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Li Rui. Human World: The White Snake Legend Recounted. Myth Series. Fiction. Chongqing. Chongqing Publishing House. 2007. 159 pages. 22 RMB. ISBN 9787536685611
Li Rui, a writer from Shanxi Province, is a unique figure in China's contemporary literary history. Not only does he distinguish himself through the content and style of his fiction, but also his innovative ideas about literary creation. Starting with his early Lvliang Mountains Series in the mid-1980s, Li Rui has put a great deal of thought into life's varied predicaments. His later works are replete with family sagas, the painful stories of the zhiqing (educated youth who were sent to work in the countryside during the 1960s and '70s), and ruminations on history, reality, and human nature. A style bordering on the neurotic saturates his words with a distinct heaviness and melancholy. By contrast, his wife, Jiang Yun, who is also a writer, is more comfortable with a tranquil and restrained style. Her writings examine feelings and emotion, and are more sensitive and elaborate in their choice of words. Now at the onset of the twenty-first century, the couple has captured the attention of the reading public by bringing their contrasting styles together in a fresh telling of the well-known legend of White Snake.
Traditionally, ancient Chinese folklore put demons, men, and immortal gods in an ascending hierarchical order. It is generally believed that through hundreds of years of practice, demons can transform themselves into men, and that through even longer practice (usually several thousand years), they can turn themselves into immortal gods and enter the blessed land of the immortals. Bai Suzhen, a...