Balzac+and+the+Little...

"Smash the old world / Establish a new world." []

Published in France in 2000 and translated into English in 2001 by Ina Rilke. It was a sensation in France and has subsequently been translated into twenty languages. It was made into a film of the same name and adapted and directed by the author (wide release in 2005).
 * Background:**

Has won five awards including the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age.

Dai Sijie was born in China in 1954. Because he came from an educated middle-class family, the [|Maoist] government sent him to a re-education camp in rural [|Sichuan] from 1971 to 1974, during the [|Cultural Revolution]. After his return, he was able to complete high school and university, where he studied art history. In 1984, he left China for France on a scholarship. There, he acquired a passion for movies and became a director. Before turning to writing, he made three critically-acclaimed feature-length films: //China, My Sorrow// (1989) (original title: //Chine, ma douleur//), //Le mangeur de lune// and //Tang, le onzième//. He also wrote and directed an adaptation of //[|Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress]//, released in 2002. He lives in Paris and writes in French.
 * About the Author:**


 * Plot Summary**

This short novel tells the semi-autobiographical story of two teenage boys, Luo and the unnamed narrator, who, in 1971, are sent as part of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution to be “re-educated” on the remote mountain known as the “Phoenix of the Sky.” Despite never having had the opportunity to complete secondary school (the reason most young “intellectuals” were sent to be re-educated), the boys are doomed to a life in exile because their doctor parents have been classed as “enemies of the people.” While being officially re-educated by working in the coal mines and fields, their true education begins when they discover a suitcase full of Western novels being hidden by Four Eyes, the son of a poet who is being re-educated in the next village. After helping Four Eyes when he breaks his glasses, the boys receive Balzac’s //Ursule Mirouet// as their reward. The effect of the novel is profound and when Four Eyes’ mother comes to take him back to the city, Luo and the narrator steal his books rather than be deprived of what could be a lifetime without culture.

The princess of Phoenix Mountain is the daughter of the traveling tailor and known only to us as the “Little Seamstress.” Luo and the narrator both fall quickly and deeply in love with her, but it is Luo, the older and more outgoing of the two, for whom she falls. As our two heroes gain status and renown through their ability to tell stories to the villagers (ostensibly retellings of the travelling films their village headman sends them to see), they gain the freedom and time to visit the Little Seamstress. Luo makes it his project to educate the Little Seamstress by reading to her from their cache of forbidden books, narrative details of which become points of comparison for their own lives. While the narrator is forced to bury his desire out of respect for his friend and the Little Seamstress, he ultimately becomes her saviour when he is able to find a doctor to perform an abortion for her while Luo is on leave visiting his sick mother.

The impact of the novels read by the three characters is profound and eventually leads the Little Seamstress to adopt a city accent and create a modern wardrobe for herself. Foreshadowing her sudden and unannounced departure for the city, the narrator writes: "That the ultimate payoff-off of this metamorphosis, this feat of Balzacian re-education, was yet to come did not occur to us. Were we too wrapped up in ourselves to notice the warning signals? Did we overestimate the power of love? Or, quite simply, had we ourselves failed to grasp the essence of the novels we had read to her?" (180) The novel ends abruptly and enigmatically after the boys catch up with the Little Seamstress and Luo fails to convince her to remain with him. In the final lines of the text, Lou relates to the narrator what the Little Seamstress explained to him: the one lesson she learned from Balzac was that “a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price” (184).

Ultimately, the plot proves less important than theme as the text asks us to consider the function and importance of narrative in our lives. With the grand narrative of the Cultural Revolution as a backdrop, //Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress// reveals how our personal narratives are shaped by experience and, more importantly, given meaning through art and literature. It is through classic Western (yet universal) narratives that the three main characters are able to make sense of romantic love and to elevate elements of their mundane daily existence to the realm of beauty, joy and tragedy. In so doing, they form new identities and more nuanced conceptions of self and the world, consciously //and// unconsciously resisting the limits of an oppressive and narrow ideology.


 * What grade level and course would you teach this text?**

Because the text is slim and easy to read, yet offers the possibility of an in depth analysis of narrative, it is very versatile and could be used in grade ten or above in applied and academic classes, though it I think it best suited to academic classes. It could be attached to a history or social science class dealing with the Cultural Revolution, but only as an ancillary source. It is, however, not a profoundly engaging or important text and given other fine choices, I would only use it in the grade 12 Writer’s Craft and the Studies in Literature courses as part of a broader inquiry into postmodernism, narrative form, and the function of literature in society.


 * ENG3U (English, Grade 11, University Preparation)
 * ENG4U (English, Grade 12, University Preparation)
 * ETS4U (Studies in Literature, Grade 12, University Preparation)
 * EWC4U (The Writer’s Craft, Grade 12, University Preparation)
 * ETS4C (Studies in Literature, Grade 12, College Preparation)


 * What are the main ideas, issues, teaching points you would emphasize when teaching this text?**

This is a wonderful text for introducing concepts central to postmodernism, particularly ideas of intertextuality, discourse, metanarrative, and ideology—essentially how perceptions of self and other are constructed in narrative forms. I would introduce the grand narrative of communism/Maoism and juxtapose it with personal narratives: those in //Balzac// as well in other fictional and autobiographical accounts of the Cultural Revolution. I would highlight how the narrator matures and continually reconsiders his position (subjectivity) in light of the novels he is reading. More controversially, by privileging the cultural knowledge of the main characters, giving them a unique status in the face of ignorant peasants, //Balzac// asks us to consider if some knowledge (e.g. the English literature canon) is more important than other knowledge. While this is very un-postmodern, the text also suggests that imagination and creativity is the ultimate defense against tyranny of thought—meaning is made by the reader not the author. The text is ultimately about the transformative power of literature.

Other themes:
 * French revolution vs. Communist revolution and conceptions of personal liberty and common good.
 * Relationship of material and cultural means of production.


 * Details of Knowledge Elicited by Text (textual, cultural, social):**
 * Importance of narrative: escape, new and shared experience, context for emotions and experience that feel unique, universalize human experience, aid in understanding self, friendship, love, etc., provide reasons to be brave and to fight for what one is passionate about.
 * Culture: always hybridized—the narrator makes sense of a character in turn of the century France through reference to his own life.

//Examples of explicit postmodernism as a way to engage in social, cultural and textual criticism//:
 * Novel begins with a “false” narrative “Mozart is thinking of Chairman Mao,” that is the basis for Luo and Ma’s power over others through their ability to construct “truth” or perception of it.
 * Centrality of story-telling. Luo and Ma adapt the narratives of the films they are sent to see to manipulate their local audience.
 * Personal impact of books on Luo and Ma. They feel ownership over foreign tales and weave these narratives into their lives; highlights importance and universality of culture.
 * Collecting the Miller’s tales. Four Eyes re-purposes folk knowledge to suit the ideology of those in power, gaining status by appropriating another culture’s narratives
 * Three perspectives given on the same event. Demonstrates that experience is relative and truth dependent on subject position.
 * Intertextuality. Authors referenced: Balzac, Hugo, Stendhal, Dumas, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rolland, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Gogal, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Kipling, Bronte
 * Limits of knowledge and interpretation: some of these authors were realists and despised the bourgeoise. Demonstrates our narrators limitations and fallibility.
 * Chronology is not entirely linear and details are elided drawing attention to the novels narrative as craft/manipulation.


 * What are the issues and challenges you might encounter when teaching this text?**

As the narrator is a seventeen year-old boy and the themes of desire, jealousy and friendship are explored in a male-centric way, female students may be alienated. It’s important to note, however, that the Little Seamstress is a strong, fully realized character.

The book does not deal that directly with communism or the Cultural Revolution, and many students won’t have background knowledge, so it would be important to provide context. Over 20 million people died from famine during the revolution and untold cultural artefacts were destroyed. Students may have a personal relationship with this history.

The approach I recommend to the text (postmodern and narrative analysis) may still be too advanced for some students. It would be important to know your class.


 * Describe one possible assignment or activity which you could use when teaching this text**

In Writer’s Craft, I would provide an example of a more explicit metanarrative, such as Daniel MacIvor’s //This is a Play// or stories by Kurt Vonnegut, and have students write a piece that falls somewhere between this and //Balzac// on the scale of self-reflexivity. I would encourage them to explore: the unreliable narrator, multiple voices/perspectives, intertextuality, non-linear narrative, etc. In groups, students would workshop their pieces and in the process consider narrative //through// narrative. Students would be asked to include a reflection with the submission of their polished creative piece in which they address the question: is it possible to convey the “truth” in narrative, or is truth necessarily relative? Films and television programs that I might use to help explain postmodernism: //Ferris Bueller’s Day Off//, //24 Hour Party People//, //Pulp Fiction//, //The Simpson’s, Family Guy, etc.//

In other grades, I would design a more straightforward offshoot assignment where students had to consider other texts about or from the time of the Cultural Revolution, perhaps comparing pro and anti-communist propaganda and researching the stories of other people who have been “re-educated”.

It would be too much for most high school classes, but it would be possible to read parts of some of the French novels referenced to see how they affect the //Balzac// narrative.