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New York Times Bestseller

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is an enchanting tale that captures the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening. An immediate international bestseller, it tells the story of two hapless city boys exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. There the two friends meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, the two friends find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.

Read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress A Novel Dai Sijie Ina Rilke Books

"This book was vivid and different. It had been on my list to read for a long time. The writing was rich, the vocabulary expansive, and the metaphors florid. Taking place during Mao's Cultural Revolution, the main characters are being "re-educated" by hard labor in the remote mountains, where they make the acquaintance of a lovely little seamstress. Having absconded with a bootleg cache of illegal western literature, they lavish it on her and end up squandering it in the end.

I give this book only four stars. This is not because of the gruesome details I hated to hear about, which ranged from raging lice infestation, to drinking warm, curdled ox blood, or drilling a tooth with a sewing machine -- although I could have definitely done without any of that! It is more the fact that the beginning of the book depicted how hard their life was under their reeducation, which was made all the more palpably authentic since the author, Dai Sijie, had lived through this himself. But by the end of the book, there is such free coming and going from the little seamstress' house -- including leisurely, idyllic swims in a hidden, limpid pool -- that it illegitimatized all that you were made to understand about the oppressive strictures of their situation. This inconsistency was distracting and undermined the story for me.

The aspect regarding the effect of great literature on starving minds was interesting, but after the extraordinary weight put on plumbing the depths of this, its eventual flippant destruction was not believable. This was to serve, I suppose, as evidence that their "re-education" was actual and complete, despite having access to powerful and influential material.

I am left sad, but with a curiosity about the acclaimed author, Balzac, who I know nothing about, but for whom I now entertain a possible desire to read. I may have gotten more out of this book if I had been familiar with Balzac, as I presume many French readers would be. (This book was expertly translated from its original French and won many accolades there.) What the little seamstress got out of Balzac is a woman's beauty is her treasure. This is a decidedly (and incongruously) French theme for a Chinese book."

Product details Paperback 184 pages Publisher Anchor Books (October 29, 2002) Language English ISBN-10 0385722206

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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress A Novel Dai Sijie Ina Rilke Books Reviews :

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress A Novel Dai Sijie Ina Rilke Books Reviews

• This book is focused on the lives of two teenage boys living in China. During a major cultural revolution in which the educated elite are seen as enemies, having parents who are doctors and dentists is a major disadvantage. Such is the case for the narrator and his best friend, Luo. The two boys are taken from their families and sent to live in a tiny village, where they are "re-educated," meaning that they are forced to work on the farms, haul heavy bundles, and enter a tiny and terrifying coal mine.
  
  Because of the extent of their parents' danger to authority, Luo and the narrator expect they will be exiled to this village for a very long time, and they try to find ways to make their miserable time there more bearable.
  
  Luo falls in love with a girl--the daughter of the local tailor. Soon he is spending much of his time sneaking off to be with the little seamstress. Still, these young men need more in their lives. When they find out that another boy being re-educated nearby has a secret stash of forbidden literature, they are desperate to get their hands on it.
  
  I really enjoyed much of this story. I liked the narrator, and I especially liked the ways in which he and his friend Luo interacted. They were able to make the best of their situation without getting beaten down, and I appreciated that they used great literature to buoy themselves up through difficult times.
  
  I suppose I just expected more of an ending to this story. I felt like I was left hanging, not knowing what the next step for the narrator and Luo would be, and not really getting to explore Luo's or the seamstress' feelings. I felt as though we were leaving the story at a crucial point, and I was cheated out of a true resolution.
• During the Cultural Revolution of China's Chairman Mao Zedong, hapenning in the 1970s, re-education of the intellectuals and professionals meant sending them off to remote villages to perform hard industrial and agricultural labor. At the same time, the communists had stripped the schools of many subjects already and many of the youth only had a rudimentary education. On top of it all, the Communists had also confiscated, burnt and banned many books that did not fall in line with Mao's Communism. In this setting, two young boys are relocated to a village for re-education. There, they become friends with another young man called 'Four-Eyes,' whom they suspect is hiding a case of banned books. One of them also courts 'the Little Seamstress,' the illiterate daughter of the tailor and eventually they become lovers. Although a fairly simple plot, it is like the Los Angeles Times Book Review says "an unexpected miracle - a delicate, and often hilarious, tale."
  
  This book definitely took me by surprise. So well crafted. Immaculate language. Clean, crisp, and even entertaining. Besides the fantastic use of language and its somewhat serious tone, what makes this book especially pleasant is the small funny incidents and humor placed randomly and unexpectedly throughout the book. It's definitely a playful story amid China's history. One part of the book in particular was really cleverly funny. When Luo, the narrator's friend, has a fear of being taken in by the Red Guards on account of playing western music on a violin, he tells the Red Guards that they are playing 'Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao." EVEN Mozart thinks of Mao.
  
  Lou is my ultimate favorite character in this book. He really drives the story the whole time. He's the one that suggests 'Four-Eyes' is hiding books in his case. He's sly, he's funny, and he's adventurous. Plus, he's the one that has a love affair with 'the Little Seamstress.' So much in the book surrounds around this character. Although, "the only thing Luo was really good at was telling stories. A pleasing talent to be sure, but a marginal one, with a little future in it. Modern man has moved beyond the age of the Thousand-and-One-Nights, and modern societies everywhere, whether socialist or capitalist, have done away with the old storytellers - more's the pity." "How great Luo's talent was! He was able to electrify an audience by means of a perfectly timed voice-over, even when overcome by a violent bout of malaria."
  
  I thought the pace and rhythm of the book really worked. It was steady and paced and there was never a dull moment. There is even a romantic element, one I didn't quite care for that much except for a scene or two in the book, nevertheless I think it adds depth to the book. If there is one favorite part abut 'the Little Seamstress' to mention it would be at the very end when she says that she had learned one thing from Blazac "that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price." I thought it was a bit hilarious. Lou spends and consumes so much of his time courting and pursuing her. He is hypnotized by her, and he uses Balzac's words to woo her. Then in the end Balzac actually hypnotizes 'the Little Seamstress' and steals her from him. A bit ironic, I feel.
  
  I definitely recommend this book to anyone with an interest in foreign literature, particularly Asian literature. It's an exceptional read, and if there was a read to start off with in reading Chinese Literature this would be a good choice.
• This book was vivid and different. It had been on my list to read for a long time. The writing was rich, the vocabulary expansive, and the metaphors florid. Taking place during Mao's Cultural Revolution, the main characters are being "re-educated" by hard labor in the remote mountains, where they make the acquaintance of a lovely little seamstress. Having absconded with a bootleg cache of illegal western literature, they lavish it on her and end up squandering it in the end.
  
  I give this book only four stars. This is not because of the gruesome details I hated to hear about, which ranged from raging lice infestation, to drinking warm, curdled ox blood, or drilling a tooth with a sewing machine -- although I could have definitely done without any of that! It is more the fact that the beginning of the book depicted how hard their life was under their reeducation, which was made all the more palpably authentic since the author, Dai Sijie, had lived through this himself. But by the end of the book, there is such free coming and going from the little seamstress' house -- including leisurely, idyllic swims in a hidden, limpid pool -- that it illegitimatized all that you were made to understand about the oppressive strictures of their situation. This inconsistency was distracting and undermined the story for me.
  
  The aspect regarding the effect of great literature on starving minds was interesting, but after the extraordinary weight put on plumbing the depths of this, its eventual flippant destruction was not believable. This was to serve, I suppose, as evidence that their "re-education" was actual and complete, despite having access to powerful and influential material.
  
  I am left sad, but with a curiosity about the acclaimed author, Balzac, who I know nothing about, but for whom I now entertain a possible desire to read. I may have gotten more out of this book if I had been familiar with Balzac, as I presume many French readers would be. (This book was expertly translated from its original French and won many accolades there.) What the little seamstress got out of Balzac is a woman's beauty is her treasure. This is a decidedly (and incongruously) French theme for a Chinese book.