Roses and Thorns: The Second Blooming of the Hundred Flowers in Chinese Fiction, 1979-80

by Perry Link (Editor)

Background information on China's politics and government accompany twelve stories about life in China since Mao's death

346 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A New Yorker article about Chinese author Wang Meng ("Letter from Beijing: Servant of the State: Is China's most eminent writer a reformer or an apologist?" in Nov. 8, 2010, issue, pp. 60-69) sparked my interest and so I tracked down this book, which contains one of his short stories.

I read the book sort of backwards; I began reading Link's introduction, but found it boring without any context, so I read all the stories and then went back to the introduction (which was a good strategy, because then I found the introduction very interesting).

I've always found Chinese literature much stranger than other literature in translation. I have often wondered if the translators just aren't very capable, but I don't believe this is the case. While I believe all language is political, I suspect Chinese "literature" is the most extreme example of this. These stories all betray a simplistic perspective on life, sometimes very nuanced, but it seemed clear to me that these writers were not in the habit of introspection or critical, discriminating observation (which seem crucial to good writing, in my opinion). If I was reading American literature, I wouldn't be able to get through more than one or two of the stories.

But keep in mind that these stories are from 1979-1980, a very brief time after Mao died and the Gang of Four was overthrown, during which writers felt relatively free to express their feelings and honestly recount the kinds of experiences suffered by all intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution; from the late fifties until 1976 or so, this would have carried the threat of imprisonment, torture, or even death. So all of the stories include details of life during the Cultural Revolution, even if thinly veiled (such as in the strange fable, "Annals of a Fossil"), but more importantly, they show by their very language and style the incredible straitjacket that had been put on language and expression for many years. It is as though these people are learning how to observe, feel, think and write all over again, as, in a way, they were.

In his introduction, Perry Link describes an important contributing factor to the style of writing, which is chock full of declarative sentences; even the descriptions of scenery seem stilted and experienced as though through an official template for such experiences and observation.

The [Anti-Rightist] Campaign had important consequences for the use of language, both written and oral, by China’s intellectuals. The distinction between formal official language and ordinary speech, which in various forms is centuries old in China, had continued to be part of life in the People’s Republic. Official language, which was used for formal political purposes, was grammatically and lexically limited, stylistically standardized, somewhat Westernized, and quite uniform across China. It carried the air of official correctness”—whether or not it was used in knowing independence of facts. By contrast, informal language, which was used for the great majority of everyday purposes (including informal political ones), was natural Chinese in all its dialectical and other variations—not limited or stylized, not Westernized, and without claim to the transcendent “correctness” of formal language. . . . The Anti-Rightist Campaign . . . made [this distinction] much sharper and more pervasive than it had been before. Of necessity, the use of formal political language became more and more common in daily life. 13

Theese stories are most interesting for their varying perspectives on the Cultural Revolution and the constant, forced immersion in political thought of all the writers. A typical passage, which is unusual in its use of a metaphor (as I said, the stories almost exclusively recount without overt metaphor or nuanced observation of internal experiences) but typical of the recounting of experience under the incredibly oppressive People's Republic:

There was no way to “exonerate” Yan Liang, because he had fallen victim to no law, but merely to the policy of denying certain rights to people like him. Yan Liang had come to understand that freedom and democracy were not tasty pastries that others would hand to you on a platter; the more one lived in darkness and adversity, the more one needed to stand up and fight. 191

I found the last story to be the very best; it's quite different from the others in its detail and even in its more feeling, rather than declarative, tone. However, note the final sentence: the previous paragraph was complete, and the most sophisticated writing found in the stories, but the writer tacks on a completely unnecessary commentary, that any astute reader would not need. However, it underscores the reality that the kind of language in this paragraph was not the norm; I sensed that the author genuinely felt that people would not really understand without an explicit explanation at the end:

Dimly and murkily, Wenting felt she was going down a long road, a road that had no beginning or end. It wasn’t a rugged mountain road. A mountain road, though steep and difficult to climb, still has countless turns that make the climber feel daring and adventurous. Neither was it a small path through the fields. For that, though narrow and difficult underfoot, still offers the fragrance of rice blossoms, making a person feel carefree and happy. No, this road was a strip of sand, on which each step left an empty pit behind; this road was a pool of mud that sucked after one’s every step; this road was an endless, horizonless wasteland. No trace of civilization as far as the eye could see; only deathly stillness. What a difficult road to follow, what exhausting work! (Chen Rong, “At Middle Age,” 275)

So as far as literature goes, this wouldn't be all that interesting a collection of stories, but once I got into the rhythm of them, I wanted to read more and more.