One Kind of Chinese Reality Reading Yu Hua

8/21/2019 One Kind of Chinese Reality Reading Yu Hua

1/16

One Kind of Chinese Reality: Reading Yu Hua

Author(s): Anne Wedell-WedellsborgSource: Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), Vol. 18 (Dec., 1996), pp. 129-143Published by: Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/495628

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2/16

One Kind of Chinese

Reality:

Reading

Yu

Hua

Anne

Wedell-Wedellsborg

Universityof

Aarhus

In

mainland Chinese literature

of the

mid to late 1980s

questions

of

individual

and national

identity, already prominent

since the

early

1980s,

became

increasingly

mixed with issues of language and representation. One of the remarkable writers to

emerge

at

that

time was Yu

Hua

*

$,

whose

fiction,

in

my opinion,

relates to

those

questions

and issues

in a

very

distinctive

way.

In China he also seems

to have acted as

a

catalyst

for

bringing

out

differing

attitudes to the

general perception

of

aesthetic

modernity,

and

abroad,

Western-based

Chinese

scholars

such as

Tang

Xiaobing,

Jing

Wang,

and

Zhao

Yiheng

have

assigned

a central role to Yu Hua in their

reflections

on

the existence

or

possibilities

of modernism and

postmodernism

in

Chinese

literature.1

But what

exactly

is

it that makes Yu Hua's

writings appear

as

simultaneously

emblematic

of

a

larger

cultural

problematic

and of the

predicament

of

the self? How

does

his

particular way

of

writing provoke

a new

aesthetic

perception?

In

the

present

essay

I address these

questions through

a close

analysis

of one of Yu Hua's most contr-

oversial

stories.

I

propose

to

read this text as an

allegory-not

in

the traditional

totalizing

sense-but

in

the modem

heterogenous

sense

as conceived

by

theorists

like

Walter

Benjamin2

and Paul de Man3.

While

I

shall

not

attempt

to define the

text as

strictly

1

Tang Xiaobing,

"Residual Modernism: Narratives of the

Self in

Contemporary

Chinese

Fiction",

Moder Chinese Literature

7.1

(1993),

pp.

7-32.

Jing Wang,

"The

Mirage

of

'Chinese

Postmodernism':

Ge

Fei,

Self-Positioning,

and

the Avant-Garde

Showcase,"

positions

1.2

(1993),

pp.

349-388. Zhao

Yiheng

(Y.

H.

Zhao),

"Fiction as

Subversion,"

WorldLiterature

Today,

summer

1991,

pp.

415-420.

2

The modem

re-interpretation

and

re-habilitation of

allegory

in

the

West

is

first of all

associated

with the work of Walter Benjamin. Based on his studies of the baroque German Trauerspiel (1924), and

developed

in

his

analysis

of

Charles

Baudelaire he

came to

see

the

allegorical

mode

as

dynamic

and

dialectical

and now as

closely

linked

to

the

experience

of

modernity.

See Walter

Benjamin,

The

Origin

of

the

German

Tragic

Drama,

John

Osbore

trans.(London:

New

Left

Books,

1977)

and Walter

Benjamin,

Charles

Baudelaire:A

Lyric

Poet

in

the Era

of High Capitalism,

Harry

Zohn

trans.(London:

New

Left

Books,

1973).

Benjamin

holds

that

in

modem

allegories

the

original

divine relation

between

things

and their

proper meanings-their

names-has

been sundered. Since there

is

no

longer

a

common

established

world-view or a

unified frame

of

reference

against

which to

interpret allegory,

it can

only

have

subjective

validity.

The

allegorical

relationship

is

charac-

terized

by

"obscurities

in

the

connection between

meaning

and

sign"-it

is a broken

and

arbitrary

language

in

which

"any person, any

thing, any

relationship

can

mean

anything

else". German

Tragic

Drama,

p.175.

In

contrast to

the

self-contained

totality

of

the

symbolic

mode,

allegory

does

point

to

something

outside

the

text.

But

that

which

it

points

to

is

no

longer

fixed

and

commonly

recognized.

That itself is

just

a

another

"signifier",

without absolute meaning in itself.

3

Paul

de

Man is

among

those

later

literary

theorists who have

taken

up

the

note

of

Benjamin

and

reflected on

the modem function

of

allegory.

To

de

Man,

allegory

suggests

the

disjunction

between

the

way

in

which

the world

appears

in

reality

and the

way

it

appears

in

language.

"The

relationship

between

the

allegori-

cal

sign

and its

meaning

is not

decreed

by

dogma

....

Instead we

have a

relationship

between

signs

in

which

the

reference to their

respective

meanings

has become

of

secondary

importance.

But this

relationship

between

129


3/16

130

ChineseLiterature:

Essays,

Articles,

Reviews 18

(1996)

moderist or

postmodernist,

I

shall demonstrate

that it contains

elements

of

both

and

that it is

precisely

from

the interaction between

these and

the

general

allegorical

resonance

that

the

story

derives its

specific impact.

1.

Yu Hua is

a

prolific

writer. He was born

in

1960,

started

publishing

in

1984

and

got

his

breakthrough

in 1987 with the short

story

"Shiba

sui

chumen

yuanxing"

+---~

'

I:4;-j-

(On

the Road

at

Age

Eighteen),

written

upon

reading

the

Chinese translation

of

Kafka's

story

"Ein Landarzt".4

By

the late 1980s

Yu

Hua was

considered

among

the

most

promising avant-garde

or

post-New

Wave

writers,

regarded by many

critics

as

perhaps the best exponent of a kind of Chinese meta-fictional or postmodernist writing.5

He has continued

to write

in

the 1990s

and

has

published

several short

stories,

novellas

and one

long

novel,

in which he

seems

to

have

changed

his

style

towards

a

slightly

more

traditional

"psychologized"

narrative.6 Like much of the

literature written in the

late

1980s,

Yu Hua's

fiction of that

period

deeply

problematizes

and

reflects the

predicament

of

identity-loss

and

cultural breakdown.7 But

in

contrast to the

composite fragmented

selves created

by contemporaries

such as Can

Xue

A

X

or

Liu Suola

jIJ

,

Yu

Hua's

surgical

knife cuts

the connection between

sign

and

meaning by

presenting

his

characters as

nothing

but

signifiers

for

an

absent self. Several of his

early

texts are

characterized

by

detailed

descriptions

of

physical

violence

and

bodily mutilation,

and

evoke a cold

and

callous world of

death and severed limbs.8

signs

necessarily

contains a constitutive

temporal

element.

It

remains

necessary

if

there is

to be

allegory

that

the

allegorical sign

refers to another

sign

that

precedes

it."

In

this

way allegory

comes to

designate

primarily

a

distance in

relation

to

its

origin,

and

it establishes its

language

in the void of this

temporal

difference. See

Paul

de

Man,

Blindnessand

Insight.

Essays

in

the Rhetoric

of Contemporary

Criticism,

2nd

rev.

ed.;

London:

Methuen,

1983)

p.

207.

4

See

Yu

Hua,

"Chuanduan

Kangcheng

[Kawabata

Yasunari]

yu

Kafuka

de

yichan"

Jl

1lsJj

-f

--f

I:ft

,

Waiguo

wenxue

pinglun

S

C[_tfW

,

1990,

No.2,

pp.

109-110.

5

See for example Wang Ning, "Hou xiandaizhuyi yu Zhongguo wenxue" ]R-t : _ $r-S~

,

Dangdai dianying

_,

fi

j,

1990, No.6;

and Y. H.

Zhao,

"The Rise

of Metafiction in

China,"

Bulletin

of

the

School

of

Oriental

and

African

Studies

55.1

(1992).

6

See

"Huhan

yu

xi

yu"

OJ

-i

]W

Shouts

and

Fine

Rain),

Shouhuo

L

,t

1991,

No.6

(changpian

xiaoshuo

V4f,Mi)

and "Huozhe"

*

(Living),

Shouhuo

1)JV1992,

No.6

(zhongpian

xiaoshuo

r:X'j'fi ).

7

For a

discussion of Yu Hua's

work

and

Chinese critics'

evaluation of

it

in the

context of

the

relationship

between

modemity

and

nationalism,

see

Wendy

Larson,

"Literary

Modernism

and

Nationalism

in

Post-Mao China" in

Wendy

Larson and

Anne

Wedell-Wedellsborg,

eds., Inside Out:

Modernism

and

Postmoder-

nism in

Chinese

Literary

Culture

(Aarhus:

Aarhus

University

Press,

1993).

8

In

several of

his

stories

the

narration,

or

part

of

it,

is

carriedon

through

the

subjectivist

perceptions

of an

insane

person.

In

"Yijiubaliu

nian"

-

tAJk,

(1986) it

is a

middle-school

teacher

who

disappeared

without a trace

during

the Cultural

Revolution,

and who

in the

story suddenly

turns

up

as

a

beggar

in

the

small town where he used to live. His wife has remarried and his daughter has taken a new name. The school

teacher

has turned mad and

become

obsessed with his

old

hobby-methods

of

punishment

and

torture in

ancient

China,

from

cutting

off the nose

and castration to

being

torn

apart by

five

horses,

all

of

which

he

manages

in

the course of the

story

to

inflict

upon

himself in a mixture of

reality

and

fantasy.

He

also

imagines

himself

torturing

people

in

the street. The

narrative moves back

and forth

between

the

madman and

his

former

family,

who do not

recognize

him but

who are

strangely

affected

by

his

presence.

At

the

end

of

the

story

when the madman

has

died,

they

feel an

unexplained

relief.

In

the final

section,

however,

another


4/16

WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG

Reading

Yu Hua

Yu Hua's

most consistent

demonstration of human

alienation

and absence or

eradication

of an "individual self"

is his

long story

"Xianshi

yizhong"

3

-

ft (One

Kind of

Reality)

from 1988.9 A

family story presented

as one

long

countdown

from

an

existential

void to

a

physical

zero.

According

to the critic

Zeng

Zhennan

4ji

*1

it

is to

some

extent based

on real events which took

place

in a small town in South

China.10

The

dramatic

plot

of death and

revenge

between two brothers could

indeed

be the stuff

of

high tragedy:

The four

year

old son

of

one

of the brothers

happens

to kill

his

baby

cousin.

The

baby's

father then kills the four

year

old,

whose father

in

turn kills

his

brother-in

a

very

special

manner. He is

caught by

the

police

and executed in a scene

reminiscent of

the

execution of

Lu Xun's "Ah

Q,"

after which his sister-in-law has

his

body

sold

for dissection.

In the

meantime

their senile old mother

with whom

they

live

also

dies

without

anybody

noticing.

The final section of the

story

is a detailed

descrip-

tion of the dissection process from the first thrust of the scalpel to the final peeling of the

skeleton.

Despite

the dramatic events

fuelling

the narrative

dynamics,

at no

point

are

any

of the characters

shown

to

feel the emotions one

would

normally

associate with

such

horrible

events. On the

contrary, throughout

the

story

expressions

of

emotion,

such

as

smiling,

crying

and

laughing

are

explicitly

shown

to be

separated

from the

inner

motivations

we would

expect.

This is most

magnificently

demonstrated

in

the

scene

where

one brother kills

the

other

by tying

him to a

tree,

smearing

his feet with

stew,

and

letting

a

little

dog

lick

them until

he

simply

dies,

choking

with

laughter.

Emotion and of moral reflection on the

part

of the characters

(and

the

narrator)

are

replaced

by

their attention to sounds and to surface detail-ants

crawling

in the

blood,

the thuds

of

bodies

falling

to the

ground,

a leaf

swaying

in

the

wind-or

to

physical

phenomena:

the

old

woman

feeling

her bones break

like

chopsticks,

moss

growing

inside

of

her,

and her

stomach

rotting. They

all

seem to

live

in

total

alienation,

having

lost touch with

reality.

Their

actions

are

generated by

some

pre-existing pattern,

which

simply

is

there,

reducing

these

people

to

robots. Of course

the

Chinese reader

may

see the

driving

force in

the

story

as

the

underlying

traditional

idea of the

necessity

of

having

male

descendants. But this is

never

consciously

part

of considerations inside

of

the

characters,

and

not

explicitly

mentioned

until the

very

end of

the

story,

when

we

learn that the testicles of the executed were transplanted on to a young man, who nine

months

later

became the

father of

a

son.

The

lives of

the

two brothers

and

their

wives and children

take

place

in

an

emotional

void,

day

in

and

day

out

according

to

a dull

routine,

eating

meals and

going

to work.

There is

very

little

dialogue.

The

presence

of a

great

number of

"interior"

time-

markers,

such

as

"now",

"then",

"at this

moment", "last week" etc. is

in

stark

contrast to

the

total lack of

"exterior"

references

connecting

events to

any specific

social or

historical

time.

We are

never

told when or where

this

story might

be

taking place.

Moreover,

a

madman is seen

approaching

the

town. See Yu

Hua,

Shiba sui

chumen

yuanxing,

+A

J

111

il

Cfi

'(Beijing:

Zuojia chubanshe, 1989), 28-80.

9

In

Yu

Hua,

Shiba

sui chumen

yuanxing,

pp.

200-258. The

story

has been translated into

English

twice: In

Henry

Y. H.

Zhao ed., The

Lost

Boat:Avant-GardeFiction

rom

China

(London:

Wellsweep

Press,

1993),

pp.

145-184;

and in David Der-wei

Wang

with

Jeanne

Tai ed.,

Running

Wild:

New Chinese Writers

(New

York:

Columbia

University

Press,

1994),

pp.

21-68.

Longer

quotations

in this

article are from

Running

Wild.

10

See

Zeng

Zhennan,

"'Xianshi

yizhong' ji qita"

t

-

Kt,,-

',

Beijing

wenxue

At,,_t , 1988,

No.

2,

pp.71-75

131


5/16

ChineseLiterature:

Essays,

Articles,

Reviews

18

(1996)

strong

sense of

spatial

enclosure is

conveyed

to the reader. This is not

only

caused

by

the

limited

geographical space

in

which the

plot

is

enacted,

but also a

result

of the

fact

that

the

characters

never

reflect

beyond

their immediate situation or

instant sensual

percep-

tions,

thus

creating

a

vacancy

in the text

where

morality

and

reflection

might

have

been.

This

vacancy

is

very

often

"filled

up" by

attention to the visual surface

of

things.

This

visual attention is

nearly

always

that of the

characters,

not of the narrator. The reader

is

made to

follow

the

gazes

of the

persons

as

they

move from one surface

to

another,

often

calling

forth

other

surfaces

in a

metonymical

chain of

associations.

So

although

the

story

is told

by

an

omniscient

narrator-whose tone

of voice

is

sometimes

merely

that of a

detached

recorder,

sometimes

brimming

with

low-key

sarcasm-the central

perspective

is

frequently

dislocated

by

means

of

what Gerard Genette has

termed

"internal

focaliza-

tion".11

The

perspective

moves from one

character

to

the other until the

very

last

scene

where, significantly, the narrator takes over completely.

The constant

and monotonous

repetition

of the

verb kandao

~J

to

see,

to

look

at,

to

watch,

stresses the visual character of

the

text,

and

becomes emblematic of the

externality

of the self's

relation

to

reality.

He or she

sees,

registers,

but doesn't

connect,

understand, feel,

reflect

on,

or

search for

meaning.

Even

strictly

physical

sensations are

often

experienced

and

conveyed

in

terms

of visual

images:

(The

old

lady

said)

"My

stomach

feels like there's

moss

growing

inside."

The two brothers

pictured

the

faintly

luminiscent

green

moss,

crisscrossed

by

earthworms,

hat

grew

on

the rims

of

wells and

in the

crevices of

dilapidated

walls.12

*z

W

fl-

Tit ^ ^ffBi,iLB

-

And a few

paragraphs

later:

(Pipi)

was

so

short he

had to lift his

head

high

to look out.

The rain

beat

against

the

window and

slithered down

the

glass

like

earthworms.

By

then

breakfeast

was over.

Shangang

watched

as

his

wife

wiped

the table with

a

rag,

while

Shanfeng

watched his

wife

carrying

their

baby

into the

bedroom. The

door

was left

ajar,

and soon

she

came out

again

and

went into

the

kitchen.

So

Shanfeng

turned his

gaze

on

his

sister-in-law'shand as she

cleaned the

tabletop.

On

the

back of her hand

were

several veins

that

by

turns came into

and

disappeared

from

view.

Shanfeng

stared at her hand

for

quite

some time until

he

lifted his

head,

glanced

over

at the

raindrops

crisscrossing

he

windowpane,

and

said

to

Shangang,

"Thisrain

feels like

it's been

coming

down

for a

hundred

years."13

at

W

Ef

tiT

s

3 *

M

G G

tt,

arrati

ir

An

a

i

MethdIthaca:

Cell U ersity Pess,

190,

11

Gerard

Genette,

Narrative

Discourse:

An

Essay

in Method

(Ithaca:

Comell

University

Press,

1990),

pp.

192-193

12

Shibasui

chumen

yuanxing,

p.

199:

Running

Wild,

p.

22

13

Shiba

sui

chumen

yuanxing,

p.

200:

Running

Wild,

p.

23

132


6/16

WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG

Reading

Yu Hua

Here the

image

of

moving

worms serves to link

metonymically

the

bodily

dissolution

of

the old woman with the rain and with the wormlike veins on the hand of the sister-in-

law.

At

the

opening

of the

story

we were

told that "It had been

raining

off

and on for

more than

a

week,

and

Shangang

and

Shanfeng

felt that

sunny

skies

were

far,

far

away,

as distant

as their

childhood",14

indicating

the absence of

any

reflective

memory,

and

perhaps

a subconscious sense

of

disintegration.

The identical

"thoughts"

of the two also

point

to the

lack of individual

personality.

But

the

worm-image

does not

really

"stand

for"

anything,

and

neither,

at this

point,

does the

picture

of the

shiny

green

well

which

pops

up

again

in

Shangang's

mind when he

sees his son kicked

to death. If it

has

any

function

it is

to

signify

a

hole,

an absence

of

something-of

feelings,

perhaps,

or

recognition

of

reality.

The

gaze

is

important

in

this

story

not

only

to

signify externality,

but also to

show the

lack of

human contact.

Despite

the

profusion

of

gazes,

very rarely

do

two

pairs

of

eyes

meet,

and when

they

do,

it

mostly

creates unease

or

implies

a

threat. In

view of

the

importance

attached

in

Western

psychological theory

(Freud

and

Lacan)

to

the

"being

seen" for

identity

formation,

the

Western

reader

can

hardly

avoid

associating

the

averted

gazes

and

oblique glances

with a

state of

incomplete identity-formation.15

But even more

significant

is the

way

the

gaze

or the

visual

movement is

employed

to

highlight

the

gap

between

object/event

and the

perception

of it. In Yu

Hua's

texts this

gap

exists

as a

virtual

time-lag,

which

sometimes doesn't

catch

up.

For

example when the mother of the baby first killed finds her son lying dead, she first

notices the blood which

seems

unreal,

then looks at

the

glistening sky

and

finally

goes

inside. Here her

eyes

start to

search the

room,

finally

coming

to rest

on the

bassinet.

Only

through

the visual

impression

of the

empty

bassinet

does she

come

to

think

of

the

child

lying

outside:

Sitting

in

a

chair,

she

began

to

scan the

house. Her

gaze

skimmed

over

the closet she

had

just opened,

slid

across

the

glass top

of the round

table,

slanted onto the

sofa that

could seat

three

across,

then

jumped

out

into the middle of the room. It as

only

then

that she

saw the bassinet.

Startled,

she

jumped

to her feet. The bassinet was

empty,

deserted;

there was

no

trace of her

son.

Suddenlyremembering

he

child

lying

in

the

yard,

she dashed

madly

out of the

house,

but when she reached the

body

she

was

again

at

a loss.

16

iE--^fL?TT~T

'

BEiff

MtSM*

?

~fiTfE

14

Shiba

sui chumen

yuanxing,

p.

198:

Running

Wild,

p.

21

15

Tang Xiaobing,

in

analyzing

Yu

Hua's short

story

"Shiba sui chumen

yuanxing,"

explains

the

perspective

of

the

detached

gaze

as a

result of the

subject having

been the

object

of

violence without

reason:

"When

communication is

violently suspended by

an

absence of reason

or,

shall we

say,

'civilized

barbarism',

and

when

violence

reduces the

human

subject

to his

body

and

his

body

alone,

the

subject

has to

withdraw

and

observe the goings-on from a distrustful distance. It is a detached 'gaze' that treats others as objects. The

objectifying 'gaze'

the

young

man

now

directs toward

things

and

people

around

him

has been

forced

upon

him

because

he

is

the

object

of

violence in

the first

place."

See "Residual

Modernism: Narratives of

the Self in

Contemporary

Chinese

Fiction,"

Modern

Chinese

Literature

.1

(1993),

p.

16.

It is

possible

to see that short

story,

which

also

has a

strong allegorical

resonance,

as a kind of

antecedent

to

"Xianshi

yizhong",

i.e.

a

progression

from

a first

encounter

with

inexplicable

violence

to

a

veritable

explosion

of

internalized violence.

16

Shibasui

chumen

yuanxing,

p.

207:

Running

Wild,

p.28-29

133


7/16

ChineseLiterature:

Essays,

Articles,

Reviews 18

(1996)

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The

time-lag

separating

action/awareness/action

is

a

recurring

feature in the

story.

The

glance

or

gaze

focused not

on the

"thing"

or

the

face

itself,

but

beside it-on the

door

rather

than the

room,

on the

"seal

print"

of the wound on the

pillow

or on

the ants

crawling

rather than

on the blood

itself,

on the blood rather than on

the

wound,

and on

the

wound

rather than on the

body-becomes

emblematic of the

subject's

feeble and

distorted

relation to

reality.

Or

one

might

even

say

that the

averted,

unseeing

gaze

becomes

an

allegory

of the self lost

in

the

abyss

between

sign

and referent.

But

the

function

of this narrative device

can,

by

extention,

be

transposed

to a

higher

level. If

we

regard

the text as

a

projection

of the narrator's

gaze,

then

he

too,

throughout the text, could be said to focus "beside" the full human being, showing only

an

external

shell. Until

finally,

in the dissection

scene,

he

redirects

his

gaze

and-with

pitchblack

nihilist

irony-tells

us

in

every

detail what is inside. As I

shall

demonstrate

below,

this

interpretation

may

be

taken even

one

step

further.

The narrative

structure

is characterized

by

a

number of

repetitions.

Repetitions

of

verbs,

the most

conspicuous being

as

noted

kandao,

and of

descriptive

verb/adjectives,

such as shan

N

"glistening" (again

a

word

associative

of

surface,

repellent

of

penetrating

gazes)

the

glistening

of

blood,

bodies,

and of

sunlight

enhancing

the

impression

of

op-

pressive

monotony,

the

blazing

sun

recalling

Camus's

L'ttranger,

a

classic

of human

alienation,

but also

repetitions

of

images

and situations.

Hillis Miller in

Fiction and

Repetition

(1982)

distinguishes

between two

forms

of

repetition,

one of

them

closely

related to Walter

Benjamin's

concept

of

allegory.

The

first

type

is

that

in

which the

repetition

is

"grounded"

and,

like the mimetic

copy,

establishes

its

validity by

the

truth

of its

correspondence

to what

it

copies.

The

second

type

of

repetition,

however,

like the

modem

allegory,

is

"ungrounded",

based

on

differences

and

arises out of

the

interplay

between

opaquely

similar

things (opaque

in

the sense of

riddling).

In the

gap

of the dif-

ference

between two similar

things

a

third

thing

which

Benjamin

calls

"Bild",

mage,

is

created.

"The

image

is the

meaning

generated

by

the

echoing

of two

dissimilar

things

in

the

second

form of

repetition."

17

In "Xianshiyizhong" the inner bodily dissolution is vividly visualized in the old

grandmother's

imagination

as,

...

a

pile

of broken bones of

all

lengths,

shapes,

and

sizes,

jostling

recklessly against

each

other.

By

then,

perhaps,

the

bones

from her

feet

would be

jutting

out from

her

belly,

while the

bones

of

her

arms

would be

boring

nto her

moss-filled

stomach.18

f-m^MWM--W^W^9W^f

&

?

MtMIW

and

later,

17

Hillis

Miller,

Fictionand

Repetition:

even

English

Novels

(Oxford:

Blackwell,

1982),

pp.

8-9

18

Shibasui

chumen

yuanxing,

p.

205:

Running

Wild,

p.

27

134


8/16

WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG

Reading

Yu Hua

Her

body

would

swell and

finally

explode, scraps

of skin and

flesh

splattering,

clinging

to the walls like

posters,

leaving

her

bones,

most of which

were

already

broken,

ying

jumbled

on the

ground

like

a

pile

of

firewood.19

This is

repeated

in

the

final

scene where

Shangang's body

is

being

taken

apart.

In

the

tension between these two

descriptions,

between

the

imagined

and the

real

disintegration,

arises an

allegorical

image

of

a self reduced to

pure

physicality.

The

licking

of the

baby's

blood

first

by Pipi's

mother and

then

by

Pipi,

both

of them

on

all

fours

relishing

the

blood,

already signifies

their animalistic

nature,

not to mention

the

cannibalistic:

Pipi

lay

there

staring

at the

puddle

of blood

gleaming

in

the sun. It

reminded him

of

bright

red fruit

jam.

Sticking

out

his

tongue,

he took

an

exploratory

lick,

and

immediately

a brand

new taste

coursed

through

his

body.

He relaxed

and

began

to

lick

away,

though

he

found the cement a

little

coarse,

for in

no time at

all his

tongue

had

begun

to feel

numb. Then a few

tricklesof red

began

to run

down the

tip

of

his

tongue.

It

made

everything

taste

even

better,

but

he had no idea

that

it was his

own

blood.20

4te*A

m


9/16

ChineseLiterature:

Essays,

Articles,

Reviews 18

(1996)

of

spectators,

by

metonymical

displacement,

have become the wild

grass.

And as

Shan-

gang

realizes

for a moment where he

is,

he also remembers that

he

himself

used to

be

among

the

spectators

rushing

to the

front row

every

time

a

criminal

was executed. So

he

too is

the

crowd,

the

grass.

This

final and

different

repetition

of the

grass-image

casts

a

new

light

on

its

previous

occurrences,

and we come to see

it as a

metaphor

of the lack

of

subjectivity.

Thus what

seems

at first to be

merely

"empty"

images,

gradually, through

repetition

and subtle

variations

in the

context

in which

they appear, acquire

a kind

of

symbolic

or

allegorical significance.

This new

significance

then

retrospectively

influences

the

overall

impact

of the text.

The scene of

the execution and its

implications

for the

problematics

of

subjectivity suggests

another famous

literary

execution: the death of Lu

Xun's

Ah

Q,

doubtlessly the most analysed scene in modem Chinese literature.Like Ah Q, Shangang

turns

his

gaze

towards

the

crowd,

but where Ah

Q

sees

the

"dull

yet penetrating eyes"

of

the

crowd

"more

terrible

even than the

wolf",23

Shangang's

unfocused

glance

"floated

on

past

the

hair of a short

person,

and

on

past

the ears of

a

tall

one". Lu

Xun's

shift

in

narrative focus from

criminal/victim

to crowd noticed

by

Solomon,

Anderson,

Huang,

and

others,

and

the

narrator's "intervention"

(Anderson)

on

behalf

of

Ah

Q-the

cry

for

help-have

no

parallel

here.24

On the

contrary,

Shangang

is

mercilessly exposed

in

his

pathetic

lack of self-awareness

and

dull

incomprehension

of

the

reality

of

the

situation.

He even believes

he will be taken to the

hospital

and

saved when his ear

is blown off

by

the first shot. At least for

a

moment,

Ah

Q

had the

subjective

intention

to

give

the crowd

a good performance and act out the role of criminal. Shangang, by contrast, does

actually give

a

good

show,

but

quite unintentionally, making

the

crowds

laugh by

his

ridiculous behavior:

wanting

to urinate

and,

his hands tied

up, having

to

ask the

guard

to take out his

penis.

The

guard

tells him

to

piss

in

his

trousers,

but

nothing

comes

out.25

And

later,

after the

first

shot he

keeps asking

whether he is dead

or alive.

So this

time the

crowds hadn't "followed him for

nothing,"

in

contrast to the

crowds

watching

Ah

Q.

For

Ah

Q

the

empty

role

was still there to

enter,

had he been able

to. For

Shangang

not even

the

theatrical

role

is available as

substitute for

individuality.

So

in

this

story

we

may

say,

with Walter

Benjamin,

that the

original

divine

relation

between

things

and

their

proper meaning

has been

sundered,26just as the last

killing,

the

execution,

in

Shangang's

mind is

separated

from

its

intended

"meaning"

and

completely

dissociated from

anything

he

has done. This

discrepancy

or

gap

not

only

works on the

epistemological

level,

but

is,

on the level of

textuality,

reflected

in the

specific

tension

created

by

the

peculiar

combination of

the

highly subjectivist

point

of

view

and

the

detached, cold,

objective

eye

of

the narrator.

This narrative

technique

23

Selected

Stories

of

Lu Hsun

(1956;

rpt.

Peking:

Foreign Languages

Press,

1978),

p.

111.

24

Richard

Solomon,

"Taking Tiger

Mountain:

Can Xue's

Resistance and Cultural

Critique,"

Modern

Chinese Literature

4.1-2

(1988),

p.

246;

Marston

Anderson,

The Limits

of

Realism:

Chinese Fiction

in

the

RevolutionaryPeriod(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 80-85, and Martin Weizong Huang,

"The

Inescapable

Predicament. The

Narrator and

His

Discourse in 'The

True

Story

of Ah

Q,"'

Modern

China

16.4

(1990),

pp.

441-442.

25

This

episode

is

actually

a

kind of

reversed

repetition

of a

previous

one in

which,

before he was

caught by

the

police,

he also

wasn't

able to

urinate,

forgot

to

put

his

penis

back into

his

trousers,

and was

laughed

at

by

the

people

in

the street.

26

See

note

2

above.

136


10/16

WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG

Reading

Yu

Hua

serves

effectively

to

highlight

the

conspicuous

absence

of

a voice

or

consciousness to

condemn,

moralize,

or at

least

become

shocked.

This is further underscored

by

the

contrast

between the

clear,

straightforward,

almost

relentlessly unhesitating

voice of the

narrator

and the

incomprehension

and

blurred

perceptions

of the

characters.

As neither the

implied

author,

nor the

narrator,

nor

any

of the

characters seem

to react

"normally"

to

events,

this reaction

is

left

entirely

to

the

reader. Yet as

I

read the

story,

the

emotional

repulsion

one is left with after the execution

scene,

which

might

well

have been the

last,

is

curiously sabotaged by

the final

dissection scene which

functions

as

an

absurdly

ironic "overkill". Here no

gazes

are averted but

directed

straight

at

the

process

of

bodily

mutilation.

Narrator and characters alike

watch

unperturbed,

and

the reader

is forced

to

join

in,

as

Shangang's body

is

being

"scattered"

(Ah

Q

again)

through

an act of extreme

visual

violence-taking

an

individual

physically

apart-which is presented not as violence, but as just some people doing theirjob.

Thus

read,

"One Kind of

Reality"

can be

interpreted

as one

long

countdown to

this

zero

point,

a

depiction

of

the

complete

dehumanization,

disintegration,

and

dissolution

of the individual

subject.

As

Jing Wang

has

argued,

in

the

context

of

Chinese

literature

of

the

1980s this amounts to

a

highly

provocative

and

deconstructive

act of

"breaking

down,

with sensual abandon and in

total nonsensical

style,

a

holistic

subject

that theoreticians and modernist writers in the

Post-Maoist

era

have

just

assembled".27

But we

might

be

allowed

to

speculate

a

little

further:

in

view of

the

predominance

of

averted

gazes throughout

the

text,

we could

perhaps

by

analogy

interpret

this last

gaze

as also

"averted",

signifying

that there is

something

absent that

we do not see in this

story,

something beyond mere physicality and violence, so that the

reader's attention is directed towards

that

individual

subjectivity

which is

so

conspicious

by

its

very

absence

that it ends

up

more visible than

what is

actually

present

in

the

text

(just

like

a

classical

painting

showing

only

some

rocks,

a lake and

a

tiny

monk

carrying

water

may

be

understood

as

depicting

a

temple

in the

mountains).

In

my

opinion

Yu Hua's

story

cannot be

unequivocally

reduced to

either of

these two

interpretations.

Even

though

the

former,

tending

towards the

postmodernist

end

of

the

spectrum,

does

appear

as the more

obvious,

Yu Hua's

negative

focus

on

in-

dividual

consciousness

by way

of its absence is so

provocative

that

we

are

nevertheless

strongly reminded of the ideology of modernism and its preoccupation with the

problematics

of

identity

and

subjectivity.

This

ambivalence,

and the

tension it

generates

for the

reader,

comes

to

act

as an

integral part

of the textual

dynamics.

27

Jing Wang,

"The

Mirage

of 'Chinese Postmodernism',"

p.375.

Furthermore,as also noted

by Jing

Wang,

the

information about the

transplanted

testicles and the birth of a son

might

be more

than

just

an

ironic

postscript

to

the

preceding

drama,

in

which the desire for male descendants had

been the

driving

force.

It

could

also

be read

as

pointed

comment

on

the

recent

reclaiming,

in

the

literature of the

late

1980s,

of

the

domain

of

sexuality

as a

constituent

part

of

human existence. In this

story

the

penis

is referred to several

times,

but

only

in

rather

ridiculous

terms,

and

never

connected with

sexuality.

The

final

irony

of

the fertile

testicles

thus serves

to

disassociate

reproduction

from

sexuality.

137


11/16

ChineseLiterature:

Essays,

Articles,

Reviews18

(1996)

2.

Before

further considerations

as to the relevance of

applying

such

epithets

as

modernism/postmodemism

to Yu Hua's

story,

I would

like

to take

a

closer

look at

the

levels

at

which the text

can be

seen

to

operate.

We

may

consider it in

terms

of

three

interacting

levels.

First,

a

mimetic,

aking

for

granted

the

title's

partial promise

of

reality.

Second,

what we

may

call

a critical

level,

one

which

consciously

refers

to/plays

on/deconstructs

the

expectations

of the

implicit

Chinese reader with

regard

to

the

contents,

in other words one that breaks down conventions of

explanation

and

context

with

regard

to

themes

and structures. And

third,

a

textual, metafictional,

self-referential

level,

which at the same time as

it

subsumes and

plays

with the

former

two,

also

works

to

destabilize

them. Here the final scene

of dissection takes on a

special significance,

and

the concept of allegory is seen to function on the vertical dimension as well.

1)

If

we

try

for

a

moment to read it as

simply

an

attempt

at a

squarely

mimetic

representation

of

reality

conceived

in

the

realist

tradition,

the

story

comes out

as

a

somewhat

superficial description

of

the

eruption

of violence in a

family

of

simple-

minded

and callous

individuals,

at a time

and

in

a social context

where the

capacity

for

-

oral and

emotional communication has broken

down. After

all,

we

do have a

logically

progressing plot

where one action leads

to the next and the

crimes

are

duly

punished.

Strange

and

gruesome things

do

happen,

in China

and

elsewhere,

and in

this

case the

story

is even said

to have been

based on

real

events,

as noted

by Zeng

Zhennan.

There

are

recognizable scenery

and

objects,

and

the

characters

are

imbued with

perhaps just

about

enough

human traits so as to make the reader feel uncomfortable. But to maintain

such a

purely

one-dimensional

mimetic

perspective

one

would have to

ignore

not

only

the

irony lurking

behind the

narratorial tone

of

voice,

but also the blatant

lack of

all

the

psychological,

social,

or cultural

explanations

that have

normally

been built

into a

narrative

in

order for it to

qualify

as

"realist".28

2)

However,

viewed

through

the

perspective

of

its critical

dimension,

its

subversion of reader

expectations,

it

is

precisely

those

things

which

are

lacking

that

become

interesting.

First of

all,

since there is a

narrator who in

varying

degrees

makes

his

presence

felt

throughout

the

text,

why,

we

might

ask,

does he

not tell

us

what to

make of the horrors? And what is more, neither is it the case that the reader, by the

technical

device

of

an

unreliable

narrator,

is

allowed to

grasp

a

truth

denied the

fictional

characters as

is

often seen in

the modem

Western

novel.

(Or,

as

in

some

of Lu

Xun's

stories,

the

narrative

plot

is

undercut

by

the

narrative

voice of

the

first

person

narrator.)

In

this

story

the

interaction

between

narrator

and

characters lies

entirely

in the

heterogeneity

of

the

narrator's

tone of

voice.

Moreover,

as

we

have

seen,

Yu

Hua's

treatment of

the central

themes of

family

relations and

violence are

equally striking.

His

way

of

representing family

relations is

by

totally

depriving

them of

the ethical

and

social

norms

by

which

they,

according

to

28 Those lacks, as well as the similarities between the narrative

techniques

of Yu Hua and Robbe-

Grillet

pointed

out

below,

have

of

course been

noticed

by

other

critics. See for

example,

Chen

Xiaoming

j

i

UA,

Hou

xinchao

xiaoshuo

de xushi

bianzou"

JVsi:

J.ffSjt:,

Shanghai

wenxue

?[

SjC

, 1989,

No.

7,

pp.

66-73;

and

Andrew F.

Jones,

"The

Violence of

the

Text:

Reading

Yu

Hua's

Experimental

Fiction,"

unpublished

MA

thesis,

University

of

California

at

Berkeley,

1993.

Jones

reads Yu Hua's

works as a

strategic

response

to

the

crisis of

representation

that

seeks

to

render the

inherent violence of

representation

manifest to

the

reader.

138


12/16

WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG

Reading

Yu Hua

Chinese

culture,

should

be

governed.

The

depiction

of violence in stark

graphic

detail

can

be

compared

and

contrasted

with some

of the more barbaric scenes

in Shuihu

Zhuan

7JCj

f/.

But in Shuihu

the

savagery

and sadism

of

Song Jiang

X

W

and his band

of

robbers

is linked

to a heroic

code,

and therefore

implicitly

endorsed

in the

novel. Such

code is

of course

as absent from Yu

Hua's

novel as is

explicit

condemnation.

C.T.

Hsia,

in his

perceptive

analysis

of

Shuihu,

has noted

in the character of Li Kui

3i

the

prime

symbol

of a dark

force,

"the

unleashed

energy

of the

unconscious which

every

civilization

must hold

in check if it is to survive."29

We could

say

that what Yu

Hua

portrays

is

a

world in which civilization has

yielded

to

precisely

those

aggressive

forces

of the unconscious. This is corroborated

by

Yu Hua's

own words in

the

essay

"Xuwei de

zuopin"

j

j

jJ

nrf

p

(Hypocritical

Works):

"Confronted with

violence and

chaos,

civili-

zation is

nothing

but

a

slogan

and order

becomes

a

mere ornament."30 In

this

essay

Yu

Hua puts forward his creative ideals and his views on the relationship between

literature and truth

(zhenshi

A

3).

He

repeatedly

notes how

preconceived

ideas,

as

embodied

in

the common

language

of

the

masses,

preclude

a true

understanding

of

reality,

as

well

as the

necessary freeing

of the

imagination.

During

his

discussion,

he

refers to Alain

Robbe-Grillet

(as

well as to

Proust and

Isaac Bashevis

Singer)

and Yu's

break

with traditional

realist

fiction-writing

certainly

recalls

Robbe-Grillet's

famous

argument

in "A

Future for the

Novel"

(1956):

At

every

moment,

a

continuous

fringe

of

culture

(psychology,

ethics,

metaphysics,

etc.)

is added to

things,

giving

them a

less alien

aspect,

one that

is more

comprehen-

sible, more reassuring. . . but the world is neithersignificantnor absurd. It is, quite

simply.

That,

in

any

case,

is

the most

remarkable

hing

about it. And

suddenly

the

obviousness of

this

strikes us with

irresistible orce. All at once the whole

splendid

construction

collapses; opening

our

eyes unexpectedly,

we

experienced,

once

too

often,

the

shock of this

stubborn

reality

we were

pretending

to have

mastered.

Around

us,

defying

the

noisy pack

of our

animisticor

protectiveadjectives,

hings

are

there.

Their

surfaces are

distinct and

smooth, intact,

neither

suspiciously

brilliant

nor

transparent.

All

our

literature

has not

yet

succeeded

in

eroding

their smallest

corner,

in

flattening

heir

slightest

curve.31

But

Yu Hua

does not

restrict

himself to

simply showing

us

the

objects

as

they

are,

purged of animistic or protective adjectives. He exposes, relativizes, and destabilizes

them.

Furthermore,

a

number of

generally recognizable

pairs

of

binary

opposites,

such

as

life/death,

physical/psychological,

inner/outer,

animalistic/human,

substan-

ce/surface,

heaviness/lightness

appear strangely:

either one

is absent or the two

sides

simply

cancel each

other

out.

29

C.T.Hsia,

The Classic

Chinese

Novel. A

Critical

Introduction

New

York and

London:

Columbia

University

Press,

1968),

p.

107.

30

Yu

Hua,

"Xuwei de

zuopin,"

Ouran

shijian

ffi

A,

(Guangzhou: Huacheng

chubanshe

1991),

pp. 307-324, 312. Interestingly the essay is dated June 1989. Yu Hua furtherdescribes how loss of confidence in

the

order of

civilization led

him

to

stress violence in his

writing:

"Actually, up

to and

including

'Xianshi

yizhong' my

reflections about

truth

was

only

a

skepticism

towards common wisdom. That is

when I

could no

longer

trust

common

wisdom

about

real

life,

this

distrust led me to stress another

part

of

reality

and

consequ-

ently directly inspired my

extremist

thinking

about chaos and

violence,"

p.

313.

31

Alain

Robbe-Grillet,

"A

Future for

the

Novel,"

For a

New Novel:

Essays

on

Fiction,

Richard Howard

trans.

(New

York:

Grove

Press,

1965),

pp.

18-19.

139


13/16

Chinese

Literature:

Essays,

Articles,

Reviews 18

(1996)

3)

This

takes

us

to the third

level of

reading,

the textual or meta-fictional. Here

the dissection

scene-placed

as

it

is

at the

very

end,

(almost

as

a

postscript),

where one

will

normally

expect

the

final relevation of

"meaning",

the

clue,

so to

speak,

to the

preceding

narrative-is

of

special

importance.32

The mood of the text which until this

point

has been

characterized

by frequent

use

of the method of

internal focalization

of

the

characters

now

changes

and

the

central

perspective

is

fully

reinstated at the same time as

the

narrator makes

his

presence

strongly

felt. His tone of voice

alternates

between

clinical

detachment,

aesthetic

pleasure,

and

grotesque

humour as we follow the removal

of

skin,

tissue,

eyeballs,

kidneys, lungs,

etc. and

finally

the

testicles.33

What

is

to be

made of

this

scene?

It seems to

lend

itself

to

multiple

interpretations

that all

have

some kind of

allegorical

resonance:

In

terms of

content

it

might

be an

allegory

on

the

preceding plot,

in which the basic structure has been to

systematically eliminate one element after another, until nothing is left. But at the same

time the

doctors'

totally

detached

and humorous attitude

toward the

body

and

to "their"

organs

is

strongly

reminiscent

of the narrator's

(and

the

implied

author's)

relationship

to

his characters.

The doctors

are

precisely

as cool

and

in

control as the

narrator

in

the

preceding

sections

of the

story.

The narrator

also

has been

exposing, cutting,

and

slicing

his material

the

way

we now see

the doctors at work. Both are

professionals

in their

appropriation

of

"reality".

So we

may

see this scene

as an

allegory

of the

narrative

technique

of

the

very

text itself.

And more than

that,

we

may

even see

it

as

a

mocking

salute

to the

reader,

who has been

pulled through

the text

by

a "desire of

narrative",34

parallel

to the

revengeful

kind of "desire" that has

generated

the

actions

of

the fictional

characters, only to be dumped together, reader and character, on the dissection table.

The

reader

is not

to

be

dissected,

though,

but to be

allegorized,

for

is that not also

what

we are

doing right

now,

dissecting

the "textual

body"?35

In

other words we are

left with

a

veritable

Chinese-box-system

of

allegories

and

meta-allegories:

the

allegorical

dissection

duplicates

the

preceding

story,

which in itself was

an

allegory,

i.e. an

allegory

of an

allegory,

and

even,

as

the final

ironical

touch,

an

allegory

that

reaches out

vertically

for the reader.

3.

Zhao

Yiheng

has called the

story

"a

scathing

satire on the

Chinese

myth

of the

family".36

And there is

certainly

an

unmitigated

subversive

irony

in

this

presentation

of

32

See Peter

Brooks,

Reading

or

the

Plot:

Design

and

Intention n Narrative

(Oxford:

Clarendon

Press,

1984), p.52.

33

Jeanne

Tai,

the translator

in

Running

Wild,,

has

chosen to render this scene in the

present

tense in

contrast to

the

preceding

text which

is translated in the

past

tense,

a

strategy

which

effectfully

marks the

change

of

tone. As also noted by Andrew Jones, this heteregeneity of voice prevents the reader from viewing

the text

as one coherent

interpretive

whole,

and

consequently

to make it

"confess",

and

yield

its

secrets. "The

Violence of the

Text,"

p.

27.

34

Cf. Peter

Brooks,

Reading

or

the

Plot.

35

Since

violence

in

this

story

has

replaced language

as a

means

of

communication,

the

dissection

can

of

course

be

regarded

as a

sophisticated

and

logical

culmination of the

previous

sections.

36

Zhao,

"Yu Hua:

Fiction

as

Subversion,"

p.

418;

see note 1.

140


14/16

WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG

Reading

Yu Hua

the traditional

identity-forming

structure-the

family

of several

generations living

together

(here

in its reduced

modem version where women

go

to

work)-as

bound

together by nothing

but shared meals

and

indifference,

an indifference

whose

other

side

turns

out to

be

eye-for-an-eye,

tooth-for-a-tooth

aggression.

Lacking

authority

to

guide

and

suppress, aggressive

violence

erupts

and becomes the external

signifier

of

vengeance,

perhaps,

but not

really

hatred

or

anger.

The

total absence

of

individual

identity

and

self-awareness

forecloses

any

genuine

human

emotion.

Lin

Yii-sheng,

in

analyzing

"The True

Story

of Ah

Q"

PJ

Q

iE

*,

observes that

Ah

Q's

fundamental

characteristic is the lack of an interior

self,

"making

him

almost

completely incapable

of

drawing

inferences from

experience"

and,

"[l]iving

mostly by

instinct,

he could not be

inspired by

external

stimulation,

even

if

it

were

available".37

This is

certainly equally

true

of

Shangang

and

the rest of the

characters in

Yu

Hua's

story. However, Lin further notes in Ah Q a "sense of innocence" (even though Ah Q's

lack of self-awareness

prevents

him

from

being

able to

cultivate or

develop

this

good

element

in

any way).

This is

perhaps

the human trait which

makes it

possible

for

him,

as

opposed

to

Yu Hua's

character,

to

gain subjectivity

at the last

moment of

his

life;

because

whereas

Ah

Q,

however ludicrous

and

spineless,

is still

depicted

as a

kind

of

psycholo-

gical

character with

particular

features,

Shangang

and

the

others

remain

mechanized

"props"

in

the

plot.

While

Ah

Q

and his "true

story"

are

given

the

grand

role of

allegorically

embodying

no

less

than,

in Lu Xun's

own

words,

"the

soul of the

Chinese

people,"38

no

such

grandiose

tasks have been

assigned

to Yu

Hua's

characters

by

their

author.

Nevertheless,

as

already

noted, "Xianshi

yizhong"

exudes a

strong

allegorical

resonance,

not

only

in

terms

of

"the

uttered",

i.e. what is stated

literally

and

figuratively

on

the

horizontal

level,

but

also,

more

remarkably,

in

terms

of "the

utterance",

i.e.

the

interaction

between

implied

author, narrator,

plot,

and

implied

reader on

the

vertical

level.

The

first, horizontal,

in

my

view

has

to

do with Yu Hua's

specific approach,

his

method

of

stripping objects,

characters,

and individual relations

of their

normal,

generally accepted interpretive

codes;

this

approach

has

clear affinities with

Walter

Benjamin's

notion of

the

modem

allegory.39

The

second, vertical,

may

be

explained

by

reference to

what

Craig

Owens has

called

"the

allegorical impulse"

in

postmodernism

(about which, see below).

To

Walter

Benjamin, allegory

is both a

special way

of

looking

at the

world

which he

describes

as

"a

melancholy gaze,"

and

an

artistic

procedure.40

What

happens

to

objects

hit

by

the

gaze

of

the

allegorist

is that

they

undergo

a kind of

"leakage

of

meaning,

an

unhinging

of

signifier

and

signified".41 Purged

of all

mystifying

immanen-

37

Lin,

The

Crisis

of

Chinese

Consciousness,

.

129,

134.

38

Lu

Xun,

"Ewen

yiben

'A

Q

zhengzhuan

xu'

ji

zhuzhe zixu

zhuanlue"

*cij~ a

"Q

-

E

,"

Q

2*.*:

:

t*B,

Ji

wai

ji

Hl'[ ,

Lu

Xun

quanji

#iB.#:

(Beijing:

Renmin

wenxue

chubanshe,

1973),

Vol.

7,

p.

445.

39

Walter Benjamin's theory of allegory was introduced in China by Zhang Xudong I )i ,

"Yuyan

piping"

~j~t'iyf,

Wenxue

pinglun

_f

~

if;

1988,

No.

4,

pp.

149-157.

I

have no

reason

to

believe

that

Yu Hua

knew

of

it

when he

wrote "Xianshi

yizhong".

However,

when

I

talked to him in November

1990,

he told me

he

was

reading

Benjamin's

writings

on

Baudelaire.

40

Benjamin,

German

Tragic

Drama,

pp.

183-184.

41

This

is

Terry Eagleton's

phrasing

in The

Ideology

of

the

Aesthetic

(Oxford:

Basil

Blackwell,

1990),

p.326.

141


15/16

ChineseLiterature:

Essays,

Articles,

Reviews 18

(1996)

ce,

the

allegorical

referent

can then be redeemed

into a

multiplicity

of

uses; indeed,

it

can

be used

by

the

allegorist

in a

completely

subjective way.

Yu Hua's

explicit

statement,

that

he wishes to divest

his

images

of their conventional

meaning

as

conveyed

in

the

anonymous language

of

the

masses,42

sounds

very

close to

Benjamin's conception

of

the

"allegorical gaze".

As

I

have shown

above,

objects,

images,

characters,

and relations

in

"Xianshi

yizhong" appear

bereft of

their

previous

connotations and

consequently

open

to

new

meaning.

This

meaning

is

alluded

to

through

the

particular

distribution

of

"vacancies"

in the

text,

but it

still

remains

ambiguous

and

open

for the reader to

decide.

Craig

Owens in his

essay

"The

Allegorical Impulse:

Toward

a

Theory

of

Postmodernism"

has

argued

that the modem

concept

of

allegory

is

closely

linked

with

postmodemism.

In

modernism,

he

says,

allegory

is

certainly

a

possibility,

but it

remains

in

potentia

and is

only

actualized

through

the

reading.

Postmoderism

by

contrast

is,

as

a

result of its built-in focus on the reading process, already characterizedby an allegorical

impulse. Allegory

can be defined

as

the

rewriting

of a

primary

text

in

terms

of

its

figural

meaning,

and in

postmodernist

texts

this

rewriting,

this interaction between

texts,

takes

place

within the

literary

work;

it describes its

structure,

so to

speak.43

In

my opinion,

Yu

Hua's

ironic

narrator,

his

implicating

of the

reader,

and the textual

duplicity

of the

dissection

scene could

all be

seen as

expressions

of

such

an

allegorical impulse.

I

would

suggest

that "One Kind

of

Reality"

contains

elements

associated

with

both

modernism

and

postmodernism.

Perhaps

we can describe its

literary

technique

as

a

kind

of

meta-modemism,

i.e. a modernism

that

is no

longer

"innocent",

which

doesn't

quite

believe

in

its own

capacity

to

represent any,

whether

subjective

or

objective,

ontologically pre-existing "reality",a modernism which comments upon itself, or even

mocks

itself-hence

irony,

self-reflexivity-yet,

which,

by

this

very gesture,

attempts/-

pretends

to be

reflecting

a

more

complex,

multi-dimensional

reality.

In

sum,

by

the conscious efforts to

remove

moralizing

and

explanation

from a

tale which cries out for

precisely

that,

Yu

Hua,

whatever

authorial

intention was

involved,

activates

an

allegorical reading

to

supply

the absent

"meaning".44

Written in

42

Ouran

shijian,

p.310.

43

Craig

Owens,

"The

Allegorical

Impulse:

Toward a

Theory

of

Postmodernism,"

Art

after

Modernism:

Rethinking

Representation,

d. Brian Wallis

(New

York:The Museum of

Contemporary

Art,

1984),

pp.

203-235.

44

Several Chinese

critics have

also

interpreted

this

story

as

having allegorical

connotations

although

they

do not

always

use

the

term

yuyan.

The

different

readings

of

Zhang

Yiwu

*If

aand

Zeng

Zhennan,

for

example,

indicate the

range

within which an

allegorical

resonance

can be

perceived. Zhang

Yiwu

sees as the

most

important thing

in

the text

the break and

disruption

between

language

and

meaning:

"Behind

the

orderly

world of

language

raves

the

disorderly

world of

actuality

and

meaning" (p.

43).

Thus Yu

Hua's

text

deconstructs

itself,

as

language

destroys

and

dissolves

meaning,

and

meaning

also

destroys

and

dissolves

language.

This shows

man's

desire

to break

the

confines of

the

imposed

order/language.

In Yu

Hua's work

violence

is

subversive

as a

way

of

mocking

and

opposing

the

rule of

language,

and it

becomes an

"omen"/"sign"

of the

fate and

inescapable

predicament

(wunai

i*)

of mankind.

Zhang

Yiwu

interprets

Yu

Hua's fiction

as

allegories

of a

sort

(though

he

does

not

use the

word)

for

modem man's

inability

to

"grasp

himself,"

submerged

as he is in the dual

oppressive

forces of

linguistic

order and

violence. The

relationship

between form

and

content on

the

allegorical

level

here

duplicates

the

relationship

between

power

and the

individual human

being.

This,

he

argues,

implies

a

criticism of traditional

western and

May

Fourth

humanism

and its view of "man"

as the

powerful

center

of

the world.

See

Zhang

Yiwu,

"'Ren'de

weiji"

'

,)

'

6J

f;

tl.,

Dushu

:tf,

1988,

No.

12,

p.

46.

Zhang

Yiwu,

who

is to be counted

among

"avant-garde"

critics,

here

posits

himself

in

a

role characteristic of

the

ambivalence inherent in much

literary

criticism

in

the late

1980s: On

the

one hand his

analysis

of

Yu

Hua's

texts is

obviously inspired by

readings

of

"objectivist"

poststructuralist

and

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WEDELL-WEDELLSBORG

Reading

Yu Hua

a

context

in which

the critical discourse was

moving

from debates of

subjectivity

and

ontology

to

questions

of

language

and

referentiality,45

and

dealing

with themes

as

central

to Chinese

culture and national

identity

as the

unity

of the

family,

"Xianshi

yizhong"

comes

forth as

a

modem

heterogeneous

allegory

of the

predicament

of the

in-

dividual

self

in

contemporary

Chinese culture andof the

problem

of its

representation

in

the

reality

of

the

literary

text.

deconstructionist

heories

imported

rom

the

West.

On

the otherhand he

places

his

reading

within an

openly

prescriptive

ramework

f what is needed

for

China n its

present

historical ituation.

Anothercriticsomewhatmore

aligned

with the

establishment,

eng

Zhennan,

proposes

a more

traditional

llegorical

eading

of "Xianshi

izhong".

To him

the

allegorical

esonance s

not to

be found on the

level of

textuality

n

the

allegorical

mplications

f

the

tensionbetween

language

and

violence,

but rather n the

way

the

plot

functionsas

a

kind of

moralizing

able,

exposing

man's

creaturely

ide.

This,

Zeng says,

is how

senselessaggressionworks,and thestorymightaswell be aboutwarsbetweensocialclassesornations.(72)By

showing

us the

unpleasant

ace of

reality

and

truthfully

ortraying

ruelty

as

part

of

human

nature,

Yu

Hua

helps

us to

recognize

ourselves

and

hence

to

improve.

See

Zeng

Zhennan,

"'Xianshi

izhong'

i qita",

p.72.

In

contrast

o

Zhang

Yiwu

One Kind of Chinese Reality Reading Yu Hua

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