This is my first time reading anything by Ba Jin, and this collection of tales seems to be somewhat hard to come by. I ended up discovering it upon one of the discount paperback shelves in Half Price Books, where it had been marked down to something like 50 cents. It’s unfortunate that Ba Jin seems so difficult to come by, at least in translation, for this collection of tales was quite good. Not perfect mind you, but quite good — certainly good enough for me to recommend.
The first thing that stands out about his writing is not only his crisp use of words and his observations, but that he takes on themes and perspectives one might not expect from a Chinese writer. Why do I note this? Well, in the publishing industry, publishers have this condescending attitude that only someone from a certain culture can write about that same culture. Thus, one would assume all these tales to be about Chinese people and revolutions and all of that, right? Hell, even the back of this book gets it wrong: “These stories by the celebrated Chinese novelist Ba Jin are all set in Old China in the thirties.” Nope. Clearly marketing departments don’t read the books they are attempting to market. Ba Jin takes on many different voices, perspectives and the writing has a variety of translators (a different one for each tale) and generally avoids cliché.
One of the most memorable tales is called “The Electric Chair.” It is set not in China, but in Massachusetts and involves two Italians who have been sentenced to death. One of the men believes he is innocent, and yet we don’t really know if he is telling the truth or not, since there is no replay of the crime. “The Electric Chair” is a highly character driven tale that philosophically assesses life and death and how it weighs against the progression of science and time. The observations about the chair itself are some of the most notable passages:
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