Border Town (New Curriculum Reading Series for Chinese)

Author: Shen Congwen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Border Town originally provided by Shen Congwen was an ideal "form of life," an "exquisite, healthy, natural, and yet not contradictory to human nature." However, what Border Town offers us is not just "exquisite," but also the helplessness and sorrow of those facing the unpredictability of fate. This sense of life's helplessness and compassion give Border Town a profound character and charm. Completed in 1943, Border Town is a representative of this kind of "pastoral" novel and also a peak in Shen Congwen's literary creation. The novel narrates the ordinary and tranquil lives of a grandmother and her grandson who rely on each other in a small town in Western Hunan, as well as the indelible loneliness and "faint melancholy" within this tranquility. Border Town originally provided by Shen Congwen was an ideal "form of life," an "exquisite, healthy, natural, and yet not contradictory to human nature." However, what Border Town offers us is not just "exquisite," but also the helplessness and sorrow of those facing the unpredictability of fate. This sense of life's helplessness and compassion give Border Town a profound character and charm.