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Chapters from a Floating Life: The Autobiography of a Chinese Artist

by Fu Shen

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 · rating details · 500 ratings · 57 reviews

2012 Reprint of 1960 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Chapters from a Floating Life" (also translated as "Six Records of a Floating Life") is an autobiographical novel by Shen Fu (1763 - 1825) who lived in Changzhou (now known as Suzhou) during the Qing Dynasty. The six chapters are, namely, Wedded Bliss, ...more

Paperback , 132 pages

Published July 1st 2012 by Martino Fine Books (first published 1809)

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Feb 27, 2015 Hadrian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir , nonfiction , chinese

In the first lines of this book, Fu Shen apologizes for he is not a very skillful writer. This modesty is unbecoming of him, for Six Records of a Floating Life is a charming and well-crafted recollection of ordinary life in a distant place and time. He makes it real.

The title is unfortunately not accurate - though Fu Shen may have written six short pieces on his 'floating life', only four survive. The rest appear to have been lost to history.

The main focus of these reminisces is the story of Fu In the first lines of this book, Fu Shen apologizes for he is not a very skillful writer. This modesty is unbecoming of him, for Six Records of a Floating Life is a charming and well-crafted recollection of ordinary life in a distant place and time. He makes it real.

The title is unfortunately not accurate - though Fu Shen may have written six short pieces on his 'floating life', only four survive. The rest appear to have been lost to history.

The main focus of these reminisces is the story of Fu Shen's arranged marriage with his cousin, Chen Yun. Arranged marriages would be loveless affairs, but this is the exception because the two are truly in love with each other. They enjoy each others' conversation, they sneak off to festivals together, and even share dirty jokes. Their life together is charming and happy, even with the impediment of Fu Shen's own meager salary. They decorate the house, with Fu Shen happy to chatter about the details of flower arrangement, cooking, or wine with friends.

Though this love story is timeless, there are some jarring reminders that we are in a different time and place. The sale of a young daughter into marriage to pay debts is ordinary. So is the unquestioned use of concubines or Chen Yun's bound feet. Or even when Fu Shen speaks on the wonder of his relationship - that he had found another man in a woman's body. A telling remark, that.

(view spoiler)

The last chapter is a long rambling tour of the Chinese countryside, taken by Fu Shen on his official business trips. His reach is long and wide, and delves into obscurer places and landmarks. Even if you know the basics like where Guangzhou and Lake Tai are, many of these stops will easily elude you. I had to look up pictures of the surviving ones. This last chapter is a fine travelogue of faraway lands.

We don't know what happened to Fu Shen after this book was finished. There is no known date of death, nor any portraits of him or his wife. Yet in these short pages I felt a genuine connection with this man who lived and died long ago. Their lives are told with such emotion and candor that they are like poetry. I feel I will miss them.["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]> ...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Grace Tjan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011 , china , chinese-literature , classics

Have you ever...

been married off to your first cousin at seventeen?

been thrown out of the house for "mishandling arrangements to obtain a concubine" for your father-in-law?

been obsessed with the idea of finding a concubine for your husband?

tried to purchase an underage singsong girl to be a concubine to both yourself and your husband?

wasted to death because you failed to arrange for a live-in threesome relationship with your husband and his concubine?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions Have you ever...

been married off to your first cousin at seventeen?

been thrown out of the house for "mishandling arrangements to obtain a concubine" for your father-in-law?

been obsessed with the idea of finding a concubine for your husband?

tried to purchase an underage singsong girl to be a concubine to both yourself and your husband?

wasted to death because you failed to arrange for a live-in threesome relationship with your husband and his concubine?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions then you might have been a protagonist in this book, one of imperial China's most romantic love story, an 18th century memoir written by Shen Fu about his wife, Yun. The circumstances might seem odd to us, but it’s not difficult to understand why generations of Chinese, repressed by thousands of years of paternalistic culture, consider it to be romantic. Shen, an itinerant scholar who was chronically unemployed for much of his working life, wrote about his conjugal life with an intimate candor that was rare for his times. No, he didn’t write about that kinky threesome with the underage concubine --- it was a scheme that never came through, though I wonder whether Yun really wanted it, since we only see her through her husband’s perspective. Instead, there are scenes of him and Yun whiling away a moonlit night by drinking wine and reciting Tang poetry. Chrysanthemums bloomed around their modest, economy-sized cottage, and the ever resourceful Yun, an orphan who raised herself and her brother by taking in needlework, contrived to make movable screens out of live flowers. Shen himself is an aesthete who could devote pages on the correct way to display flowers (“When putting chrysanthemums in a vase one should select an odd number of flowers…”) and burning incense (“Buddha’s Hands should not be smelled by someone who is drunk, or they will spoil”). These scenes are among the most charming of this occasionally disjointed, rambling memoir, though I also find it rather disturbing that Shen managed to devote so much more pages to these pursuits than to their young children (who, due to their parents’ poverty and outcast status, had to be taken away to be raised by others). Shen and Yun’s lives are tragic, and their idea of marital happiness is at odds with our modern notions, yet ultimately it is their upbringing that is the strangest thing of all. The Chinese were determined that government officials should be scholars first and bureaucrats second. One of the largest empires in the history of the world was administered by a small group of men, who had not the slightest training in administration, and who knew more about the poetry of a thousand years before than they did about tax law. Imagine the government being ran by a bunch of English majors! This idea seems to me both daft and endearing at the same time --- and the real tragedy of Shen’s life (and others like him, and ultimately imperial China itself) is that at the end this is simply just not enough.
...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Nick rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, actually it's only four records (unless one counts a forgery). Shen Fu was completely unremarkable in public -- enough so that no one knows how he died -- but his memoir, unusually candid and personal for Chinese literature, reverals him as a creature of intense feeling. He is admired for the loving portrait of his wife that this book includes, but he was also a man capable of devoting more pages to the handling of flowers than to his two children. Still, this is perhaps the most immediate ...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Cecily rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biog-and-autobiog , historical-fiction-set-pre-20c , chinese-and-japanese

This was written in the late 1700s and early 1800s by a Chinese man who drifted between various clerical and artistic jobs.

Only four of the original six chapters exist, and it makes a very different style of storytelling: each chapter is thematic, and chronological within, but the book overall is not chronological, so some episodes are described in different chapters, in different ways (layers of floating records). It works very well, though the various notes, maps and appendices in this edition This was written in the late 1700s and early 1800s by a Chinese man who drifted between various clerical and artistic jobs.

Only four of the original six chapters exist, and it makes a very different style of storytelling: each chapter is thematic, and chronological within, but the book overall is not chronological, so some episodes are described in different chapters, in different ways (layers of floating records). It works very well, though the various notes, maps and appendices in this edition are very helpful too.

The four chapters concern his courtship and marriage; their hobbies and pastimes (mainly horticultural); the problems that beset them (ill health, un(der)employment, financial woes), and the author's travels. The last one is particularly good if you're familiar with Suzhou/Shanghai area, but perhaps less engaging if you're not.

It gives a fascinating insight into real lives of the period, because it is an authentic voice of that time. Very different from reading a modern historical novel, however well researched. Shen Fu isn't entirely likeable (though you have to admire his honesty), but his wife is delightful: bright, cheeky, slightly rebellious yet happy to help him find a concubine.

I read it in a day and whilst I wasn't rushing (it's pretty short), there is a beauty to it that really justifies a more leisurely approach.

After this, read The Red Thread by Nicholas Jose, in which a contemporary art dealer tracks down the missing chapters and notices echoes between the book and his life. See https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . ...more

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Jul 23, 2015 Ian Agadada-Davida rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: a-wish-liszt , read-2015 , reviews , reviews-3-stars

Guinness World Record for This Floating Life on GoodReads

Click below to find out whether you (or your nominee) won the Guinness World Record for floating the most old GoodReads reviews in the last twelve months:

(view spoiler)
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Feb 17, 2013 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book for several reasons. It is a rare and frank account of a failed literati during the Qing Dynasty; Shen Fu writes in an astonishingly intimate and emotional manner for his time and his upbringing giving the reader a glimpse into a world long gone. Despite the fact that Shen Fu believes he is a poor writer, his writing is lyrical, stark and incredibly romantic. Shen Fu, for all of his faults (and there are many), preserved for the ages the romance between himself and his wife Yun ...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Andrew added it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

When I read Chaucer for the first time, I thought "how contemporary this all is!" And when I read Shen Fu, I came to realize that he was a sort of Jack Kerouac of late 18th Century China. He:

--Has a badass wife who recites poetry
--Tries to pick up young women
--Spends a lot of time traveling around with his bros looking for Enlightenment and getting hammered

For those of you who are often confounded by the icy rigidity of so much classical Chinese prose, don't worry. Shen Fu is actually a pretty g ...more

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Oct 30, 2010 Jason rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Interesting book. It's a little slow and the chapter on travelling is not very interesting (this garden in this city you've never heard of is better than this other garden in another city you've never heard of). The first three chapters on marriage, lesiure and sorrow are worth reading. It gives insight into what makes up a man's life.

I wouldn't strongly recommend this book, but since it's only about 150 pages, its not much of a time investment if you're interested in life in China in the late ...more

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Dec 11, 2007 Andy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Weirdos

Story about a bad time-management average-intelligence Chinese man in semi-recent China. I would've liked the book more if the author didn’t talk like a 7 year old through most of it. Good love story with his wife, stupid political story about his losing his jobs and how tradition and family values made his family disown him (two or three times I don’t remember) Like Ethan Frome, everyone's life would’ve been better if he had gone for the dignity of just ending it. But then the book would never ...more

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Mar 16, 2015 Harperac rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: china , criticism

Fu Shen comes across as an unpretentious man who is merely interesting in the unpretentious appreciation of things. These include the arts, the places he travels too, but most importantly his deep and passionate love for his wife.

Of the four surviving chapters, the first one was the best. It's about the married life that Fu Shen shared with his wife Yun and their many happy moments. (He saves the unhappy moments for the third chapter.) He renders Yun with a magnificent eye for detail - the sheer Fu Shen comes across as an unpretentious man who is merely interesting in the unpretentious appreciation of things. These include the arts, the places he travels too, but most importantly his deep and passionate love for his wife.

Of the four surviving chapters, the first one was the best. It's about the married life that Fu Shen shared with his wife Yun and their many happy moments. (He saves the unhappy moments for the third chapter.) He renders Yun with a magnificent eye for detail - the sheer amount of attention he paid to her habits, her attitudes, and her movements speaks to his great love. He sets her in a world that responds to their love, the beautiful places they went and things they did.

Take this cute paragraph from the earlier part of their marriage as an example:

"Whenever we would meet in a darkened room or a narrow hallway of the house, we would hold hands and ask 'Where are you going?' We felt furtive, as if we were afraid that others would see us. In fact, at first we even avoided being seen walking or sitting together, though after a while we thought nothing of it. If Yun were sitting and talking to someone and saw me come in, she would stand up and move over to me and I would sit down beside her. Neither of us thought about this and it seemed quite natural; and though at first we felt embarrassed about it, we gradually grew accustomed to doing it. The strangest thing to me then was how old couples seemed to treat one another like enemies. I did not understand why. Yet people said, 'Otherwise, how could they grow old together?' Could this be true? I wondered."

Fu's decision to tell his life in separate "records" seems to me a felicitous one. First of all, you don't have to jump around to stuff all the time; he stays on topic (even if the topic is pretty broad, like his chapter all about travelling). Secondly, instead of there being too much detail moving as a snails pace, you get to see part of the story one way through, and the same situation with more details or a different context the next time through. It adds a lot more interest. It's like walking through a city.

The only reason I take a star off is that (except for the first chapter) there are too many boring stretches. There are definitely points at which I feel I'm hearing about the most important things in a man's life; and there are points at which I feel I've been cornered at a party by a man who wants to tell me about his tedious hobbies. The final chapter on travels was an almost comical alternation between sheer beauty and sheer tedium, sometimes more than once on a single page.

As something of an outsider when it comes to Chinese literature, I feel like this book has given me a good entry into the literary values of the time. Unlike more 'popular' works like the Three Kingdoms, there is a deep sense of aesthetic attention in Six Records. And unlike the poetry I've read, it's put together in a social context that partially explains its appeal. ...more

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Aug 21, 2014 Mel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century-non-fiction , chinese-history , chinese-literature , qing-dynasty

Shen Fu's Six records of a Floating Life is too short! Granted two chapters have gone missing since it was written in 1806 I wish there was more. I loved it so much. Well all except the bit about flower arranging and landscaping though I could understand why it was in there. It was a very touching autobiography of the life of a man livining in late 18th Century China who was usually broke but sometimes worked for the government, sometimes as an art dealer, but mostly just sat drinking with his w Shen Fu's Six records of a Floating Life is too short! Granted two chapters have gone missing since it was written in 1806 I wish there was more. I loved it so much. Well all except the bit about flower arranging and landscaping though I could understand why it was in there. It was a very touching autobiography of the life of a man livining in late 18th Century China who was usually broke but sometimes worked for the government, sometimes as an art dealer, but mostly just sat drinking with his wife and his friends discussing the finer things in life.

I loved reading about his drinking escapades, he did seem to be a bit of a drunk. Frequently talking about pawning items to buy wine. How being able to buy wine for entertaining your friends was the only reason you needed money. I liked the comment his wife made one time when he returned and she said, "are you very drunk again?"

She was by far the best part of the book. I do believe the woman had a little bit of a bisexual side. To start with there was the reference to her two best friends who used to sleep over and kick her husband out of her bed. Then she got in trouble with her husbands family for being a sworn sister of a sing-song girl. She was trying to get the girl to be a concubine for her husband but admitted she was really doing it because she was in love with the girl herself. The girl ended up being married to someone who had a great deal of money and his wife died of a broken heart. She also wrote poetry and loved old books. Fu talked about how she would collect old books and take them apart and have them rebound and how she did the same for calligraphy. Oh what a lovely hobby! (Particularly as the books were old in the late 18th century in China).
And then there was the time Fu convinced her to dress up like a man so she could sneak into the temple for the festival. She had to practice walking as a man, and managed to pull it off until she went over to chat to a group of women and accidentally touched one and got in trouble till she revealed her true identity. Fu wished she'd been born a man so they could go traveling together, but alas she never lived that long. They decided that in their next life she would get to be born the man and he the woman. It was all terribly romantic and tragic.

Fu also wrote lovely descriptions of his visits around China. My favourite was when he went to Canton and visited the brothels there. He complained that none of the women understood him and they all looked strange. Eventually he found a boat that catered to Northern tastes and upon finding a woman he liked his first thought was, "oh I wish my wife were here". He stayed with the prostitute for 4 months, he was very proud how little it cost him, and how well he treated her. But at the end he left he said the madam was too pushy, but I think the real reason was he just didn't have the money to pay for her. (He was perpetually broke). It was quite touching how he described the hard lives of the boat women. However this didn't stop him from abandoning his favourite, or doing anything to help her once he found out she had attempted suicide several times since he left.

It was a lovely book. Romantic, decadent and holding a true appreciation for nature and beauty...and wine.
...more

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Jun 18, 2015 Julian Meynell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century , chinese , reviewed

The book is really Four Records of a Floating Life, the last two records do not survive. It is autobiography, but it is divided into different themes, and whilst each of these records is chronological they overlap one another. The author Fu Shen was a minor bureaucrat with a failed career.

The book is very much of its time and place. The necessity of having a concubine for purposes of social climbing (and of course sex), foot binding and so on is taken for granted. The Chinese apparently consider ...more

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Aug 21, 2007 Lydia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book, an autobiography of a clerk in China circa 1810 set in Souzhou. He is in love with his wife, has courtesans, deals with his demanding family, and is always at a loss for money, but usually finds a way to go out with his friends. A great view of an artistic family of the time.

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May 17, 2010 Sophie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book. The translation is super awkward and exotifies everything Shenfu writes in charming ways.

-There are also great differences between our modern ideas and Shen Fu's of just what a book ought to be. The Six Records is not the chronologically constructed tale that we are now used to reading. Instead, Shen Fu takes particular topics and follows them each through his life, one at a time; the book is thus intended to be six different layers that add up to a 'floating life', each laye ...more

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Jun 16, 2007 Hilary rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: People interested in Chinese history *beyond* the imperial court

An illuminating look at life among the not-quite-elite at the apogee of the Qing dynasty.

Shen Fu was a late eighteenth-century private secretary in various local government offices in the Suzhou area. This is a series of diary-like (except not chronological) observations he made about his life. The private secretaries were the ones who helped the magistrates and other provincial officials carry out their tasks. Their job was very important, since the provincial officials they worked for were of An illuminating look at life among the not-quite-elite at the apogee of the Qing dynasty.

Shen Fu was a late eighteenth-century private secretary in various local government offices in the Suzhou area. This is a series of diary-like (except not chronological) observations he made about his life. The private secretaries were the ones who helped the magistrates and other provincial officials carry out their tasks. Their job was very important, since the provincial officials they worked for were often unfamiliar with the area and sometimes even ignorant of the local dialect. These guys had studied for the civil service exams but generally not passed even the lowest tier of them. So they were literate, but not successful.

Even though these guys (unlike the provincial officials) generally stayed in the same area during their careers and became very familiar with (not to say entrenched in) it, yamen secretary does not seem to have been a particularly stable lifestyle, at least not in Shen Fu's case. He seems to have had a lot of problems with debts of various kinds.

The neat thing about this book is that it is at once very familiar and very foreign. Lots of the things Shen Fu writes about, in a wonderfully frank and personal tone, are things the reader can relate to: passionate love, financial troubles, bickering relatives, bureaucratic corruption, delight in a good meal, etc. But others are historically particular. For example, when they're in a hard spot, Shen Fu and his wife give their underage daughter to the family of her betrothed, so that the family can raise her (and have a maid) until it's time for the marriage. And when Shen Fu's father dies, he beats his head on the coffin until he bleeds--demonstrative filial piety being the usual, and expected, behavior. The combination of familiar and foreign elements makes this a great way to immerse yourself in a fascinating historical period. ...more

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Aug 19, 2010 Matt Turner rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I took a trip to Suzhou this July, and I read this (a large portion of which takes place there) shortly after I returned to Beijing. I wish I had read it before the trip!

In any case, this is the incomplete account of a man rising and falling and rising again to grace in the literary and political circles of his time. Although a large section is about his wife (who his family dislikes, and who dies), by the end of the fourth (and final) chapter, I thought the main subject of the book was the guy' ...more

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Jul 19, 2014 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of those novels you want to linger through because it's so reflective (and the extensive notes at the back are totally necessary, so count on each page taking 2x as long to read). Despite plenty of normal guy things (boozing with the bros, mid-level clerical job, hitting on ladies) Shen Fu is anything but your average guy. He did DIY projects with his wife, reflected on the social position of women at the time, and loved growing flowers. He literally spent 10+ pages detailing the way ...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Grace rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am rather amused while reading the reviews about this book, especially those who have rated only two stars. I think that it is reasonable enough to assume that those who rated 5 stars, are strongly influenced by the fame of Yutang Lin, the name of the translator. Although it is fair enough to say that the love story which was depicted in the text is 'interesting', nevertheless, to my personal point of view, a woman who can not give wise advise to her husband in order to lead a sensible and mor ...more

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Kai I always like the book reviews a woman who can give wise advice to her husband, leading to actual improvement of both of their lives ;-)
Mar 23, 2013 12:01PM

Grace Kai wrote: "I always like the book reviews a woman who can give wise advice to her husband, leading to actual improvement of both of their lives ;-)"

h ...more
Mar 23, 2013 02:45PM

Bob "Various unfamiliar names of places with relatively similar scenarios, would be a good reason to bring the sense of boredom."

Right. Perhaps Shen Fu sh ...more
Oct 24, 2013 11:10PM

Dec 28, 2013 Bob rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After about half way through the book, I've lost interest in Shen Fu's story. The first parts when he reminisce about his youth and what seems to be first love to his would be wife, I was hooked. It's a moving piece by a man who seems to be deeply in love and reliving all his romantic memories all over again. But, by the time the story rolls further, there simply are too many itineraries dumped in such a short time. As the story goes, there're less of fully fleshed experiences which makes me fee ...more

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Jun 11, 2015 k rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

More formally interesting than actually interesting to read. Records one and three were compelling, the other two were too grounded in description to enjoy as such, though they did provide some insight into Shen Fu's character. Still, the style, with the layering of the records and the drifting transitions, is worth attention. Interesting to contrast to, say, Sei Shonagon.

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Feb 17, 2013 Carlos Burga rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history , non-fiction

Although the book is sometimes filled with a list of minor details that can get to be exhausting, the book does serve to paint a picture of 18th century China that is largely unknown to western reader. What I thinks is very important is the type of narrative that it is. It doesn’t dwell into the administration of the empire but yet it strongly conveys the very bureaucratic and meritocratic nature of its society. On the other hand it also serves to show the life of a mundane and somewhat failed m ...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Greg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This autobiographical narrative is concerned a classic Chinese text. It is a very interesting read, especially because Shen Fu seems to be an honest and critical interpreter of himself, his situation, and society in general. Of particular beauty is his description of his life with his childhood love and wife, Yun, despite the hardships she was forced to endure. He starts with a quote by the poet Su Tung-po, saying, “All things are like spring dreams, passing with no trace.” He regards his record ...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Levi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Interesting. There's not much more I can give you. I mean it was written way back when by a complete commoner of the Qing Dynasty. He worked in several administrative offices but just wanted to travel to different mountains, scenic places in his world, and enjoy his life. The book ends abruptly as only 4 of the 6 records were recovered.
The book is simply filled with many short anecdotes of where he went, who he went with, who he met, what he saw, and what he did afterwards. He often makes refe ...more

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Sep 22, 2015 Jeff Powanda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading this slim volume gave me a precious glimpse at the life of a struggling scholar and his young wife in Soochow in the late 18th century. In the Kindle edition that I read, it was really only four records of a floating life. Two of the records were found to be forgeries, so they were not included in the ebook. Too bad, because I'm sure I would have enjoyed them as well.

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Oct 20, 2014 Jerman rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is lovely for a couple reasons. It's refreshing to think of a life happening in layers, and old world China's attitudes toward polyamory and concubines. And the author is very close to nature. He takes the nurturing of flowers and his garden quite seriously. There is lots of delicate art to the landscape too that is not taken for granted.

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Apr 10, 2012 Bree rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shen Fu’s Six Records of a Floating Life is more than an autobiography; it is a life composed from poetry and flower petals. Somewhere between the beauty of the words is also found a glimpse into a moment in time that few Westerners understand, much less know of. It is inside these words that can be discovered new concepts and previously unknown ideals. Concepts foreign to Western society take on stiff definitions based on incomplete knowledge and broad stereotypes. In Six Records of a Floating ...more

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Mar 25, 2015 Lane Pybas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: china

I think the main appeal of this book is in the interest it holds as an anthropological study of the life of an early 19th century scholar. And I suppose it is interesting…I learned that being a drunken, jobless scholar used to be super tolerated in China, that women were treated like pets who couldn't leave the house, and that filial piety is confusing. Shen Fu’s story is absolutely not told in chronological order, which makes it pretty tedious…especially when coupled with the last chapter “The ...more

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Mar 04, 2015 Kirin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Had to read this for one of my classes. It was an interesting read. I definitely enjoyed seeing 16th century China through the narrators eyes.

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Apr 15, 2014 Oh Ruby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh shouldn't have read it on the plane

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Aug 28, 2015 P.T. Borden rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oustandingly told. That is how stories have to be told!

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15896781-chapters-from-a-floating-life?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1355092877l/15896781.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15896781-chapters-from-a-floating-life?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Chapters from a Floating Life: The Autobiography of a Chinese Artist by Fu Shen[/url]