Shen Fu (1) (1763–1826)

Of the four of Shen Fu's records which have passed down to us, the first three recount his life with his adorable wife Yün, whose sweet nature was subject to anxiety and depression, sensitive to the harsh judgements of her in-laws, and prone to ill health, which we know from early on will sunder the loving couple. Shen's grief at her death is palpable and moving.

The couple live an aesthetic life, troubled by precarious employment, poverty and family dissensions, through which their joy in nature, art and literature is sustaining.

Several of the blurbs I read make much of Yün's search for a concubine for Shen, but this takes up only a small part of the account and is, I assume, a prurient sales-pitch as, again, it's done rather sweetly and was culturally appropriate, and not mentioned was Yün's own interest in having a same-sex relationship within the domestic home. Also not mentioned in blurbs are Shen's visits to sex workers, which somehow seems a double-standard. His description of these experiences is honest and humanises the women he spends time with without romanticising the reality of their lives.

The last record is a travel memoir and, while interesting on its own account, lacks much of the intimate nature of the preceding sections, not least because Yün is largely absent and Shen attention is more on the external than internal experience.
Overall, 4½⭐… (altro)

...Our souls became smoke and mist ... it was as if my body ceased to exist...

I would advise all the husbands and wives in the world not to hate each other, certainly,but also not to love too deeply.

The narrator of Shen Fu’s "The Old Man of the Moon" is a widower who wistfully recounts the joys and trials of his marriage to his cousin Yun. Written in 1809 and rediscovered in the 1870s, this tale of a man who “loved his wife too deeply” is not far removed from the novels of lost or thwarted love which were a staple of the European Romantic movement. The prose is generally formal, simple and matter-of-fact and, frankly, rather at odds with the passion seething underneath. Although I suspect that this might be something of a culture-specific issue, the style might also be meant to reflect the character of the narrator whose “purpose is merely to record true feelings and actual events”. Newly published in the “Penguin Little Black Classics” series, this is a novella worth exploring.… (altro)

...Our souls became smoke and mist ... it was as if my body ceased to exist...

I would advise all the husbands and wives in the world not to hate each other, certainly,but also not to love too deeply.

The narrator of Shen Fu’s "The Old Man of the Moon" is a widower who wistfully recounts the joys and trials of his marriage to his cousin Yun. Written in 1809 and rediscovered in the 1870s, this tale of a man who “loved his wife too deeply” is not far removed from the novels of lost or thwarted love which were a staple of the European Romantic movement. The prose is generally formal, simple and matter-of-fact and, frankly, rather at odds with the passion seething underneath. Although I suspect that this might be something of a culture-specific issue, the style might also be meant to reflect the character of the narrator whose “purpose is merely to record true feelings and actual events”. Newly published in the “Penguin Little Black Classics” series, this is a novella worth exploring.… (altro)