I am going to have track down this book and/or movie, but in the meantime here is an entry on Chinese-American author Eileen Chang's work...which includes both "Stale Mates" and the novella "Lust, Caution."
To begin with, here is Ms. Chang's biography:
http://www.hellomandarin.com/blog/2009/04/30/chinese-culture-eileen-changs-life-in-brief/
The author's literary executor has also written this essay that provides another perspective:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050215_1.htm
This 2005 review of Ms. Chang's collected essays (in an English translation) provides more of a literary and cultural context for her work:
http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2005fall/chang.shtml
Irish writer John Self reviews the collection of fiction that contains "Lust, Caution."
http://theasylum.wordpress.com/2007/11/11/eileen-chang-lust-caution/
But about the film...
http://www.filminfocus.com/focus-movies/lust-caution/movie-splash.php
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/01/02/btchina102.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/10/wlee110.xml
Another collection was Love in a Fallen City, which Haiyan Lee, a professor of Chinese literature at the University of Colorado, reviews here:
http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/reviews/lee.htm
Ms. Chang's first novel in English was The Rice-Sprout Song. Charlie Dickinson reviews it here:
http://charlied.freeshell.org/RiceSproutSong
She also translated Chinese literature into English. One novel was The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai, which tells the story of nineteenth-century courtesans in that Chinese city.
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-12268-9/the-singsong-girls-of-shanghai
In addition, she wrote screenplays. Australia's Queensland Art Gallery recently screened both the films that she had written screenplays for and those that others have made from her novels, novellas, and short stories:
http://apt5.asiapacifictriennial.com/cinema/hong_kong,_shanghai_cinema_cities/eileen_chang
At least one of these films may not have aged well (or have been that good to begin with):
http://www.brns.com/pages4/drama263.html
However, Eileen Chang's work in different media is very much worth exploring.
2 comments:
Dr. Szlyk, I just read through the links you have for Eileen Chang and I am shocked to learn that she is not a contemporary writer. I don't know why but while reading Stale Mate I had the feeling that it had been written recently reflecting back on the past. I read her biography and did a bit of research and find it interesting that she was such a recluse and had such ideas about owning possessions, even books, that it caused one to "grow roots" and that they were a burden. Perhaps that stems from her being abandoned by her mother when her parents were separated and subsequently divorced? Perhaps that influenced her writing to a great extent? Do you have a copy of her collection of essays "Written on Water"? I would be very interested in skimming it if you would not mind. I am particularly interested in the "On Carrots" essay that she talks about in the letter she wrote to the executor of her estate. Thanks.
I'm glad that you are enjoying researching Eileen Chang, Michelle. Unfortunately, I don't have any of her works...yet. I wonder if the MoCo library has some of them.
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