Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, translated from the original French (the book was a bestseller in France) is a tale centered on, of all things, the Cultural Revolution of China\'s Chairman Mao Zedong. Anyone who takes for granted the freedom from government that Western cultures enjoy would do well to read this book. But this wonderful novel (novella really) is not about politics,except in a cursory way; nor is it a treatise on the evils of China during the reign of Chairman Mao. It is, instead, a gentle, wise and humorous tale of two teenaged friends, young boys, and of a young teenaged girl, theseamstress of the title, whose striking beauty charms them both.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress reads like an amalgam of a Grimm\'s fairy tale and a story by the great writer of realism, Guy de Maupassant (rather than the title-named Balzac). Certainly the ending is not unlike the endings in many a Maupassant tale in its surprise and its quietly humorous perversity.......
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Approximate Word Count: 634
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |