Story summary
Краткое содержание: Молитвенный коврик плоти
- Чтение: 8 мин.
- 10 parts
- Аудио скоро
A scholar who wants the first beauty in China scoffs at a monk's verse and sets out to prove him wrong.
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Молитвенный коврик плоти — кратко о книге
Краткое содержание: 8 min на чтение
- Время чтения
- Около 5 h 10 min4 h 5 min fast, 6 h 5 min slow
- Длительность
- Слов: 73 200
- Уровень в библиотеке
- Средний longer sentences, everyday words
- Первая публикация
- 1657by Ли Юй
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Сколько времени нужно на чтение классики · Обновлено
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Молитвенный коврик плоти in short
The Carnal Prayer Mat follows a clever, vain scholar named Weiyang who wants the best mind and the best beauty in China. A monk predicts that his appetite will cost him dearly, and the scholar answers that heaven is not so strict. The book then gives him every chance to test the claim, through a loyal wife, a thief friend, a daring surgery and a house of women.
What Молитвенный коврик плоти is about
A young scholar kneels before a mountain monk and is handed a short verse. It tells him to throw away the monk's leather bag and go sit on a mat of flesh. He pockets the verse and walks off, sure the old man is wrong.
The Carnal Prayer Mat is a Chinese comic novel attributed to Li Yu, a writer of the Qing dynasty. It is frank about sex, and those scenes are treated plainly and briefly here. It is a comedy with a sermon inside it, and you get its sharp talk, odd schemes and the lesson about desire and debt.
Для кого. Readers who enjoy Chinese classic fiction, satirical morality tales and sharp social comedy will find a lot here, along with Qing storytelling and Buddhist ideas of debt and reward.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A bawdy tale is sugar around a lesson
The first chapter starts with the author's defence and not with a plot. He says that people spend their lives in toil and worry, and that the union of man and woman is the one comfort left to ease that load.
He compares desire to medicine. Ginseng is a fine tonic in small steady doses, and it harms those who swallow it by the handful. A man gets the best of desire at home, from his own wife, and the worst of it from the neighbour's wife.
Then he faces the obvious question. Why write a book that describes lust if he wants to cut it down? His answer is that readers ignore sermons but gobble up racy stories. So he lures them with pleasure and slips in a warning while they enjoy themselves, like a bitter olive wrapped in a sweet date.
The book asks to be judged by where it ends up and not by how it begins.
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A monk warns the scholar and names his wish
Chapter two moves to the Kuocang mountains, where a monk named Gufeng lives alone.
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A strict father and a wife who learns too well
Weiyang sends matchmakers out to find the best beauty.
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A thief with five rules and a tempting notebook
On the road, Weiyang looks for women and not for teachers.
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A joke wounds him and a surgeon promises a cure
Sai Kunlun finds Weiyang a silk seller's wife to pursue, and then asks one frank question.
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A swapped bed and a bargain for a wife
With his new body, Weiyang goes with Sai Kunlun to the silk seller's house.
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A house of sisters and a secret in a box
Yanfang's pregnancy interrupts their lovemaking, and Weiyang looks for another woman.
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Every act of lust runs up a bill that someone pays
The book's main argument is stated twice, once by the monk and once by the plot.
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Appetite, vanity and the body as a measure of men
Under the plot sits a second idea, about how men measure themselves.
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A storyteller who interrupts to argue with you
The book is told like the performance of a street storyteller.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Weiyang A gifted young scholar who wants to be the first writer and to marry the first beauty in the land.
- Gufeng A hermit monk with three vows who warns the scholar that lust always comes with a bill.
- Jade Fragrance Weiyang's sheltered young wife, taught pleasure by her husband and left at home under her father's strict eye.
- Iron Door Jade Fragrance's father, a stern scholar who keeps his gate shut to all guests.
- Sai Kunlun A famous burglar with five rules of honour who becomes Weiyang's sworn brother and helper.
- Yanfang A nearsighted, clever silk seller's wife who weighs men by practical ability and keeps her own counsel.
- Quan Laoshi Yanfang's plain, trusting husband, nicknamed Honest Quan, who sets out to repay a wrong.
- Fragrant Cloud A neighbour with a natural perfume who shares her lover with two cousins to keep him close.
How it ends (spoiler)
Weiyang finds that his wife, Jade Fragrance, has been sold into a brothel in the capital. She hangs herself when he arrives as a customer. Yanfang runs away with a monk and is killed, and his infant daughters die in their sleep. Beaten and ashamed, Weiyang returns to Gufeng, becomes a monk named Stubborn Stone and later cuts off his grafted organ. Quan Laoshi and Sai Kunlun also join the order, and all find peace.
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Вопросы о книге Молитвенный коврик плоти
What is The Carnal Prayer Mat about?
It follows a vain scholar, Weiyang, who seeks the most beautiful wife and many lovers. A monk warns him that desire brings repayment, and the plot tests that warning through marriage, friendship, surgery and a house of women.
Who wrote The Carnal Prayer Mat and when?
It is attributed to Li Yu, a writer of the Qing dynasty in seventeenth-century China. The story itself is set in the Yuan period and was written as popular fiction with a moral purpose.
What does the title mean?
The mat is the monk's image for a life of physical pleasure, set against his leather bag, which stands for a monk's discipline. His verse tells the scholar to trade one for the other and learn from it.
Как сослаться на это издание
Li Yu. The Carnal Prayer Mat. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-carnal-prayer-mat.
Li Yu. (2026). The carnal prayer mat. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-carnal-prayer-mat (Original work published 1657)
Li Yu. The Carnal Prayer Mat. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-carnal-prayer-mat.
@book{li2026carnal,
author = {Li Yu},
title = {The Carnal Prayer Mat},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-carnal-prayer-mat},
note = {First published 1657}
}
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