Once on a Moonless Night (Vintage International)
by DAI SIJIE | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0307456730 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0307456730 Global Overview for this book
1 journaler for this copy...
from the back:
"A precious scroll inscribed with a lost Buddhist sutra - once owned by Pu Yi, the last emperor of China - is illicitly sold to an eccentric French linguist, Paul d'Ampere, who is imprisoned as a result. In jail he devotes himself to studying its ancient text.
A young Western scholar in China hears this story from the grocer Tumchooq, whose name mysteriously connects him to the document. She falls in love with both teller and tale, but when d'Ampere is killed in prison, Tumchooq disappears, and she, pregnant with his child, embarks on a search for her lost love and the scroll that begins 'Once on a moonless night..."
"A precious scroll inscribed with a lost Buddhist sutra - once owned by Pu Yi, the last emperor of China - is illicitly sold to an eccentric French linguist, Paul d'Ampere, who is imprisoned as a result. In jail he devotes himself to studying its ancient text.
A young Western scholar in China hears this story from the grocer Tumchooq, whose name mysteriously connects him to the document. She falls in love with both teller and tale, but when d'Ampere is killed in prison, Tumchooq disappears, and she, pregnant with his child, embarks on a search for her lost love and the scroll that begins 'Once on a moonless night..."
This was a surprisingly lovely and lyrical book. I'm going to have to find Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress now.
