The Peony Pavilion (Classical Chinese Love Stories)

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I love this book. It's so romantic and it has a lot of suspense in it.

Rating:
Summary: Painful
Review: It is painful to read this book.

The book itself has no definite structure. The plot is very predictable and rather boring (not to mention it makes very little sense). I would highly suggest that you avoid this Chinese Classic.

Rating:
Summary: Great Play, Brilliant Translation
Review: Tang Xiansu was a contemporary of Shakespeare (and Cervantes!). His masterpiece, _The Peony Pavilion_, a musical drama in the Kunqu style, is Shakespearean in its literary quality--as translated by Cyril Birch--and super-Shakespearean in its length and scope. Its 55 scenes, playing 20 hours, include all of Shakespeare's genres: romance, history, comedy, tragedy, lyric poetry. A magnificent work and vital theatre as done complete in New York in 1999. Birch's brief intro helps you get into the piece; his short book, "Scenes for Mandarins: The Elite Theater of the Ming" (Columbia University Press), tells more and also introduces other playwrights and plays in his elegant translations.