Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (2025)

Tim

479 reviews788 followers

"Read these tales properly, and they will make you strong and brave; read them in the wrong way, and they will possess you."- Feng ZhenluanEarly nineteenth century commentator on the Strange Tales

I honestly don’t know how to begin with reviewing a book like this. Normally with short story collections, I try to do a short review for each tale, but with 104 stories, I’m not going that route this time. Perhaps we’ll go with a little historic background?

These tales were written by Pu Songling sometime in the Qing dynasty (from what I can gather, he probably completed the tales by 1679, but could have been adding extra stories up until the early 1700s) and published by his grandson in 1740. The stories range from silly real life problems from the upper classes, to stories dealing with monsters, ghosts and fox spirits. Throughout this collection there is obvious social criticisms; sometimes these are outright preached as a moral at the end, more often they are more subtle or presented as a joke (Ha! Those silly merchants and their greed, that priest sure showed them, eh?). The only major theme tying all the stories together is that they are indeed strange. Sometimes the strangeness comes from the supernatural side, or it can just be the peculiar habits people pick up, but every single tale serves as an oddity that shows human nature in often surprisingly witty fashions.

If I was to do a one word review, the closest word to capturing the feeling of these tales would be sublime. In this collection you will find stories about fox spirits, ghosts, demons and priests. You will find longer tales of the supernatural and short almost slice of life moments of comedy. There is horror, humor and wonder all in about equal measure and it is stunning.

While I do not know if it is the translation or the style it was written in, but the book is very readable. The stories flow well, and never feel their age other than in some of the opinions he expresses which are very much a part of his time. Some American and European readers may be shocked by the amount of sexuality in this book considering its age, but remember, this is 1600/1700 China, with stories often taking place much earlier, not your usual proper English subject matter of the time. Though as a fun historic note, in the introduction to the Penguin edition I read, the translator discusses earlier translations where they tried to hide the more erotic content, with some examples being a fox spirits coming into bed chambers at night and "drinking tea" or "playing Go" instead.

I can’t say that every story in the collection is perfect. Some are duds, but the good far outweighs the bad, and as a look at history its rather fascinating on that ground alone. Well deserving of a full 5 stars and my highest praise.

18th-century chinese classic

Rowena

501 reviews2,679 followers

The title, and the fact that this is a Penguin classic, attracted me. I really, really enjoyed this read. The stories were quite short, some only a paragraph in length, and the longest ones being perhaps 4-5 pages. And they were strange indeed, strange is definitely an understatement. They were very candid tales, especially considering they were written almost 400 years ago. Many stories were of a sexual nature which also surprised me because of when the stories were written. A couple of stories were distressing, I must admit. I’m fascinated by the idea of Chinese ghosts; they actually bleed if injured. And the idea of fox spirits that take on human form and act like succubi.

chinese-lit

Alwynne

817 reviews1,203 followers

A selection of pieces from a classic of Chinese literature dating from the 1600s. These are early examples of a literary tradition of accounts of the weird (zhiguai) and the strange (chuanqi), which Pu Songling famously combined in his writing. So here are weird tales of hauntings as in “The Golden Goblet,” mythical creatures such as trolls and the more familiar fox spirits; and strange, often grim and grisly, stories like the fornicating dog subjected to cruel punishment for his affair with a human, the woman who accidentally serves her husband’s dildo to their dinner guests, or graphic accounts of dealing with syphilitic, suppurating sores. Although there are some more charming images of dancing mice, or the bonds between friends. The subject-matter also reflects the author’s stalled career as a civil servant in the way he pokes fun at corrupt officials and unnecessary bureaucracy. The style, at least in translation, is mostly deadpan and fable-like, the narratives are predominantly brief, bringing to mind modern micro or flash fiction. I’m not sure how to sum these up, the closest comparison I could make is probably wildly inappropriate but if anything, they reminded me of aspects of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales or The Decameron., At the same time they’re vastly different from these and not just because of their cultural underpinnings: there’s an air of detachment and dislocation in Pu Songling’s work; there are no overall framing devices or other signposts that suggest ways of navigating the material as a reader, the only unifying elements are the repetition of themes or scenarios.

I’m not sure how much I actually liked these as found them incredibly intriguing, I enjoyed that sense of the unknown as I turned each page totally unable to predict what the next one would contain. The edition I have is from Penguin, John Minford’s translation is smooth and there’s a host of invaluable supporting and contextual material including extensive background notes. This version also features a smattering of striking lithographs from a nineteenth-century Chinese printing. John Minford’s overview highlighted the influence of Pu Songling’s work on existing subgenres dealing with the bizarre and the supernatural, so for me an additional attraction was a chance to develop my understanding of relationships between classical Chinese literature and modern-day writers.

fiction short-stories supernatural-ish

Nancy Oakes

2,000 reviews842 followers

According to John Minford (whose translation in the Penguin edition of some of these strange tales is my preferred translation of this book: Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), what readers are about to experience here are

"longer stories with complex plots, often involving relationships between men, fox-spirits and ghosts, sometimes interweaving the events of several incarnations. Then there are a large number of medium-length tales dealing with a variety of themes: the foibles of spiritual or alchemical pretension, both Buddhist and Taoist; the workings of illusion and enlightenment; and the ways of human vanity and corruption in general. These are interspersed with brief accounts of strange phenomena (earthquakes, hail-storms, mirages), of unusual skills (rare sorts of kungfu, mediumistic skills -- genuine or otherwise) -- strange performances with animals, obsessions with snakes; descriptions of unusual varieties of bird, fish, turtle and alligator, of magical stones, bags and swords; and tantalizing evocations of the transience of life, of strange tenants and abandoned halls." (xiii-xiv),

a perfect description of what's between the two covers.

I did sort of flit between the Penguin and the Tuttle editions while reading this book -- as grateful as I am to Herbert A. Giles for his outstanding scholarship (and for also giving me a great start in trying to understand classical Chinese well over a decade ago), his version of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio has much less to offer than Minford's. Minford breathes life into the stories he's translated while Giles' version ends to be a bit on the dry side; there are also some big differences in the translations themselves. I found myself going back to the original Chinese more than once to try to sort things between the two English versions and decided I preferred Minford when all is said and done.

I love Chinese classical works and this one with its focus on the strange made me a seriously happy person while reading. It's not a book you can read in one sitting, and it's certainly not one to speed read because there is so much at work here within each story that needs time and thought to try to suss out what's really happening.

I leave you with some excellent advice from nineteenth-century commentator Feng Zhenluan who says the following (as quoted in Minford) about reading Strange Tales From A Chinese Studio which I found helpful:

"Read these tales properly, and they will make you strong and brave; read them in the wrong way and they will possess you. Cling to the details, and they will possess you; grasp the spirit, and you will be strong."

http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2017...

17th-century 18th-century chinese-fiction

Jesse Field

814 reviews48 followers

This is the kind of book that, when read carefully, can transform the English reader from perfect ignorance of Chinese culture to nerd-like engagement with aesthetics, society, history, mythology, folklore, science, medicine, technology, and the list goes on and on. It's really worth remembering how powerful a single book can be, and if you think about the variety and range of this book, you begin to understand why Chinese writing so often comes in anthologies and collections.

I'll likely return to this book again and again, both for personal benefit and to assign to my students. Just today I re-read the story "Twenty Years a Dream" (Pu Songling's original title was "Locket" 连锁, which is the name of the ghost girl).

foteini_dl

521 reviews151 followers

Άνθρωποι, ζώα και παράξενα πλάσματα ζουν σε έναν κόσμο σαν αυτόν που ξέρουμε αλλά και αυτόν που δεν βλέπουμε. Οι ιστορίες του Που Σονγκλίνγκ είναι πιο πολύ λαϊκά παραμύθια, γεμάτα μαγεία και υπερφυσικά στοιχεία, κάνουν τον πολιτισμό των Κινέζων οικείο (χελόου Αίσωπε) αλλά και άγνωστο.

Αν αφήνει μία αίσθηση αυτή η συλλογή, είναι πως υπάρχουν διαφορετικά μέρη που συνυπάρχουν και συνιστούν ένα σύνολο, που ίσως να μην μπορούμε να το καταλάβουμε απόλυτα.

Υγ.: Άλλη μια προσεγμένη έκδοση από τις εκδόσεις Αιώρα και τι ωραίο εξώφυλλο!

around-the-world

Horace Derwent

2,397 reviews226 followers

《聊齋誌異》的經典選篇，而非全集

nicely terped

although the selected stories are not in the round(you know, at that time, the terp translated this directly from classical chinese, it was so hard, absolutely much more harder than reading old english, such as BEOWULF, for me), but it still gives me a fresh stunning experience, and it looks like an omnibus of kwaidan with illustrations

Justin Evans

1,629 reviews989 followers

I've been reading a lot of "difficult" books recently, and a few short books that just weren't very good. Amid that pile, Pu's tales were a glorious reminder of why people enjoy telling stories, why people enjoy reading them, and how many different ways something can be interesting.

Short of listing the best stories here, there's not much to review. THere are supernatural tales (ghosts and 'foxes'); there are little anecdotes; there are morality tales; there are anti-morality tales; and most of all there's a kind of joy I just don't get from a lot of contemporary books. I've been recommending this to all of my meat-space friends since I finished reading it. Now I recommend it to my interwebby friends on goodreads: anyone who likes to read will love this book.*

As a special bonus, you'll learn a bit about Imperial era China. As a super-extra-special bonus, the editor/translator includes illustrations from a nineteenth century Chinese edition of the text. They are fabulous.

* caveat: this is a book written by a lonely scholar for other lonely scholars, all of whom are men. There's a lot of lady-love wish-fulfillment. It's unfortunate.

Anisha Inkspill

468 reviews49 followers

When I got this, I did not know what to expect. This turned out to be a wonderful, enjoyable read. This book is over 600 pages but it didn’t feel like it. This edition also includes lithographs, Pu Songling’s preface and a pronunciation guide.

I enjoyed reading this collection of the shorts of some of Pu Songling’s Strange Tales. I found them enchanting, dark, cynical, funny, full of wit and written with a light hand. They also vary in length and cover the themes of love, moral lesson, sex, family and friendship, and are a mix of supernatural, naturalistic, surreal and the absurd. Many of these were presented as accounts witnessed first-hand, some by Songling’s friends, others as recorded in history.

fiction fiction-comical-edge-or-fun-reads read-2019

Grady

686 reviews47 followers

Pu Songling (1640 - 1715) collected these tales of the supernatural and uncanny and left them to his sons in the form of 110 handwritten, loose-leaf sheets. They have since been published many times, with additions and deletions, and been drawn upon by other authors (and playwrights, and television script-writers) for plots and plot elements. This edition uses Herbert Giles' translation of the late 1800s, complete with his extensive footnotes offering commentary, but updates spellings to reflect the currently-favored Pinyin system. Giles' notes are themselves an artifact now, half illuminating, half hopelessly chauvinist.

The tales are wonderful, involving fox people, dreams, trips back and forth to the afterlife/underworld, just deserts, rewards for long-suffering love or virtue, and inexplicable tragedies. These are not ghost stories in a western, gothic sense; just tales of the fantastic, with the implicit promise that, for better or worse, bizarre events may unfold anywhere, at any time. Most of the stories are not long, but altogether, the collection is dense, and reading a few at a time, it took me over a year to work my way through.

china

Mizuki

3,210 reviews1,332 followers

It is a book I read as a child, and many of the famous tales from Strange Stories From A Chinese Studio still stay in my mind, always.

Pu Songling created an exquisite, imaginative fantasy world based faithfully and richly on the traditional Chinese myths and folklore. It is a world inhabited by gods, ghosts, demons, magical animals and humans.

In one of the tales, a man fell in love with a beautiful maiden painted on the wall of an ancient temple; in another tale, a man put on a magical robe and shapeshifted into a raven and lived a far happier life than the old life he had as a mortal. There are many, many more for readers to discover.

There are romance, comedies, moral tales as well as thrillers among the Strange Stories. I'd recommend everyone to try this remarkable book.

Larou

335 reviews55 followers

Read

Classical Chinese literature obviously does not consist solely of the Six Great Novels, and I wanted my reading project to also include some shorter (but not necessarily minor) books. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio was my first attempt at a canonized work which is not a several thousand pages long, and overall I enjoyed it, if not quite as much as the novels, which I strongly suspect is due to more getting lost in translation.

Pu Songling’s work is written in “classical” Chinese as opposed to the “vernacular” of the novels. Not knowing any Chinese at all, I have not the faintest clue what the implies, but according to the translator of the edition I have read, John Minford, the former is highly elliptical and allusive, while the latter is much more straightforward. The tales in this volume often rely heavily on references to other works, and are often oblique in their allusions – a Chinese gentleman reader of the 17th century would probably have caught them easily, but a modern day Western reader is quite lost and has to rely on annotations. John Minford thankfully supplies a generous amount of those (as well as a highly informative introduction), but it still is not quite the same – the whole situation is rather reminiscent of Plum in a Golden Vase – and in fact, Strange Tales shares another trait with that novel, namely that it is very frank about sexuality; the sex is not as explicit, but it occurs rather more often.

When I was starting with this, I was expecting a Chinese version of Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, but what I got instead was a Chinese version of Hebel’s Kalendergeschichten with added supernatural elements (and more sex). Which, as I hasten to add, is not a bad thing at all. The stories in this volume (104 in all, a selection from the original) are all short to very short (I don’t think there is a single one above twenty pages) and vary in nature, from didactic morality tales over ghost stories to reports of strange occurrences like you’d find them in the Miscellaneous section of your newspaper (if it was published in 17th century China, that is). And there is, of course, cannibalism – I guess no piece of Classical Chinese literature would be complete without it. Some tales I found delightful, some left me scratching my head, some were amazing, some plain bizarre, some I got, some left me baffled – in short, this collection is very much like the notorious box of chocolates, you never know what you will get.

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio is best read one or two tales at a time, so that each piece has space and time to unfold its own peculiar charm. Another trait this collection shares with chocolates is that too many ingested at once will spoil your stomach, and that while they are delicious, they are not particularly nourishing. Only maybe half a dozen stories felt like they’d make any lasting impact, the rest, while a pleasant diversion, also seemed somewhat shallow. Which may be because of the shortness of the tales, but I’m more inclined to blame it on them being translations. John Minford’s translation does appear to be a good one (as far as i can tell not knowing the original), but translations can only do so much; and if a work which depends as much on nuances and wordplay (not to mention the occasional double entendre) as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio appears to do, then it will unfailingly be bound in its original language and any translation, no matter how good, will only give a blurry, washed-out reproduction of the original’s splendour. Even so, just for the glimpse it grants us, it is well worth reading translations. And who knows, readers might find themselves motivated to actually learn the language of the original…

charlotte,

3,556 reviews1,095 followers

Rep: Chinese cast & setting, gay character

4-stars achillean-side aoc-et-al

Laurie

178 reviews64 followers

Sublime. With every story I read I found myself immersed in the rich life and thought of Ming dynasty China. Here we meet fox spirits, Taoist monks versed in the art of alchemy, magic implements, beautiful women possessed by the ghosts of the recently departed and vexed lovers. Unlike ghost stories in the western tradition, these tales are designed to engage, entertain and enlighten the reader; not scare us. Short tales contain get depth of insight into the human condition and psychology. Minford's deft translation of the 104 (of an original 500) tales reads with a clarity and cadence that must surely reflect the beauty of classical Chinese. Illustrations, an outstanding introduction by the translator, glossary, bibliography and extensive background notes on most tales add to fullness of the reading experience.

china china-literature classics

Sam Stinson

24 reviews6 followers

May I suggest that the tales were not that strange

Ευθυμία Δεσποτάκη

Author28 books232 followers

Αξιαγάπητο, όμως τόσο λίγο!

Shelley

145 reviews37 followers

A Review… and a Translation

Full disclosure: I read neither the Penguin’s translation nor the entirety of the original. Rather, I sampled the first two volumes (out of twelve) in the original classical Chinese. I will be returning to the rest frequently in the coming years.

The difference between classical and vernacular Chinese is probably the difference between Chaucer’s Middle English and modern English—surmountable with plenty of patience and footnotes, and well worth surmounting. Allusive, imagistic, terse, classical Chinese is the language of the most sublime poetry, and a perfect vehicle for these short, elusive, and imaginative tales.

Here are my favorite stories from the first two volumes (82 stories). English titles are taken from Herbert A. Giles’s translation.

The Fisherman and His Friend / The Snake Man - Two moving portraits of friendship.

The Painted Wall - A lush, erotic dream, best enjoy alongside images of Dunhuang murals.

Miss Chiao-No - Can a man and a woman be just friends? A thoroughly unconventional and imaginative love story.

Miss Ying-Ning; or, The Laughing Girl - Of flowers and laughter, the most breathtakingly beautiful story of the collection.

I also adore a tiny (119 Chinese characters in total!) tale of loyalty and love, 义鼠, which Giles appeared not to have translated. Here is my feeble attempt at translation:

The Staunch Mouse

Two mice emerged. One was swallowed by a snake. The other’s eyes popped out like peppercorns, full of hatred and fury, but it dared not approach from a distance.

Now full, the snake began slithering back into its hole. As it was halfway in, the mouse darted forth, gnashing at the snake-tail. The angered snake backed out of its hole. The brisk mouse darted off. Thwarted, the snake returned to its hole, but the mouse returned with its gnashing.

When the snake retreated, the mouse advanced; when the snake advanced, the mouse fled.

Finally the snake emerged and spat the dead mouse out onto the ground. The mouse approached to sniff it, squeaked as though mourning, and carried the dead off. Seeing this, my friend composed “The Song of the Staunch Mouse”.

fic-folk-mythologic geo-china

E. G.

1,136 reviews786 followers

AcknowledgementsIntroductionNote on the Text, Translation and IllustrationsNote on Names and Pronunciation

--Homunculus--An Otherworldly Examination--Living Dead--Spitting Water--Talking Pupils--The Painted Wall--The Troll--Biting a Ghost--Catching a Fox--The Monster in the Buckwheat--The Haunted House--Stealing a Peach--Growing Pears--The Taoist Priest of Mount Lao--The Monk of Changqing--The Snake-Charmer--The Wounded Python--The Fornicating Dog--The God of Hail--The Golden Goblet--Grace and Pine--A Most Exemplary Monk--Magical Arts--Wild Dog--Past Lives--Fox in the Bottle--Wailing Ghosts--Thumb and Thimble--Scorched Moth the Taoist--Friendship Beyond the Grave--Karmic Debts--Ritual Cleansing--The Door God and the Thief--The Painted Skin--The Merchant's Son--A Passion for Snakes--A Latter-Day Buddha--Fox Enchantment--Eating Stones--The Laughing Girl--The Magic Sword and the Magic Bag--The Devoted Mouse--An Earthquake--Snake Island--Generosity--The Giant Fish--The Giant Turtle--Making Animals--The Little Mandarin--Dying Together--The Alligator's Revenge--Sheep Skin--Sharp Sword--Lotus Fragrance--King of the Nine Mountains--The Fox of Fenzhou--Silkworm--Vocal Virtuosity--Fox as Prophet--This Transformation--Fox Control--Dragon Dormant--Cut Sleeve--The Girl from Nanking--Twenty Years a Dream--Mynah Bird--Lamp Dog--Doctor Five Hides--Butterfly--The Black Beast--The Stone Bowl--A Fatal Joke--Raining Money--Twin Lanterns--Ghost Foiled, Fox Put to Rout--Frog Chorus--Performing Mice--The Clay Scholar--Flowers of Illusion--Dwarf--Bird--Princess Lotus--The Girl in Green--Duck Justice--Big Sneeze--Steel Shirt--Fox Trouble--Lust Punished by Foxes--Mountain City--A Cure for Marital Strife--A Prank--Adultery and Enlightenment--Up His Sleeve--Silver Above Beauty--The Antique Lute--Waiting Room for Death--Rouge--The Southern Wutong-Spirit--Sunset--The Male Concubine--Coral--Mutton Fat and Pig Blood--Dung-Beetle Dumplings--Stir-Fry

Author's PrefaceGlossaryMapsFinding ListFurther ReadingNotes

5-star china-korea fiction

Bbrown

818 reviews99 followers

This collection of over one hundred stories was a fun, quick read for me, despite the fact that some of the story features get repetitive and few stories stood out from the herd. The introduction explains that the collection consists of two types of tales: one type is actual stories, with beginnings, middles, and endings as well as a themes and often times lessons. The other type are just bizarre occurrences that Pu Songling heard about and recorded. The latter kind provides short breaks between the former kind, and both are amusing, but few individual stories of either type grabbed my attention or impressed me. If someone were to ask me about this book in a few years I would remember it as a collection of stories about fox spirits and ghosts, most of which only seemed interested in seducing humans, but that will probably be about all. One or two tales might stick with me, like the wonderfully bizarre story of a man cursed with blindness whose pupils decide to leave his eyes, or the humorous story of a dandy who pretends to hang himself in order to make a girl laugh, only to actually choke himself to death, but the vast majority of the tales aren't memorable. Despite this, reading the collection was a lot of fun, and I found it much more accessible than most Chinese literature. Thus I rate this collection four stars. If ghost stories or Chinese folklore is your thing then by all means give this one a read.

horror

SeirenAthena

78 reviews8 followers

I'm surprised with the rapidity with which I read this nearly 600 page-long collection of very! strange Chinese tales. I find these to be less compelling as stories and more so fascinating; I was given insight on the often (fiercely) carnal, disturbing (sometimes very much so; beware!), transcendental, even funny, but always unthinkably bizarre and supernatural nature of some of the Chinese folklore (zhiguai). Haha, as an example the final story was of a woman chopping her husband's dildo up and serving it to guests in a fucking stir-fry (although that's not the greatest example of the general theme of most of the tales).

I was in no way expecting works with such explicit content, but it really was interesting--and the allegories, while not necessarily compelling, had somewhat of a surreal and absurd quality that invariably bathed my mind in some fresh mind-boggling fantasy, which I really did find to be fascinating and usually delightful. Each tale had something new and equally bizarre phenomena in store. And in the end, I resulted in knowing more about the livelihood and culture and societal framework of many of China's 'marvel tales'. Very, very cool (I'm a bit lost on how I should rate it, though).

Also: this is the second work of my continental folklore 'journey' (I've read East African and this so far and I've made my way through almost a quarter of an 800 page tome of Italian Folktales).

tara bomp

491 reviews142 followers

Lots of fun stories. The most notable theme is sex with fox spirits although there's a good variety of stuff too, with varying morals and conclusions even when the set-up is pretty similar. There's nothing here that made me think "woah that's amazing" hence the 4 star but I enjoyed reading every single story here - there's a lot of cool ideas and overall there's an amazing and absorbing atmosphere that really takes you into the world of the Chinese studio.

The Penguin edition I was using has very helpful notes and a good glossary that help you understand the setting for each story as well as pointing out allusions to classic Chinese literature - although I'd note it relies notably on 19th century sources and stuff quite a bit, dunno how some of the explanations of concepts stand up to modern scholarship. 1 story adds the commentary which is apparently standard in the full original Chinese editions.

china fantasy fiction

Mel

3,412 reviews201 followers

This book was most excellent. A selection of 20 of Pu Songling’s strange tales rewritten in modern Chinese, the texts were presented in both traditional and simplified characters. The stories featured a lovely mixture of ghosts, fox spirits and trips to the underworld. The book is aimed at “intermediate” Chinese students, (those who have completed the Read Chinese series I and II). I’ve not been studying with the Read Chinese series, but it definitely has the best supplemental reading material of any Chinese language course I’ve seen yet. This book (and the others I read of theirs) was published about 30 years ago but I’ve not been able to find whether they are still producing “easy to read” versions of classic Chinese legends. These stories were great fun and very good practice. I feel like they helped me improve my Chinese. While I was able to sit down and read a story in one go I felt like the structure helped with grammar, sentence structure and character recognition. There are also lovely wood cut illustrations for each story. I managed to find a new copy of this hidden away in the SOAS book shop. If you can find a copy (and are studying Chinese) I’d highly recommend it.

17th-century-fiction chinese-literature easy-read

Knigoqdec

1,110 reviews177 followers

Като атмосфера книгата безспорно е доста интересна и откривам неща, които се припокриват с неща от други китайски книги и прочие.Но разказите са и твърде странни. Не можеш да ги наречеш приказки, нито пък истински притчи или нещо от сорта. Когато авторът се включва с тълкуванията си, често тълкуването звучи страшно нелогично от наша гледна точка. Дали е някакво разминаване в културен план или времеви, не мога да кажа. Може и да е и двете.

Anna Baboura

625 reviews13 followers

Φαντάσματα, θρύλοι και αλεπούδες. Το νησί των λωτοφάγων και το πόδι της Φουμίκο. Παραδόσεις και θρύλοι τόσο διαφορετικοί από τους ευρωπαϊκούς, αλλά τόσο όμοιοι συνάμα. Θα ήθελα το βιβλίο να ήταν λίγο παραπάνω.

Стефан Русинов

Author17 books207 followers

Read

Лисици навсякъде.

হামিম কামাল

73 reviews28 followers

Read

ফু সুংলিংএর অদ্ভুত উপাখ্যান আমাকে গভীর আনন্দ দিয়েছে।

Eustacia Tan

Author15 books284 followers

This book was recommended to me from the Overdrive app/NLB ebook site, which is the main reason why my TBR is growing uncontrollably the past few days. Given that I've read very little Chinese fairytales/folklore compared to Western and even Japanese tales, I really wanted to read this book.

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio consists of 164 tales from the 17th Century (I think? Author lived during that time) that involve supernatural creatures/occurrences and 4 appendixes.

The appendixes are about:

1. The Yuli Chao Zhuan (a term that seems to appear only in this book but looks to be about the 'chamber of horrors' in Taoist temples

2. Cultural notes on ancestral worship, bi-location, dreams and much more

3. The translator, Herbert Allen Giles

4. Suggested readings.

There are also pretty comprehensive and interesting footnotes, though sadly the book isn't formatted to allow for easy toggling back and forth (pity, especially since this is an ebook).

As for the tales themselves, quite a few of them were very short and I didn't really get them. I did, however, really enjoy the longer tales, especially those about foxes (maybe because I have been writing about foxes?). Stories that I particularly enjoyed include:

The Painted Skin: about a man who 'rescues' a beautiful girl only to find that she's hiding a very dark secret

Miss Yingning; or, The Laughing Girl: a surprisingly happy story

The Virtuous Daughter-in-Law: where a nagging mother-in-law learns to appreciate her daughter in law in a very painful lesson

Danan in Search of his Father: where a family ended up being "reunited" in a way that completely changed the dynamics for the better.

And more that I forgot to bookmark. And I have no idea if I should be providing full summaries with spoilers or doing these attempts at summaries that don't give away the ending :p

While I generally enjoyed the book, it does have its flaws. It was first published in 1908 by a British national which means that the writing is a little stiff and at times uses very Western expressions like:

"You better call in Yunqi, and tell the fair Eloisa that her Aberlard is awaiting her"

Which feels very out of place given that these are Chinese stories set in China.

Still, if you're looking for Chinese folklore to read, it's worth reading this at least once. Most (if not all) of the tales were new to me and I enjoyed reading through the book.

P.s. There is one thing that I don't get. I'm not sure if it's a translation thing but in these stories, people remarry and concubines are bought and sold pretty easily and I'm wondering if this is so. It seems like the concubinage thing might be so but the remarrying thing seems odd, given my understanding of how Confucianism in ancient China worked (which is admittedly very little). Is there anyone familiar with ancient Chinese customs and can let me know more about this/recommend some reading material about it? I did try Googling but I couldn't find much about it.

This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile

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Czarny Pies

2,706 reviews1 follower

Over the last five years, I have made a point of reading one Chinese book every six months in order to familiarize myself with the culture of what is becoming a growing world power and the home nation of an increasing number of my neighbours. Reading Chinese literature even in translation requires a little bit of effort because the historical and social context are so different from what North Americans are familiar with.

This delightful little book proved to be no chore at all. These tales are strange idea. They typically involve an impoverished young scholar who is repeatedly failing his exams for the imperial service and then becomes involved in a sexual liaison with a succubus of some variety such as a ghost, were-fox or flower spirit. Collectively these succubi are very sweet. They often help him pass his exams and usually support him in any subsequent marriage.

This collection of stories offers themes that are familiar to Western readers. The benevolence of the succubi reminds one of the universe of ETA Hoffman where fantasy lovers are invariably superior to real ones. The fact the hero is invariably downtrodden and engaged in a futile effort to enter an inaccessible and unjust civil service recalls the dilemma of a Kafka hero trying to cope with the a modern civil service.

I cannot say how appropriate these parallels are. Kafka is known to have read these tales and may indeed have stolen a few tricks from them. Hoffman had most certainly never even heard of them. What matters is that they will make these weird and wonderful tales accessible to you.

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Sharon Barrow Wilfong

1,132 reviews3,958 followers

Fascinating look into Chinese folk lore of the supernatural.

Pu Songling (1640-1715) was a Qing Dynasty author who collected and rewrote native stories that eventually became known as "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio". Herbert A. Giles (1845-1935) a famous sinologist translated them into English.

One learns about Chinese beliefs of the afterlife, the interaction between the spiritual and physical world and a social commentary on how Chinese society was constructed as well as the value placed on education and advancement.

These stories are also strongly moralistic in that almost every story involves a corrupt city official or magistrate or people who try to cheat the system.

In these tales, there is a fluidity between the living and the dead. Spirits of people now passed come back to humans for a variety of reasons and sometimes even intermarry with the living.

One gains a good understanding of the afterlife, in that hell and its various levels are described in particular terms and there is a strong current of justice.

Buddhist monasteries and monks play an important role in society as does honoring dead ancestors. Also the belief in reincarnation is prevalent and doing things to make reparation in the present life to atone for a previous life.

There are over hundred and sixty tales and the index has a methodical description of the different levels of the dead, the various magistrates in hell and their specific responsibilities and authority.

If one is interested in Chinese culture as it existed in the 17th century or earlier, particularly their belief system concerning the supernatural, this is an excellent source.

Kamakana

Author2 books395 followers

180717: fascinating short short tales from the late 17th-early 18th century China. possibly more interesting as anthropology/sociology than purely literary. as folk tales resemble 'fairy tales' of western history. cultural differences: living and dead worlds resemble eg. bureaucracy, magistrates, judges, merchants, scholars, doctors, Taoist priests; family very important: filial/nonfilial responsibilities and effects, husbands, wives, rich rewards, poor punishment, 'fairies' role taken by amoral, friendly, tricky, foxes. 164 short stories. older translation (tr died 1935), cultural notes, appendices... perhaps best not read all at once as plots may blur. popular fiction, fantastic interventions, realist focus on human foibles, human generosity to spirits, foxes, ghosts, previous lives, all rewarded...

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