family. The narrator does not reveal his name, and feels that he does not have a great existence compared to his family. Jiang has six children.

By the end of the novella, all of the children are dead. Deirdre Sabina Knight wrote that "fatalism" is a feature of the work. Tang Xiaobing states that the family experiences "gradual but no less violent disintegration and dispersal".

Reception

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Xiaobing Tang, in Chinese Modern: The Heroic and the Quotidian, described the novella's plot as "complex and seminal".

In Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes and Opium Family Duke had stated "that wherever the English seems strange it is because the Chinese was also purposefully so". Gary Krist of The New York Times felt these translations had a "rambling nature" that became "merely awkward, unrevealing and occasionally tedious." Because of Duke's statement, Krist was unsure whether the awkwardness came from Su Tong or from Duke. Publishers Weekly stated that a "hand-me-down quality of oral history" where the reader is unsure of the truth is reflected in Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes.

References

• Choy, Howard Yuen Fung (2008). "Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng's China, 1979 -1997". BRILL. ISBN 9789004167049.
• Knight, Deirdre Sabina (Spring–Fall 1998). "Decadence, Revolution and Self-Determination in Su Tong's Fiction". Modern Chinese Literature. 10 (1/2): 91–111. JSTOR 41490774.
• McDougall, Bonnie S.; Louie, Kam (1997). The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century. Columbia University Press.
• Tang, Xiaobing (Spring–Fall 1992). "The Mirror of History and History as Spectacle: Reflections on Hsiao Yeh and Su T'ung". Modern Chinese Literature. 6 (1/2: Special Issue on Contemporary Chinese Fiction from Taiwan). Edinburgh University Press: 203-220 (18 pages. JSTOR 41490700.
• Zhang, Yingjin (December 1994). "Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas by Su Tong, Michael S. Duke". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews. 16: 185–187. doi:10.2307/495325. JSTOR 495325.

Notes

1. McDougall and Louie, p. 418.
2. Tang, Xiaobing, "The Mirror of History and History as Spectacle," p. 219.
3. ^ "Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas". Publishers Weekly. 1993-06-28. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
4. ^ Krist, Gary (1993-07-25). "The Junior Wife's Story". The New York Times. Retrieved 2022-09-08.
5. Zhang, Yingjin, p. 185.
6. ^ Choy, H. Y.F., p. 138.
7. ^ Tang, Xiaobing (2000-04-03). Chinese Modern: The Heroic and the Quotidian. Duke University Press. p. 235.
8. ^ Knight, p. 96.
9. ^ Tang, Xiaobing, "The Mirror of History and History as Spectacle," p. 211.

Further reading

• Su, Tong (1990). "一九三四年的逃亡" [Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes]. 妻妾成群 [Wives and Concubines]. Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing Co. [zh]. pp. 13–78.

External links

• Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas - HarperCollins

• Chinese novellas
• 1987 Chinese novels