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Morning Blossoms
Gathered at Dusk
by
Lu Xun
general information | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk |
| Author: | Lu Xun |
| Genre: | Autobiographical |
| Written: | 1928 (Eng. 2022) |
| Length: | 137 pages |
| Original in: | Chinese |
| Availability: | in: Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk - US |
| in: Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk - UK | |
| in: Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk - Canada | |
| Fleurs du matin cueillies au soir - France | |
| Morgenblüten abends gepflückt - Deutschland | |
| from: Bookshop.org (US) | |
| directly from: Harvard University Press |
- Chinese title: 朝花夕拾
- First published in serialized form in Wilderness Monthly (莽原)
- Translated and with an Introduction by Eileen J. Cheng
- Edited by Theodore Huters
- Previously translated as Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (1976)
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Our Assessment:
B : nice little collection of recollections
See our review for fuller assessment.
The complete review's Review:
Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk collects ten pieces in which Lu Xun presents recollections from his childhood and youth, forming a loose sort of memoir.
As translator Cheng notes in her Introduction, it is also: "a series of experiments with form".
Writing in his forties, Lu Xun observes in his own Introductory Note that:
These ten pieces are transcribed from my memory and may deviate slightly from actual fact, but this is how I remember things now.It is a look back to childhood and how he saw things then -- as with the garden behind the family house, about which he writes:
Even the last time I saw it, seven or eight years ago, I am almost certain that nothing but some weeds were growing there. But at one time it was my paradise.In 'Ah Chang and The Classic of Mountains and Seas', he looks back at early experiences with books -- illustrated ones, which made a great impression on him, leading him also to begin: "collecting illustrated books in earnest"
One piece is called simply 'Trivial Recollections', while in 'Professor Fujino' he writes about his time studying medicine in Japan -- helped by the professor of the title (though then also abandoning the field).
More scenes-from-a-life than anywhere near full-fledged memoir, Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk is nevertheless a nice little collection of reminiscences, varied both in style and content and of both literary and biographical interest.
- M.A.Orthofer, 27 March 2024
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Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk:
- Harvard University Press publicity page
- Wieser publicity page
- Lu Xun Biography at the MCLC Resource Center
- Lu Xun at books and writers
- See Index of Chinese literature
- See Index of Books Written Between 1900 and 1945
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Chinese author Lu Xun (鲁迅) lived 1881 to 1936.
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© 2024 the complete review
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