Novel
The Travels of Lao Can
老殘遊記
Liu E · 1907
Synopsis
Lao Can, an itinerant doctor who has turned his back on public office, dreams that China is a ship going down, then takes to the road again in Shandong. In Jinan, near the lake, he listens to a storyteller whose first glance silences the whole hall. Further on, he discovers that magistrates reputed to be incorruptible crush the guilty and the innocent alike with merciless rigour, and he reaches a district threatened by the floods of a poorly embanked Yellow River.
Context
The first thirteen chapters appeared from March 1903 to January 1904 in an illustrated fortnightly journal; a twenty-chapter version then ran in a Tianjin daily, and the book appeared in volume form in 1907. Lao Can, a doctor and specialist in waters, is taken to be the author's double, and the places follow the real geography of the province. The narrative targets less the venal officials than the upright and cruel judges, a trait that Lu Xun judged new. The French translation by Cheng Tcheng, prefaced by Étiemble, has been reissued in Folio since 1984.
Who it is for
A novel in twenty chapters, which critics praise above all for its descriptions of landscapes and its scenes of music.
Prizes and reception
C. T. Hsia regarded it as the best-loved novel of the last decade of the Qing, and it was the most widely read of its time.
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