Feather Snake

Author: Xu Xiaobin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: This book is part of the "D.H. Lawrence Classic Classics" series. The Plumed Serpent, completed in 1926, is set with an Irish widow as the protagonist. Kate despises Western civilization and decides to go to Mexico in search of a new life, but she becomes entangled in the local movement to overthrow Catholicism and restore the ancient religion of the Plumed Serpent. Kate and Cipriano unite because of the unpredictable, attractive male force he possesses, which keeps her in Mexico. She believes that the key to true life lies in the dynamic sexual relationship between men and women. This unity between men and women is the key to all life today and the possibilities of the future. All new life comes from this key unity between men and women. It is the core. The novel begins in the late Qing Dynasty and tells the dramatic and tumultuous fate of a family's five generations of women. The five generations of women, with their distinct personalities, replicate, mutate, and pursue themselves across the vast changes of time and space, in the inheritance of their bloodline. The novel employs various narrative techniques, with a plot that is strange and mysterious, language that is poetic and painterly, and imagination that is boundless. It reveals the unique spiritual essence of women's lives from a unique perspective. The magnificent century-long time span of The Plumed Serpent and the vast historical canvas, with the stories of the numerous women of the five generations vividly emerging like carvings, make this work a record-breaker in women's writing of the 1990s. Without a doubt, The Plumed Serpent is the most painstaking and transformative masterpiece in Xu Xiaobin's writing. The true significance of The Plumed Serpent may only become apparent many years later.