Book Review: The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China by Lu Xun

China is a vast country with an ancient culture, and yet, only few books from the pens (or rather brushes) of Chinese writers have made it into Western bookshops. This is little wonder considering that China has been a Communist country since 1949 and only after the death of Mao Zedong intellectual life slowly reawakened. There are some contemporary authors who have gained international attention, notably the laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 Mo Yan. Among modern classical writers of the twentieth century Eileen Chang may be the best remembered (»»» read my review of Red Rose, White Rose), while others like Lin Yutang or Xiao Hong are quite forgotten today. Notwithstanding that a new English translation has been brought out in 2009, also The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China by Lu Xun have remained secret gems of Chinese literature evoking the 1920s and ancient myths.

Dreamtime

Being Austrian it may be presumptuous of me to post a text about Dreamtime on my blog. After all I’ll have to write about the mythology and religious belief of the first human beings that set foot on the Australian continent ten thousands of years ago and whose descendants keep living there, some proudly holding on to their traditions or even reviving them, others adjusted to the Anglo-American lifestyle. Moreover I’ve never been to Australia and never got a chance to exchange ideas with someone belonging to her Aboriginal peoples.

So how can I possibly know what I’m writing about? Well, I’ll have to rely on my memory of information that I heard about the Dreamtime somewhere some time (which fits well into the oral tradition) and on the internet that allows us to travel fast and without effort almost everywhere at any time – like in a dream.

There’s much more behind the Dreamtime than the word itself expresses. It really comprises the spiritual, natural and ethical system of the Aboriginal universe that has been handed down from one generation to the next through a number of stories told in the form of song, music, dance and pictures. The Aboriginal Dreamtime myths explain the creation of the world and the origin of life, thus the beginning of time and of knowledge. There is the Sacred World of Dreamtime and there are a physical and a human world, all of them interconnected through dreams. The Dreamtime was, is and will be forever. For a European it's difficult to understand and impossible to summarise in a few words, but for the Aboriginal peoples it's part of their daily lives and not just their heritage. It's a pity that in our part of the world so little is known about the Dreamtime myths, but there are books full of them for those who are open-minded and interested. I picked out one that seems to be quite good.

For first-hand information on Dreamtime be so kind as to visit the website of the
Aboriginal Australia Art & Culture Centre in Alice Springs, Australia:

http://aboriginalart.com.au.