Bi Feiyu

I picked this Chinese novel up on a whim at a library sale and I'm glad I did. [Three Sisters] takes place during the 1970s Cultural Revolution in China. The book is divided into three parts, each highlighting one of the sisters. Their family is made up of a father who is a mid-ranking government official, their mother, and 8 siblings - 7 girls and finally 1 boy. Yumi, the oldest sister, gets the focus first. She is driven and focused and determined to make a good marriage, despite her father's sexual escapades, which end up losing him his government position. The next section is about Yuxiu, the third sister, who is more flighty, more flirty, and looks to her older sister to help her make her way in the world. Yuyang is the smartest sister and goes off to school. There she finds that school is just as corrupt as the government and her home community.

The politics and ideology of the Cultural Revolution are present behind all of the sisters' stories, but they pleasingly form a backdrop rather than overriding the girls' personal stories. I was very invested in the first two sections. Yumi and Yuxiu's lives connect and also form contrasting experiences. Yuyang's story was less impactful to me. Though I appreciate the way the author sets up the school setting in contrast to the community/town setting, the section felt like it didn't connect well to the first two sections.

I found the ending unsatisfying and hoped that things would be tied up a little better, but even with an unsatisfying ending, I did enjoy this book quite a bit and would recommend it if you are interested in contemporary Chinese literature.… (more)

A diva of the Peking Opera House, more notably the star of the "Moon Opera," attacks a rival, and in the fallout, she subsequently retreats to just teaching. Twenty years later a very wealthy factory manager offers to underwrite a new production of the same opera, but only if that specific diva will return and take the lead role. Xiao Yanqiu, our volatile diva, now married and with a child, accepts the position, and thus our dramatic (somewhat crazy) story begins.

It took me a chapter or two to settle into this story, and get to know our diva, Yanqui, who is a diva by both definitions of the word: "a famous female singer of the the opera" and "a self-important person who is temperamental and difficult to please" (let the games begin!)

A relatively quick read at 177 small pages; but an entertaining introduction to Chinese opera… with all it’s drama.… (more)

This is really two separate books and it feels almost like two different authors. The setting for both are the Chinese countryside during the Maoist Return To The Land Movement in the early 1970s, when Communist Party functionaries held almost unlimited power in villages and schools. In the first story, a family with seven girls finally has a boy, and the two elder sisters have a running battle for power within the family and for the respect of the village residents. In the second, the youngest daughter studies hard enough to leave home and attend school, but, once again, the power struggles make her life difficult. It's a very intricate look at the habits and mores of what was considered to be the peasant class. There must be novels that address how this generation handled the enormous changes China has undergone over the last forty years.… (more)

"Little gem" is the phrase I use to describe short or small novels possessed of outsized power and impact. The Moon Opera is a Chinese novella so exquisitely constructed as to be a tragic opera in its own right. The author, Bi Feiyu (this is his debut as a novelist), is also a screenwriter, and I confess, this story would translate beautifully into film.

It is a dramatic tale that builds into a crescendo about a diva, Xiao Yanqiu, age 40, of the Beijing Opera. Determined but conflicted, she attempts to recreate her role from 20 years ago in the classic Chinese opera, Flying To the Moon, as the quintessential female, Ching'e, acting in an art form that is fading from the cultural patina of the Chinese people at an unspecified time in the late 20th C. The essence of the character Ching'e is so powerful that the very beings of her most famous portrayors are subsumed into the role. Xiao is no exception.

Bi interjects the reader into the backstage life of the Peking (Beijing) Opera as Xiao's life is taken over by her ambition to triumph in a last hurrah. But Fate rules Chinese myths and the operas based on them. Ruthless Fate also rules the life of Xiao who yearns to recapture both her mystique in the heroine's role and her own youth.

If you enjoyed the great Chinese film, Farewell My Concubine about the Peking Opera during the early part of the 20th C., you will be easily seduced by this story about classic Chinese opera set in post-Mao China. Apart from the artistic pleasure the reader will receive from this book, great detail into the preparation of a role in this opera form and the elements of performance that are required to meet its demands are an added bonus!… (more)