Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Penguin Classics)

This is a collection of 104 short tales of a Chinese writer of from 1640 to 1715 on the Anglo time scale rather than the way the writer would assign the dates. In the way the stories are presented, the writer was setting his stories in his era. He frequently uses ghosts, fox -spirits (huli jing) an several varieties of demons. One of the more interesting aspects of his supernatural beings in the ways in which they co-exist and, to a degree, work to the benefit of a human in the story. The glossary also has interesting items on the concepts of interactions between these beings which are quite different from many Western based views. The book manages to be both “too long” and yet “not long enough.” The history and scholastic explanations take up most of the book and are generally unneeded to understand the stories. The stories, a glossary and notes are sufficient to read and understand the book. This is the “too long” aspect. At the same time, the compiler of the collection, in pages xxxiv and xxxv indicates that these stories were taken as representative of “a total of nearly five hundred” without an explanation of the exclusion of approximately four hundred. That is the “not long enough” aspect. The feel of the book, its size and weight were good and the text was quite readable. The illustrations were a delight although not always what could have been illustrations of the story highlight moments. For a casual reader, the stories are interesting and entertaining, the “scholarly” space was a bit overdone and could be skipped. If labored through, one is informed if not educated, but it reduces the degree to which the book can be considered entertaining. While I may read several of the tales again, I doubt I would reread the entire work again.

This classical book is, first of all, a feast to the eyes, having over a hundred pictures, one for each tale, describing its content in the best Chinese tradition, depicting typical gardens with gnarled oak-trees, plum-blossoms, castles with curved roofs, and beautiful and handsome people wearing all kinds of ornate gowns. Then the reader discovers that he or she is about to read over a hundred stories,- some of them one-page-short, a few longer than twelve pages,- which makes it a pleasant task for busy people who can't read two hours daily. One can just keep the book near the bed and read one or two stories before falling asleep. And gradually the reader realizes that he or she is becoming acquainted with the whole atmosphere of old China,- their believes, their daily life, their exquisite landscapes and gardens, their habits of courtship and marriage, and their occult traditions,-their magic-weapons, their monsters, their wise snakes, mice and birds, their capacities of knowing the future in advance, their ghosts, usually of deceased young people,- people dying and coming back to life in their own bodies or in bodies of recently dead people, or reincarnating in new bodies,- their spirits of foxes, usually appearing in the form of seductive beautiful maidens, actually mixing with the living people, but after their death appearing as foxes, just as we in the west had the "Were-Wolves",- just to name a few of all those marvels. Reading the stories reminds one of the celebrated "Thousand Arabian Nights",- "Aladdin",- even "Harry Potter" for adults, and the interesting thing is that the author claims it's not a work of fiction, but true stories he'd accumulated from his neighbors, relatives and friends, making the reading even more fascinating, as if you were reading a gossip-column in an ancient Chinese journal... This is the best gift for people who aren't great readers, yet like to peek occasionally into strange cultures, bizarre events, romantic tales, without investing too much effort and time. The style is very enjoyable, and the only thing that saddened me was,- reaching the book's end, even after 450 pages and 104 stories. I screamed for more! Of course, I've already taken care to supply myself with some more classical Chinese books... Luckily there are several of them on the market, well-translated, all of them celebrated masterpieces.

First of all, the quality of physical book itself is lacking.The pages are very thin, not quite as thin as Bible pages, but getting close. For example if you were to hold onto the side of a page to turn the page, but held onto it too tightly or for too long, it leaves a wrinkle from your fingers that doesn't exactly go away. The cover is not much better when it comes to thickness, and my first one arrived damaged. Although it was packaged poorly, the other two books in the box arrived OK, so it says to me that maybe this book just wasn't strong enough to hold up like the other two, which were the quality of an average trade paperback.Now for the actual content of the book.The book is great. It starts off with an Introduction, then all the stories, and at the end there is an Author's Forward. But the best part is that after the Author's Forward, there is an extensive Glossary, and then extensive Notes on every single story! These must be good for people who are really looking to dive into the book on a deep level.The stories themselves are good. At first it starts off without so many fox stories, and then a little ways through almost every story has a fox, which can get predictable. There is nothing wrong with this and it dodges a repetitive feeling. Some of the stories can be very anticlimactic, but once you get used to this it can be charming.Physical Book: 2.5 starsBook Content: 5 stars

These stories are concise yet packed full of charming surprises - sometimes heartwarming, sometimes tragic and often wonderfully uncanny. There's a lot of variety there so you'll never get bored. The stories are quite subtle so you often do have to think a bit about what they're trying to say, but that makes them memorable and fun - you can reread them again and again and play with different interpretations. Many scenes and images are so vivid and moving they really stay with you long after you've stopped reading. The language has an elegant simplicity to it that's not usually the case with translated works. In fact, this is a translation that does not read like a translation at all: translated works often come across too dry/clinical or too mannered/clumsy - this is neither. I know there are many different translations to these stories so if you're unsure which translation to pick, definitely give this one a go!

Firstly, this was not the book I reviewed, the review of which was rejected - The Kalevala.This is a completely different book from the Orient consisting of many short tales of magic.It is illustrated, but, reading on Kindle, these are in mid-chapter and spoil the flow.An excellent book.Now, if, Amazon let me, I shall revisit The Kalevala...

Let me say where I'm coming from with this review - I've a deep amateur interest in Chinese history and culture. Now that's out of the way .......this is a fabulous book. I can't read or speak Chinese but the translation seems to me to be spot on - literate but not difficult and with enough clarity to make the stories very readable and enjoyable. What stories they are, fusing the everyday with the supernatural and other-wordly, in an accepting and magical way. Each tale is short and told without judgement or authorial comment. They read, in fact, as modern short stories. If you share my interest in China you'll love this.

This Penguin edition has 104 of the 550. An entertaining read, the tales vary in style and theme, nice mixture of quirky, and down to earth tales, covers an array of themes and some are better suited for adults. This Penguin edition also comes with an informative introduction, glossary and maps.

Some of these stories do shine through to this Western reader, with no knowledge of Chinese literature and culture, in the way they are described in the introduction, but for many of them, I came away wondering 'well what'? I think I would need to have a broader background to appreciate them - or maybe read them singly, not all at one time