From archive (archive) Subject: THE STORY OF THE STONE by Barry Hughart From: ecl@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Evelyn C. Leeper) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Date: 18 Sep 89 11:35:53 GMT THE STORY OF THE STONE by Barry Hughart Doubleday Foundation, 1989, ISBN 0-385-24636-6, $17.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper Like its predecessor (THE BRIDGE OF BIRDS), THE STORY OF THE STONE is set in 7th Century China. Both are apparently based on excerpts of the classic DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER, though only on a small part of it (much as the film ERENDIRA was based on a half-page from the epic novel ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE). Of the first I said, "It's full of the feel of China and the Orient." In retrospect I'm not sure I would still say that. There is a certain atmosphere to the books, but I'm not sure it isn't just a village atmosphere that could easily arise from a book set in Russia or Scotland or anywhere else. Consider FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. It is a very popular play (and film) that people in the United States think is very Jewish (whatever that means). When it first played in Japan, people there liked it, but expressed surprise that it was popular in the United States. "After all," they said, "the story is so Japanese." And when Mark recently lent the film to a co-worker, the co-worker's father--who had been born in China and spoke little English--loved it, from which Mark concluded that perhaps Chinese village life was not so different from shtetl life after all. This is not to downgrade the books. I'm not sure at this point *how* one would write a book that had a "Chinese village" feel rather than just a village feel. And I do recommend the book, though I have several nits to pick with it. It seems picky, I know, to point out mistakes. But there were several, and I found them annoying. For one thing, Hughart says the A.D. 650 is the Year of the Serpent. No, the closest years of the serpent to 650 are 645 and 657. Then later he talks about people with mercury poisoning and how hatters frequently suffer from this because of the mercury they use. I didn't think felt hats were that common in China in the Seventh Century; maybe they were, but it sounds wrong. One of the references that I thought was a mistake may not be one. He has one clue refer to the "one hundred and forty-six scales of the dragon" and has Master Li try to analyze this as "one, four, and six." I didn't think the Seventh Century Chinese did arithmetic in base ten. But upon looking it up, I discovered that 1) the Hindus had zero (necessary for positional notation) as early as 100 B.C., and 2) it is thought that the Hindu-Arabic numerals that we use may have been derived from the Chinese. So maybe the Chinese *did* do base ten arithmetic in the Seventh Century! (Though a Chinese friend says, no, they did arithmetic in base 60.) But Master Li also refers to an item thirty-six inches long corresponding to the 360 degrees of a circle. There are two things grating about this sentence. One is the use of the word "inches." Now if the author says, "The town was two miles away," I figure that's a translation of the actual units, and maybe the character really said it's twelve blargs away (or whatever). But here, the number of units is important, hence the unit cannot be just a translation or the number would change as well. And secondly, I don't think the Chinese used a 360-degree circle. It's possible (the Babylonians could have shipped it east as well as west, or gotten it from the east), but, again, it *sounds* wrong. One can argue that an author shouldn't have to worry about the truth sounding wrong, but the publisher probably should have suggested an afterword clarifying some of this. As I said before, I do recommend the book, though not as wholeheartedly as I recommended the first one. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf-reviews Sat Jul 27 03:15:46 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!news.funet.fi!fuug!mcsun!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!apple!ig!pws.bull.com From: wex@pws.bull.com (Alan Wexelblat) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-reviews Subject: Review of Barry Hughart's EIGHT SKILLED GENTLEMEN Message-ID: Date: 25 Jul 91 00:45:57 GMT Sender: mcb@presto.ig.com Lines: 32 Approved: mcb@presto.ig.com (SF-REVIEWS acting moderator) EIGHT SKILLED GENTLEMEN by Barry Hughart review Copyright (c) 1991 Alan Wexelblat If you haven't read Barry Hughart's two previous Master Li books ("Bridge of Birds" and "The Story of the Stone") stop reading this review and go out and buy them. And pick up "Eight Skilled Gentlemen" while you're at it. For the uninitiated, Master Li is one of the most ancient and most skilled sages of old magical China. His attraction to strong drink notwithstanding, he manages to solve the most contorted puzzles while giving the finger to stuffy Neo-Confucian China. His assistant, Number Ten Ox, provides the muscle and narrates the stories. Hughart writes in a funny, believable way about a culture that is always a source of mystery and wonder to us Westerners. This time, Our Heros are forced to deal with the murders of very powerful mandarins at the hands of mystical and undead creatures. To say any more would ruin a well-built plot. Hughart's humor is that of the intelligent commoner laughing at the stuffed shirts and pompous fools around him. He doesn't use much slapstick; instead, he lets Master Li's loathing of the Chinese upper crust add to Ox's common-sense wonderment. The two make such a good team that I didn't even mind buying the massively overpriced large-size paperback edition. %A Barry Hughart %T Eight Skilled Gentlemen %D 1991 %G 0-385-41710-1 %I Foundation/Doubleday