Tu Men: Comments on this book

Author: Jia Pingwa
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: The joy of reading ends with reading. If you write a "book review" of what you've read, much of the joy of reading is lost. And if you read a book with the purpose of writing a review, the situation is truly like an ugly woman getting married—it's both trampled by others and tramples others. Therefore, writing book reviews is basically a mutually destructive task.
Commentary, however, is a different matter altogether. It's like watching a beautiful woman from the corner of an alley—among the swaying crowds, you only focus on the one who understands you or pay attention to the parts that resonate with you, picking and choosing freely, without regard for length. But commentary also has taboos, as Mr. Jin Shengtan said, "If one wishes to pass on the wonderful essence alone, it's like drawing only half a beauty, which is highly laughable."
"Tumen" is the thinnest of Jia Pingwa's novels, yet I consider it a great work. When it was published in 1996, I chatted with him for several days, but it seemed to make little impact in the reading world at the time. By 1999, after the publication of his another novel, "Gao Laozhuang," the French translator of his novel "Pitu" (also known as "Tumen"), Madame Imbot-Bichet, called me asking for his new work. I casually included "Tumen" along with it. A month later, Madame Imbot-Bichet and STDCK Publishing decided to publish both books together, but they chose to translate "Tumen" first.