Vignettes of Shanghai, from each decade 1950-2000’s, by a favorite author.
I got to visit Shanghai briefly in the summer of 2013, so this has special relevance to me, but for anyone interested in Chinese culture and its changes over time, I think you would enjoy this book. ( )

The story of a block in Shanghai over decades of Communist rule is interesting for the historical perspective, but there is not much of a sense of what makes Shanghai unique among Chinese metropolises.

The stories in this book read like simple moral fables: they are fine and well-written, but predictable and not particularly compelling. ( )

Wonderful, Deep Stories

"Years of Red Dust" is a wonderful, poetic book. It is a collection of very quick short stories. All the stories focus on Red Dust Lane, a Shanghai neighborhood. The stories are set in chronological order, beginning in 1949 and going through the present day. A few characters are mentioned in different stories, but each story can be read independent of each other.

I have not read Qiu Xiaolong before, but I have read plenty of memoirs and non-fiction about life in Communist China. Most of those memoirs are tragic to say the least. Qiu Xiaolong's stories here are also mostly tragic, although there is a wonderful, poetic lining to each story. The feelings that Qiu Xiaolong invokes cannot be read through most non-fiction accounts of the communist takeover, the Cultural Revolution, the economic changes, and so forth.

Even though I have a strong background on the history, I did not find this book pedantic or preachy. It has little historical facts thrown in, but they always mesh with the story being told.

The language of the book is just beautiful. It reads so well and so easily. The book is not a page-turning thriller, but I still had trouble putting it down because I wanted to know more about Red Dust Lane.

Having just finished the book, I am going to save it and read it again. It went very quickly but the depth language, poetry, and characters warrants another reading after a few months.

I would appreciate recommendations for similar books! ( )

This short story cycle is set in what I believe is a fictional street, Red Dust Lane, in Shanghai. The stories are each labeled with a year -- starting in 1949 and ending in 2005. They all begin with prefatory material "This is the last issue of The Red Dust Lane Blackboard Newsletter for the year XXXX" which serves as a frame for the story that follows, generally a simple story of the local residents, often with their daily lives shaped by the massive events around them.

By themselves, none of the individual stories are outstanding. But the whole is greater the sum of the parts and collectively they form an enchanting social history of modern urban China. They have a certain rhythm and repetition that grows on you, with a few repeated characters and, in at least two cases, a follow-up story set several decades after the original. ( )

This short story cycle is set in what I believe is a fictional street, Red Dust Lane, in Shanghai. The stories are each labeled with a year -- starting in 1949 and ending in 2005. They all begin with prefatory material "This is the last issue of The Red Dust Lane Blackboard Newsletter for the year XXXX" which serves as a frame for the story that follows, generally a simple story of the local residents, often with their daily lives shaped by the massive events around them.

By themselves, none of the individual stories are outstanding. But the whole is greater the sum of the parts and collectively they form an enchanting social history of modern urban China. They have a certain rhythm and repetition that grows on you, with a few repeated characters and, in at least two cases, a follow-up story set several decades after the original. ( )