Chinese Literature

[redhead]

What have been people's experiences with Su Tong? So far I've read Raise the Red Lantern and Rice and I'm less than impressed, although I did have extremely high expectations going into both.

Also, I read somewhere that the English translation to his The Boat to Redemption uses an early draft (like the second draft or something like that) instead of the final product. Apparently publishers couldn't wait to get it out, and while it's nice to see publishers be enthusiastic about translations, this sounds terrible. The translation managed to win the Man Asian literary Prize, but reception of it among readers has been...less than spectacular. It's a shame because apparently the Chinese version is considered to be Tong's magnum opus. Looking at the reception of his Binu and the Great Wall in China versus overseas, I suspect a similar thing happened there. In the past he's been considered for English prizes like the Man Booker International, I hope these awful translations don't prevent him from being nominated or winning in the future.

 

[spacepirate]

What have been people's experiences with Su Tong? So far I've read Raise the Red Lantern and Rice and I'm less than impressed, although I did have extremely high expectations going into both.

Also, I read somewhere that the English translation to his The Boat to Redemption uses an early draft (like the second draft or something like that) instead of the final product. Apparently publishers couldn't wait to get it out, and while it's nice to see publishers be enthusiastic about translations, this sounds terrible. The translation managed to win the Man Asian literary Prize, but reception of it among readers has been...less than spectacular. It's a shame because apparently the Chinese version is considered to be Tong's magnum opus. Looking at the reception of his Binu and the Great Wall in China versus overseas, I suspect a similar thing happened there. In the past he's been considered for English prizes like the Man Booker International, I hope these awful translations don't prevent him from being nominated or winning in the future.

Cannot say anything on the translation front, but I'm not a great fan of the style of how his English translation books look. Their covers - such as My Life as Emperor and Binu - look very tacky and unappealing, but that's neither here nor there.

I actually did enjoy Raise the Red Lantern, and thought it was a simple, very clean novella with a fair bit of psychological insight. It reminded me a lot of Yellow Wallpaper, but I think it goes deeper into the socio-cultural aspects which for me was interesting. In the collection I read, I also highly enjoyed his other novella which was by far the more stylistic and narratively innovative out of the three pieces, Nineteen Thirty-Four (?) Overall, I think my experiences with him have been positive enough for me to want to read something further down the line - but he would not be my first choice any time soon. (Hoping to read a lot more Mo Yan, Can Xue and Eileen Chang over the Summer!) But, I would agree that he is over-hyped, or else, like yourself, I went into the book with too high expectations.

 

[redhead]

This fall I'm going to China to teach English and I'm planning on bringing some of his books with me, maybe lowered expectations will help me enjoy him more, along with being immersed in Chinese culture.

I remember when Mo Yan won the Nobel some thought it should have gone to Su Tong instead. So far I can't say I agree, and if another Chinese writer wins it in the next 10 or 20 years, it seems to me there are other candidates already more worthy than Tong.

 

[spacepirate]

I remember when Mo Yan won the Nobel some thought it should have gone to Su Tong instead. So far I can't say I agree, and if another Chinese writer wins it in the next 10 or 20 years, it seems to me there are other candidates already more worthy than Tong.

Oh I agree completely. Mo Yan is miles ahead of Su Tong from what I've reach of each. I think Su Tong was lucky in that Raise the Red Lantern became a famous film, and then everyone was clamouring for Chinese literature and he just happened to tick all the right boxes. Perhaps it's more to do with the lack of Chinese translation and decent authors overall, so we've only got a select few which are not representative of the best contemporary literature in the country? Maybe.

I would be interested in hearing what other candidates you had in mind Nobel-wise. I really think China stands a good chance at another Nobel in definitely 20 years, or sooner.

 

[redhead]

I'll have to read a bit more of these authors to solidify my views, but I think Ma Jian, Bei Dao, or Yan Lianke all have pretty good chances.

From what I've heard Ma Jian is a mixed bag, with his works veering from detailing romantic, maybe a bit immature Kerouac-esque travels to well-written attacks on contemporary China. Bei Dao was seen as a big contender before Gao Xingjian won, but now he's rarely seen as a possibility. I think he still has a chance. Yan Lianke I've only read a few chapters of his Serve the People, but already he seems promising. Given his Kafka prize win and his young age, I think he's the most likely out of this bunch to win, though in 10 or 20 years who knows, maybe another strong Chinese writer could emerge.

 

[redhead]

Just finished Lianke's Serve the People. A short addicting read, it's a love story of sorts between an officer and a commander's wife during the cultural revolution. As a work of satire, it's hilarious, but I probably would've gotten more out of it if I was more familiar with the culture/time period: there are times where the prose bursts with poeticism, but for the most part the book is written in a style that verges on wooden but is very clearly a parody of sayings and speeches from that era and, I suspect, the style books were written then. The tone was reminiscent of the propaganda sections of The Orphan Master's Son, leading me to believe that Lianke is very conscious of the style he uses in the book and that it is "wooden" at times on purpose. I'll definitely check out his other books after this.

So, unless Ma Jian's Red Dust completely blows me away, Lianke is my pick as the forerunner for China's next shot at the Nobel.

 

[spacepirate]

I would recommend reading Can Xue, having just started Five Spice Street. She's pretty prolific, avant-garde and controversial enough in her own right to warrant some attention. Definitely somebody to keep an eye on in terms of contemporary writing.

 

[Caodang]

I would recommend reading Can Xue, having just started Five Spice Street. She's pretty prolific, avant-garde and controversial enough in her own right to warrant some attention. Definitely somebody to keep an eye on in terms of contemporary writing.

I totally agree with you!

 

[redhead]

I've heard really mixed things about Can Xue, with people seeming to either love her or hate her. Can you tell me a bit more about her so I know what to expect if I pick up a book by her?

 

[Sisyphus]

I'm surprised nobody's made a thread about Mo Yan yet. There seem to be threads for some other random Chinese writers but none for the "first" Chinese Nobelist.
I thought of giving Mo Yan a try and wondered which of his works are regarded as his best?

 

[spacepirate]

For Mo Yan Red Sorghum is probably the best to begin with. However I do think Sandalwood Death is perhaps his most 'literary' novel, and I also really enjoyed his short story collection Shifu: You'll Do Anything for a Laugh.

Personally I agree and find Yan Lianke's works to be too pedestrian and straight-forward. The allegory is exhausted over and over. Although The Explosion Chronicles, his new book, sounds quite interesting so will have to read it and re-evaluate. In terms of other contemporary Chinese writers, you have the old guard: Yu Hua, Su Tong, Wang Anyi, Han Shaogong, Jia Pingwa, Ma Jian. I don't think any of them are as good as Mo Yan by a mile however I could see them giving the next Chinese Nobel to Yu Hua or Su Tong but it would be a very safe choice in my opinion.

I would absolutely love it if Can Xue won. She's an incredible stylist and personal favourite. I would also be interested to see what further work comes out of perhaps other not so obvious writers, such as Dorothy Tse or Ge Fei (whose works have been getting a lot of press recently).

 

[Marba]

I remember that when Mo Yan won the Nobel Per Wästberg, chairman of the Nobel Committee in the Swedish Academy, said that his two favorite books were The Republic of Wine and Big Breasts & Wide Hips. (And said he hoped for Swedish translations, which still hasn't happened yet...)

 

[Sisyphus]

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[ArthurDestiney]

There is a difference between these types of author:

a) A knowledgeable Westerner who has spent decades in China.

b) A journalist who has spent a month there and "knows everything".

c) A Chinese person who writes about his own country in his own language.

What I'm trying to access is type-c) people. The only way I can possibly do this is if there are translators from the Mandarin and Cantonese who can convey what such people write in a language I can read (e.g. English).

I would obviously read things by a) and b) people to get an initial orientation. But then I want to find out what the Chinese think of China in as uncensored a manner as possible.

China isn't all Confucius and the I-Ching. They have, in the lifetime of many people still alive today, had a nasty murderous r?gime run by a despotic Communist and his wife. Mainland China is still trying to square the circle of Communism and capitalism. They want to buy up raw materials from Africa to keep their country going, doing little in return for Africans. They also have, I suspect, a developed literature parallel to the official one, a literature that tells the truth about all these things. But it is written in a language that is closed to 99.99999999% of Europeans.

I grant you that expat Chinese people can shed light on the country they live in. But I want to reach further than mere foreigners living in China, and find out what Chinese people, whether expats or still living there, think about their own country, both in terms of belles lettres (fiction, poetry and essays, as we understand these in the West) and non-fiction.

If you want to get a relatively uncensored perspective of China, I would suggest Mo Yan's novels to you. I haven't read them, but my mother loves them, and having been born in a rural Chinese village during the middle of the great Cultural Revolution she has seen her fair share of despotism in Chinese society. She always gets quite emotional when she talks of Mo Yan's books; apparently they resonate quite strongly with her own personal experiences. And it might be comforting for you to know that Chinese state media were not particularly thrilled about news of Mo Yan winning the Nobel Prize in Literature; when the news broke they kind of just brushed over it on the news, despite the fact that he is the first actual Chinese to win a Nobel Prize.

I'm glad you have such an interest in Chinese literature, and I would say you're quite right about many things you mentioned in your posts. My own teacher once told us that Chinese literature has declined and suffered, and that to find real Chinese literature you have to go to Taiwan. This is simply an inherent malady of Chinese culture-our society has too much of an affinity for all that is bloated and phony and too little tolerance for harsh words. If you really do want to grasp what is best in Chinese culture, I would still suggest to you the ancient classics that are still being read today-there is no need to focus exclusively on the predicament of a modern Chinese literature that is suffocating under the chains of a dictatorship; you will miss much that Chinese literature has to offer.

But if you're more interested in getting a true picture of modern China, you would of course be rather hard pressed. I do appreciate that you desire to learn about China from actual Chinese people-it really is the only way to get an accurate picture of any country. But despite what has happened in the past decades China, especially true Chinese culture, is still rather disjointed from the international world. You can't trust Westerners because they all bring in their Western perspectives, but you also can't trust Chinese writers to tell the full story because of the censorship. (You said you suspect that there's another unofficial literature parallel to the official one that tells the truth about all these things, and that there aren't any good, critical translators. But I personally feel that the real problem isn't about the translators; even if there were such an absolutely truth-speaking Chinese literature, even regular Chinese people wouldn't know about it; The censors are really busy these days.) The people who do know the true story and are willing to tell it to you-well, you can't communicate with them because they don't know English and you don't know Chinese. So really the problem you are presenting is quite unsolvable.

But still, with all that said, I would caution you against the common prejudice many Westerners have towards anything coming out of a country not as democratic as they would like. I have noticed such a tendency in many Westerners-they see everything about China through a dark veil, even when politics and political ideologies are completely unrelated to what they're looking at. The Chinese novels you see many be partly propaganda, and may avoid writing about the more unsavory truths, but they aren't all fake and worthless either. Just because it's a one-party state with a dictatorial power structure does not necessarily mean that the common life of the Chinese people is just wretched and miserable slavery. The Chinese books and novels you come across may be as good a perspective as any which you can find, in China or in the world.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Chinese writers to read:

Lu Xun
Yan Lianke
Mo Yan (have doubts over his works, I read reviews of his key works: Red Sorghum, Garlic Ballads, Frog, I'm not sure if I would enjoy him, unlike Xingjing, a writer I enjoy)
Dreams of Red Chamber and other Classic of Chinese fiction
More of Xingjiang and Can Xue and Bei Dao (his memoir)
Eileen Chang
Liu Rui
Yua Hua
Ma Jian
Duo Duo
Read Gu Cheng's poems, enjoyed them.
Wang Anyi

 

[Page Turner]

Chinese writers to read:

Lu Xun
Yan Lianke
Mo Yan (have doubts over his works, I read reviews of his key works: Red Sorghum, Garlic Ballads, Frog, I'm not sure if I would enjoy him, unlike Xingjing, a writer I enjoy)
Dreams of Red Chamber and other Classic of Chinese fiction
More of Xingjiang and Can Xue and Bei Dao (his memoir)
Eileen Chang
Liu Rui
Yua Hua
Ma Jian
Duo Duo
Read Gu Cheng's poems, enjoyed them.
Wang Anyi

I wasn't successful when looking for books by Liu Rui. Could you provide a couple of titles?

 

[SpaceCadet]

I wasn't successful when looking for books by Liu Rui. Could you provide a couple of titles?

Perhaps Ben meant to name Li Rui. I was quite impressed by his novel Trees Without Wind (Tr. to French as Arbre sans vent). More about him on his Wiki page here.

 

[Page Turner]

Perhaps Ben meant to name Li Rui. I was quite impressed by his novel Trees Without Wind (Tr. to French as Arbre sans vent). More about him on his Wiki page here.

Thanks for the help, SC, and for the Wiki link. Trees Without Wind is a new title to me, but a previous novel by Li Rui, Silver City, is not. A friend of mine had it on her shelf, though I'm not sure she ever read it. I'd like to expand my reading of Chinese and Japanese literature, so I'll add Li Rui to my list.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Perhaps Ben meant to name Li Rui. I was quite impressed by his novel Trees Without Wind (Tr. to French as Arbre sans vent). More about him on his Wiki page here.

Thanks for that SC, I actually meant Li Rui.

I discovered him when he attended Nobel symposium in 2001 alongside Kertesz, Herta Muller, Timothy Garton Ash and Farrah. So I penned Trees Without Wind, with hope of reading it maybe in the next two years.

 

[zhang wei]

Let me introduce some of the most famous novelists in contemporary China. Since you all know Yu Hua, Yan Lianke and Can Xue, I will introduce some writers that you may not know.

Wang Anyi
In fact,she is currently the most famous female writer in the Chinese literary world,just like Margaret Atwood in the English literary world. Her most famous novel,The Song of Everlasting Sorrow,for which she was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize in 2011,is a classic of contemporary Chinese literature.It is a novel about Shanghai, a special city in the modern history of China.Shanghai is so special that there is a special kind of Chinese literature called “Shanghai literature”,and its most famous representative writer is Eileen chang,who had a huge influence on modern Chinese literature, just as Virginia Woolf had on English literature.Many Chinese critics have compared Wang Anyi to Eileen Chang,of course, it makes a lot of controversy.

Wang Anyi in her 20s