Lapse of Time is a 1982 Chinese novella by Wang Anyi. The novella follows Ouyang Duanli, a strong-minded Shanghai woman who worked hard to support her and her husband's large family during the Cultural Revolution when they were attacked as "former bourgeois".
Author | Wang Anyi |
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Original title | '流逝' |
Translator | Howard Goldblatt (1988) |
Country | China |
Language | Chinese |
Set in | 1960s/1970s Shanghai |
Publication date | 1982 |
Lapse of Time | |||||||
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Chinese | 流逝 | ||||||
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It was translated by Howard Goldblatt and published in the 1988 anthology of the same name.
Kirkus Reviews praised the novella as having "the feel of a small epic yet never lapses into sentimentality or melodrama".[1] Noting the author's social background before the Cultural Revolution, Rosemary Haddon felt Ouyang Duanli was Wang's persona and wrote that "driven by the proletarian standard, Wang Anyi has won a small victory in China's class struggle".[2] Michael S. Duke, however, was highly critical of the novella for containing "all the major faults of Wang's writing: excessive wordiness, repetitiveness, unrealistic or stereotypical characterizations, overly abrupt changes in moral character, didacticism, and shallow moralizing".[3] Aamer Hussein also noted the "insipid" approach but called Wang's examination of relationships "moving and perceptive" and the novellas an "honest account of a woman's search".[4]