The film without the cuts. And the book itself.
The strange tells the truth.
Pu Songling
A poor scholar writes by lamplight, gathering devils, foxes, ghosts, and officials into one private archive.
The Chinese Studio
In a poor scholar's night study, devils, foxes, ghosts, and human folly all get written down.
He turns rumor into literature, raising the question of where truth ends.
Read →Collecting Tales Into Stories
For my talents are not those of Yü Pao, elegant explorer of the records of the Gods; I am rather animated by the Spirit of Su Tung-p‘o, who loved to hear men speak of the supernatural. I get people to commit what they tell me to writing, and subsequently I dress it up in the form of a story; and thus in the lapse of time my friends from all quarters have supplied me with quantities of material, which, from my habit of collecting, has grown into a vast pile.
Pu Songling is careful to describe himself as a collector, not an inventor. He turns down comparison with the scholar who explored the records of the gods and claims instead only an appetite: like Su Tung-p'o, he simply loves hearing about the strange. What he adds is the dressing up, the shaping of other people's raw tales into stories, and he is honest that the real bulk of the work came from friends handing him material year after year until it became a pile too large to ignore.
Pu Songling gathers strange accounts at a roadside table
A failed scholar sets a pot of tea by the road and asks passing strangers for their strangest story - and writes every one down.
Manuscript Pile
A private heap of ghost stories, kept alive by a scholar the state passed over.
Sung Tao
A sick scholar is summoned from his coffin to sit for an examination beyond life.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
The cast, locations, objects of note, core concepts, and selected passages in the Author’s Pen - at your own pace.
The Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio World, as it plays on your phone
- Meet the people. 25 characters, each with a portrait, who they are and what they want.
- Walk the places. 12 places, each pictured, and what happens there.
- Follow the plot. The turns of the story, in order, so you always know where you are.
- Taste the original. 30 key passages in Pu Songling’s own words, each with a short reading of what it is doing.
- The complete book. Every word, in a reader made for your phone. From any passage, one tap opens the book at that very page.
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