How you explore Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio on Literah
The cast, the places, the objects, the plot, and the author’s own words — each one a card in a feed you scroll on your phone. One at a time, at your pace, in any order you like.
- Built for your phone. Literah is designed for mobile, so your worlds travel with you. On a laptop it shows a QR code to carry the world to your phone.
- A feed, not a wall of text. 25 characters, 12 places, 12 objects and 6 plot beats, each its own card with its own illustration.
- The author’s own words. 30 passages of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio sit in the feed verbatim, exactly as Pu Songling wrote them, each with a short reading of what it is doing. The map is ours; the prose is always the book’s.
- The same scroll, a better world. The gesture you already give away to feeds, spent on Pu Songling instead.
The Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio feed, as it appears in your mobile
The plot of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
The story beat by beat, as Literah maps it.
- Pu Songling gathers strange accounts at a roadside table
- Fox spirits enter the scholar's room - and they are not what he expected
- The underworld runs on the same rules as the living world - which is the problem
- The Lo-cha country - a land where ugliness is considered beauty
- The cricket - a boy dies for a court game and is reborn as the champion
- Pu Songling closes - still at the roadside table, still listening
The author's pen in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
The passages themselves, Pu Songling's own words, as Literah maps it.
- Collecting Tales Into Storiesch. 1
- We Marvel at Devilsch. 1
- Piecing Together My Talesch. 1
- The Guardian Appointmentch. 1
- The Book of Fatech. 1
- The Unbound Haired Fairych. 1
- The Paper Moonch. 1
- The Priest's Warningch. 1
- The Devil Becomes the Girlch. 1
- The Barrow Handle Pear Treech. 1
- Directed to One Who Canch. 1
- The Judge Brought Inch. 1
- The Bride Who Could Not Kneelch. 1
- Ying Ning Laughs No Morech. 1
- Ying Ning in the Treech. 1
- The Fellow With Wicked Eyesch. 1
- Breath and the Red Pillch. 1
- The Return Proposedch. 1
- Some Foxes Are Harmlessch. 1
- Buried Togetherch. 1
The characters of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
Who is who, as Literah maps it.
- Pu Songlingmajor
- Sung Taomajor
- Wang’s Wifemajor
- The Painted Skin Demonmajor
- Judge Lumajor
- Chu Erh-tanmajor
- Miss Ying-ningmajor
- Miss Chiao-nomajor
- Miss Lien-hsiangmajor
- Ma Chün / Lung-meimajor
- The Fighting Cricket Familymajor
- Wangmajor
- Chumajor
- Mr. Wangmajor
- Taoist Priest of Lao-shanmajor
- Sung Tao’s Mothersupporting
The locations in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
Where it happens, as Literah maps it.
- The Chinese Studioprivate study
- The Supernatural Examination Hallunderworld bureaucracy
- The Painted Wall Templetemple
- Lao-shan Monasterymountain monastery
- Wang’s Househousehold
- Judge Lu’s Courtunderworld court
- The Fox Householdsupernatural household
- Gardens and Flower Spacesgarden
- The Official Yamenmagistrate office
- Lo-ch’a Country and the Sea Marketstrange country
- The Public Marketplacemarketplace
- The Fighting Cricket Householdhousehold
The core concepts in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
What the book keeps returning to, as Literah maps it.
- The strange reveals what ordinary society hides
- Devils and foxes are less strange than people
- Appearance and desire turn surfaces into traps
- Bureaucracy continues beyond death
- Fox-women test human categories of danger, care, and marriage
- Failed ambition turns wonder into humiliation
- Objects become thresholds of truth
- Public comedy exposes social cruelty
- Moral consequence is real, but rarely tidy
- Scholarship is both aspiration and wound
The objects of note in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
The things that carry meaning, as Literah maps it.
- Manuscript Pile
- Lamp and Writing Brush
- Official Summons
- White-foreheaded Horse
- Examination Paper
- Book of Fate
- Painted Wall
- The Lao-shan Wall
- Painted Skin
- Fighting Cricket
- Magic Mirror
- Pear Tree
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This collection includes Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, along with The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, The Tale of Genji, The Rámáyan of Válmíki, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Hung Lou Meng, or, The Dream of the Red Chamber, Book I, Noli Me Tangere, The Popol Vuh and The Story of an African Farm.
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