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Six Records of a Floating Life
《明清小品文系列：浮生六记》包括《闺房记乐》、《闲情记趣》、《坎坷记愁》、《浪游记快》、《中山记历》、《养生记道》六卷，记录了沉复的苦乐人生：与妻子陈芸的爱情，经历的人世沧桑，游历的风景名胜，以及对生活、养身的感悟。字里行间感情真挚，文笔优美，引人入胜，发人深省
171 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1877
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About the author
Shěn Fù
3?books18?followersShěn Fù (simplified Chinese: 沈复; traditional Chinese: 沈復; 1763–1825?), courtesy name Sanbai (三白), was a Chinese writer of the Qing Dynasty, best known for the novel Six Records of a Floating Life.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 197 reviews
July 8, 2016
Wow! This was a lovely treat. I feel like I've gotten to know Shen Fu as a friend. He was kind, gentle, artistic, observant and loving to his wife. He was happy and content in Life, even while poor & close to destitute. At heart, his life was full of friends and cheer. It was a full life.
Shen Fu is a wonderfully intimate and personal writer. I felt like I was with him in his journey. His wife, Yun, was interesting and complex. The two loved each other throughout their time together, which doesn't mean that life was monogamous.
This book is divided into four chapters.
The first is about Shen Fu & Yun's happy marriage, their trips, their homes, their conversations. They share everything, they laugh, they enjoy. I enjoyed the fact that they often played drinking games, a very modern feeling game. It shows that humans haven't changed all that much. Each generation has its drinking game. :D
In the chapter on Leisure, Shen Fu relates all of his hobbies. The man is artistic in so many ways, as is Yun. Together they decorate their homes while using very little money (a thing they are often without). Their gardens are serene and lovely to the eye. The descriptions of bonsais is wonderful.
But pain is also in Shen Fu's life and the chapter on Sorrow is heartbreaking at times.
The final chapter on Shen Fu's many travels through and about China for work and leisure are wonderfully described. The mountains of China must be numerous and high. And lovely. The pavilions, pagodas, temples, monasteries and forests, rivers and ponds described are brought to life with his words.
Shen Fu was a natural writer and observer of life. He felt and saw and lived. This tiny book encompasses all that. He becomes a person and a friend.
Shen Fu is a wonderfully intimate and personal writer. I felt like I was with him in his journey. His wife, Yun, was interesting and complex. The two loved each other throughout their time together, which doesn't mean that life was monogamous.
This book is divided into four chapters.
The first is about Shen Fu & Yun's happy marriage, their trips, their homes, their conversations. They share everything, they laugh, they enjoy. I enjoyed the fact that they often played drinking games, a very modern feeling game. It shows that humans haven't changed all that much. Each generation has its drinking game. :D
In the chapter on Leisure, Shen Fu relates all of his hobbies. The man is artistic in so many ways, as is Yun. Together they decorate their homes while using very little money (a thing they are often without). Their gardens are serene and lovely to the eye. The descriptions of bonsais is wonderful.
But pain is also in Shen Fu's life and the chapter on Sorrow is heartbreaking at times.
The final chapter on Shen Fu's many travels through and about China for work and leisure are wonderfully described. The mountains of China must be numerous and high. And lovely. The pavilions, pagodas, temples, monasteries and forests, rivers and ponds described are brought to life with his words.
Shen Fu was a natural writer and observer of life. He felt and saw and lived. This tiny book encompasses all that. He becomes a person and a friend.
December 26, 2017
This book was very enjoyable, a wonderful social commentary of 18th/19th century China. It has some fantastic stories and insights into Chinese life.
Two things stopped this being 5 stars, the first is that despite the title, there are only 4 records, the remaining 2 did not survive, although someone did try to forge the remaining 2 early in the 20th century, and the second thing was the way the "notes" system works. Each of the 4 surviving records have a number of specific Chinese idioms or expressions, these are explained at the back of the book in the notes section. Now bearing in mind each of the 4 records has between 30 and 100 notes, it can get a right pain, flipping backwards and forwards. If only they had put the explanations in brackets at the right place in the book it would've made it so much more enjoyable.
Two things stopped this being 5 stars, the first is that despite the title, there are only 4 records, the remaining 2 did not survive, although someone did try to forge the remaining 2 early in the 20th century, and the second thing was the way the "notes" system works. Each of the 4 surviving records have a number of specific Chinese idioms or expressions, these are explained at the back of the book in the notes section. Now bearing in mind each of the 4 records has between 30 and 100 notes, it can get a right pain, flipping backwards and forwards. If only they had put the explanations in brackets at the right place in the book it would've made it so much more enjoyable.
April 20, 2009
This was written in the late 1700s and early 1800s by a Chinese man who drifted between various clerical and artistic jobs.
Only four of the original six chapters exist, and it makes a very different style of storytelling: each chapter is thematic, and chronological within, but the book overall is not chronological, so some episodes are described in different chapters, in different ways (layers of floating records). It works very well, though the various notes, maps and appendices in this edition are very helpful too.
The four chapters concern his courtship and marriage; their hobbies and pastimes (mainly horticultural); the problems that beset them (ill health, un(der)employment, financial woes), and the author's travels. The last one is particularly good if you're familiar with Suzhou/Shanghai area, but perhaps less engaging if you're not.
It gives a fascinating insight into real lives of the period, because it is an authentic voice of that time. Very different from reading a modern historical novel, however well researched. Shen Fu isn't entirely likeable (though you have to admire his honesty), but his wife is delightful: bright, cheeky, slightly rebellious yet happy to help him find a concubine.
I read it in a day and whilst I wasn't rushing (it's pretty short), there is a beauty to it that really justifies a more leisurely approach.
After this, read The Red Thread by Nicholas Jose, in which a contemporary art dealer tracks down the missing chapters and notices echoes between the book and his life. See /review/show....
Only four of the original six chapters exist, and it makes a very different style of storytelling: each chapter is thematic, and chronological within, but the book overall is not chronological, so some episodes are described in different chapters, in different ways (layers of floating records). It works very well, though the various notes, maps and appendices in this edition are very helpful too.
The four chapters concern his courtship and marriage; their hobbies and pastimes (mainly horticultural); the problems that beset them (ill health, un(der)employment, financial woes), and the author's travels. The last one is particularly good if you're familiar with Suzhou/Shanghai area, but perhaps less engaging if you're not.
It gives a fascinating insight into real lives of the period, because it is an authentic voice of that time. Very different from reading a modern historical novel, however well researched. Shen Fu isn't entirely likeable (though you have to admire his honesty), but his wife is delightful: bright, cheeky, slightly rebellious yet happy to help him find a concubine.
I read it in a day and whilst I wasn't rushing (it's pretty short), there is a beauty to it that really justifies a more leisurely approach.
After this, read The Red Thread by Nicholas Jose, in which a contemporary art dealer tracks down the missing chapters and notices echoes between the book and his life. See /review/show....
December 28, 2017
I was in the mood for something old that casually went against the grain of centuries of Euro propaganda by simply existing, and low and behold, this work rose to the top. I hadn't started it expecting an affirmation of a Tumblr post gushing about China's 3000 years of queer history, but it did that and more, giving a wonderful view into a life with things akin to 'Boston Marriages' alongside such a loving relationship between wife and husband that it reaffirms the fact that the solution to misogyny takes more than simple fucking. Alas, Shen Fu's influence, much like his last two records, have been for the most part lost, and the Chinese work of 1809 with its hints of polyamory amidst a dignified treating with educated work and pleasure lost out to the invention of white heterosexuality in the mid 19th century. The introduction to this may have essentially blamed Shen Fu for the death of his wife, but considering the Orientalims drowning the add ons in general, from scoffing at old measurements (as if miles and feet and ounces make any standardized sense whatsoever) to assuming only "Western" audiences will bother to pick up this text, such a critique is easily glossed over.
I'll admit that I was less than thrilled with the last touring of the country section with its countless references, but it was interesting to compare Shen Fu's portrayal of sing-song girls to my memories of , written as Fu's are in a period long before Shanghai rose to prominence. Leading up to this truncatedly final part is a story that is admittedly, even in these times where the word is both sensationalized and undervalued for the sake of inspiration porn, tragic. Chen Yun and Shen Fu built the sort of harmonious marriage "Western" historians tell you can't exist today because not enough time=progress has passed, and what does fate give them in return? Expulsions over trivial misunderstandings, impoverished existences, miserable deaths, and final disappearances in the annals of history that can only be mummed at with plagiarisms. If immortality doesn't await these two souls in some sort of afterlife, at least a form of posthumous continuity may be won by this text being engaged with by those fed up with modern propaganda and eager for a glimpse of a world, candidly expressed and unintentionally subversive, with bisexual presumptions and kindness to sex workers. Commentary on the manipulation of flora and even some fauna, as well as a sightseeing tour where both wine and educated references were plentiful, made for a less intriguing reading, but at base level it was informative and at its highest level it was inspiring. 3000 years and counting is nothing to sneeze at, and while Neo-Europe dominates the globe today, one can't help but wonder, while reading something like this, what the future will bring.
This may very well be my least read work of 2017, but one never knows with these things. Nevertheless, it would be a good note to end on: a glimpse of a scene more than 200 years ago which contains things which are supposedly new but very much not (challenges to gender/sexual norms aside, according to one of the end notes, the Han Shan/Han Mountain poems of the 6th-9th century are the much overlooked origin of the US 'beat' generation of the 1950's), and very old things whose continued survival in the face of years of destruction is nothing short of miraculous. It was a nice break from reality, but breaks from reality only put food on the table if one is very, very lucky or very, very wealthy. Some of us may come to the point of Shen Fu's selling of clothes and dying an unknown death, and the panopticon of the Internet may not be enough to reveal the true face of history should those in power keep throwing money at those who are paid to obscure it. In any case, I hope to come across a more respectful edition than this one, as the tone of the pre and post commentary most assuredly compromised the translated contents in some manner beyond my linguistic grasp. The author is dead, as theorists declare, and the test is what we make of it.
I'll admit that I was less than thrilled with the last touring of the country section with its countless references, but it was interesting to compare Shen Fu's portrayal of sing-song girls to my memories of , written as Fu's are in a period long before Shanghai rose to prominence. Leading up to this truncatedly final part is a story that is admittedly, even in these times where the word is both sensationalized and undervalued for the sake of inspiration porn, tragic. Chen Yun and Shen Fu built the sort of harmonious marriage "Western" historians tell you can't exist today because not enough time=progress has passed, and what does fate give them in return? Expulsions over trivial misunderstandings, impoverished existences, miserable deaths, and final disappearances in the annals of history that can only be mummed at with plagiarisms. If immortality doesn't await these two souls in some sort of afterlife, at least a form of posthumous continuity may be won by this text being engaged with by those fed up with modern propaganda and eager for a glimpse of a world, candidly expressed and unintentionally subversive, with bisexual presumptions and kindness to sex workers. Commentary on the manipulation of flora and even some fauna, as well as a sightseeing tour where both wine and educated references were plentiful, made for a less intriguing reading, but at base level it was informative and at its highest level it was inspiring. 3000 years and counting is nothing to sneeze at, and while Neo-Europe dominates the globe today, one can't help but wonder, while reading something like this, what the future will bring.
This may very well be my least read work of 2017, but one never knows with these things. Nevertheless, it would be a good note to end on: a glimpse of a scene more than 200 years ago which contains things which are supposedly new but very much not (challenges to gender/sexual norms aside, according to one of the end notes, the Han Shan/Han Mountain poems of the 6th-9th century are the much overlooked origin of the US 'beat' generation of the 1950's), and very old things whose continued survival in the face of years of destruction is nothing short of miraculous. It was a nice break from reality, but breaks from reality only put food on the table if one is very, very lucky or very, very wealthy. Some of us may come to the point of Shen Fu's selling of clothes and dying an unknown death, and the panopticon of the Internet may not be enough to reveal the true face of history should those in power keep throwing money at those who are paid to obscure it. In any case, I hope to come across a more respectful edition than this one, as the tone of the pre and post commentary most assuredly compromised the translated contents in some manner beyond my linguistic grasp. The author is dead, as theorists declare, and the test is what we make of it.
September 3, 2011
Have you ever...
been married off to your first cousin at seventeen?
been thrown out of the house for "mishandling arrangements to obtain a concubine" for your father-in-law?
been obsessed with the idea of finding a concubine for your husband?
tried to purchase an underage singsong girl to be a concubine to both yourself and your husband?
wasted to death because you failed to arrange for a live-in threesome relationship with your husband and his concubine?
If you answer “yes” to any of these questions then you might have been a protagonist in this book, one of imperial China's most romantic love story, an 18th century memoir written by Shen Fu about his wife, Yun. The circumstances might seem odd to us, but it’s not difficult to understand why generations of Chinese, repressed by thousands of years of paternalistic culture, consider it to be romantic. Shen, an itinerant scholar who was chronically unemployed for much of his working life, wrote about his conjugal life with an intimate candor that was rare for his times. No, he didn’t write about that kinky threesome with the underage concubine --- it was a scheme that never came through, though I wonder whether Yun really wanted it, since we only see her through her husband’s perspective. Instead, there are scenes of him and Yun whiling away a moonlit night by drinking wine and reciting Tang poetry. Chrysanthemums bloomed around their modest, economy-sized cottage, and the ever resourceful Yun, an orphan who raised herself and her brother by taking in needlework, contrived to make movable screens out of live flowers. Shen himself is an aesthete who could devote pages on the correct way to display flowers (“When putting chrysanthemums in a vase one should select an odd number of flowers…”) and burning incense (“Buddha’s Hands should not be smelled by someone who is drunk, or they will spoil”). These scenes are among the most charming of this occasionally disjointed, rambling memoir, though I also find it rather disturbing that Shen managed to devote so much more pages to these pursuits than to their young children (who, due to their parents’ poverty and outcast status, had to be taken away to be raised by others). Shen and Yun’s lives are tragic, and their idea of marital happiness is at odds with our modern notions, yet ultimately it is their upbringing that is the strangest thing of all. The Chinese were determined that government officials should be scholars first and bureaucrats second. One of the largest empires in the history of the world was administered by a small group of men, who had not the slightest training in administration, and who knew more about the poetry of a thousand years before than they did about tax law. Imagine the government being ran by a bunch of English majors! This idea seems to me both daft and endearing at the same time --- and the real tragedy of Shen’s life (and others like him, and ultimately imperial China itself) is that at the end this is simply just not enough.
been married off to your first cousin at seventeen?
been thrown out of the house for "mishandling arrangements to obtain a concubine" for your father-in-law?
been obsessed with the idea of finding a concubine for your husband?
tried to purchase an underage singsong girl to be a concubine to both yourself and your husband?
wasted to death because you failed to arrange for a live-in threesome relationship with your husband and his concubine?
If you answer “yes” to any of these questions then you might have been a protagonist in this book, one of imperial China's most romantic love story, an 18th century memoir written by Shen Fu about his wife, Yun. The circumstances might seem odd to us, but it’s not difficult to understand why generations of Chinese, repressed by thousands of years of paternalistic culture, consider it to be romantic. Shen, an itinerant scholar who was chronically unemployed for much of his working life, wrote about his conjugal life with an intimate candor that was rare for his times. No, he didn’t write about that kinky threesome with the underage concubine --- it was a scheme that never came through, though I wonder whether Yun really wanted it, since we only see her through her husband’s perspective. Instead, there are scenes of him and Yun whiling away a moonlit night by drinking wine and reciting Tang poetry. Chrysanthemums bloomed around their modest, economy-sized cottage, and the ever resourceful Yun, an orphan who raised herself and her brother by taking in needlework, contrived to make movable screens out of live flowers. Shen himself is an aesthete who could devote pages on the correct way to display flowers (“When putting chrysanthemums in a vase one should select an odd number of flowers…”) and burning incense (“Buddha’s Hands should not be smelled by someone who is drunk, or they will spoil”). These scenes are among the most charming of this occasionally disjointed, rambling memoir, though I also find it rather disturbing that Shen managed to devote so much more pages to these pursuits than to their young children (who, due to their parents’ poverty and outcast status, had to be taken away to be raised by others). Shen and Yun’s lives are tragic, and their idea of marital happiness is at odds with our modern notions, yet ultimately it is their upbringing that is the strangest thing of all. The Chinese were determined that government officials should be scholars first and bureaucrats second. One of the largest empires in the history of the world was administered by a small group of men, who had not the slightest training in administration, and who knew more about the poetry of a thousand years before than they did about tax law. Imagine the government being ran by a bunch of English majors! This idea seems to me both daft and endearing at the same time --- and the real tragedy of Shen’s life (and others like him, and ultimately imperial China itself) is that at the end this is simply just not enough.
November 21, 2023
How do you rate a 200-year-old memoir from a different culture? The best I can do is to go on my level of enjoyment. But this is certainly a valuable book for anyone interested in late 18th/early 19th century China.
Born in 1763, Shen Fu was essentially a failed member of the literati—he did not succeed at civil service exams and ultimately gave up his studies in his teens, opting instead to follow his father into a career as a personal secretary for government officials. This meant his work was precarious, as said officials paid out of their own pocket, and he found himself consistently short of money and depending on more successful family and friends. He married an interesting woman, who in his recollections comes across as more intelligent than he was and also more sensitive, unhappy with the role she was forced into and without the outlets (most notably travel and sightseeing) that her husband found. Of the “six records,” only four are known to exist, covering overlapping periods of the author’s life but each with a different focus: marriage, leisure, hardships, and travel.
I read the Sanders translation (2011), which is perhaps not the prettiest language but which certainly excels in the supplementary material: it includes maps, a family tree, a chronology of events, and extensive footnotes explaining every cultural and literary reference in the text. Some of this is perhaps overkill, but the publisher certainly put work into it.
Some of the most interesting episodes, to me:
- The author’s wife, Yun, was bummed about not being able to attend a festival because she was a woman. The author helped her disguise herself as a man and passed her off as his cousin. The disguise fell apart when they encountered other women (relegated to a secluded spot) and she casually touched one on the shoulder, which was incredibly offensive until she revealed herself.
- When the couple are in their early 30s, Yun attempts to buy the author a 15-year-old concubine. He seems less interested than she is—despite an earlier episode in another town where he spends a lot of time on the “pleasure boats” with “singing girls,” and at one point has to smuggle two of them out of the city via the sewers because they weren’t allowed within city walls—but then Yun is really invested, openly telling her husband that she wants to be with this girl in some unspecified way herself. His family is pissed when they find out because Yun has become sworn sisters with a prostitute (the other sworn sister of hers who appears in the text is a prosperous wife, with whose family the couple eventually go to stay, though Yun later says they aren’t that close).
- When they go to stay with Yun’s well-off friends, the couple for some reason need to leave behind their children. So they hastily betroth their 14-year-old daughter to a cousin they have mixed feelings about, while setting up their 12-year-old son in job training with another relative. They assure the daughter they’ll be back in 2-3 years (!) and make her restrain her distraught brother on their departure, while also hiding the truth from him. This whole episode seems to be treated very matter-of-factly, though it can be hard to tell in translation.
- The author’s father apparently has the right to have his adult sons executed for unfilial behavior, which he reminds the author of before kicking him out of the house over stuff like being angry that Yun referred to him disrespectfully (“your old man”) in a private letter to her husband. Somehow no blame attaches to the father for this whole situation, which began with his getting Yun to procure him a concubine behind his wife’s back.
- The author and his friends love to go visit monasteries as a “retreat” to “the simple life” etc. etc., and come across exactly as insufferable as modern urbanites about it. At one point a monk asks one of his friends for local political news and the friend insults the monk and storms out of the monastery in disgust—the author and the rest of the friends apparently agreeing that it was inappropriate of the monk to bring up such vulgar matters when they are there to relax. Meanwhile they spend a lot of time playing drinking games with monks (and also without them, they drink a lot).
- The whole “singing girls” episode is also fun only from the perspective of the vacationing men. The girls reveal to the author that they were sold into prostitution, hate it, and are often treated poorly by the johns. His favorite seems to be hoping he will buy her from the madam, which he does not (for lack of money? Unclear).
Unfortunately the whole book is not quite so interesting. Here were my least favorite parts:
- Shen Fu’s opinions on bonsai pruning, flower arranging, household DIY, and garden layouts (basically all of Record Two)
- Shen Fu’s opinions on the merits of the literary classics (mostly relayed through stilted dialogue with his wife in Record One)
- Lengthy descriptions of the natural beauty of various tourist sites, plus lists of sites Shen Fu wants you to know were definitely not worth the trouble (Record Four—though happily I did also find some interest in his travel stories)
That said, in the end I’m glad I pushed through the parts that interested me less to finish the book; it’s not long and as a cultural artifact it is fascinating. Worth checking out if you are interested.
Born in 1763, Shen Fu was essentially a failed member of the literati—he did not succeed at civil service exams and ultimately gave up his studies in his teens, opting instead to follow his father into a career as a personal secretary for government officials. This meant his work was precarious, as said officials paid out of their own pocket, and he found himself consistently short of money and depending on more successful family and friends. He married an interesting woman, who in his recollections comes across as more intelligent than he was and also more sensitive, unhappy with the role she was forced into and without the outlets (most notably travel and sightseeing) that her husband found. Of the “six records,” only four are known to exist, covering overlapping periods of the author’s life but each with a different focus: marriage, leisure, hardships, and travel.
I read the Sanders translation (2011), which is perhaps not the prettiest language but which certainly excels in the supplementary material: it includes maps, a family tree, a chronology of events, and extensive footnotes explaining every cultural and literary reference in the text. Some of this is perhaps overkill, but the publisher certainly put work into it.
Some of the most interesting episodes, to me:
- The author’s wife, Yun, was bummed about not being able to attend a festival because she was a woman. The author helped her disguise herself as a man and passed her off as his cousin. The disguise fell apart when they encountered other women (relegated to a secluded spot) and she casually touched one on the shoulder, which was incredibly offensive until she revealed herself.
- When the couple are in their early 30s, Yun attempts to buy the author a 15-year-old concubine. He seems less interested than she is—despite an earlier episode in another town where he spends a lot of time on the “pleasure boats” with “singing girls,” and at one point has to smuggle two of them out of the city via the sewers because they weren’t allowed within city walls—but then Yun is really invested, openly telling her husband that she wants to be with this girl in some unspecified way herself. His family is pissed when they find out because Yun has become sworn sisters with a prostitute (the other sworn sister of hers who appears in the text is a prosperous wife, with whose family the couple eventually go to stay, though Yun later says they aren’t that close).
- When they go to stay with Yun’s well-off friends, the couple for some reason need to leave behind their children. So they hastily betroth their 14-year-old daughter to a cousin they have mixed feelings about, while setting up their 12-year-old son in job training with another relative. They assure the daughter they’ll be back in 2-3 years (!) and make her restrain her distraught brother on their departure, while also hiding the truth from him. This whole episode seems to be treated very matter-of-factly, though it can be hard to tell in translation.
- The author’s father apparently has the right to have his adult sons executed for unfilial behavior, which he reminds the author of before kicking him out of the house over stuff like being angry that Yun referred to him disrespectfully (“your old man”) in a private letter to her husband. Somehow no blame attaches to the father for this whole situation, which began with his getting Yun to procure him a concubine behind his wife’s back.
- The author and his friends love to go visit monasteries as a “retreat” to “the simple life” etc. etc., and come across exactly as insufferable as modern urbanites about it. At one point a monk asks one of his friends for local political news and the friend insults the monk and storms out of the monastery in disgust—the author and the rest of the friends apparently agreeing that it was inappropriate of the monk to bring up such vulgar matters when they are there to relax. Meanwhile they spend a lot of time playing drinking games with monks (and also without them, they drink a lot).
- The whole “singing girls” episode is also fun only from the perspective of the vacationing men. The girls reveal to the author that they were sold into prostitution, hate it, and are often treated poorly by the johns. His favorite seems to be hoping he will buy her from the madam, which he does not (for lack of money? Unclear).
Unfortunately the whole book is not quite so interesting. Here were my least favorite parts:
- Shen Fu’s opinions on bonsai pruning, flower arranging, household DIY, and garden layouts (basically all of Record Two)
- Shen Fu’s opinions on the merits of the literary classics (mostly relayed through stilted dialogue with his wife in Record One)
- Lengthy descriptions of the natural beauty of various tourist sites, plus lists of sites Shen Fu wants you to know were definitely not worth the trouble (Record Four—though happily I did also find some interest in his travel stories)
That said, in the end I’m glad I pushed through the parts that interested me less to finish the book; it’s not long and as a cultural artifact it is fascinating. Worth checking out if you are interested.
June 9, 2010
Well, actually it's only four records (unless one counts a forgery). Shen Fu was completely unremarkable in public -- enough so that no one knows how he died -- but his memoir, unusually candid and personal for Chinese literature, reverals him as a creature of intense feeling. He is admired for the loving portrait of his wife that this book includes, but he was also a man capable of devoting more pages to the handling of flowers than to his two children. Still, this is perhaps the most immediate of Chinese books, and Shen Fu makes clear that his life as an intinerant and sometimes poverty-stricken secretary to other Qing dynasty officials was, if not rich, at least varied. It is in the unobtrusive details that Shen Fu's world becomes most vivid, as when his adored wife seems to take a concubine, when she annoys her in-laws by referring to them in the less-than-preferred way in a letter intended for him, when the author speaks of Chinese nobles so poor they sell their underwear. It's an impressionistic, haphazard portrait, sometimes intense, sometimes unfocussed, but at its best, it makes that vanished come alive like nothing else.
August 21, 2014
Shen Fu's Six records of a Floating Life is too short! Granted two chapters have gone missing since it was written in 1806 I wish there was more. I loved it so much. Well all except the bit about flower arranging and landscaping though I could understand why it was in there. It was a very touching autobiography of the life of a man livining in late 18th Century China who was usually broke but sometimes worked for the government, sometimes as an art dealer, but mostly just sat drinking with his wife and his friends discussing the finer things in life.
I loved reading about his drinking escapades, he did seem to be a bit of a drunk. Frequently talking about pawning items to buy wine. How being able to buy wine for entertaining your friends was the only reason you needed money. I liked the comment his wife made one time when he returned and she said, "are you very drunk again?"
She was by far the best part of the book. I do believe the woman had a little bit of a bisexual side. To start with there was the reference to her two best friends who used to sleep over and kick her husband out of her bed. Then she got in trouble with her husbands family for being a sworn sister of a sing-song girl. She was trying to get the girl to be a concubine for her husband but admitted she was really doing it because she was in love with the girl herself. The girl ended up being married to someone who had a great deal of money and his wife died of a broken heart. She also wrote poetry and loved old books. Fu talked about how she would collect old books and take them apart and have them rebound and how she did the same for calligraphy. Oh what a lovely hobby! (Particularly as the books were old in the late 18th century in China).
And then there was the time Fu convinced her to dress up like a man so she could sneak into the temple for the festival. She had to practice walking as a man, and managed to pull it off until she went over to chat to a group of women and accidentally touched one and got in trouble till she revealed her true identity. Fu wished she'd been born a man so they could go traveling together, but alas she never lived that long. They decided that in their next life she would get to be born the man and he the woman. It was all terribly romantic and tragic.
Fu also wrote lovely descriptions of his visits around China. My favourite was when he went to Canton and visited the brothels there. He complained that none of the women understood him and they all looked strange. Eventually he found a boat that catered to Northern tastes and upon finding a woman he liked his first thought was, "oh I wish my wife were here". He stayed with the prostitute for 4 months, he was very proud how little it cost him, and how well he treated her. But at the end he left he said the madam was too pushy, but I think the real reason was he just didn't have the money to pay for her. (He was perpetually broke). It was quite touching how he described the hard lives of the boat women. However this didn't stop him from abandoning his favourite, or doing anything to help her once he found out she had attempted suicide several times since he left.
It was a lovely book. Romantic, decadent and holding a true appreciation for nature and beauty...and wine.
I loved reading about his drinking escapades, he did seem to be a bit of a drunk. Frequently talking about pawning items to buy wine. How being able to buy wine for entertaining your friends was the only reason you needed money. I liked the comment his wife made one time when he returned and she said, "are you very drunk again?"
She was by far the best part of the book. I do believe the woman had a little bit of a bisexual side. To start with there was the reference to her two best friends who used to sleep over and kick her husband out of her bed. Then she got in trouble with her husbands family for being a sworn sister of a sing-song girl. She was trying to get the girl to be a concubine for her husband but admitted she was really doing it because she was in love with the girl herself. The girl ended up being married to someone who had a great deal of money and his wife died of a broken heart. She also wrote poetry and loved old books. Fu talked about how she would collect old books and take them apart and have them rebound and how she did the same for calligraphy. Oh what a lovely hobby! (Particularly as the books were old in the late 18th century in China).
And then there was the time Fu convinced her to dress up like a man so she could sneak into the temple for the festival. She had to practice walking as a man, and managed to pull it off until she went over to chat to a group of women and accidentally touched one and got in trouble till she revealed her true identity. Fu wished she'd been born a man so they could go traveling together, but alas she never lived that long. They decided that in their next life she would get to be born the man and he the woman. It was all terribly romantic and tragic.
Fu also wrote lovely descriptions of his visits around China. My favourite was when he went to Canton and visited the brothels there. He complained that none of the women understood him and they all looked strange. Eventually he found a boat that catered to Northern tastes and upon finding a woman he liked his first thought was, "oh I wish my wife were here". He stayed with the prostitute for 4 months, he was very proud how little it cost him, and how well he treated her. But at the end he left he said the madam was too pushy, but I think the real reason was he just didn't have the money to pay for her. (He was perpetually broke). It was quite touching how he described the hard lives of the boat women. However this didn't stop him from abandoning his favourite, or doing anything to help her once he found out she had attempted suicide several times since he left.
It was a lovely book. Romantic, decadent and holding a true appreciation for nature and beauty...and wine.
February 17, 2013
I loved this book for several reasons. It is a rare and frank account of a failed literati during the Qing Dynasty; Shen Fu writes in an astonishingly intimate and emotional manner for his time and his upbringing giving the reader a glimpse into a world long gone. Despite the fact that Shen Fu believes he is a poor writer, his writing is lyrical, stark and incredibly romantic. Shen Fu, for all of his faults (and there are many), preserved for the ages the romance between himself and his wife Yun who really is the star of this story of this story. I had to wonder while reading, how the story would be different if it was written from her point of view, she was such a complex woman, far more so than the flighty Shen Fu.
October 29, 2024
Nie?pieszna lektura, która mimo ró?nic kulturowych i ponad 200 lat od jej napisania jest inspiracj? dla doceniania rzeczy ma?ych, przyja?ni, natury, ma??eństwa i podró?y. Ta autobiografia(?) wbrew swojej staro?ci ma mnóstwo wspólnego z dzisiejszymi ksi??kami o stracie najbli?szych i przemijaniu zwyk?ego ?ycia zarówno w swoim charakterze, jak i formie - jej jedynym minusem jest brak ostatnich dwóch rozdzia?ów, które mog?yby dope?ni? t? lektur? w zamierzony przez autora sposób. Bardzo przyjemne czytelnicze zaskoczenie w dodatku pi?knie wydane i opatrzone wa?n? dla lektury przedmow? przez t?umaczk?.
June 19, 2023
So etwas wie das chinesische Kopfkissenbuch aus der Zeit des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, das einen Blick in eine fremde, in der Zeit eingefrorene Gesellschaft bietet, wenngleich der letzte Teil - Reisen - eher langatmig daherkommt. Exzellent kommentiert und erl?utert. Leider war meine Ausgabe in mikroskopisch kleiner Schrift.
October 21, 2019
This is one of my favorite books of all time, and I find it tragic that only four out of six chapters have come down to us. I would give a lot to have those two lost chapters. Lin Yutang's translation is loving and deeply poetic, as it was one of his favorite books too (I discovered it while reading his book of philosophical essays ). The honesty with which this memoir is told gave me such a clear and intimate view into the past, and the central love story pulled me in so thoroughly that I found myself really feeling the loss of a person who's been dead for two hundred years. It also conveys an aesthetic and philosophy of living that could guide any artist or appreciator of art in any place or time. The appearance and positive treatment of bisexuality and polyamory is a very pleasant surprise in such an old book, and reminds us that most of lived history has played out in living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms, not in palaces, castles, and battlefields. This book can be read as a message from the past about the intense beauty to be found in joy and sorrow, flowers and furniture, food and old friends.
Read
March 27, 2012When I read Chaucer for the first time, I thought "how contemporary this all is!" And when I read Shen Fu, I came to realize that he was a sort of Jack Kerouac of late 18th Century China. He:
--Has a badass wife who recites poetry
--Tries to pick up young women
--Spends a lot of time traveling around with his bros looking for Enlightenment and getting hammered
For those of you who are often confounded by the icy rigidity of so much classical Chinese prose, don't worry. Shen Fu is actually a pretty great storyteller, and aside from the specific references, this could be a modern novel.
--Has a badass wife who recites poetry
--Tries to pick up young women
--Spends a lot of time traveling around with his bros looking for Enlightenment and getting hammered
For those of you who are often confounded by the icy rigidity of so much classical Chinese prose, don't worry. Shen Fu is actually a pretty great storyteller, and aside from the specific references, this could be a modern novel.
December 5, 2018
Phù sinh l?c k? là m?t tác ph?m kinh ?i?n c?a Trung Qu?c thu?c th? lo?i t?n v?n. ??c quy?n này nh? ??c th?. Tuy?t ??i nên ??c Phù sinh l?c k? lúc th? th?. ??c bi?t là g?n c?y c?i hoa lá, t?m tình yên l?ng và ??c vào lúc sáng s?m tinh m? khi v?a th?c d?y. Pha m?t ?m trà ? Long s?a mà u?ng thì kh?ng còn gì tuy?t b?ng.
February 15, 2024
(1 sao ?i?m c?ng cho b?n d?ch xu?t s?c)
Quy?n này ph?n ?a mình ??u thích, th?m chí có nh?ng ?o?n ngh? ch?m 10 sao c?ng kh?ng ?? là nh?ng ?o?n thu?t l?i chuy?n tình B?ch-V?n, t? phong c?nh, t? ??i s?ng th?n quê, d?y cách "d??ng sinh". V?n phong thanh thoát l?i g?p ???c d?ch gi? tài hoa.
??i l?i, có nh?ng ?o?n th?y khó ?a v? cùng. Bi?t r?ng ?em tiêu chu?n hi?n ??i mà c?n ?o chuy?n ng??i thì th?t là d? ti?u nh?n so lòng qu?n t?. Nh?ng th?c thì ?o?n Tam B?ch b?n tháng qua l?i v?i nàng k? n?, kh?ng th? kh?i ngh? mà th??ng cho V?n v?n ?m y?u l?i ph?i lúc gia ?ình khánh ki?t khó kh?n. B?ch v? sau nhìn l?i thì tuy?t ch?ng ?n h?n ngh? ng?i, l?i cho ch? h?n tr?m l?ng b?c h?u cho cái thú kia là giá h?i ch?ng ?áng là bao!
Nh?ng còn l?i thì qu? hi?m có tình nào ???c nh? tình B?ch v?i V?n, chuy?n kia ?u c?ng là cái v?t chàm be bé.
Thêm n?a là ?ng tác gi? hay lan man, nh?ng lúc thích thì c?ng r?t thích, nh?ng nh?ng ?o?n m? t? ki?n trúc, t?c l? khi x?a, v?n ?? xa l? v?i mình, l?i còn chi ti?t quá m?c, ngao ngán mà ??c cho qua.
Quy?n này ph?n ?a mình ??u thích, th?m chí có nh?ng ?o?n ngh? ch?m 10 sao c?ng kh?ng ?? là nh?ng ?o?n thu?t l?i chuy?n tình B?ch-V?n, t? phong c?nh, t? ??i s?ng th?n quê, d?y cách "d??ng sinh". V?n phong thanh thoát l?i g?p ???c d?ch gi? tài hoa.
??i l?i, có nh?ng ?o?n th?y khó ?a v? cùng. Bi?t r?ng ?em tiêu chu?n hi?n ??i mà c?n ?o chuy?n ng??i thì th?t là d? ti?u nh?n so lòng qu?n t?. Nh?ng th?c thì ?o?n Tam B?ch b?n tháng qua l?i v?i nàng k? n?, kh?ng th? kh?i ngh? mà th??ng cho V?n v?n ?m y?u l?i ph?i lúc gia ?ình khánh ki?t khó kh?n. B?ch v? sau nhìn l?i thì tuy?t ch?ng ?n h?n ngh? ng?i, l?i cho ch? h?n tr?m l?ng b?c h?u cho cái thú kia là giá h?i ch?ng ?áng là bao!
Nh?ng còn l?i thì qu? hi?m có tình nào ???c nh? tình B?ch v?i V?n, chuy?n kia ?u c?ng là cái v?t chàm be bé.
Thêm n?a là ?ng tác gi? hay lan man, nh?ng lúc thích thì c?ng r?t thích, nh?ng nh?ng ?o?n m? t? ki?n trúc, t?c l? khi x?a, v?n ?? xa l? v?i mình, l?i còn chi ti?t quá m?c, ngao ngán mà ??c cho qua.
September 22, 2018
A Westerner’s impression of 19th century China - if that Westerner has one - may well be summed up by the cover illustration of this book. It is a world as remote as that of medieval chivalry, distant from us in both time and space; a world of elaborate customs and ritual, both beautiful and impenetrable.
But Shen Fu speaks to us, in this translation, with a surprising immediacy. He does things that we might well have done - quarrels with his parents, falls in love, gets drunk, goes travelling. In short, he is a flesh-and-blood person who reveals some of the most intimate details of his life - a life that was lived a world away from our own, but is nevertheless recognisable.
Probably what makes Shen Fu most sympathetic to a modern reader is his touching account of his relationship with his wife, Yun - a partnership of mutual love and respect that shatters the stereotype of miserable arranged marriages. It is a relationship that survives his dalliance with a courtesan on a trip to Canton - whom he chooses because she resembles Yun - and much more seriously, a falling-out with Shen Fu’s father, which in a society steeped in Confucian values was a grave affair.
Yet however much we may warm to Shen Fu, we are regularly reminded that he lived his life according to very different rules. Towards the end of the first ‘record’, which concerns Shen Fu’s marriage, he describes Yun’s efforts to find him a concubine. One does not have to read very carefully between the lines to realise that Yun wants the concubine as much for herself as her husband; a fact Shen Fu realises too and seems to accept without objection. The decision of the woman in question to marry another man barely affects Shen Fu, but cuts Yun deep: she never fully recovers from what she sees as a heartless betrayal.
The amount of free time that Shen Fu and his wife appear to have also seems alien to the modern reader - and they are skilled at enjoying it. There are detailed descriptions of how to create miniature landscapes with plants and stones, and their idea of a good time is to get slowly drunk and make up poetry with their friends.
This is the fascination of the book for me: it casts a sort of spell that makes the strange seem familiar and the distant past seem like living memory - I suppose it is the closest I will ever get to being able to time-travel to 19th century China.
But Shen Fu speaks to us, in this translation, with a surprising immediacy. He does things that we might well have done - quarrels with his parents, falls in love, gets drunk, goes travelling. In short, he is a flesh-and-blood person who reveals some of the most intimate details of his life - a life that was lived a world away from our own, but is nevertheless recognisable.
Probably what makes Shen Fu most sympathetic to a modern reader is his touching account of his relationship with his wife, Yun - a partnership of mutual love and respect that shatters the stereotype of miserable arranged marriages. It is a relationship that survives his dalliance with a courtesan on a trip to Canton - whom he chooses because she resembles Yun - and much more seriously, a falling-out with Shen Fu’s father, which in a society steeped in Confucian values was a grave affair.
Yet however much we may warm to Shen Fu, we are regularly reminded that he lived his life according to very different rules. Towards the end of the first ‘record’, which concerns Shen Fu’s marriage, he describes Yun’s efforts to find him a concubine. One does not have to read very carefully between the lines to realise that Yun wants the concubine as much for herself as her husband; a fact Shen Fu realises too and seems to accept without objection. The decision of the woman in question to marry another man barely affects Shen Fu, but cuts Yun deep: she never fully recovers from what she sees as a heartless betrayal.
The amount of free time that Shen Fu and his wife appear to have also seems alien to the modern reader - and they are skilled at enjoying it. There are detailed descriptions of how to create miniature landscapes with plants and stones, and their idea of a good time is to get slowly drunk and make up poetry with their friends.
This is the fascination of the book for me: it casts a sort of spell that makes the strange seem familiar and the distant past seem like living memory - I suppose it is the closest I will ever get to being able to time-travel to 19th century China.
July 31, 2018
In terms of pure romance, this is a 5 star genuinely warming love story, a story made ever more pure by the heartache and misfortune (though this doesn't preclude some naughty fun in Canton later in the book) that befalls the author in the book's later pages. Subject matter beyond the matters of romance can be skimmed over unless you care for the intricacies of various parks and mountains in Zhejiang and Jiangsu and how nice it was to "chill with the boyz" in these scenic places. Make sure to read the version with lots of footnotes that explain the idioms and euphemisms.
February 4, 2016
a book you should read before you die, absolutely unique, both as an autobiography from this period and from this culture. As most say, the stand-out chapter is the one on his marriage, but the ones on travels and aesthetics are great too. As i remember, the best one is first and the worst one is second and makes you want to give up, but it's the only stinker, so keep on! Plus, it's short. Read this.
September 8, 2016
Lovely little book, that basically posits whilst the world, it's structures, fluctuate around us, our individual thoughts about our small lives remain peculiar, particular and personal and therefore, perversely, in odd ways universal.
October 20, 2016
若得一知己于闺中如此，此生当无憾。奈何沉生未有所成，遗病闺中而负此佳人。初以芸觅憨为真情，无奈复本浮而戏妓，留憨只为挽君。
February 9, 2020
A vivid account of a modest life in late-eighteenth century China. It leaves your mind adrift in the bygone chinese atmosphere to empathise with the narrator in his emotions of joy, misery, bias, jealousy, immortality, wonder, excitement, melodrama, and basically any emotions we feel as humans. Not to discount, his zeal to travel and experience newness. It leaves me wonder how, no matter how much politics change, civilisations change, technologies advance, common man’s emotions are ever the same. There’s no superiority and inferiority when it comes to those very feelings, no matter how much we advance in technology or claim to be “civilised” or “modern”. They were all modern and they felt the same.
April 17, 2025
Everyone who knows me knows how much I hate reading romances. But, maybe I just want to believe in love again (jk I'm being so dramatic). There's something so familiar in this story about this random commoner marrying his best friend and their friendship like marriage without the traditional patriarchy typically found in ancient China. I loved their interactions, the little acts of consideration they showed each other. I also loved how he just dropped off the face of earth after she died, so real.
There's nothing complex or beautiful about this prose, but is that really necessary in writing?
There's nothing complex or beautiful about this prose, but is that really necessary in writing?
June 27, 2022
Comme un paysage de printemps. Léger et soyeux, belle surprise.
December 30, 2024
小红楼。小时候读那篇余忆童稚时的课文觉得非常有趣，长大了读全文却是浮生若梦，为欢几何。沉复给人感觉很谦和很善良，也有文人的清高吧，芸娘跟他既有享福也有受苦。
February 17, 2025
Very dreamy, and a good text “meant to be read leisurely” as the blurb says. This is a content artist with his wife - they are often without money but the way it is written makes it seem like they have many riches
September 4, 2020
219-Six Records of a Floating Life-Shen Fu-Essay-1808
Barack
2019/05/06
2020/06/21
- people like Qiu Hong to have faith, things such as Dreaming of trace.
"Six Chapters of a Floating Life", completed in China around 1808. The author of "Six Chapters of a Floating Life" is Shen Fu. The "Floating Life" comes from Li Bai's poem "The Preface to the Spring Night Banquet from My Brother Taoli Garden", "The man who lives in the world, the rebellious journey of all things; the one who is in time, the traveler of a hundred generations. And floating life is like a dream. , Is Huan Ge?" Although the book is called "Six Notes", but Juan 5 and Juan Liu Yi scattered, the last two volumes of "Zhongshan Ji Li" and "Ji Shen Dao" seen today are suspected to be fakes by posterity.
Shen Fu was born in Changzhou (now Suzhou, Jiangsu) in 1763 and died around 1832. He was born in a family of scholars. Shen Fu had never participated in the imperial examination, and used to sell paintings to make a living. Representative works: "Six Notes of a Floating Life" and so on.
Part of the catalog
1. Boudoir
2. Recollection
3. Frustration
4. Long Travels fast
5. The Chronicles of Zhongshan
6. Health Tips
Most people have the desire to live longer and even pursue "immortality." The so-called "unknown life, how can you know death?" and vice versa, so we must first understand what death is, in order to better understand what is living.
It is said that death has three levels. The first level is death in the physical sense, that is, when a person dies physically; the second level is death in the social sense, that is, when a person’s funeral is held; the third level is death in the spiritual sense. That is when a person is forgotten by everyone.
Propagating offspring is the most common way to delay the third death. Those who consciously or unconsciously left traces in human history have gained a longer "lifespan" by being remembered by descendants who have no blood relationship with him.
Shen Fu was unknown when he was alive, but after his death he became famous for his autobiographical work "Six Chapters of a Floating Life", which is still remembered by many people today. In this sense, his life span has been extended. Whenever his voice and smile appeared in the reader's mind , he was resurrected.
One of the significant differences between art and technology is that art tends to have a stronger connection with its creator and a wider audience. For example, when people like a book or a painting, they often know who the author is; but when people like a building or an artifact, they don’t necessarily know who the chief designer is. In addition, artistic works can often be passed down for centuries or even thousands of years because they are easy to copy, while physical works are often lost in the long river of time, leaving only a legend for future generations.
However, because the evaluation of works of art is too subjective, and works of art often fail to bring immediate financial returns to the creators, many writers, painters, musicians, etc. are poor and impoverished before their deaths, and only become popular for their works after death. know. It's really embarrassing.
I have always had an idea. When I was 50, I started to write the first memoir of my life, I wrote another when I was 60, and I wrote one every 10 years. This is also a means and hope for prolonging "life". Although my body has died, I can still see my soul from the line.
From this book, Shen Fu's family is pretty good. He was sheltered by his father in his early years, so he basically didn't have to worry about material things. He also spent a hundred taels of silver on prostitutes in four months. Later, because his wife Li Yun became acquainted with a prostitute Hanyuan, she was defrauded of debts for her friend, and was driven out of the house by her father. Shen Fu's living conditions took a turn for the worse.
After living independently, Shen Fu had no stable job for a long time. He ran around toiling and traveled long distances just to recover a dozen old debts. Later, Shen Fu and his wife sent food to a friend's house, unable to raise their children, and married their daughter prematurely as a child bride-in-law. The son entrusted his friend to study business and died early. There are not many literati who have become prosperous, probably because of their aloof personality.
"For the remaining thirteen years, I will return to Ning with my mother. I can see what I have done. Although I sigh for his talent and thoughtfulness, he is afraid that his blessings are not deep; but the heart cannot be explained. Non-sisters do not marry. "Mother also loves her softness, that is, getting rid of gold means marriage. "
The ancients got married early , and when they were in their early teens , they began to make a marriage contract. Seventeen and eighteen age , by today's standards just adults, in 1 00 years ago, they had a husband Ren women .
"On the eve of the anthurium on the 22nd of the first month of Qianlong and Gengzi, I saw that the thin and timid figure was still as before, and the headscarf had been lifted, and I looked at each other beautifully. After closing, I had a night meal together, and I held his wrist under the table in the dark. I felt a throbbing in my chest. Let the food coincide with the fasting period, and it has been several years. I secretly planned to eat the fast at the beginning of the fast, just before the period of acne, and said with a smile: "I am fine today, sister can start from now on Quit? "Yun smiled with her eyes, clicked with her head. "
Goethe wrote, which boy is not good at love, which girl is not good at cherishing spring. When a person is seventeen or eighteen , love is the hottest time. No matter how many years later, again in retrospect, still feel quite sweet.
" Because he stroked his shoulders, he said, "Sister has worked hard for days, so why are you so tireless?" Yun hurriedly looked back and stood up and said, "I was about to lie down, and I got this book when I opened the closet. The name of "West Chamber" is familiar, and I can only see it today. It's really worthy of the name of a talented man, but it can't help describing a sharp ear. "Yu Xiao said: "Only a talented man can be sharp and penetrating." "The companion urged him to lie down next to him, making him go behind closed doors. Then he laughed with his shoulders, and reunited with a close friend. He tentatively explored his arms and throbbed, because he bent his ears and said: "Sister, why is it? "Yun looked back and smiled, and felt that a ray of love shook people's soul; holding it in the account, knowing that the East is white. "
Describing the happiness of the boudoir, only if it is fun but not lewd, can it have a sentiment. In the Han dynasty, Zhang Chang's thrush also had similarities and same skills. Chinese culture emphasizes subtle beauty. The lust ends , just right.
"By boarding the boat and unraveling, it was the time when the peaches and plums were vying for beauty, and Yu was lost with the forest birds, and the world was different. After arriving at the museum, my father crossed the river east. Living in March, like ten years apart. Yun Yun Although there are books from time to time, there must be two questions and one answer. There are many encouraging words, and the rest are idioms. The heart is very uncomfortable. Whenever the wind grows in the bamboo courtyard, the banana window on the moon, the dreams of the people in the scenery, the dream is upset. Mr. knows it. Love, that is, to my father, I have ten questions and I will return temporarily. I am happy to be forgiven by the fellow. After boarding the boat, I feel like a year. When I arrive home, my mother asks for peace and enters the room. Welcoming, shaking hands without a word, and the two souls suddenly turned into smoke and fog, feeling a ringing in their ears, I don't know if they are more like this. "
Newly married Yaner , it is the time when it is like glue. When alone , one can also get unlimited pleasure from nature . Can once tasted too fun love after, once separated from love to the past to make himself interesting sights and scenes seem bleak moment colorless .
" Yu Xing is straightforward and unruly; Yun is like a ruthless scholar, circumspect and courteous. Even if he puts on his sleeves for him, he will say "offend"; : "Qing wants to bind me with courtesy? The "Yu" says:'Many courtesy will deceive'. "Yun's cheeks flushed, and he said, "Respectful and polite, why are you deceitful?" Yu said: "Respect is in the heart, not in imaginary writing." Yun said: "A close relative is no better than a parent, who can be wild with respect from the inside out?" "Yu said: "The ear of the preface drama." "Yun said: "Many anti-messes in the world start from dramas. Don't be wronged afterwards, it is depressing! "Yu Nai pulls into her arms, soothes her, and begins to smile. From then on, the idioms "How dare" and "offend" have become the auxiliary words. Hong case Xiangzhuang has twenty-three years, and the longer the year, the more intimate the love. "
It is impossible for husband and wife to be the same in everything . Vary in character , but also a very natural thing. If we can understand each other and communicate fully, then the original differences may become a certain taste .
" My mother also has nine righteous daughters. Of the nine, Wang's second-guy and Yu-liugu are the most reconciled with Yun. Wang Chihan is a good drinker, and Yu Hao is a good talker. In each episode, he will stay out of the house and get three women on the same bed; this Yu Liugu It's a plan for one person. Yu Xiao said: "When I return, I will invite my sister-in-law to come and stay for ten days. "Yu said: "I'm here too, with my sister-in-law, not great? "Yun and Wang are just smiling "
A person should still have a sense of humor. This will add a lot of fun to life. If in daily life , it is the same as when doing business affairs, the majestic and solemn , it is daunting . A lot of fun must be lost in life.
" Yu Chang said: "Xiqing is a female, and Gou can turn a female into a male, and visit famous mountains, search for victorious trails, and travel the world. It's not easy! Yun said: "How difficult is this. Although you can't travel far to the Five Sacred Mountains after your concubine's sideburns, the Hufu and Lingyan near the ground can travel to the West Lake in the south and Pingshan in the north. Yu said: "On the day of fear of Qing Qing's sideburns, it is hard to walk." "Yun said, "I can't in this life, but in the future. " I said:" Qing afterlife as a male, I was the woman from the phase. "Yun said: "You must be immoral in this life, Fang felt interesting." "Yu Xiao said: "When I was young, I couldn't talk about it. If the next life is not in this life, I will talk about the next life in detail, and there will be no close eyes." " "
In ancient times, women did not even have the opportunity to travel freely , so they could only stay at home and be confined to the family for a lifetime. Now it seems that it is really cruel. Our life today is something that people probably did not dare to expect a century ago. How can you not cherish it carefully?
June 25, 2023
I'd just come back from traveling in the mountains for three weeks with my friends when my wife again pleaded with me to take on a concubine.
"But I'm only a humble, failed scholar -- we're not made of money," I told her, "and besides, who's the concubine really going to be for: me or you?"
That was before her tragic death, of course. It is enough to make one sigh deeply.
Now, allow me to demonstrate to you the principles of tasteful flower arrangement.
"But I'm only a humble, failed scholar -- we're not made of money," I told her, "and besides, who's the concubine really going to be for: me or you?"
That was before her tragic death, of course. It is enough to make one sigh deeply.
Now, allow me to demonstrate to you the principles of tasteful flower arrangement.
December 2, 2024
Read for school. This could have been enjoyable, but the non-linear storytelling was way too hard to follow. Aside from that and (a lot of) the misogyny, the prose/translation holds up. Some of it is really pretty. Shen Fu would have loved nature edits on TikTok.
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May 4, 2021'Six Records of a Life Adrift' is really four records of a life adrift—Shen Fu's other installments were either lost or never completed. His first chapter 'Delights of Marriage' provided a brief antidote to raging loneliness. Shen Fu's marriage to Chen Yun seems like the stuff dreams are made of, two intellectual equals completely devoted to each other, the best of friends. The love affairs of Ovid and Catullus come to mind, Catullus barely holds a candle to the maturity of Shen Fu's love for Chen Yun. Shen Fu's writing, though simple, burns with such love for Yun who had already died by the time of his beginning of the 'Records'. Dead, after 23 years and family squabbling.
Throughout 'Delights of Marriage' and even 'Charms of Idleness', Yun's person radiates from Shen Fu's loving account of his 23 years of bliss. 'Sorrows of Hardship' then plummets into many sad tales, not least of which is the spurning and banishment of Yun by his own family through a series of misunderstandings, Shen Fu finding himself caught between being a good husband and a filial son. Yun's decline into illness and eventual death is so heartbreaking. Yun's passing is nothing short of an utter trauma for Shen Fu, who had organized his entire life around their love for each other.
"In that moment a lone lamp flickers in its basin; I lift my eyes but I see no one; in my two hands I hold nothing; my heart is about to shatter. This pain is everlasting—when will it ever end?"
This is a somber book of a man whose life has fallen apart. No, the author's writing does not wail with passion at his loss, it is much more gestural. He constantly reflects on the foolishness of mortal happiness, as if his small joys were his own Tower of Babel—Yun and Shen Fu's love reached such lofty heights only to be struck down by the 'Fashioner of Things (zaowu), the personification of the creative force that leads to the emergence of material objects in the universe. 'Charms of Idleness' has a couple of episodes where Shen Fu and Yun's world building through the hobby of plant cultivation is smashed to bits.
"One night a pair of worthless cats slipped from the eaves while fighting over some food and smashed the basin and stand to pieces in the blink of an eye. I sighed and said to Yun, 'Even this small effort of ours has made the Fashioner of Things jealous!' The two of us could not hold back our tears."
There's a line in 'The Sorrows of Hardship' after Shen Fu's son, Fengsen, also dies unexpectedly, his last memory of him being seeing him in tears in longing for the company of his father. Shen Fu's reflections are expanded upon by the translator's (Graham Sanders) excellent footnotes. Shen Fu says,
"Oh, Yun—she only had one son and he did not even live long enough to continue the family line! When Zhoutang heard the news, he sighed heavily over it and provided me with a concubine so that I might once again enter a springtime dream. From that point on I fell into the hurly-burly of daily life; and I no longer know when I might awaken from this dream"
The translator mentions that these lines reference a passage from 'Zhuangi', which says that when we are in a dream we do not know we are in a dream, for the dream only can be understood as such upon waking. Only imbeciles think of themselves as masters. Perhaps Shen Fu's dream was his life with Chen Yun, shattered to pieces, a rude, great awakening. I wonder whether he was ever to resume the dream of foolish souls who think the world 'just-so'—maybe he never recovered. One can't help but speculate whether the fact that his inability to finish his 'Six Records' had something to do with the pain he felt... or was to feel...
Throughout 'Delights of Marriage' and even 'Charms of Idleness', Yun's person radiates from Shen Fu's loving account of his 23 years of bliss. 'Sorrows of Hardship' then plummets into many sad tales, not least of which is the spurning and banishment of Yun by his own family through a series of misunderstandings, Shen Fu finding himself caught between being a good husband and a filial son. Yun's decline into illness and eventual death is so heartbreaking. Yun's passing is nothing short of an utter trauma for Shen Fu, who had organized his entire life around their love for each other.
"In that moment a lone lamp flickers in its basin; I lift my eyes but I see no one; in my two hands I hold nothing; my heart is about to shatter. This pain is everlasting—when will it ever end?"
This is a somber book of a man whose life has fallen apart. No, the author's writing does not wail with passion at his loss, it is much more gestural. He constantly reflects on the foolishness of mortal happiness, as if his small joys were his own Tower of Babel—Yun and Shen Fu's love reached such lofty heights only to be struck down by the 'Fashioner of Things (zaowu), the personification of the creative force that leads to the emergence of material objects in the universe. 'Charms of Idleness' has a couple of episodes where Shen Fu and Yun's world building through the hobby of plant cultivation is smashed to bits.
"One night a pair of worthless cats slipped from the eaves while fighting over some food and smashed the basin and stand to pieces in the blink of an eye. I sighed and said to Yun, 'Even this small effort of ours has made the Fashioner of Things jealous!' The two of us could not hold back our tears."
There's a line in 'The Sorrows of Hardship' after Shen Fu's son, Fengsen, also dies unexpectedly, his last memory of him being seeing him in tears in longing for the company of his father. Shen Fu's reflections are expanded upon by the translator's (Graham Sanders) excellent footnotes. Shen Fu says,
"Oh, Yun—she only had one son and he did not even live long enough to continue the family line! When Zhoutang heard the news, he sighed heavily over it and provided me with a concubine so that I might once again enter a springtime dream. From that point on I fell into the hurly-burly of daily life; and I no longer know when I might awaken from this dream"
The translator mentions that these lines reference a passage from 'Zhuangi', which says that when we are in a dream we do not know we are in a dream, for the dream only can be understood as such upon waking. Only imbeciles think of themselves as masters. Perhaps Shen Fu's dream was his life with Chen Yun, shattered to pieces, a rude, great awakening. I wonder whether he was ever to resume the dream of foolish souls who think the world 'just-so'—maybe he never recovered. One can't help but speculate whether the fact that his inability to finish his 'Six Records' had something to do with the pain he felt... or was to feel...
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