Bi Feiyu

A diva of the Peking Opera House, more notably the star of the "Moon Opera," attacks a rival, and in the fallout, she subsequently retreats to just teaching. Twenty years later a very wealthy factory manager offers to underwrite a new production of the same opera, but only if that specific diva will return and take the lead role. Xiao Yanqiu, our volatile diva, now married and with a child, accepts the position, and thus our dramatic (somewhat crazy) story begins.

It took me a chapter or two to settle into this story, and get to know our diva, Yanqui, who is a diva by both definitions of the word: "a famous female singer of the the opera" and "a self-important person who is temperamental and difficult to please" (let the games begin!)

A relatively quick read at 177 small pages; but an entertaining introduction to Chinese opera… with all it’s drama.… (mais)

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Bi-Don-Quichotte-sur-le-Yangtse/828898

> Au fil des pages, le petit Don Quichotte devenu homme et père de famille se dévoile. Il puise dans sa propre éducation, dans le sens qu'il accorde au mot valeur, dans ses souvenirs de témoin privilégié de la souffrance de ses proches, pour inculquer à son fils une éducation respectueuse et soucieuse de ses racines campagnardes.
—Danieljean (Babelio)… (mais)

This is really two separate books and it feels almost like two different authors. The setting for both are the Chinese countryside during the Maoist Return To The Land Movement in the early 1970s, when Communist Party functionaries held almost unlimited power in villages and schools. In the first story, a family with seven girls finally has a boy, and the two elder sisters have a running battle for power within the family and for the respect of the village residents. In the second, the youngest daughter studies hard enough to leave home and attend school, but, once again, the power struggles make her life difficult. It's a very intricate look at the habits and mores of what was considered to be the peasant class. There must be novels that address how this generation handled the enormous changes China has undergone over the last forty years.… (mais)

"Little gem" is the phrase I use to describe short or small novels possessed of outsized power and impact. The Moon Opera is a Chinese novella so exquisitely constructed as to be a tragic opera in its own right. The author, Bi Feiyu (this is his debut as a novelist), is also a screenwriter, and I confess, this story would translate beautifully into film.

It is a dramatic tale that builds into a crescendo about a diva, Xiao Yanqiu, age 40, of the Beijing Opera. Determined but conflicted, she attempts to recreate her role from 20 years ago in the classic Chinese opera, Flying To the Moon, as the quintessential female, Ching'e, acting in an art form that is fading from the cultural patina of the Chinese people at an unspecified time in the late 20th C. The essence of the character Ching'e is so powerful that the very beings of her most famous portrayors are subsumed into the role. Xiao is no exception.

Bi interjects the reader into the backstage life of the Peking (Beijing) Opera as Xiao's life is taken over by her ambition to triumph in a last hurrah. But Fate rules Chinese myths and the operas based on them. Ruthless Fate also rules the life of Xiao who yearns to recapture both her mystique in the heroine's role and her own youth.

If you enjoyed the great Chinese film, Farewell My Concubine about the Peking Opera during the early part of the 20th C., you will be easily seduced by this story about classic Chinese opera set in post-Mao China. Apart from the artistic pleasure the reader will receive from this book, great detail into the preparation of a role in this opera form and the elements of performance that are required to meet its demands are an added bonus!… (mais)