{"id":166651,"date":"2024-01-29T12:40:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T17:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=166651"},"modified":"2024-01-29T16:43:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T21:43:34","slug":"recommended-readings-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2024\/01\/29\/recommended-readings-for-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Readings for Students"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Yu Hua in Paris, 2004. Courtesy of Yu Hua.<\/p><\/div>\n

The new Winter issue of<\/em> The Paris Review, no. 246,\u00a0includes an Art of Fiction<\/a> interview\u00a0with the Chinese writer Yu Hua, the author of<\/em> novels such as\u00a0<\/em>To Live, <\/em>Brothers,<\/em>\u00a0and<\/em> Chronicle of a Blood Merchant.\u00a0We asked Yu to contribute a syllabus to our ongoing series<\/a>, and he obliged with a list of recommendations that he’s provided to his students\u2014but, as he says in his interview, remember not to be narrowly focused on reading lists: “Literature is not the only thing in my life. I encourage my students to think this way, too. Recently, I told one of them, ‘Let\u2019s meet this afternoon to talk about the story you wrote,’ and he said, ‘Professor, I\u2019m going clubbing tonight.’ I said, ‘All right, have fun.’ \u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am a professor of creative writing at\u00a0Beijing Normal University, and with few exceptions, most of my students have no experience writing before enrolling in my course. We begin with short stories before transitioning to novellas, a literary form uniquely popular in China\u2014works of fiction between thirty thousand and a hundred thousand Chinese characters. Julio Cort\u00e1zar\u2019s “The Southern Thruway” and Ian McEwan\u2019s On Chesil Beach <\/em>are both excellent examples.<\/p>\n

When recommending literary works to my students, I base my suggestions on two principles. The first is to avoid works that are already extremely well-known in China, which most of my students will have read during senior middle school or high school. (The Old Man and the Sea<\/em>, which I ask them to reread, is an exception to that rule.) The second principle is to tailor my lists to students\u2019 individual writing goals.<\/p>\n

I have one student whose mind is filled with strange and unusual thoughts; I advised her to read “The Southern Thruway”\u00a0three times and then search for a scene from everyday life to use as a starting point from which her own narrative could gradually expand, so that the magnification of the narrative would be dependent upon real-life details, which can allow the writer to reveal the vastness and complexity of human nature. I also asked her to read Kafka\u2019s “In the Penal Colony”\u00a0three times, as an example of how the literature of the absurd can actually arrive at the real more quickly. In other words, our starting point is \u201cthe real\u201d and that is where we ultimately return\u2014even if \u201cthe real\u201d to which we return has become completely unrecognizable.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another student of mine has a talent for writing fiction that plays with structure and form. I assigned him Friedrich D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s The Judge and His Hangman <\/em>and Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s “The Purloined Letter,”\u00a0so that he could see what a good story\u00a0with a conventional form looks like. Moreover, D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s detective fiction is completely different from Poe\u2019s. When D\u00fcrrenmatt writes about the murder case, he seems to be casually jotting down the details and atmosphere of the moment, while Poe\u2019s narrative is extremely focused, always revealing at least one razor-sharp detail.<\/p>\n

I also recommend collections by individual writers to my students, often using my research funds to purchase books for them. One example is The Stories of John Cheever<\/em>, a collection of sixty-one stories that he personally selected; another is Yejian gushi\u00a0<\/em>(Midnight stories)\u00a0by Su Tong, which features forty-three short stories from different stages of his career. I don\u2019t require my students to read all of these stories. If the work connects with them, I tell them to keep reading. If not, I let them know it’s okay to give up. If the emotional connection isn\u2019t there, it isn\u2019t the student\u2019s fault\u2014it’s simply not yet the right time.<\/p>\n

When I assign McEwan\u2019s On Chesil Beach<\/em>, I tell my students that the goal of literature is not individuality but universality. It is precisely that sense of universality that allows us to read works from different eras, different countries and cultures, and still have an emotional response. This novella is particularly well suited to demonstrating how a writer can begin on the individual level and arrive at the universal.<\/p>\n

When it comes to writing fiction, Yasunari Kawabata was my first real teacher. I recommend his story \u201cOnsen yado\u201d (Hot-spring inn) to show my students that you can write a literary work populated exclusively by secondary characters, devoid of any main protagonists.\u00a0Halldor Kiljan Laxness\u2019s “Saga \u00far s\u00edldinni” (Black carp), which has also not yet been translated into English,\u00a0is also an important piece of writing, and from it I hope students can understand that novels don\u2019t have a monopoly when it comes to expressing \u201cthe epic\u201d\u2014short stories can do that too.<\/p>\n

I tell my students that the most important qualities for a writer to foster are their powers of imagination and observation. Jo\u00e3o Guimar\u00e3es Rosa\u2019s \u201cThe Third Bank of the River\u201d is a representative work when it comes to literary imagination\u2014not a wild and unbridled imagination but one rooted firmly on the ground. There is nothing remarkable or unbelievable about the way Rosa tells his story, but it turns out to be anything but quotidian.<\/p>\n

When it comes to masterpieces of subtle perceptiveness, there is also William Trevor\u2019s \u201cA Bit on the Side.\u201d His observations about the finer details of life are revealed in\u00a0his characteristically calm narration\u2014almost like the serene surface of a perfectly still lake. But once that balance is disturbed, the end is near.<\/p>\n

Whenever I recommend “The Moor\u201d by Russell Banks, my students love it. One wrote: \u201cThe way Russell Banks used such a limited narrative space to express the passage of time in such a heartbreaking manner truly touched me. As the narrative moves forward, the way in which \u2018my\u2019 memories of Gail transform and the way in which those supposed lies \u2018I\u2019 told Gail all converge as \u2018time passes by, never to return again. While those lingering vestiges I see before me are everything I have.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Moor\u201d is Russell Banks’s only work of fiction to have been translated into Chinese; I first encountered it in a collection edited by Haruki Murakami, titled\u00a0Birthday Stories. <\/em>It was only last November that I learned about Banks\u2019s passing on January 8, 2023. After getting over the initial shock, I was overcome with sadness. I met Banks at the Jerusalem International Writers Festival in May of 2010, and he was a very warm and gracious man. He told me there were two things he hoped to do before he died\u2014one was to visit China. I asked when he planned on visiting, but he didn\u2019t respond. Paul Auster, who was standing beside him, jokingly answered for him: “Sometime before he dies.” \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Recommended Readings for Students<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Short Stories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Halldor Kiljan Laxness, “Saga \u00far s\u00edldinni” (Black carp)<\/p>\n

Franz Kafka, “In the Penal Colony”<\/p>\n

Jorge Luis Borges, “The South”<\/p>\n

Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Gimpel the Fool”<\/p>\n

William Trevor, “A Bit on the Side”<\/p>\n

Joao Guimar\u00e3es Rosa, “The Third Bank of the River”<\/p>\n

Su Tong, “Watermelon Boats”<\/p>\n

Marguerite Yourcenar, \u201cHow Wang Fo Was Saved”<\/p>\n

John Cheever, “Goodbye, My Brother”<\/p>\n

Russell Banks, “The Moor”<\/p>\n

Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez<\/span>, “Tuesday Siesta”<\/p>\n

Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat”<\/p>\n

Bruno Schulz, “Birds”<\/p>\n

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter”<\/p>\n

O. Henry, “The Gift of the Magi”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Novellas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ernest Hemingway,\u00a0The Old Man and the Sea<\/em><\/p>\n

Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez<\/span>,\u00a0No One Writes to the Colonel<\/em><\/p>\n

James Joyce, “The Dead”<\/p>\n

Anton Chekhov, “The Steppe”<\/p>\n

Guy de Maupassant, “The Ball of Fat”<\/p>\n

Yasunari Kawabata, “Onsen yado” (Hot-spring inn)<\/p>\n

Ichiyo Higuchi, “Child’s Play”<\/p>\n

Julio Cort\u00e1zar, “The Southern Thruway”<\/p>\n

Ian McEwan,\u00a0On Chesil Beach<\/em><\/p>\n

Friedrich D\u00fcrrenmatt, The Judge and His Hangman<\/em><\/p>\n

Fran\u00e7ois Mauriac,\u00a0A Kiss for the Leper<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Translated from the Chinese by Michael Berry.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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