The Hall of Uselessness

Praise

“What made Leys most remarkable was his depth, his continuous effort to try to get to the bottom of things, to understand them, and to render them with the great simplicity proper of the people who really worked through them.” —Francesco Sisci, Asia Times Online

“He was a literary scholar in the Chinese literati tradition, that is to say, his scholarship was a form of literature.” —Ian Buruma 

“That early on I developed a critical distance from the ideologies of the epoch I owe to writers like Simon Leys and Guy Debord. They kept me from being a dupe.”
—Olivier Assayas

“The message these pieces drive home with wit and uncommon clarity is this: there is a central truth that may—no, must!—be spoken. There is a manner by which life may be lived fully and well. And there is a richer, deeper, grander conception of human nature than we are currently given to understand. To see Leys’s essays assembled is to appreciate, if you haven’t already, the range of philosophical, artistic and literary interests that sustain even his slightest productions.”
—Geordie Williamson, The Australian

“No one in the China field has combined profound erudition and stiletto insight as well as Leys. For me he has been the North Star of China watching—equally as constant, and just as brilliant.”
—Perry Link, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at Princeton University