Handbooks and Anthologies for Officials in Imperial China: A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography (2 vols), by Pierre-Étienne Will

Abstract

historical (p. 166). Style and affect are the key. The author concludes in this chapter that in the public arena represented in the Shishuo, Xie An is given pride of place. Continuing with the question of composure, Chen turns, in chapter 6, to mourning as ritual norms in performance and argues that the Shishuo anecdotes are “parabolic commentaries” (p. 10) on persistent philosophical and ethical concerns, which offer the “possibility of a shared, communal experience” (p. 219). Overall, this volume challenges the reader to a theoretically innovative and involved re-reading of the Shishuo anecdotes. The translations are highly readable and accurate. One could make a few quibbles, but the “point” of the volume is not so much about the “point” of a selected anecdote, but how a contemporary readership may find relevance in this somewhat peculiar medieval collection of tales whose idiosyncrasy may have been rooted in a quixotic persistence on selfcultivation in an impossibly chaotic and brutal age when appearance was all that could have mattered.