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Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays. Qian Zhongshu. EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY Christopher G. Rea. DENNIS T. HU. NATHAN K.
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Remaining in what then became communist China, Qian did not continue to write fiction, but remained a leading literary figure.

The Beast Lair

These two collections are from a specific era, but they have been republished numerous times, and this closely annotated edition usefully provides text-variants from various editions in its endnotes. Almost all the pieces -- both essays and stories -- are marked by a sharp wit and their allusiveness.

Qian's preferred style and method is to refer to and build upon the works and sayings and maxims of other authors -- a Robert Burton-like as in The Anatomy of Melancholy style that is remarkable for its wide range, as Qian is equally comfortable flaunting his Chinese learning as he is displaying his familiarity with Western literature and philosophy and there's no denying: he knows his stuff.

His range of references is astounding; packed in like this in the dense, short essays it can also be wearing. If ostensibly on some simple subject -- 'On Laughter', 'On Moral Instruction' -- Qian manages to nevertheless to connect a wide variety of thoughts and ideas in his short essays.

Typical of his philosophy of life and writing is the approach he takes in his piece on 'Reading Aesop's Fables ', where he offers cynical readings of several of the fables and the lessons that should be taken from them -- and contrasts his viewpoint with that of another famous thinker: Rousseau believes that fables are detrimental because they make unsophisticated children complicated and deprive them of their innocence.

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I believe that fables are detrimental because they make unsophisticated children even more simpleminded and childish. Fables lead them to believe that in human affairs the distinction between right and wrong and the consequences of good and evil are as fair and clear-cut as in the animal kingdom. As a result, when these children grow up they will be tricked and rebuffed at every turn.

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In his stories Qian also continues to play with some of these same ideas. The lengthy 'Cat' involves, among other things, considerable writerly ambition without the necessary talent , while in 'Inspiration' a great writer -- "a nationally certified talent" -- is deemed worthy of contending for the Nobel Prize something the Chinese were apparently already worried about back then; cf. Julia Lovell's The Politics of Cultural Capital , and so: The government commissioned a panel of experts to have his masterworks translated into Esperanto, so that he could compete for the Nobel Prize.

10 : Beasts, ghosts & dancing with history

Yeah, not surprisingly, that doesn't work out too well Amusingly, too, one of the suggestions of how to react to this snub is: "we should establish China's own literary award as a protest against the Nobel Prize, and to save the right to criticize from falling into foreign hands" -- exactly the reaction when Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Using a language that conjoins Daoist epistemology with a poststructuralist penchant, Qian hereby issues a powerful defense of prejudice that melds together Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. In fact, his style manifests a kind of experimental anachronism that is itself a cultural gesture not uncommon among essayists of the s and s, such as Lin Yutang.


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I sometimes wish that there had been either more or less intellectualism in these essays. Allowing the reader to read the essays along the side with the short stories is perhaps the most helpful measure the editor has provided toward a better and fuller appreciation of Qian Zhongshu.

There is a certain kind of intertextuality between the essays and the short stories, which is fascinating to observe.

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The stories carve out an imaginative space where the intellectual mind of the essays shows its more humane and humanistic sides. The characters are slaves of the heart and puppets of reason. The difference in tone and perspective between the essays and the short stories, I would surmise, comes from a different management of vulnerability of the author himself and the characters.

The world of belles lettres back then was simply not as divided or professionalized as now. Or is it useful more as a footnote to intellectual history? Shuang Shen Pennsylvania State University.