The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders

Somehow I managed to grow up in England without seeing any of the productions of Moll Flanders that the BBC put on. I have a brief memory of her being on trial, and being sentenced to the colonies but thought she looked rather ugly and wasn't that interested.

But I read the book and it wasn't what I was expecting. At first I kept thinking, "this was written by the same man who wrote Robinson Crusoe, how odd". The first half is all her various weddings, and how she goes about trying to find herself new husbands. With various paragraphs from the author telling how he thinks women should behave. It's an interesting look at the fortunes of women in that time, though very depressing. One of the things that struck me the most was how she'd have several children in each marriage, some of who survived and she showed no remorse about leaving them behind, or really any wonder at their fate.

The secound half of the book took place when she got too old to sell herself to a new husband, 52, and so took to a life of crime as a pickpocket. It was interesting as she never blamed the devil for her earlier "misfortunes" but when it came to stealing he was instantly to blame. The first time he "whispered in her ear" and then later was said to have wanted her to kill a child but she refused. She managed to escape the death sentence by becoming a Christian and having great repentance. However her style didn't change any after this, and there was the same search for money and comfort, which she eventually got.

It was an odd book, but an interesting look at the time. Defoe seemed pretty sympathetic to his heroine's plight, and nowhere did he really make her appear evil, or bad, just wanting comfort and security in life.
Having read so many Chinese books written around this time it was nice to go back and read something from my own country and see how somethings were more to do with the time period than to do with the different cultures.

(no subject)

Li Yu was quite the playboy of 17th century China. He moved around from city to city writing plays, poems and stories. It was his plays he was most famous for, he traveled with a group of female actresses and was a great lover of women. His novel The Carnal Prayer Mat has been translated into English in a shortened version. (at least I assume by it's length of about 300 pages that it's been shortened). Which is the interesting story of a lover of women who has the penis of a dog transplanted instead of his own, which is too small to pleasure all the women he wants too. It's a story of his conquests and eventually he achieves enlightenment.

I bought a collection of his short stories with a gift certificate I'd gotten from my work. The collection is called The Twelve Towers The cover having characters for each of the stories with a different tower in their name. The translator gives the English stories different titles.

The stories themselves are interesting tales of love, lust and revenge. Though also good works and loyalty. There are happy endings when both women end up marrying the same man, a swindler who was succesful and eventually became a monk and used his tricks to build a monastery for himself and a nunnery for his companion. There was a very moving story about a two men who married two women, one was very affectionate and his wife died for want of him while he was sentenced to the border, the other was stoic, pretending not to care, so that his wife would not suffer while he was gone. There was an old man who dressed as a beggar in order to get himself an heir, who turned out to be his own son. But the most memorable story was about an attractive antique dealer, who refused to be taken advantage of by a rich lord, who was then castrated and made a eunuch and had to serve the Lord for many years. In the end the treason of the lord was revealed, in part due to the eunuch, and the Lord was executed. And the eunuch used his head as a chamber pot. The story ended with a lovely poem about it, translated it was:

You cut my balls off, I cut off your head.
Fair exchange, the upper for the lower.
Death you truly deserved.
You played with my private parts,
So I dirtied your mouth.
Fair exchange, the clean for the dirty.
Even in death you leave a nauseating smell.
A word to the people of this world:
Never be scheming and foully sly,
For every evil deed brings it's own retribution.

Not something you'd see a poem written about in English from that time! More likely to get you sent to the tower. I can't wait till my Chinese gets good enough so I can read such things in the original!