Amazon.com
It's the little things that kill us, as that master of the miniature Ha Jin well knows. Not oppression in general, but the tea thrown at us by railroad policemen; not failure, but the old flame who fails to visit; not grief, but the peanuts our kindergarten teacher stole from our pockets. In The Bridegroom, such moments run surprisingly deep, as if they traced the grooves history has left on individual hearts. The book's 12 tales capture a China in transition, en route from Maoism to market-friendly socialism, from isolation to increasing contact with the West. "I never thought money could make so much difference," says the narrator of "An Entrepreneur's Story," who's been transformed from black-market lowlife to new-economy hero. He wins respect and gets the girl, but it all feels too easy somehow, and he revenges himself by lighting his kerosene stove with bank notes.
Other characters navigate this sea change with similar bewilderment. The professor mistaken for "The Saboteur" thinks news articles about the end of the cultural revolution mean he can reason with the police (wrong!), while the bridegroom of the title story is hauled off to jail for so-called hooliganism rooted in "Western capitalism and bourgeois lifestyle"--that is, loving other men. "What a wonderful husband he could have been if he were not sick," his father-in-law thinks. In the story that deals most explicitly with the conflict between East and West, an American chain named Cowboy Chicken sets up shop in Muji City. The new order isn't that different from the old one, thinks one of the Chinese workers: "We nicknamed Mr. Shapiro 'Party Secretary,' because just like a Party boss anywhere he didn't do any work. The only difference was that he didn't organize political studies or demand we report to him our inner thoughts." In the end, as often happens, greed begets revolution--but whose greed? When the workers at Cowboy Chicken go on strike, jealous of one of their coworker's paychecks, they're replaced by an African American woman who teaches English at a nearby college and her students, who sing "We Shall Overcome" while they wipe tables.
But as in Jin's National Book Award-winning novel, Waiting, even the broadest political and cultural ironies are painted with an extraordinarily light-handed brush. Despite their apparent simplicity, these stories run deep; it's as if some 19th century master had wandered into our midst, writing prose whose unruffled surface recalls the virtues of the very long view. Like Chekhov, another great miniaturist and the writer he most resembles, Jin understands that humor is compassion, that a well-honed appreciation for the absurd is sometimes the best and most honest way to honor failed lives. While his characters attempt to balance the needs of the self and the demands of the state, we see less what is foreign to us than what is native to the human heart. --Mary Park
Book Description
From the remarkable Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award for his celebrated novel
Waiting, a collection of comical and deeply moving tales of contemporary China that are as warm and human as they are surprising, disturbing, and delightful.
In the title story, the head of security at a factory is shocked, first when the hansomest worker on the floor proposes marriage to his homely adopted daughter, and again when his new son-in-law is arrested for the "crime" of homosexuality. In "After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town," the workers at an American-style fast food franchise receive a hilarious crash course in marketing, deep frying, and that frustrating capitalist dictum, "the customer is always right."Ha Jin has triumphed again with his unforgettable storytelling in
The Bridegroom.
Download Description
From the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting, a new collection of short fiction that confirms Ha Jin's reputation as a master storyteller. Each of The Bridegroom's twelve stories--three of which have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories--takes us back to Muji City in contemporary China, the setting of Waiting. It is a world both exotic and disarmingly familiar, one in which Chinese men and women meet with small epiphanies and muted triumphs, leavening their lives of quiet desperation through subtle insubordination and sometimes crafty resolve. In the title story, a seemingly model husband joins a secret men's literary club and finds himself arrested for the "bourgeois crime" of homosexuality. "Alive" centers on an official who loses his memory in an earthquake and lives happily for months as a simple worker; when he suddenly remembers who he is, he finds that his return to his old life proves inconvenient for everyone. In "A Tiger-Fighter Is Hard to Find," a television crew's inept attempt to film a fight scene with a live Siberian tiger lands their lead actor in a mental hospital, convinced that he is the mythical tiger-fighter Wu Song. Reversals, transformations, and surprises abound in these assured stories, as Ha Jin seizes on the possibility that things might not be as they seem. Parables for our times--with a hint of the reckless and the absurd that we have come to expect from Ha Jin--The Bridegroom offers tales both mischievous and wise.
Customer Reviews:
A Major Literary Force Early in His Career.......2004-12-22
These stories were written before Ha Jin's larger works. I've read "The Crazed" and thought it was a masterpiece. There's no question these stories are not as even as Ha Jin's longer works, but they certainly are worth reading and give an excellent peek into attitudes and social mores of China today. The collision of the West with China is very interesting and the result is somewhat unexpected. I'm surprised how far the West has made inroads into China. I agree that the Cowboy Chicken story is one of the best here. Ha Jin is a major literary force and as such, all his output is worthy of our attention.
A Resemblance Of Various Emotions.......2004-11-19
When I read this book I never put down the book before finishing a chapter (which usually happened to be chapterS). It's a real dazzling novel that made me crying, smiling, wondering and holding my breath until the end of the story. Trust me, when you read this novel you'll find all of your emotions emerge to the surface.
Though I was kinda dissappointed with the ending, which for me looks like Ha Jin wanted to finish the novel ASAP that he missed to include a strong ending like he did in WAITING, but overall the novel is a great book to read and is still pleasant to read all over again.
Some excellent, all competent.......2004-11-04
If you want to read some clever tales about daily life in China because the place seems too dense to tease out the individual stories, then you will probably like this collection of short stories, written by an author who grew up there, and who now writes in English. Taking as his models such writers from Checkov to the post-modernists, he does a good job of taking the masters and filtering through a cultural and personal imagination that few Westerners are privy to. My favorite is "In the Kindergarten," a truly masterful piece of writing--unpretentious and astoundingly complex if you analyze it thoroughly. The others are a bit gimmicky--epistolary stories, oddball characters and set-ups, for example, a tale of a low budget film company trying to edit a socialist/heroic film by matching shots of a hero fighting a real tiger, which, after it dies, is replaced by a man in a tiger suit. What Ha Jin seems to have done for China is similar in some respects to what post WW II Italian filmmakers did with cineam: open up a world that is hidden to many of us despite the purpoted "global village."
Please do not eat the soup.......2004-09-03
After I read Ocean of Words, I ran out to buy the Bridegroom. In Ocean of Words, it seemed that Ha Jin created likeable characters forced into a restrictive society. In the Bridegroom, Ha Jin created some characters with a bit more of an evil streak. I will never eat soup from a stand again. This is not necessarily a bad thing; rather it just makes some of the reading uncomfortable. Still, better than most.
Writing Short Superb!!.......2004-05-05
Ha Jin's collection of short stories may be set in China, but they easily mirror ancient perks of authority in the common culture. Read one---you are sure to finish the book. Set against the backdrops of capitalism and communism, each story serves up a unique host of characters. The common thread through many of these stories appears to be incarceration, interrogation and showing "a sincere attitude." His stories feature the rude and powerfully poor versus the responsible-poor and the poor. Ha Jin's writing puts the reader right there, through pared-prose the characters are visible. They move through the language without pause, without stumble, free of over-weighted consideration.
Saboteur begins with a young couple lunching, nothing out of the ordinary: the wife complains of a headache, the husband suggests aspirin. Instantly, persecution of a would-be citizen-serving policeman launches the husband into unsolicited chaos. The husband is then charged for not being a "model for the masses." From this point, fate for Mr. Chiu seems to be just what it is: a word.
In Alive, Mr. Guhan is under contest for his job as head foreman. He is married and poor. A violent earthquake and loss of memory sends Guhan into not so much as a new life, than it is another one, in Taifu. This story is strangely curious in the beginning. Don't expect much relief by the end. Ha Jin is not so generous.
A Tiger-Fighter is Hard to Find is insanely hilarious. It is a subtle tale of Huping, the average wanna-be-hero who takes complete and sole advantage of his opponents' impediments: a tranquilized Siberian tiger, subsequently, a fearful co-worker. All to capture a scene for a film. More than sincere filmmaking, however, is Huping's honest determination to be a true tiger-fighter. He even has jumping dreams about it--dreams so intruding, they cause enough limb-jolt to bruise his wife. The ache is, you pound a living anything one too many times, it's bound to strike back. Imagine Huping, enclasped in a tree. Feeling defeated, and perhaps cornered, Huping's demand is to, "shoot him!" His character is grounded in hubris and the primest of sentimentality. This is a story not to be missed.
Broken showcases Tingting a typist, an adulteress, incarcerated. The focus of Tingting's interrogation often treads into the vein of personal sport or later use. Manjin, a participant in Tingting's interrogation and former spy on her sexual rendezvous, finds himself in a similar situation. In the crevices of a theater, he encounters a female who, without words, sends him on a hunt. He too becomes imprisoned and made to explain his craze.
Perhaps the supreme stories are Bridegroom and The Woman from New York.
Beautifully told, Bridegroom gets to the core of ignorance when it comes to homosexuality. Baowen, an exquisitely described homosexual, marries young Beina--it's economically convenient, as well as save-face. Beina's choices are less than sparse. The reality about Baowen's sexual preference comes to the table; he is then subjected to various speculations and cures--including electrical shock, "That's why we give him the bath. Other patients get electric cuffs around their limbs or electric rods on their bodies. Some of them scream like animals every time. We have to tie them up." What follows is a question jammed in the irony of curiosity and pity for Beina's father who asks, "When will he be cured?" Bridegroom is a brilliant portrayal of denial and a splendid social commentary on the pressures of conventional marriage in all cultures.
In The Woman From New York, Jinli spends the past few years in America then returns home to her husband and daughter. An attempt to lure her husband back to America, with American toys, "a brand-new Ford", the privilege of driving, homeland of Harvard University, fails as Chigan holds fast not to follow. "No. Even if you give me a gold mountain, I won't go." Perhaps the height of Jinli's bewilderment is the fact that her daughter refuses to speak to her and denies Jinli as her mother. This story is a beautiful depiction of unfavored consequences when mothers leave their children. On native turf, Jinli becomes the foreigner. Could she be read as a "tragic" figure...? I'm not so sure, sympathy is the last thought for her character. At least for this first read.
The receding approach informs the robust and spiritual depth of these characters so their experiences are like seeds. Ha Jin leaves space to see the importance of them, not congest them with the fancy of language that might have otherwise derail their literary cargo.
Both hands up!!--Bridegroom is very recommended!!
Book Description
Yekl (1896), the first novel upon which the much acclaimed film Hester Street was based, was probably the first novel in English that had a New York East Side immigrant as its hero. Reviewing it, William Dean Howells hailed Cahan as "a new star of realism."
Book Description
A Nation Expanding Westward Calls a Challenge to Another Son of Winslow.
From the first Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth, the dynamic sage of the Winslow family has traced the forces that shaped early American history and its people. As the nation expands westward, so has the House of Winslow.
The Reluctant Bridegroom begins with Sky Winslow, the son of Chris and Dove Winslow, agreeing to return East and bring a wagon train of brides to the men of Oregon City. As experienced as he is on the trail, the past hurts of an unfaithful wife and the care for a twelve-year-old son who truly needs a mother's love make Sky an unlikely candidate for such an assignment.
On the long trip from New York to Oregon, two of the women who join the wagon train will make their impact on Sky Winslow. Rebekah Jackson, in hope of finding a new start, is leaving a broken past. Rita Duvall is a dance hall girl who knows the way to break down a man's defenses.
Join Them on the Trail West As God Reshapes Lives Despite the Odds!
Customer Reviews:
Very good.......2005-11-18
I enjoy all of Gilbert Morris's books, but this is one of my favorites. I love books about the Oragon Trail and this one dids not dissapoint me.
add to previous review.......2002-10-23
I neglected to mention this in my other review - I did find one historical error in the book. This story takes place in 1840. When Rebekah and her friend are reading Sky's newspaper ad, it states that Asa Mercer took a group of women to Seattle by ship "last year".
In real life, Asa Mercer made 2 such trips, in 1864 and 1865, and I understand he was 25 years old in 1865, so that part of the story is incorrect. In "The Starts for a Light," #1 in the "Cheney Duvall, M.D." series, Mr. Mercer is a major character, and based on another book I own, about the history of Seattle, that book is accurate. Most of the time Mr. Morris's historical characters are presented accurately, I also enjoy books by Janette Oke, and whenever they've written about the same topics, their information is usually consistent.
Great story, with a few frustrating parts.......2002-03-15
If you've followed the adventures of Sky Winslow's descendants, on whom most of the later books are based, this is the book that started it all, where Sky and Rebekah meet on a wagon train of women seeking husbands in Oregon. I've never understood why Rebekah had no last name on the geneology chart at the start of every book (P.S. The chart in Book 27 finally DOES show her last name), but anyway, the story begins with Rebekah Jackson enjoying a social life for the first time when she visits her cousin Nora. At the end of the visit, Rebekah elopes with a charming man who eventually leaves her alone and pregnant. Eventually she shares a home with Mary, a single mother who introduces her to God. Before Mary dies in an epidemic, she asks Rebekah to keep her baby, and urges her to answer an ad place by Sky Winslow for women to become brides in the west. While sometimes I wanted to throttle one or both of them for their stubbornness, everything works out in the end.
The House of Winslow family continues to grow!.......2000-08-10
In this exciting story of the House of Winslows, Rebekah Jackson learns the true meaning of disappiontment and loss. She finds herself married to a man she barely knows and who is quickly lossing intrest in her. Even when they fall into poverty she remains loyal and faithful, only to be stabbed in the back by him. Now lost, lonely, afraid, and pregnant, she finds her way to a womans small shanty and makes a home there. She also finds the Lord there. When her new friend and confidant becomes sick and dies, Rebekah is left to care for her child as well as her own. She decides to make a new life and travel west with her children. Sky Winslow is still bittered toward his wife for all the pain she caused him as well as by her death. He leads the small band of people on their way to Oregon. On the way he finds the Lord, himself, and... Rebekah. But will the dangerous that persist tear them apart, or draw them together. Happy Reading!
Five Stars!.......2000-05-28
I think that this was not my favorite book in the Winslow series but it was definetly a good book. I like the way that you get so into the book that you actually feel like you are the main charcter. The book is about Sky Winslow who's wife betrays him and is now dead and Sky says that as long as he lives he will never marry again. WRONGO! But then he meets a girl named Rebekah and another girl named Rita. Who will win?
Average customer rating:
- When Ockham's Razor is Broken
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Difficulties of a Bridegroom: Stories
Ted Hughes
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Short Stories
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0312168179 |
Amazon.com
Ted Hughes is Britain's reigning poet laureate, and he confesses that most of his short fiction is merely "an accompaniment to my poems." But there are many gems here, including the affecting trilogy portraying the poet's South Yorkshire childhood. The finest tale in this collection may be "The Wound," actually a radio play about a dying soldier trekking across a pitiless desert. The death-march transforms itself into an allegory of the Buddhist path from death to rebirth. Most of these short stories date from the 1950s and 60s, before Hughes became a famous poet.
Book Description
The first collection of short fiction by England's Poet Laureate may be read as an accompaniment to Ted Hughes's poetry, or independently as an example of craft and linguistic vigor. Taken frmo forty years of occasional story writing, Ted Hughes's amazing descriptive powers and preoccupation with themes of violence and estrangement are vividly present in every tale.
Customer Reviews:
When Ockham's Razor is Broken.......2000-04-05
This collection includes the whole gamut of short stories from pretentious but weak parable ('O'Kelly's Angel') to real gem ('The Deadfall'). The author is a famous poet, and I believe his poems are excellent. His language is rich. But his prosaic works, cloyed with numerous images and metaphors sometimes rather complicated and unnecessary, force to recall the Ockham's Razor. Nevertheless his ardent aversion to abominable massacre of God's small critters hypocritically named 'hunt', expressed at least in three of his stories, takes all my sympathies.
Average customer rating:
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Three Short Novels: The Crazy Hunter; The Bridegroom's Body; Decision (A Revived modern classic)
Kay Boyle
Manufacturer: New Directions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| African American
| Asian American
| Classics
| Collections & Readers
| Drama
| General
| Hispanic
| History & Criticism
| Humor
| Jewish American
| Letters & Correspondence
| Native American
| Poetry
| Short Stories
| Women Writers
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Boyle, Kay
| ( B )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0811211495 |
Average customer rating:
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The Bridegroom
Ha Jin
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Short Stories
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0099422174 |
Customer Reviews:
Hmmmmmmmmmm.......2005-12-16
This is a surreal book that children will love. If you like bum liking dogs this is the book for you. If you like stories about snot. This is the book for you. It`s a short story filled with dirty and unusual behavior. I must say I have never read anything like it. Read this book. It`s great.
Creative and disturbing.......2003-01-02
I'm thankful to have some translations of this amazing writer of Japanese fiction. These stories provide a rich and surreal reflection on gender and cultural identities and the final story is one of the best depictions of feeling out of place, whether living with a new family or in a new country (in this case both). Sorry to see that this is out of print, but happy that "Where Europe Begins" is now out.
Wonderful Book!.......2001-10-10
If you love good writing, you will love this book. As Kafka was rebuked by the first readers of his day only to become one of the most influential writers of this century, so too Tawada is walking an unmarked road that will eventually gain the accolades it deserves.
Is this really the same book in English?.......1999-09-16
Bride Groom was a Dog? Is this really the translation of Inumukoiri? That mythical modern-day fairy tale that won the Akutagawa Award? Even the title sounds lousy. What happened to the sense of mystery, the portent, the magic? This is the worst translation I have seen since the Japanese version of the lyrics to "A Hard Day's Night" !!
Lousiest book I couldn't finish reading this year..........1999-04-23
This book was so bad that I couldn't even bring myself to get past the third page. The attempt at stream-of-conscience prose failed, along with the faery-tale style. An absolute waste of my time, and money.
Customer Reviews:
Perry Mason's Love Affair?.......1998-11-23
One of the charms of Mason Mystery is the strange opening. This may be one of the strangest; when Mason was working in midnight, a mysterious girl was prowling on the fire escape; Mason tried to catch her who slapped his face and went away; the newspaper reported the incident as Mason's love affair and Della mocked him "it is not safe to trust you alone in the office." I enjoyed this opening very much. I also enjoyed the whole story.
Book Description
In the fabled, mysterious land of Vendhya, Conan seeks an antidote to the unknown poison that threatens his life. Entangled in the intrigues of Karim Singh, advisor to the King of Vendhya, pursued by the voluptuous noblewoman Vyndra, threatened by the evil mage Naipal, Conan has yet to conquer the most terrifying adversaries of his life--the Sivani, demon-guardians of the ancient tombs of Vendhyan kings. To survive, he must be Conan the Victorious.
Customer Reviews:
Super Reader.......2007-08-02
Conan gets poisoned, and gets to trade sword blows with more than one demon, as well as deal with devious Vendhyans.
Conan the Dilluted.......2006-04-14
Never cared for Robert Jordan's version of Conan, but maybe I'm just jaded by the fact that at book 9 of Wheel of Time I felt sorely ripped off. There are far better Conan authors than Jordan, to be sure. But, that said, this is still a fun book with decent character development and the proper ingredients of swordsplay, thievery, monsters and magic. Not a waste of your $5.
Disappointing last Conan novel from Jordan.......2004-01-29
Robert Jordan has written some of the better of the Conans published by Tor, starting with one of my favorites, "Conan the Invincible," which had the feel of a new author bursting with enthusiasm over a favorite character. But "Conan the Victorious," Jordan's seventh Conan novel (counting the novelization of Conan the Destroyer) falls far below his standards. Jordan ceased writing Conan after this novel. Perhaps he had become bored with the series, and if so, the malaise definitely overwhelms him here.
Whatever the reason, Jordan's last date with Robert E. Howard's literary child subtly disappoints. It is overstuffed with political intrigue and double-crosses and not enough adventure, magic, or the exotic. This is especially disappointing since it takes place mostly in Vendhya, Howard's fantasy version of India seen in "The People of the Black Circle"; if any locale should feel exotic, it should be this one. It's true that political maneuvering has an important place in many of Robert E. Howard's Conan works as well as his historical adventure stories for Oriental Stories/Magic Carpet, but Jordan lets an avalanche of scheming slow down the pace of the story. (A good comparison would be with Howard's "Hawks over Egypt"¸which staggers under too much intrigue in too little space, but that was a work Howard didn't sell in his lifetime.) Any short synopsis can't begin to explain the extra characters and subplots that clog up "Conan the Victorious". With so many characters and plots and counterplots, the novel relies heavily on information exchange between characters instead of action and movement. Many of the subplots get a short shrift, and the details fade over the long stretches while the other storylines compete for space. When the pay-offs for some of the subplots come due, they have marginal effect and seem as if the author merely forgot about them until he suddenly needed them for the finale.
These problems would become symptomatic of many of the pastiches to come: too much plot, too little development, and a limp finale. In this case, the ending is particularly weak. The demon and the army of the dead are too rapidly disposed of in the quick rush to the last chapter, and the coda fails to patch up the numerous plot holes and story points that Jordan dashed over earlier. Jordan's Conan career started so promisingly in the fast and imaginative "Conan the Invincible," but by this last novel, his party with the Cimmerian had definitely come to a bleary end.
Fortunately, the next novel, "Conan the Valorous," introduced author John Maddox Roberts, who would pen some of the better pastiche novels.
Good Conan tale.......2003-05-25
Jordan writes Conan well. The slowly dying theme of the warrior is pretty good. The characters are as real as they can be in such a work, but Jordan lacks the unPC attitude of Howard. Who really has it?
Horrible shlock trying hard to rip-off Robert E. Howard.......2001-11-14
I hate this book. Robert Jordan is horrible. I love the REAL Conan stories by Robert E. Howard, and the stories completed and fleshed out by Lin Carter and L. Sprague DeCamp, who worked off of Howard's notes and outlines. Anyone else writting Conan is a hack and should not be read! Robert Jordan's sense of dialogue is cliched and plain ignorant. That wa a large part of Robert E. Howard's appeal. I am so sorry that Howard's originals are out of print and terrible tripe such as this is still out there polluting one of the greatest characters ever created.
Average customer rating:
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Conan, The Victorious
Robert Jordan
Manufacturer: New York: TOR, A Tom Doherty Associates Book, 1985
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O3RRU4 |
Average customer rating:
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CONAN: THE VICTORIOUS
Manufacturer: Tom Doherty associated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GQRVVE |
Books:
- The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
- The Corsair Years
- The Devil's Advocates: Greatest Closing Arguments in Criminal Law, Library Edition
- The Esdaile Poems (Collected Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley)
- The "First Stage" Guitar Chord Chart - Learn How To Play The Most Commonly Played Guitar Chords
- The Girl with the White Flag
- The Karoo: Ecological Patterns and Processes
- The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy (The Norton Library)
- The One Bad Thing About Father
- The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau (Penguin Classics)
Books Index
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