Free The Old Capital: A Novel Of Taipei Published By Chu Tien-hsin Offered As Text

and a novella. The stories were very hit or miss, The first one was probably my favorite,

As for the novella, I feel like only a Waishengren 外省人would really appreciate it, And even then, only one who grew up between the's and's or thereabouts, I guess, On the other hand, I think it could be of great interest to historians interested in recent Taipei history, She seems to go through the changes of Taipei, from post Japanese conquest to postChiang Kai shek or thereabouts in great detail.
I tried to follow some of the addresses mentioned, but nothing seems to resemble her description anymore, The style seems to be very stream of consciousness / Mrs, Dallowaystyle, although much of it is in thend person, which always strikes me as odd,

Also, I just wanted to point out that Lane, Sectionof Zhongxiao East Road is NOT parallel to Jinan road!

Also also, and this is probably just because my family is from Florence.
But the church in Florence with the Brunelleschi dome isn't the "St, Florence Church", and the Arno river isn't outside the city,


sitelink blogspot. com/ I read this because it was referenced in a piece I factchecked for sitelinkT Magazine,

I don't really like reading translated texts there is almost always a sense of detachment from the material, a suspicion that some understanding is amiss.
I wonder how much subtext is absent, lament my inability to appreciate the artistry of the original author's diction and syntax.
I actually spoke with this The Old Capital's translator in the course of my factchecking, and I appreciate that his work was a tremendous undertaking.
This book had an even worse effect on me than usual, though, and I don't think I can blame the translation.


This book is actually four short stories followed by a novella called "The Old Capital, " The central theme of each story is memory, be it personal or national, Each story has a different protagonist, of varying genders, sexualities and stages of life, but all seem to share the same postboomer nostalgia of Taiwan as Chinese nationalist refuge which just happens to be the author's own identity.
The stories are told in the first person, except the novella, which employs the secondperson perspective more on that later, None of the narrators are named, nor are the supporting characters, who are known by placeholder letters like A, and XX. This is a device that has always been a pet peeve of mine, I don't know if the author is trying to keep the reader's focus on the characterization and not on the easy assumption a name can sometimes invoke a character named Bruno, for example, often carries different connotations than a character named Christian, but I actually find it more distracting, and quite alienating from the story.


The stories as a whole are full of abstractions and meditations, The protagonists spend most of their time inside their own heads, which makes not only for a boring read but also for unlikable characters, neurotic and selfabsorbed.


The only story I actually enjoyed was the second one, "Man of La Mancha," in which a young male writer becomes obsessed with preparing for his death.
More precisely, with controlling all the contingencies in the event of his sudden and unexpected expiration, In other words, taking the advice "Always wear clean underwear" to the extreme, The protagonist carefully selected the items in his wallet to reflect exactly the identity he wanted to project should he be found as a John Doe in the street speaking of which, he deliberately plotted his daily routes so as not to accidentally pass out in front of a place of ill repute and be mistaken for a patron there.
I liked this story because I found the protagonist's obsession understandable and relatable although what that says about me is another matter, and the details were specific and tangible.


The worst story was, unfortunately, the longest, the novella "The Old Capital, " Talk about a long, abstract, pretentious piece of prose, The story almost literally went nowhere, I'm about to spoil exactly what happens, which isn't saying much: A woman goes to Japan to reunite with her childhood best friend.
While waiting for her friend, she wanders around the city and mopes about how much it's changed, Her friend never shows. She goes back to Taipei and mopes around that city some more about how much it's changed,

The lack of plot was obnoxious, but not as infuriating as the whiny protagonist, This is where the decision to employ the secondperson voice gets intriguing, Was my reaction and judgment of the character harsher because she was projected onto me I couldn't respect her clinginess to the past, to an old friend "A.
" again who had obviously moved on long ago, her stubborn refusal to consider progress in change, I could barely get through this book it was a lot of meandering and streamofconsciousness style writing, and it was pretty much just tedious to read until this girl in my class gave a presentation on how the character representated that of the flaneur wanderer, memory as a form of political dissent.


The other short stories, like Breakfast at Tiffany's, was more likable for me, but even then there's been other pieces of this writing by this author that I preferred.
This book is interesting and very postmodern, I'm not so familiar with postmodernism, so I found it kind of hard to follow, It will also be hard to follow if you're not very familiar with Taiwan, I know very little about Taiwan other than basic history, and so I was often lost or missing out on references.
If you're from Taiwan or very interested in it or in the city Taipei then I recommend this book, Book is four short pieces and a novella, The translator's note says that the short pieces are short stories but the first three read more like essays to me, in the style of Phillip Lopate wandering around, interrogating everyday surroundings and everyday situations with a calm, thoughtful eye.
The plots of the four pieces the novella are all very boring, but I didn't mind at all because I loved the descriptions and the tranquility of the writing.
Chu T'ienhsin's The Old Capital is a brilliant evocation of Taiwan's literature of nostalgia and remembrance, The novel is centered on the question, "Is it possible that none of your memories count" and explores the reliability of remembrances and the thin line that separates fact from fantasy.


Comprised of four thematically linked stories and a novella, The Old Capital focuses on the cultural and psychological realities of contemporary Taiwan.
The stories are narrated by individuals who share an aching nostalgia for a time long past, Strolling through modern Taipei, they return to the lost, imperfect memories called forth by the smells and sensations of their city, and try to reconcile themselves to their rapidly changing world.


The novella is built on the memories and recollections of a woman trying to make sense of herself and her homeland.
After a trip to Kyoto to meet with a friend, she returns to Taipei, where, having been mistaken for a Japanese tourist, she revisits the sites of her youth using a Japanese colonial map of the city.
Seeing Taipei anew, the narrator confronts the complex nature of her identity, embodied in the contrast between a serene and preserved Kyoto and a thoroughly modernized and chaotic Taipei.


The growing angst of these narrators reflects a deeper anxiety over the legacy of Japan and America in Taiwan.
The titles of the stories themselves"Death in Venice," "Man of La Mancha," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Hungarian Water"reveal the strong currents of influence that run throughout the collection and shape the content and texture of the writing.
In his meticulous translation, Howard Goldblatt captures the casual, intimate feel of Chu T'ienhsin's writing while also maintaining its multiple layers of meaning.
An intertextual masterpiece, The Old Capital is a moving and highly sensual meditation on the elasticity of memory and its power to shape personal identity.
sitelinkKOBOBOOKS Recommended by an English literature student from Taiwan The short stories bear the limitations of the genre and are told from the point of view of a grantearning and prizewinning professional writer, which also seems limiting.


The title novella compares Taipei with Kyoto, suggesting that the former is subject to constant degradation and disfigurement and that the latter is truly changeless.
It soon degenerates into a walk through Taipei, using old Japanese names for its streets and neighborhoods, which might not float everybody's boat.
The subplot or plot involving the narrator's childhood friend 'A' abruptly deadends when A doesn't show up for a reunion, A is shown to be a symbol of all that is lost to time as is much of Taipei, or perhaps she is the younger version of the narrator.


The translation is competent, but the imprecision of the original Chinese, especially with regard to verb tense, is frustrating.
Describing two separate trips to Kyoto taken by the narrator, one with her daughter and one without, the daughter seems to show up and disappear from sentence to sentence.


Actually the 'narrator' is not the protagonist, as the story is told in the second person, making 'you' the protagonist.
I really do want to like this book but it's just too much, I had to read it for a course on contemporary Chinese literature and film and this was the selection to represent Taiwan.
I must admit that I felt like I was getting a survey on Western literary history lots of classic literature is mentioned that I had, embarrassingly, not read.
The only thing that sticks with me now is the novella "Breakfast at Tiffany's", It had a lightness in its tone that I appreciated while trying to delve through the rest of the works,

I see a common link between the Old Capital and Hou HsiaoHsien's film Yi Yi Zhu Tianxin's sister Tianwen wrote the screenplay.
The scene where two exlovers from Taiwan were walking around Japan reminiscing with each other while speaking in Taiwanese which is important better represents what I think that novella was supposed to be aiming for.


I think this book might be good for anyone interested in the complex identity of the people of Taiwan.
Though you could probably just watch the cheesy Taiwanese dramas on the internet instead to get a taste of that, Some of them are pretty cute and easier to enjoy, .