Openers: An Ta-ch'eng was a Chung-ch'ing man. Hi father, who had gained the master' degree, died early; and his brother Erh-ch'eng was a mere boy. He himself had married a wife from the Ch'en family, whose name was Shan-hu; and this lady had much to put up with from the violent and malicious disposition of her husband's mother. However, she never complained; and every morning dressed herself up smart, and went to pay her respects to the old lady. Once when Ta-ch'eng was ill, his mother abused Shan-hu for dresing o nicely; whereupon Shan-hu went back and changed her clothes; but even then Mrs. An was not satisfied, and began to tear her own hair with rage. Ta-ch'eng, who was a very filial son, at once gave his wife a beating, and this put an end to the scene. From that moment his mother hated her more than ever, and although she was everything that a daughter-in-law could be, would never exchange a word with her. Ta-ch'eng then treated her in much the same way, that his mother might see that he would have nothing to do with her; still the old lady wasn't pleased, and was alway blaming Shan-hu for every trifle thaat occurred. "A wife," cried Ta-ch'eng, "is taken to wait on her mother-in-law. This state of things hardly looks like the wife doing her duty." So he bade Shan-hu begone, and sent an old maidservant to see her home: but when Shan-hu got outside the village-gate, she burst into tears, and said, "How can a girl who has failed in her duties as a wife ever dare to look her parents in the face? I had better die." Thereupon she drew a pair of scissors and stabbed herself in the throat. covering herself immediately with blood. The servant prevented any further mischief, and supported her to the house of her husband's aunt, who was a widow living by herself, and who made Shan-hu stay with her. The servant went back and told Ta-ch'eng, and he bade her to say nothing to anyone, for fear his mother should hear of it. In a few days Shan-hu's wound was healed, and Ta-ch'eng went off to ak hi aunt to send her away. Hi aunt invited him in, but he declined, demanding loudly that Shan-hu should be turned out; and in a few minutes Shan-hu herself came forth, and inquired what she had done. T-ch'eng said she had failed in her duty towards his mother; whereupon Shan-hu hung her head and made no answer, while tears of blood* trickled from her eyes and stained her dress all over. Ta-ch'eng was much touched by this spectacle, and went away without saying any more; but before long his mother heard all about it, and, hurrying off to the aunt's, began abusing her roundly. This the aunt would not stand, and said it was all the fault of her own bad temper, adding: "The girl has already left you, and do you till claim to decide with whom she is to live? Miss Ch'en is staying with me, nt your daughter-in-law; so you had better mind your own business." This made Mrs. An furious; but she was at a loss for an answer, and, seeing that the aunt was firm, she went off home abashed and in tears.
* a Chinese idiom for "bitter tears"
-- P'u Sung-Ling (1622-1715), from Liao-Chai-Chih-I, or Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, collected about 1740 and translated here by Herbert A. Giles, 1880
The first thing that came to my mind while reading the above paragraph was Janis Joplin's song "Women Is Losers." Despite efforts by some of today's far right to subjugate women, we are lucky to live in the age we do.
Now that Shan-hu had been sent away, Mrs. An tried to get Ta-ch'eng another wife without any luck. Her reputation and viscious temper served to keep any possible future wifes away. So Erh-ch'eng, the younger brother, grew up and married first. His wife, Tsang-ku, had a temper that was even more ungovernable than that of Mrs. An. In fact, Mrs. An lived in fear of Tsang-ku, who trted her like a slave. Ta-ch'eng did ot like the way Tsang-ku treated his mother, but what could he do? The two of them silently put up with Tsang-ku's humilation of them.
Then Mrs. An got very sick and her sister, Mrs. Yu, came to care for her and treated her with great kindness, bringing Mrs. An gifts daily that supposedly came from Mrs. Yu's daughter-in-law. The venomous Mrs. An began to mellow, to the point of regretting her treatment of Shan-hu. Then she discovered that all the gifts that she had received came not from Mrs. Yu's daughter-in-law, but from her own -- Shan-hu, who had paid for them from her own money earned from her spinning late into th evenings. Shan-hu and Mrs. An reconciled and became devoted to each other. Meanwhile, Tsang-ku and Erh-ch'eng had little to do with the rest of the household -- which now included Ta-ch'eng, Shan-hu, and Mrs. An -- and the relationship between the two sisters-in-law was strained, to say the least. Tsang-ku could at least vent her spleen against her maid-servants, one of who commited suicide because of this treatment. The servant's family sued Tsang-ku and Erh-Ch'eng had to mortgage his half of the family home to get his wife released from jail. The fact that Erh-ch'eng waned to sell the family property upset the ghost of Mr.An, the father ofTa-Ch'eng and Erh-Ch'eng', who came back from the dead and told Ta-Ch'eng where a buried treasure of silver plate lay so he could buy out his brother and save the family home. The ghost had no pity for his younger son and his harridan wife. Ta-Ch'eng and Shan-hu were the only ones who could see the treasure, though; when Erh-Ch'eng, Mrs. An, and Tsang-ku looked, all they could see was old tiles and rubbish. Nevertheless, the treasure was real and Ta-Ch'eng used the wealth to save the family home and, in an act of kindness, split the treasure with his brother. This irritated the evil-pirited Tsang-ku who was sure that Ta-Ch'eng was cheating his brother. It also irritated the ghost of Mr. An, who appeared before Erh-Ch'eng and berated him, stating that the treasure was Ta-Ch'eng's alone. Erh-Ch'eng was then determined to give the money back to his brother but his wife refused to let him do it. And then, their eldest son took sick and died. Then the next oldest. This had an effect on Tsang-ku, who became a changed woman, but it was too late -- of their thirteen children, all died, and Erh-Ch'eng and Tsang-ku were forced to adopt one of Ta-Ch'eng's children. Ta-ch'en and Sang-hu themelves lived to a ripe old age.
Few short stories from ancient China have survived, chief among them a collection of stories publishedin the Fifteenth Century and the tales of P'u Sung-Ling, published two centuries later. Laden with moral messages and the importance of Chinese tradition and family honor, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio has remained a classic of Chinese literature over the centuries and its author has been praised for his mastery of style and composition.
Incoming:
- Marvin Albert, Bimbo Heaven. a Pete Sawyer/Stone Angel mystery. "When a beautiful young woman, dripping wet and alone, wandered onto his patio, ex-cop and private eye Pete Sawyer knew he was looking at trouble. He also knew he would take the job. It sounded simple enough: deliver a letter to a local Riviera resident. But when Pete arrived, the man had vanished and his wife was being worked over by two thugs. That was only the beginning of a murderous trail of diamonds and death that led from the Cote d'Azur into the exotic heart of Mrocco. There, in the stark Sahara, Pete wuld spark a bloody showdown that few would live to talk about..." Whether with his mysteries, adventure novels. or his westerns, Albert always provided a good read.
- Poul Anderson, Going for Infinity. Science Fiction retrospective collection with iteen torie and two novel excerpts, along with commentary by the author. Even if you've read the stories before, this is a don't-miss collection.
- Greg Bear, Darwin's Children, SF novel, a sequel to the Nebula Award-winning Darwin's Radio. "Eleven years have passed since SHEVA, and ancient retrvirus that caused mutations in the human genome and heralded the arrival of a new wave of genetically enhanced humans. Now these changed children have reached adolescence...and face a world that is outraged about their very existence. For these special youths, possessed of remarkable, advanced traits that mark a major turning point in human develpment, are also ticking time bmbs harboring hosts of viruses that could exterminate the 'old' human race." Another author I need to read more of.
- Michael Connelly, Crime Beat. Nonfiction. Before Harry Bosch, before the Lincoln Lawyer, Connelly worked as a crime reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Los Angeles Times. Here are forty-three articles from that time -- true crimes that influenced Connelly's later fiction.
- Blake Crouch, Recursion. Science fiction/thriller novel. "At first it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories they never had. But the force that's sweeping the world is no pathogen. It's just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery -- and what's in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself. In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth -- and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery...and the tools for fighting back. Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront the enemy -- before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos." In his acknowledgements, the author reveals thirteen people he has "Tuckerized" in this book. Neat.
- Steve Fisher, Hellsgrin. Modern western/adventure novel. "The lure of gold brings life back to the old ghost town of Basin City in an exciting story of five people who met in a deserted village under the shadow of the great glacier, Hellsgrin. Basin City might have been any ghost town, weathering away for fifty neglected years in the Colorado snow and sun, except that there was a legend about Basin City, and a prophecy. In 1909, the story went, a prospector, Alonzo Pike, had disappeared with thousands of dollars' worth of gold ingots in the saddle-bags of his pack mule. His body had been swallowed by a crevasse in the glacier and it was due to appear again, according to a geologist, at a given point on the glacier, on September 12, 1959. Curious about the riddle and hoping to find the treasure, Johnny Bennion bought Basin City and camped out there in the fall of 1959. As the twelfth of September approached, tension mounted in the old town. Others came, drawn by the old story of the prospector's corpse, the mule and the gold bar." Frazee was an old pro at telling an engaging tale.
- Chester Gould, The Complete Dick Tracy, Dailies and Sundays: Volume 20: 1961-62. Comic strip collection. More than 550 sequential comics, from February 1961 through August 1962. America's granite-jawed cop meets such memorable characters as Spready, Happy Voten, Keip Choppin, Trusty, Mona the Mouthpiece, and Little Boy Beard. This was the last collection before Gould and the comic strip went off the rails by introducing Moon Maid and the moon people. As with all others in this series, the introduction is by Gould's successor in writing Dick Tracy, Max Allan Collins. I had been followiing this series up through Volume 16 and when I saw this book I had to grab it. Now to find Volumes 17-19 and 21 and beyond.
- Paula Guran, editor, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu. Twenty-five stories (most original) from such author as Michael Shea, Laird Barron, John Shirley, Yoon Ha-Lee. W. H. Pugmire, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Hodge, and Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, but nary a tale from HPL. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
- Grady Hendrix, My Best Friend's Exocism. Horror novel. "High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping does disasterously wrong, Grethchen begins to act...different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby. Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries -- and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?" For those who are interested, the 2022 film based on the book is now available on Netflix.
- Grady Hendrix and Will Errickson, Paperbacks frm Hell. Nonfiction, a heavily illustrated, lovingly compiled paean to paperback horror fiction of the 70s and 80s. The trends, the artists, the ridiculously over-the-top plots, the highs and the lows -- it's all here. I love it. (Valancurt Books, that nifty purveyor of some really great titles, has started a limited series reprinting some of the long-unavailble books spotlighted in Paperbacks from Hell; all are mass-market sized and feature the original cover designs from the 70s and 80s; all have a special introduction from either Hendrix or Errrickson -- check them out: https://www.valancourtbooks.com/paperbacksfromhell.html.) I bought this one as a birthday present to myself and I will be dipping into it for years to come.
- Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. The classic children's book. "For Milo, everything's a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he's got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it's exciting beyond his wildest dreams..." I know I already have a copy of this buried somewhere in storage but it's good to have a handy copy nearby.
- Peter O'Donnell, Last Day in Limbo. A Modesty Blaise Adventure. "Somebody wanted Modesty Blaise in a big way -- big enough to set up a very expensive kidnap operation...Tia Benita was crazy and her nephew, Paxero, knew better than to cross her. (After all, she did have all that money.) When Benita decides that Modesty would make a perfect slave on her plantation, Paxero puts the machinery in motion. At the same time, Willie Garvin begins setting a trap of his own: Paxero's henchmen had done a nasty number on Willie's lady friend, and he swears to make them pay! From steamng jungles to Mayan temple ruins, the action, thrills and tension of the Paxero affair take Modesty and Willie to a shoot-out climax that is so big that even they have to worry!" No one takes a comic book story to the pages of a novel like O'Donnell, and its always a pleasure to meet up with Modesty and Willie one more time.
- "Dray Prescott" (who used to be "Alan Burt Akers" when he was not being Kenneth Bulmer), Fires of Scorpio. Number 29 in the SF series that went on for a total of 52 novels and three short stories. "Triple trouble always dogged Dray Prescott just when he thought he had things under control. This time, involved with setting things right on the continent of Pandahem, the Star Lords yanked him away from his friends, and dumped him, weaponless, at the gates of the terrible temple of Leem. To rescue a girl sacrice there was but the start, for next he had to help torch the temple and all the others like it, and finally take to the sea to confront the next wave of the fish-headed marauders from Kregen's Southern Hemisphere. There's always lots more doing in Dray Prescott's adventures on the world of Antares in Scorpio, for this colorful series in [sic] the best thing of its kind since Burroughs stopped writing!" (That's Edgar Rice, not William Burroughs, one hopes.) Never nominated for a Hugo or a Nebula, nonetheless, the swift-moving action never lets up, nor does the purple prose ever stop flying.
- Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, All ten Martin Beck mysteries. Someone dropped these paperback off at a local thrift store and I was the first to find them. The books, listed chronologically, are: Roseanna (the naked, raped body of a woman is dredged up from the bottom of a Swedish lake and Detective Inspector Beck begins a six-month investigation into the case); The Man on the Balcony (a peaceful Swedish summer becomes a time of horror when a rash of brutal muggings and child sex-murders plague the city and Beck -- now a superintendent -- follows the clues); The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (Beck is sent by the Foreign Office to Budapest to search for a well-known Swedish journalist who vanished withut a trace); The Laughing Policeman (nine people are brutally murdered in a double-decker bus and among those who were on the bus was a friend and colleague of Beck); The Fire Engine that Disappeared (a dingy Stockholm apartment house under police surveillance explodes, killing three people; could this be linked to a suicide that happened earlier in the same day?); Murder at the Savoy (a powerful industrialist is shot during an after-dinner speech in Malmo and Beck discovers he has nothing but contempt for the victim and sympathy for the murderer); The Abominable Man (a police captain is murdered in his hospital room and Beck uncovers evidence of police corruption and brutality); The Locked Room (two cases -- a locked room murdrr and a young woman shoots a bystander during an attempted bank robbery -- have a common denominator and Beck is determined to find it); Cop Killer (a woman is murdered and left burried in a swamp; in the same town a shootout take place between three cop and two teenage boys -- both cases bring back figures from some of Beck's earlier cases); and The Terrorists (Beck is assigned to protect a visiting U.S. senator who is being targeted for assassination; meanwhile there's the murdrr of a millionaire porno filmmaker and the case of a young girl caught in the toil of burecratic red tape). The huband and wife authors had planned from the beginning to write only ten book in this series. Both were communists and their aim for the series was to "use the crime novel as a scalpel cutting open the belly of an ideologically pauperized and morally debatable so-called welfare state of the bourgeois." What they ended up with was well-written, pychologically complex, realistic novels that provided good, serious entertainment. The two have been described as the "couple who invented Notdic noir." The Laughing Policeman won an Edgar Award for Best Novel. All ten books in the series were adapted as films between 1967 and 1994; from 1997 to date, 46 films (both released to video on television) starred Peter Haber as the title character; from 2012 to 2013, all ten novels were dramatized on BBC Radio-4 with Steven MacIntosh in the starring role. I'm a big fan of the Peter Haber series and enjoyed the 1973 film of The Laughng Policeman starring Walter Matthau but I never got around to reading the books. Now I can.
- Brad Steiger (born Eugene E. Olson, 1936-2018), Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places. Six hundred pages of legends, anecdotes, and bullshit masquerading as fact. According to the back cover blurb, this is "a defining work on spirit phenomina. the culmination of Steiger's 50 years of paranormal reserch...[A] bold telling of true ghost stories and firt persson encounters. It is also a comprehensive classification of the spirit world touching on time travel and parallel universe, presentingthe full range of ghostly manifistations and haunted loctions." Yada yada yada. teiger wrote some fiction, but most of his books centered on the paranormal, spirituality, UFOs, true crime, and biographies. He was a firm believer (he claimed) in Atlantis having been the home of an all-powerful, highly technological civiliation. Evident;y he never met an ancient alien he didn't like. He wrote or co-wrote almost 170 books, most of which invlved this kind of dreck. For the record, I am not a believer.
- Geoff Tibballs, editor, The Mammooth Book of Zingers, Quips and One-Liners. Over 8000 of them, very few are laugh-out-loud though, Typical are these: "I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday" (Raymond Chandler); "I've seen George Foreman shadow boxing, and the shadow won" (Muhammad Ali);and "I said I'm hungry enought to eat a horse. I didn't say nothin' about carrots" (Dennis the Menace). Luckily, I don't give speeches so I won't have to use any of these to warm up an audience.
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Needs no explanation. A boxed set, bound in faux leather. A birthday gift from my granddaughter Erin.
- H. T. Webster, The Best of H. T. Webster. About 250 newpaper cartoons from the talented pen of Harold Tucker Webster (1885-1952), Webter w the creator of Capar Milquetoat, the "timid soul" whose last name became enshrined in the English language. Webster's range was vast -- from biting political satire to sharp observations on married life, from his interests in fishing, poker, and bridge to his warm evocations of childhood. The afternoon I bought the book, I thought I'd just glance at its content and ended up spending over three hours joyfully turning the pages, thoroughly amused and entertained.
- 37-year-old Florida Man Jonathan Davis of...well, nowhere because he's homeless, was arrested in Okaloosa County for stabbing an Ohio hiker in the abdomen for no known reason. The victim and his wife had set up a camp by a hiking trail and had befriended Davis. The victim was rushed to an area hospital in critical condition but is expected to survive. Davis had outstanding warrants for burglary and other charges. An attack for unknown reasons may well become a Florida tradition following the adoption of "We don't need a stinkin' reason" as the State Motto.
- Florida Man Andres Orjuela-Montealegre, 29, was arrested on October 23 when Marion Cpounty sheriff's deputies noticed that he was driving on an Interstate 75 entrance ramp with two missing tires. He logically explained to one of the deputies,"If you mess with me right now, let me tell you something, I'm going to break your head with a baseball bat. I'm going to skin you alive." Orjuela-Montealegre blamed everything on paranormal activity, claiming that he had been cursed, stating he was given a "do or die" choice -- either drive home on two non-existent tires or set his car on fire and sleep on the median. Despite the reasonableness of his explanation, he was arrested for 2 counts of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer with violence, attempt to deprive and officer of means of protection, corrupt by threat against a public servant, and driving under the influence. There could have been a few more charges thrownnin there, but they were not reported in the news article I read.
- Florida Man Edmund Clarke, 36, was arrested after stabbing an acquaintance 40 times in an attempt to behead him inside a Lee County convenience store. Clarke had reportedly been the caretaker of the victim's father for nearly a decade. According to a witness, Clarke had begun experiencing hallucinations and had been ranting about being targeted by an unknown enemy before the assault.
- Florida Man Charles Walker, 52, decided it would be a good idea to jet ski from Pompano beach of Bimini in the Bahamas -- a distance of about 115 mile. He didn't make it and now has been declared missing. News reports did not state if this was a case of, "Hold my beer."
- Lee County Sheriff's deputies approached a car the was pulled over on the side of a road in North Fort Myers because it was blocking a bike path. The driver, 34-year-old Florida Man Randy Lynn Austerman gave the depupties a fake name. On learning this they asked his to step out of his car, The was when Austerman pulled a three-foot sword on them. (For those interested in details, the sword was attached to a metal dragon-shaped handle.) Officers attempted to taaser Austerman, who was poking the sword at them through th car window. Oterman then fled from the passenger side door and the deputies were able to subdue him. A search of the vehicle revealed methamphetamine, marijuana, and a glass pipe.
- Store employees rewarded for assisting injured elderly lady https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/lowes-employee-angels-are-rewarded-for-assisting-an-injured-elderly-woman/
- She just loves to clean and now she's helping women in need by scrubbing homes for free while traveling the world https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/finnish-woman-cleans-homes-for-free/
- Ground-breaking patient who urvived 12 type of cancer could hold the key to detection and treatment https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ground-breaking-patient-who-survived-12-different-types-of-cancer-could-hold-key-to-detection-and-treating/
- Teen find police medal on bottom of river and tracks down the heart-broken officer who had lost it last year https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/strangers-find-officers-service-medal-in-river-and-returned-it/
- Girl Scouts receive an $84 million donation to aid recovery from lack of income during pandemic https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/girl-scouts-receive-84m-donation-from-mackenzie-scott/
- Honda designs tiny electric car for hospitalized children to drive to their treatments https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/honda-designers-make-fun-electric-car-to-bring-joy-to-hospitalized-children/
- Living near water as a child is linked to better mental health and well-being in adulthood https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/living-near-water-as-a-child-is-linked-to-better-mental-health-and-well-being-in-adulthood-study/
I vote for permanent EST. Otherwise it would be dark in Michigan until 9am.
ReplyDeleteYour ballot will be counted, Patti.
Delete