Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Review
Reviewed Work(s): The Butcher's Wife by Li Ang, Howard Goldblatt and Ellen Yeung
Review by: Joseph R. Allen
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 61, No. 2, The Diary as Art (Spring, 1987), p. 347
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40143280
Accessed: 13-06-2022 11:22 UTC

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 CHINA 347

in the 1920s and in the late 1970s, of the shady

greater dealings
surprise of
is Hsu's inclusion of the "entering" tone as a
Sylvia's father and stepmother with the illegal
"standard" financial
Chinese tonal inflection. These lapses are not
plunderings of a modern son-in-law. The story,
helped as it in-
by a garrulous, repetitive style, marked by an ex-
terweaves the lives of Sylvia's natural and cessive
inherited siblings,
use of the definite article. All this is a pity, since Hsu
takes the reader on a tour of modern Sydney, its politics,
could have its guide to Peking opera if only he
written a great
architecture, its ennui, its parochialism, even the real-estate
had confined himself to a straightforward account of the
value of its various neighborhoods. subject of his passion.
Psychological subtlety and precise descriptive detail have K. C. Leung
always been outstanding in Anderson's writing. One might San Jose State University
praise her also in The Only Daughter for her comic ability,
particularly in her rendering of Molly and Ken Fidders,
Sylvia's illiterate mother and carping stepfather. Gaudy,
bawdy Molly, described by Ken as a "wreckerLi Ang.of The Butchers Wife. Howard Goldblatt, Ellen
currency,"
Yeung,
turns the tragedy of the Cornock family into trs. Berkeley.
a triumph forNorth
the Point. 1986. viii -I- 146 pages.
$14.95. throughout. A
Fidders, and her viewpoint lightens the novel
novel of manners and mystery, The Only Daughter rein-
In and outnovelist.
forces Anderson's position as a major contemporary of its cultural context The Butchers Wife is
Ray Willbanks startling in the brutality of the domestic violence de-
picted and exciting in the narrative force that moves this
Memphis State University
violence to its blood-drenched conclusion. Briefly stated, the
novel tells the story of a lower-class, ignorant Chinese
China woman who is married off to a psychopathic butcher, a man
who wants his women literally to scream like stuck pigs when
he mounts them. The woman's pathetic life is caught be-
tween two ugly worlds: one of hunger, superstition, and
Tao-ching Hsu. The Chinese Conception of the Theatre. bitchery; the other of drunkenness, rape, and pig butchery.
Seattle. University of Washington Press. 1985 (released The tale ends when these two worlds meet in the woman's
1986). xxiv + 686 pages, ill. + 37 plates. $35. deranged dismemberment of her husband. From the open-
ing fornication/rape of her starving mother to the final grisly
If defined as "public entertainment by human perform- murder of her husband, the tale revolves around the forces of
ers," Chinese theatre, according to Tao-ching Hsu, be- blood, sex, and animal viscera. No wonder the Taiwanese
gan with the court jesters of the sixth century B.C.; defined as public was outraged when the novel received a coveted
"public entertainment involving impersonation and mimic- literary prize in 1983; even the jaded Western reader will
ry," it began with the Han pageants of the first century B.C. If find the story a frightening but compelling one.
defined as "dramatic performance," however, it did not arise The Butchers Wife obviously has strong feminist senti-
until the thirteenth century A.D.. The brief sketch of the ments, but these are cast in the larger issue of human deg-
development of Chinese theatre here covers all these def- radation by man's own appetites. One notes, for example,
initions. The focus of discussion, though, is Peking opera: its that the pervasive wife-beating finds its analogue in the
conventions, characters, costumes, music, masks, its audi- detailed description of the inhuman workings of the butch-
ence and actors. In Hsu's opinion, a Chinese "play" can best ery. In all cases the wife, Chen Shi-lin, is adrift in a sea of
be understood as a long dance, characterized by an emphasis human cruelty: abandoned by her family, brutalized by her
on mime and singing but an unconcern with realism and husband at night, and ostracized by the gossiping women at
intellectual content. Since the aria is "vocal acting par ex- the well in the morning. There is only her small brood of
cellence," the secret of appreciating the classical Chinese ducklings to suggest any warmth, and in the end these too are
theatre lies in understanding every nuance of "articulate decimated by the cleaver of her drunken husband. The
emotional expression" of the actor-singer. concluding scene in which Chen Shi-lin turns that cleaver on
What sets The Chinese Conception of the Theatre apart is her husband is narrated through her deranged consciousness
not the "theoretical outlook," as Hsu claims, but the book's and draws us into its gore before we realize exactly what has
many charts and color plates. Another feature is an unduly happened. We slide from one insane world into another as
long section (almost half the book) comparing Chinese and easily as a gleaming knife goes through soft flesh: "With a
European theatre. single pass of the razor sharp blade, the pig's abdomen
Certain problems apparently arise from organization. For opened softly, as though unzipped, from the throat straight
example, since "history" and "heritage" are treated as sepa- down. Perfect."
rate sections, some overlapping is bound to result. The chart Joseph R. Allen
of Chinese dynasties is buried in the pages, not placed in Washington University, St. Louis
front. The index is of little help because of serious subject and
page omissions. Written in 1955, the book falls short of the
"comprehensive source in the field of comparative literature,
theatre arts, and sinology" which the dust jacket claims it is, Xiao Hong. Market Street: A Chinese Woman in Harbin.
principally because it is uninformed by recent scholarship. Howard Goldblatt, tr. Seattle. University of Washington
Hsu's lament that "there is as yet no book in a European Press. 1986. xviii + 134 pages, ill. $14.95.
language on the history of Chinese theatre" is grossly out of
date, as indeed are many of his references. Oversimplifica- Xiao Hong (formerly written Hsiao Hung; ne'e Zhang
tion often mars his explanation of an intricate subject such as Naiying) died on 22 January 1942 in Japanese-occupied
the rise of drama. I am surprised that Brecht is not men- Hong Kong at the age of thirty. Her literary reputation
tioned at all in the lengthy comparative section. An even among Chinese readers and critics has steadily increased

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