Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts by Qian Zhongshu; Rea Christopher G.;

Author:Qian, Zhongshu; Rea, Christopher G.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science/Folklore & Mythology
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2011-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

INSPIRATION

There was once a famous writer, but strangely enough, we do not even know his name. It was not that he had not taken a name, or that he had done away with it.1 Nor was it that he had somehow remained anonymous, or that something about him was perhaps so peculiar that it defied naming. The reason was simple: the ring of his fame was too deafening for us to hear his name clearly. This was hardly a unique case. The postman, for instance, would unhesitatingly deliver an envelope addressed to “The Greatest French Poet” to Victor Hugo.2 Likewise, the telegraph company was sure to route a telegram for “The Greatest Living Italian Writer” to Gabriele D’Annunzio,3 making it absolutely unnecessary to specify name and address. This writer of ours was even more famous, for his was a name that needed no written or spoken forms. The name was completely obscured by the reputation, as it were. Mention “writer,” and everyone knew you were referring to him.

Being a genius, the Writer was prolific, but, having an artistic conscience, he suffered labor pains with each act of creation. Then again, writing was not quite the same as childbirth, since a difficult delivery did not cost him his life, and his fecundity was a burden only to his readers. He penned numerous novels, prose pieces, plays, and poems, thereby moving, inspiring, influencing countless middle-school students. Overseas, sales of a literary work are dominated by the tastes of the middle class. But China, that ancient and cultured land of ours, is a country where material wealth matters not. Here, the value of a work rests, instead, on the standards and wisdom of the middle-school student. After all, the only ones willing to spend their money on books and on subscriptions to magazines are those who are still in middle school: unthinking adolescents, eager to hear speeches and lectures; ever ready to worship great men; and full of the unremarkable sorrows of young Werther. As for university students, they themselves had authored books and hoped to sell their own products. Professors, of course, would not even bother with books, writing only forewords for others and expecting complimentary copies in return. Those more senior in position disdained even forewords, limiting themselves to gracing the cover designs of friends’ works with their calligraphy; books, meanwhile, would of course be respectfully dedicated to them.

This Writer of ours knew only too well where the key to his success lay, having seen that middle-school students made great customers. It comes as no surprise that his works would be collectively titled For Those Who Are No Longer Children but Have Yet to Grow Up, or, alternatively, Several Anonymous, Postage-Due Letters to All Young People. “Anonymous” because, as previously mentioned, nobody knew his name, and “postage due” because the books had to be paid for out of the young readers’ pockets. The Writer was able to disguise his ignorance as profundity, pass off shallowness as clarity, and speak with the voice of a radical who proceeded with caution and good sense.

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