David Der-wei Wang (王德威), the editor of this magisterial volume from Harvard University Press, was born in Taiwan and received his first degree from National Taiwan University. Now at Harvard University in the US, he is one of the world’s most eminent scholars in the field of Chinese studies.
In his introductory remarks Wang calls this book, A New Literary History of Modern China, a “highly unconventional product” that “may raise many eyebrows.” With 161 essays from 143 authors, it’s certainly gargantuan in scope. It covers its subject from the late 18th century to the current millennium, and is the fourth volume from Harvard to survey national literary histories in this manner, the volumes published so far covering France, Germany and the US.
The volume is drawn together by the belief that there is no single “modernity” in the field of Chinese literature, but a sometimes confusing mass of “contested modernities.” Hence, perhaps, the eyebrow-raising nature of the project, and also its length. But it’s a remarkable product, even by Harvard’s invariably high standards.
There is so much in this volume that we will only focus on the 10 items that concentrate on Taiwan. This is a high number for a book that aims to cover 200 years of all literature written in Chinese.
The essays are printed in the chronological order of their subject matter, and are given a precise date that points to its distinctive focus, and many have catchy titles in addition. “Revolution and love” is one, while “Red Prison Files” and “Revolution and Rhine Wine” are others. “Sherlock Holmes comes to China” is accompanied by similar titles on Munchausen and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Of the essays on Taiwan, Lin Pei-yin’s (林姵吟) “Clinical Diagnosis for Taiwan” is about protests in 1921 against classical Chinese literary genres being imposed on a largely Taiwanese-speaking people, despite their being under Japanese rule at the time. This protest, the author says (with questionable veracity) is still valid in modern Taiwan where “any work that does not express distinct social concerns is likely to be marginalized,”
I was particularly interested to see an essay “On Memory and Trauma: From the 228 Incident to the White Terror” by Kang-I Sun Chang (孫康宜), because I’d previously thought that no mention of these events was permitted for several decades after their occurrence. The essay, however, isn’t about literature but a series of personal reminiscences — the author’s father was for a long time imprisoned in the hope he would betray the whereabouts of supposed leftists. She also identifies the way language was central to the terrible purges. At one point anyone who couldn’t speak Mandarin was shot on the spot, she relates.
Two other essays do consider literature on the same topic, however: “Chen Ying Zhen on the White Terror in Taiwan” by Liao Ping-hui (廖炳惠), and “Literary representation of the White Terror and Rupture in Mid-Twentieth-Century Taiwan” by Sung-Sheng Yvonne Chang (張誦聖).
The former is an account of the literary and personal career of the celebrated Marxist Chen Ying-zhen (陳映真), including his trilogy on the White Terror era. The latter is about the modernist Kuo Sung-fen (郭松棻), whose novella Moon Seal, set in the White Terror era, was published in the China Times newspaper in 1984.
Elsewhere, there’s an essay on Crystal Boys (孽子) by Kenneth Pai (白先勇). When this was issued in an English translation by the Gay Sunshine Press in California it was labeled as Asia’s first gay novel. But the author of this essay, John Weinstein, who has met Pai in the US where he now lives, prefers to see it as a Taiwanese novel with some gay characters.
Then there’s an article on the film I Don’t want to Sleep Alone by Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮). The author, Pheng Cheah (謝永平), sees language as at the heart of the film, and argues that Malaysian Chinese (the film is set in Malaysia) can only be properly understood by video-audio representation, such as film, and not by print.
Another essay is about the Taiwanese writer Chen Ping (陳平), better known as Sanmao (三毛), who wrote extensively about her travels in the Western Sahara, as well as in the wildernesses of South America. The author, Clint Capehart, considers her as possibly responsible for a subsequent cult of vagabond romanticism. The title of the essay, “A Modern Taiwanese Innocents Abroad,” is an allusion to the 1869 book by the US author Mark Twain.
In “Taiwan’s Genius Lu Heruo,” Faye Yuan Kleeman (阮斐娜) describes the career of Lu Ho-jo (呂赫若), a man who displayed his talents in many media, including theater and writing, and died in mysterious circumstances at the age of 38 in 1951. He had joined the illegal Taiwanese Communist Party in 1947, following the 228 Incident. The writer considers that Lu, had he lived, might have refashioned the shape of Taiwanese literature.
The famous book Orphan of Asia (亞細亞的孤兒) is seen by Tsai Chien-hsin (蔡建鑫) in connection with the song of the same name by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Lo Ta-yu (羅大佑), first issued in 1983 and still popular.
The editor contributes a piece called “Invitation to a Beheading,” echoing the title of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1938 novel. It turns out to be about the Wushe Incident (霧社事件) during Japanese rule, plus Wu He’s (舞鶴) novel on it, Remains of Life (餘生) [reviewed in Taipei Times on May 18, 2017]. Wang’s title seems in somewhat poor taste considering these events were a series of mass murders.
For the rest, there’s a piece on the novel Wolf Totem (狼圖騰), published in 2004 and later filmed, and another on Ang Lee (李安). There’s also an article on Han Han (韓寒), the 16-year-old who in 1999 astonished China with a single essay, and went on to become an internationally-known blogger.
This, then, is a widely inclusive book, and it’s hard to imagine that in the future any academic library will be without it. I have only one criticism: that the catchy titles don’t always reflect the style of the articles, which are sometimes just traditional and straightforward narratives. In addition, the specific dates seem little more than a gimmick. “Comprehensive” thus seems a better term to describe this book than “unconventional.”
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