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Real Life in China at the Height of Empire, Revealed by The Ghosts of Ji Xiaolan, by David Pollard. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2014. Pp. xl + 334. $45.00 (cloth).
David Pollard's book is a welcome addition to the English---language literature on Ji Yun's ?? (style name Xiaolan ..., 1724---1805) Yuewei caotang biji ... (the title is rendered by Pollard as Perceptions). In the category of late imperial collections of tales of ghosts, miracles, and oddities, Ji Yun's work is often ranked in literary histories as a distant second place to Pu Songling's ... (1640---1715) Liaozhai zhiyi .... The ranking is unjust, for as Pollard ably explains, the two authors had quite different aims in presenting their tales (pp. xii---xiii). With his lively translations and supporting comments Pollard allows a broad reading audience to appreciate Ji's curiosity, thoughtfulness, and humor, and his book's value as a source on the culture and society of 18th century China.
Previously in English, Ji Yun's work has been the subject of a monograph, Leo Tak---Hong Chan's The Discourse of Foxes and Ghosts: Ji Yun and 18th---century Literati Storytelling (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998), and a selected translation, David L. Keenan's Shadows in a Chinese Landscape: the Notes of a Confucian Scholar (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999). Pollard shares many of Chan's conclusions about the nature of Ji's collection, but his goal is not to make an argument in terms of literary or intellectual history. He translates a larger selection than Keenan, and provides more supporting material for the reader outside of Chinese studies.
It is when judged by the standards of literary fiction that Ji's tales always pale next to his predecessor Pu. But Ji sees himself not as a creator of fictions but a recorder of incidents, either witnessed by him or told to him by others. Ji's purpose was "to depict, albeit tangentially, the real life not of himself but of his times" (p. xiii). Although focused on extraordinary events, bizarre apparitions, and extremes of morality or depravity, Ji's tales feature protagonists and tellers from many strata of Chinese society. The central oddity is surrounded by situations and reactions that Ji's...