Strange Tales from Liaozhai - Vol. 2The weird and whimsical short stories in Strange Tales from Liaozhai show their author, Pu Songling (1640-1715), to be both an explorer of the macabre, like Edgar Allan Poe, and a moralist, like Aesop. In this first complete translation of the collection's 494 stories into English, readers will encounter supernatural creatures, natural disasters, magical aspects of Buddhist and Daoist spirituality, and a wide range of Chinese folklore. Annotations are provided to clarify unfamiliar references or cultural allusions, and introductory essays have been included to explain facets of Pu Songling's work and to provide context for some of the unique qualities of his uncanny tales. This is the second of 6 volumes. |
From inside the book
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... ..................... 490 105. Scholar Huo ................................................... 498 106. Wang Shixiu ................................................... 501 107. Shang Sanguan ..........................................
... Wang Zixun (“The Frogs' Song” [wa qu] and “The Performing Mice” [shu xi]). Since he is an author and a collector of narratives from fellow citizens interested in the unusual and the supernatural, it's intriguing to consider the ...
... Wang Zixun. The degree of Pu Songling's reinvention of the materials he collected is perhaps best measured by the pervasive themes in the stories. Karl S.Y. Kao has argued that the Chinese tradition of using weird fiction “to convey the ...
... Wang, from Pu's hometown, learns the dangers of demeaning others; and in “Gong Mengbi” (gong mengbi), Liu He, a man too profligate with his generosity, is taught some valuable lessons in the need to judge character astutely and to trust ...
... Wang Shixiu” (wang shixiu) are described as something he shared in common with his father—so Pu ensures that those skills are exercised when Wang is given the opportunity to rescue his father, who had supposedly died almost a decade ...