Rickshaw

Lao She

Experience is the fertilizer of life. When you have certain kinds of experiences you become a certain kind of man. You can't grow peonies in a desert.

So, you think getting along on your own is best, do you? The old man gave his judgment of Hsiang Tzu's story. "Who doesn't think that way? But who gets on well? My body and bones were sound and my character was good when I started out, and I came straight on down the road to where I am now and ended up like this! Sound body? Even men of iron can't get out of this snare of a world we're in. So you have a good character. What good is that? 'The good are requited with good, the evil with evil.' There never was any such thing! When I was young they called me a zealous fellow. I took everyone else's problems for my own and did it do me any good? None at all. I've even saved lives. People who jumped in the river, people who'd hanged themselves, I saved them all. And did I get anything for it? Nothing at all! I'm telling you, I'm not the one who decides what day I'll freeze to death. I figure it's perfectly understandable that any poor guy who thinks he can succeed by himself will find it harder than going to heaven.

Rickshaw is one of the more famous novels to come out of the New Culture Movement of the early twentieth century, and it is not a bad read. I have heard comparisons drawn between Dickens and Lao She, but while I can understand how someone would be inclined to make such a connection, I don't think they are that apt. Lao She is much more realistic and blunt with his language than Dickens. It's been a while since I've read Dickens, but from what I remember he always put a sanitized coating on his stories of horrible circumstances; Lao She leaves this off entirely.
If you are looking for an uplifting tale, Rickshaw is not your cup of tea. At the heart of the story is the rickshaw puller Hsiang Tzu, what everyone might call a young, hopeful, idealistic, and honorable man. Time after time he is beaten down by different circumstances, but Lao She doesn't leave any room for passing the blame off on society. When it comes down to it, Hsiang Tzu's "Individualism" (a word Lao She uses often to mean Selfishness) is the cause of almost all his woes. Hsiang Tzu continually tries to pit himself against whatever odds are piled up against him, but it is always himself versus.
Lao She's writing is very fluid--in the translation I had. He weaves his own commentary nicely into the narrative of Hsiang Tzu's life and knows the perfect moments to allow emotion to grow beyond his normally objective tone. I never felt that Lao She was contriving or forcing his story out, which may be its most impressive quality. The story flows wonderfully well and reads fast--you'll be done before you have remembered you started. 7/10