Diary of a Madman and Other Stories

"Lu Xun is venerated as the first modern Chinese writer. I have a book of his stories in Chinese sitting on my shelf right now, titled “The Father of Modern Chinese Literature”. He uses vernacular language, writes in the tradition of realistic fiction and grapples with the problems of his day. Like many Chinese students and scholars of that period, Lu Xun first went to study overseas in Japan, where he was a medical student during the time of the Russo-Japanese War. In a wonderful introduction to one of his collections, he writes about his time in Japan. One day, at the end of class, the professor brought in some slides of the war. Lu Xun saw a picture of two or three Chinese who had been taken by the Japanese, accused of being spies for the Russians and were about to be beheaded. This was a turning point for him, sitting in this classroom in Japan, looking at pictures of his countrymen being humiliated. What he noticed was not so much the people who were going to be executed but the crowd of Chinese people standing around gawking at them. This inspired in Lu Xun a revolutionary fervour that what he needed to do was not become a doctor and cure the body, but become a writer and cure China’s soul. He started to write incredibly scathing stories, attacking the existing feudalistic, Confucian social system that China had had up to that point. For “Diary of a Madman” he did borrow the title from Gogol but it’s a completely different animal to Gogol’s story, which is fanciful and light. Lu Xun’s story is really dark. It’s about someone who seems to be a madman, seeing cannibalism everywhere. He looks at ancient Confucian texts and sees the words “Eat People!” emerging between the lines. Lu Xun was using cannibalism as a metaphor for the dog-eat-dog world of Confucianism, in which there were very rigid hierarchies – an aristocratic class of scholars at the top of society, and then a huge underclass that did not enjoy many privileges or freedom, or material wealth or comfort. So Lu Xun is a revolutionary figure who really transforms Chinese literature. His most famous story, which is also translated in this collection, is “The True Story of Ah–Q”. Ah-Q is a fascinating caricature of the Chinese national character – he gets into fights with people and finds ways to win what he calls a “psychological” victory. Even though someone beats him into the ground, he thinks he’s superior, his older brother, more educated, more intelligent. You mentioned the British Macartney mission earlier. Ah-Q is doing the same thing that the Chinese were at that time, which is to say they are superior to the barbarians. But at the end of the day, the British had bigger guns and were able to dominate China. Lu Xun is one of the first figures to take aim at traditional Chinese society and try to liberate China by curing its soul. “The True Story of Ah-Q” is one of the most wonderfully prescient but also playful and engaging demonstrations of what China was experiencing in the 20th century. It’s also important cultural knowledge. Often, when we learn a language, we might have a huge vocabulary, good grammar and speak fluently. But we also need to understand the references in a language and culture. If you don’t know about Lu Xun, a Chinese person will immediately feel that you don’t know very much about China. Unlike the American case, where I might name six or seven other writers who are equally venerated, in the canon of 20th century Chinese literature Lu Xun emerges as the towering figure. That’s why it’s so important for students to know about him. The cultural references that come out of his stories are very influential in terms of modern Chinese language and cultural consciousness. It’s required reading for anyone who really wants to know what is in Chinese people’s minds when they think about contemporary China and literature. If you look at modern Japanese literature, there’s a similar figure who emerges a little bit earlier than Lu Xun called Natsume Soseki. For the Japanese, Soseki is the father of modern Japanese literature. He’s the first person to write in a realist tradition and deal with the problems of the day. And for both Soseki and Lu Xun, the biggest challenge of the day was encounters with the western world. Yes, Lu Xun’s stories are also accessible – for upper-intermediate or advanced learners of Chinese – to read in the original."