A Bitter Pill

As far as I can tell Julia Lovell's translations of Lu Xun's short stories are excellent. I say this based on the sheer power of the stories I've read so far from the Penguin Classics edition, those that appeared in his first collection Outcry. The ironic harshness, often bitterness, of the tales is extraordinary, and so economically conveyed. It's easy to imagine how their first readers must have felt something close to despair with regard to what is being said about China in the early twentieth century. Yet the fundamental honesty and clear-sightedness of the fiction carries with it a sense of hope.

A bit odd to be reading these vignettes of pain at a time of deep satisfaction and enjoyment. But perhaps it helps create a balance of sorts.