The Bathing Women. Tie Ning

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       Praise for The Bathing Women

      ‘As this spirited quartet chase their dreams against a backdrop of shifting cultural values, the novel – a million-copy seller in China – blends romance and feminism to paint an intimate portrait of these women’s ambitions, appetites and rivalries’ Daily Mail

      ‘The Bathing Women possesses a gentle humanity that makes a refreshing change from the raucousness of recent work by Tie's male peers … an acute, sympathetic observer of Chinese society’ Guardian

      ‘Intelligent and evocative writing … about the shaping effect of deprivation and how people may still draw reservoirs of love and kindness from these voids’ South China Morning Post

      ‘[A] fascinating story of sisters growing up in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution’ Good Housekeeping

      ‘If I were to pick the ten best literary works in the world of the past ten years, I would definitely rank The Bathing Women among them’ Kenzaburō Ōe, Nobel Laureate

      ‘Tie Ning’s unique novel about three Chinese women and their struggles In today’s fast-changing China is as gorgeous as the Cezanne painting the novel takes its title from’ Xinran, author of The Good Women of China

      ‘A probing and gracefully written portrait of an extended Chinese family, related by blood and mystery, in which the author explores areas of human behavior traditionally considered off-limits: the intimate and sexual lives of ordinary Chinese women’ Hannah Pakula, author of The Last Empress

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

About the Book

Praise for The Bathing Women

Preface

Chapter 1: Premarital Examination

Chapter 2: Pillow Time

Chapter 3: Where the Mermaid’s Fishing Net Comes From

       Chapter 4: Cat in the Mirror

       Chapter 5: The Ring is Caught in the Tree

       Chapter 6: Fan

       Chapter 7: Peeking Through the Keyhole

       Chapter 8: Disgusted

       Chapter 9: Crowned with Persian Chrysanthemums

       Chapter 10: The Garden in the Depths of the Heart

       About the Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Preface

      Tiao’s apartment had a three-seater sofa and two single armchairs. Their covers were satin brocade, a sort of fuzzy blue-grey, like the eyes of some European women, soft and clear. The chairs were arranged in the shape of a flattened U, with the sofa at the base and the armchairs facing each other on two sides.

      Tiao’s memory of sofas went back to when she was about three. It was in the early sixties; her home had a pair of old dark red corduroy sofas. The springs were a bit broken, and stuck out of their coir and hemp wrappings, pressing firmly up through a layer of corduroy that was not very thick. The whole sofa had a lumpy look and it creaked when people sat down. Every time Tiao hauled herself onto it, she could feel little fists punching up from underneath her. The broken springs would grind into her delicate knees and sensitive back. But she still liked to climb up on the sofa because compared to the hard-backed little chair that belonged to her, it allowed her to move around freely, leaning this way and that—and being able to move freely this way and that makes for comfort; ever since she was small, Tiao pursued comfort. Later, and for a long time, an object like a sofa was labelled as associated СКАЧАТЬ