Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress  

One version of the front cover of the novel
Author(s) Dai Sijie
Original title Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise
Translator Ina Rilke
Genre(s) Historical, Semi-autobiographical novel
Publisher Anchor Books
Publication date 2000
Published in
English
2001
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 184 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-375-41309-X
OCLC Number 46884190
Dewey Decimal 843/.92 21
LC Classification PQ2664.A437 B3513 2001

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Dai Sijie, and published in 2000 in French and in English in 2001. It is the author's first published novel. Its original French title is Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise. A film based on his novel was released in 2002, directed by Dai himself.

Contents

Plot Summary

The novel, written by Dai Sijie, is about two teenagers, Luo and Mae (referred to as the narrator throughout the novel), who are sent to be reeducated in the wake of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. They are sent to the Mountain of the Phoenix of the Sky near Tibet, because their doctor parents have been declared "enemies of the people" and "reactionaries of the bourgeoisie" by the Communist state. There, while compelled to work in the coal mines and with the rice crop, they are captivated by and fall in love with the daughter of the local tailor, the Little Seamstress. At the same time, y meet Four-Eyes, the son of a prominent poet, who also is being reeducated. Although he is succeeding in reeducation, he is also hiding forbidden French, Russian, and English novels. The boys convince Four-Eyes to lend them a book, Ursule Mirouët by Honoré de Balzac. Later, when Four-Eyes's mother comes to take him back to the city, they steal the books.

These books inspire the narrator (called Ma in the film version) and Luo to use them to educate the Little Seamstress, whom they consider uncultured. Luo and the Seamstress's romantic relationship grows as Ma silently (and jealously) watches on the sidelines. This relationship, however, results in the Seamstress's unwanted pregnancy. Ma helps her to arrange an illegal abortion while Luo is away. Throughout the novel, the farming village of Phoenix Mountain delights in the storytelling of the two teenagers. They even are excused from work for a few days to see films at Yong Jing, a nearby town, and later relate the story to the townspeople. One of these films, a North Korean film entitled The Little Flower Seller and identified by the narrator as "a propaganda film like no other" (39), closely resembles the 1972 Korean film version of The Flower Girl (1972) in the melodramatic scene of the death of the eponymous character's mother.[1] Also notable among the stories they retell is Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. Ma mostly assists with the storytelling because Luo is more capable of moving the audience. Particularly inspirational to the narrator is the translation by Fu Lei of Romain Rolland's Jean-Christophe, which the narrator credits as giving him a newfound sense of individualism. Other talents and possessions of the two boys at which the townspeople wonder include Luo's clock and Ma's violin (on which they love to hear "Mozart Is Thinking of Chairman Mao," their improvised, Communist-friendly name for a Mozart Sonata).

Later, Luo's mission of educating the Little Seamstress backfires. At first, however, it seems as if his plan is working perfectly – she adopts the city accent and begins making modern clothing. Yet, one day, she leaves without saying farewell. This sudden change for the two characters leaves them heartbroken and plays a huge role in both of their lives.

Autobiographical Elements

Dai Sijie was born in 1954 in Funian, China. From 1971-1974, he was sent to Sichuan province for re-education, about which he says, “It wasn’t exactly a holiday camp! And the work was very hard. But we had our own weapons. We knew how to read and the villagers were illiterate, so we had a certain power over them. For instance, we knew how to tell the time so we could manipulate them to our advantage.” [2] Dai moved to France in 1984.

The author emphasizes the novel as more of a work of fiction rather than a critique of the Cultural Revolution: "It's nothing but a love story.” He continues, “The stealing books part is true and the experience of reading stories to farmers is also true." [3]

In answer to criticism on why Western literature, rather than works of classical Chinese literature, seem to save the characters, Dai has responded that classical literature would have been too complex and too removed from the Seamstress’s life to have captivated her: “We have masterpieces in our literature, but the stories that they recount remain extremely classical. Emperors, queens, mandarins, this was really too far removed from the little seamstress. Balzac was much more accessible, because more universal.” [4][5] Dai states that Chinese authorities who banned his book and then the film "did not accept that Western literature could change a Chinese girl. I explained that classical literature is a universal heritage, but to no avail."[6]

Characters

Interviews and Reading Guides

France portal
China portal
Novels portal

Articles and Book Reviews

Allen, Brooke. "A Suitcase Education." New York Times Book Review, 9/16/2001, p 24.

Bloom, Michelle E. "Contemporary Franco-Chinese Cinema: Translation, Citation and Imitation in Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Tsai Ming-Liang’s What Time is it There?" Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 22:311–325, 2005.

Chevaillier, Flore. "Commercialism and Cultural Misreading in Dai Sijie's Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise." Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2011 Jan; 47 (1): 60-74.

Coltvet, Ben McDonald. Review in Christian Century, 1/2/2002, Vol. 119 Issue 1, p 37. Abstract available at http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2011-05/balzac-and-little-chinese-seamstress-dai-sijie

McCall, Ian. "French Literature And Film In The USSR And Mao's China: Intertexts In Makine's Au Temps Du Fleuve Amour And Dai Sijie's Balzac Et La Petite Tailleuse Chinoise." Romance Studies, Vol. 24 (2), July 2006.

Riding, Alan. "Artistic Odyssey: Film to Fiction to Film." New York Times, 7/27/2005, p 1.

Schwartz, Lynne Sharon. "In the Beginning Was the Book." New Leader, Sep/Oct2001, Vol. 84 Issue 5, p 23.

Silvester, Rosalind. "Genre and Image in Francophone Chinese Works." Contemporary French and Francophone Studies Vol. 10, No. 4, December 2006, pp. 367–375.

Watts, Andrew. "Mao's China in the Mirror: Reversing the Exotic in Dai Sijie's Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise." Romance Studies, 2011 Jan; 29 (1): 27-39.

Wiegand, David. "Painful Truths: Revolution-era Fable Explores the Consequences of Knowledge." San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, October 28, 2001.

References

  1. ^ Suk-Young Kim, "Kim Jong Il and North Korean films." Library of Congress webcast, 06/26/2007, Video (75 min) + transcript. (Discusses The Little Flower Girl.)
  2. ^ Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Literary Cavalcade, November/ December 2003, pp 6-13.
  3. ^ Yu Sen-Lun, "Romantic boyhood memories of a Chinese film maker," Tapei Times, 20 May 2002.
  4. ^ Interview with Dai Sijie from bacfilms.com. French.
  5. ^ Bloom, Michelle E. "Contemporary Franco-Chinese Cinema: Translation, Citation and Imitation in Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Tsai Ming-Liang’s What Time is it There?" Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 22:311–325, 2005. Translates into English Dai's interview on bacfilms.com.
  6. ^ Riding, Alan. "Artistic Odyssey: Film to Fiction to Film." New York Times, 7/27/2005, p 1.