The Wizard of Oz: An Annotated 100-Chapter Edition

Author: Li Baichuan (Qing Dynasty)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-06-01
Features: During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Li Baichuan, who enjoyed talking about ghosts and strange tales, traveled extensively and endured hardships and setbacks. It took him nine years of travel in life to complete Green Fields and Immortal Shadows. Green Fields and Immortal Shadows achieved outstanding literary success. It broke new ground and innovated in traditional fantasy novels, blending fantasy, social novels, and historical novels. The character portrayals in the novel are particularly brilliant, especially those of the lively common people in the mortal world. The passage in the novel where Wen Ruyu, the son of a high-ranking official, indulges in the pleasures of the flesh and squanders his family fortune, is truly brilliant. Mr. Zheng Zhenduo believed that this was the best part of Green Fields and Immortal Shadows, and also one of the best parts of many "brothel literature" works. The writing style of the novel is sharp, grand, and humorous. The dialogue is lifelike, vivid, and colorful, capturing the personalities, identities, and psychology of the characters in colloquial language, truly showcasing the style of a master of language. Li Baichuan's friend Tao Jiahe praised the book as "the greatest landscape in the realm of storytelling." Mr. Zheng Zhenduo ranked Green Fields and Immortal Shadows alongside Dream of the Red Chamber and The Scholars as one of the three great novels of the mid-Qing Dynasty.