Reviews for Contemporary's word power

The average rating for Contemporary's word power based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-07-13 00:00:00 Seymour Butts Each of Ah Cheng's three novellas, included in this edition under the title "The King of Trees," is a first-person narrative told by an educated youth who has been "sent down" to work in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. What sets them apart from so much literature depicting the same period is that the terrible political chaos of the time forms a backdrop rather than the central focus of the narratives. Moreover, Ah Cheng in each novella engages and utilizes themes and images from the Chinese tradition. Both "The King of Trees" and "The King of Chess" can be regarded as rereadings of Daoism in a modern setting. The large and useless but profoundly symbolic tree in the first story is drawn directly from "Zhuangzi." But however much this tree is admired, unlike its Zhuangzian antecedent, it does not escape the ideology of progress and a tragic desire to eradicate the past. The second story, about a young man who pursues perfection through chess, draws upon the "Zhuangzi" image of the impassive figure who has through concentration merged with the Dao. Ah Cheng's third novella, in which a young student copies an entire dictionary, uses the Confucian emphasis upon intense study and recasts it in a poor village where any written text, other than propaganda, is a precious commodity. These stories are all told in a direct, engaging manner and are deeply moving. For anyone tired of the uniformly political tone of so much modern Chinese literature, this Ah Cheng collection will bring relief.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-07-17 00:00:00 Mina Roditis At the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or any revolution or war in this matter, there are always ones that had to be pulled away from the old world. The masters of their own fields all pulled into the tide of a new revolution. Sometimes some brave souls survived and fought against this revolution, but there are many who lost. Who can survive in this revolution becomes less of who is the one with the truth, but more of the one with the most power. Traditions all revolutionized, but some masters still survive. And they are the ones talked about in this book. A very interesting book.