A secretary transformed in the late Qing Dynasty, and a stroke of stab at the ills of the times. You can fully appreciate Li Baojia's satirical art and insight into the times.
The vernacular version of the classic masterpiece "The Metamorphosis of the Late Qing Dynasty" by the satirical literary giant Li Baojia is now online! Following "The Appearance of Officialdom", this book explores the chronic illness of the late Qing Dynasty and uses the "spread of Western learning eastward" as the context to unfold a panoramic ukiyo-e of social changes in the late Qing Dynasty.
In the turbulent late Qing Dynasty, the wave of "Western learning spreading eastward" swept across, and a revolution called "civilization transformation" began in chaos. This is not a calm innovation from the top down, but a blind following and absurd interpretation of all classes under the influence of the trend. The collapse of the old order and the influx of new things interweave into the most tearing picture of the times.
The book takes "civilization transformation" as the core clue and connects more than a hundred independent short stories, covering multiple social circles such as officialdom, market, academia, and foreign trade. From the hypocrisy and cunning of officialdom officials seeking personal gain through the "New Deal" to the blind pursuit of foreign goods by ordinary people in the market, all kinds of things are on display, and they are profound.
Li Baojia uses sharp brush strokes to vividly reproduce the situation of the people in the late Qing Dynasty when they faced the impact of foreign culture and social changes: there are those who hypocritically imitate the foreign schools but only have the appearance, there are those who are struggling between the old and the new, and there are also those who blindly follow the trend and eventually become the butt of jokes. Each story is an accurate diagnosis of the social diseases of the late Qing Dynasty.
Open this book and understand the absurdity and desolation of late Qing society in short stories, glimpse the subtleties of human nature under the wave of change in the sharp satire, and feel the complete and vivid "Ukiyo-e of late Qing social change" written by Li Baojia.
