Bright Summaries - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide

The story begins one evening in 1971 in a small mountain village called Phoenix of the Sky. Like many other young intellectuals, the narrator and his friend Luo have been sent there by the Communist regime in order to be reeducated by the poor villagers.

In fact, the authorities use the reeducation process to purify young people from the intelligentsia or the bourgeoisie through a humble life of hard labour. These upper-class teenagers are sent to extremely poor mountain villages which are almost entirely dependent on their own agricultural produce for survival.

This is the fate that has befallen the novels two protagonists, who are forced to work in the fields, in the coalmines and as porters, among other tasks. Because their parents are stinking scientific authorities (p. 8), their reeducation, which lasts for a maximum of two years for most people, is probably going to last indefinitely. Many of the people being reeducated harbour hopes of being able to leave someday, such as Four-Eyes, who lives in another village where he shares Luo and the narrators fate.

Although Luo and the narrator do not get on well with Four-Eyes, he plays a key role in their reeducation: one day, the two protagonists discover a locked suitcase under his bed. They question him about its contents, as they are convinced that it contains books which have been banned by the regime (which has banned all Western books, along with a number of Chinese books, as they have been deemed dangerous), but Four-Eyes emphatically denies these accusations. However, Luo and the narrator correctly assume that he is lying, and from then on, they begin bartering with Four-Eyes by demanding one of his books in exchange for their help.

Several months after their arrival, they meet the daughter of the local tailor and nickname her the Little Seamstress. They are nearly the same age and immediately become friends; the narrator even suspects that his friend has fallen in love with her, but Luo claims that she is not civilised enough for him. Nonetheless, Luo and the Little Seamstress spend more and more time together, and eventually grow very close. Luo feels as though he has found his calling: to educate the Little Seamstress himself.

Shortly after they first meet her, the young woman writes to Luo to invite the two young men to put on an oral cinema show in her village, as this is their specialty. They each have their own roles to play during every show: Luo is an excellent actor and storyteller, while the narrator puts the story to music by playing his violin. For him, this instrument represents a connection to his past life.

Ever since the two young men first arrived in the village, the violin has been the object of great curiosity and even greater suspicion from the villagers. The village headman, who is a staunch Communist, was instantly suspicious of the instrument, but Luo managed to convince him to let the narrator keep it by having the narrator improvise a sonata and claiming that it is called Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao , thus demonstrating the instruments utility as a way of spreading propaganda.

However, when they arrive at the Little Seamstresss village, Luo is suffering from a severe bout of malaria, and the young woman stays up all night to care for him. The narrator thinks he saw her kiss Luo, but he cannot be sure because of the darkness.

One day, Four-Eyes is forced to ask the two friends for their help, as he is unable to complete a certain task because of his myopia. In exchange, he agrees to give them one of the books hidden in his suitcase: Ursule Mirout (1841) by Balzac (French writer, 1799-1850).

The narrator and Luo, who have never had the chance to read Western books, are fascinated by the novel, and eagerly devour it. As soon as he finishes the book, Luo goes to see the Little Seamstress. They make love for the first time, and he tells the narrator about this experience upon his return. The two friends try to obtain more books from Four-Eyes, but to no avail.

In summer, a new opportunity presents itself: Four-Eyess mother gets him a job at a newspaper to save him from the reeducation process, and he is given the task of collecting authentic mountain songs which are to be published in it. The narrator and Luo offer to carry out this task on his behalf, since he cannot do it himself, in exchange for new books, and go looking for a reclusive miller who has a reputation for knowing all the songs of the region, and [] being a champion singer (p. 60).

The two friends successfully persuade the old man to sing for them, but the songs they bring back are bawdy and, although Four-Eyes decides to publish them anyway after editing them, he refuses to give them the books he had promised them in exchange. They part on bad terms after the narrator loses his temper and lashes out at him. Luos disappointment over this failure is compounded by the fact that he had noticed that the Little Seamstress was particularly fond of certain excerpts of Balzacs work.