PLEASE DON’T CALL ME HUMAN.
《千万别把我当人》
By Wang Shuo (translated by Howard Goldblatt).
王朔著（Howard Goldblatt翻译）
Hyperion; 289 pages; $23.95.
亥伯神龙 出版社，289页，23.95美元
No Exit; ￡6.99.
No Exit出版社，6.99英镑
THE REPUBLIC OF WINE.
《酒国》
By Mo Yan (translated by Howard Goldblatt).
莫言著（Howard Goldblatt翻译）
Arcade; 364 pages; $26.95 ($13.95 paperback).
Arcade出版社，364页，26.95美元（平装本13.95美元）
Hamish Hamilton; ￡16.99 (￡5.99 paperback).
Hamish Hamilton出版社，16.99英镑（平装本5.99英镑）
WILD KIDS: TWO NOVELS ABOUT GROWING UP.
《野孩子：关于成长的两部小说》
By Chang Ta-Chun (translated by Michael Berry).
张大春著（Michael Berry翻译）
Columbia University Press; 272 pages; $22.95.
哥伦比亚大学出版社，272页，22.95美元
John Wiley; ￡14.95.
John Wiley出版社，14.95英镑。
THE DEER&THE CAULDRON.
《鹿鼎记》
By Louis Cha (translated by John Minford).
金庸著（John Minford翻译）
OUP; volume one: 512 pages; volume two: 596 pages; $35 and ￡29 each
牛津大学出版社，卷一，512页；卷二，596页；分别为35美元和29英镑。
THE award of the first Nobel prize for literature to a Chinese writer last year brought down a storm of controversy. Few westerners had heard of Gao Xingjian. Was his work really Nobel-worthy? At the time of the award, the only English version of “Soul Mountain”, Mr Gao’s winning novel (see article “Soul man”, December 9th), was published in Australia. Given, too, that the author had lived in France since 1987, how far could he be thought to know or represent present-day China?
The fuss surrounding Mr Gao’s Nobel success points to a larger difficulty. A tremendous amount of fiction is currently being produced in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and by expatriates and exiles. It was surely a mistake in the first place to expect any one writer to reflect this diversity and range. The following selection, though limited to works in English translation, aims to give some taste of the contemporary scene.
Wang Shuo, dubbed “China’s Kerouac”, has been a best selling author of zeitgeisty hooligan fiction since the late 1980s, breaking with the sense of serious responsibility that has long made modern Chinese fiction unpalatable to western readers. He is famous for his mockery of everything that moves—intellectuals, politicians, the masses, nationalism—all in savvy Beijing slang.
In “Please Don’t Call Me Human”, originally published in Chinese in 1989, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, Mr Wang wheels out all his favourite targets for lampooning. The National Mobilisation Committee (MobCom for short), a farcical cross between the Politburo and a disorganised bunch of entrepreneurs, is searching for a martial-arts hero to avenge China’s loss of face following defeat at a recent international sports competition. Tang Yuanbao, a slacker pedi-cab driver, is selected for a rigorous training programme in order to “beat the shit” out of the opposition and restore glory to China. Along the way, he’s electrocuted, castrated and cuts off his own face—to save China’s—before finally winning the gold medal. The China in-jokes fly thick and fast, but the surreal farce carries through to an apocalyptic close.
Written by China’s leading magical realist, “The Republic of Wine” is a debauched romp through an invented Chinese province called Liquorland. Special Investigator Ding Gou’er is dispatched from Beijing to investigate rumours that baby boys are being bred to be eaten as delicacies in the metropolis of culinary and alcoholic excess that is Liquorland. Ding loses consciousness in a drinking duel with his prime suspect, Diamond Jin, and the rest of the novel staggers bewilderingly through Ding’s hangover. The narrative is interspersed with letters between the author, Mo Yan, and Li Yidou, a doctoral candidate in Liquor Studies, each of Li’s letters containing details of Liquorland’s bizarre and cannibalistic practices. As the tales grow ever more fantastic—and similar in their chaos to Ding’s adventures—the line between fiction and reality is increasingly blurred. Mr Mo’s virtuoso prose whips up a frenzied polemic against contemporary Chinese society and politics. He satirises many of the same things as Mr Wang but his superior command of style and plot confirms him as the better novelist.
Like Mr Wang in mainland China, Chang Ta-Chun is a cultural phenomenon in Taiwan, both as a popular TV host and a bestselling writer. His two short novels, “My Kid Sister” and “Wild Child”, now translated into English and published in one volume as “Wild Kids”, feature members of Taiwan’s cynical younger generation. “My Kid Sister” runs through the narrator’s adolescence, from the birth of his little sister to her pregnancy at the age of 19. Their family is dysfunctional in a uniquely Taiwanese, East-meets-West way, combining Freudian angst (children and parents) with comic walk-on parts for the bearers of Chinese tradition (grandparents). “Wild Child” is a darker episode, in which 14-year-old Hou Shichun drops out of school and runs away from home. After falling into the Taiwanese underworld, he encounters other confused youngsters: Old Bull, Little Horse and Apricot. Although not unlike Holden Caulfield’s lonesome voice in J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”, Mr Hou’s narrative is a more brutal depiction of the spiritual vacuum of Taiwanese youth.
“The Deer & the Cauldron” was published before these other translations, but the Hong Kong-based writer Louis Cha (or Jin Yong as he is known to his millions of Chinese fans) deserves mention. His epic historical kung-fu yarns have made him a household name in every Chinese-speaking community; the success of Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning film, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, may help to steer the western reading public towards this most Chinese of literary genres.
“The Deer & the Cauldron” is set in the mid-17th century, some 20 years after the Chinese Ming dynasty has fallen to fearsome Tartar invaders, the Manchus. Pockets of Chinese resistance survive, however, as the secret Triads plot to expel the foreign oppressor. Mr Cha’s hero is Trinket Wei, who, by dint of dirty tricks and friendship with Whiskers Mao, rises to the position of top palace eunuch, best friend to the emperor and triad master. Intrigue and dazzling fights abound, as Trinket wrangles with eunuchs, Manchu warlords and a kung-fu queen mother, crying out with frequent exclamations in the style of Captain Haddock in “Tintin”, “Great balls of sizzling bean curd! Excellent kung-fu!”
New developments in Chinese literature mirror the explosive changes taking place in Chinese society itself and writers work hard to keep pace with market fashions. These four authors are significant figures, but much more writing remains untranslated and unread in the West. Hopefully, 2001 will see English translations of more works that reflect the variety of fiction coming from both within China itself and without.
中国文学的新发展是中国社会发生的巨大变更、作家们使出浑身解数跟上市场潮流的一个映照。这四位作家都是响当当的人物，不过还有更多的作品并未翻译，也未被西方了解。希望在2001年，出现更多的来自中国境内和境外的表现不同种类小说的英语翻译作品。
from the print edition | Books and Arts
