C.T. Hsia A History of Modern Chinese Fiction

Chapter 2 Lu Xun

Lu Xun was born in 1881 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, the eldest son oa somewhat impoverished family which had nevertheless retained the tradtion of learning.

呐喊·自序

From the moment I felt medicine was not the important thing I had thought it was. The people of a weak, backward country, even though they may enjoy sturdy health, can only serve as the senseless material and audience for public excutions. In comparison, to die of diseases is not necessarily so unfortunate. Our first task was surely to tranform their spirit, and I thought at that time that literature could best meet the task of spiritual transformation. I then began to think about promoting literary activities.

故乡和鲁迅早期小说的关系

If his first three stories (狂人日记、孔乙己、药), unmistakably set in Shaoxing, were any indication, Lu Xun's home town was the principla source of his inspiration.

Now (辛亥革命后)，he saw that nothing had apparently changed much in spite of the nominal success of the Republican Revolution. His nostalgic love for his birthplace was therefore transmutted into a kind of compassion, with the attendant feelings of sorrow and anger.

The result (故乡、祝福、在酒楼上)……was a more complex mode of fiction than was practiced by immature young writers at that time. ……Shaken by the sloth, superstition, cruelty, and hypocrispy of the rural and town people, whome new ideas could not change, Lu Xun repudiates his home town and, symbolically, the old Chinese way of life: yet, as in the case of Joyce, this town and these people remain the stuff and substance of his creation. P32

关于《狂人日记》

"The Diary of a Madman" conveys most succinctly the author's attitude toward the Chinese tradition. P32

正面和负面的评价

Despite its obvious moral seriousness, the indictment that Chinese life is hypcritical and cruel is presented in an ingeious manner which is more indictive of the author's erudiction than his his saritic ability.

In his failure to provide a realistic plot for the madman's fanasies (no one apparently is trying to eat him), Lu Xun merely garnishes his story with miscellaneous items relating to the practice of canibalism in China and fails to present his case in dramatic terms. (为什么会如此？是鲁迅不愿还是不能？)

孔乙己

"Kong Yi Ji" was Lu Xun's first story in the lyrical mode: a touching if sketchy portrait of a marginal member of the lieterati who has turned thief.

药

"Medicine" is a much more ambitious performance than either of its predecessors.

At once a realistic expose of the traditional way of life, a symbolic parable on revolution, and a touching tale of parents' grief over their children, dead in their prime, it has, as author puts it, "the caculated cruelty of Andreyev."

P34 Lu Xun has attempted in the story a complex structure of meanings. As indicated by their names (the phrase hua-xia being a peotic synony from China), the two young men represent the hopeful and the doomed mode of Chines existence. P35

The death of Hsia indicates Lu Xun's gloomy view of the revolutionary cause in China. But inspite of his persimism, he lodges a memorable protest over Hsia's unjust execution.

故乡

When I realized what I was hoping, I suddenly became afraid. When Runtu asked me to give hime the censer and acndlesticks, I had laughed to myself, thinking that he was always worshiping idols and would not for a moment leave them alone. But what was this so-called hope of mine if not also an idol fashioned by my onw hands? Only his wishes were concerened with the more immediate things, while mine were not even remotely feasible.

In this passage Lu Xun reveals a strain of honesty characteristic of his best stories. Much as he wishes to change the social order, he also recognizes the nativete of refashionging reality in order to satisfy his didactic impulse. 鲁迅对启蒙的绝望 P36

阿Q正传

The only modern Chinese story to have attained an international repuation. But as a work of art if has surely been overpraised: it is mechanical in structure and facetous in tone. ...Lu Xun had agreed to write a humor serial for the literary supplement of the Peking Morning Gazette (Chen Bao), providing in each issue a comic episode illusrative of the character of Ah Q. When eventually the assignment proved irksome, Lu Xun changed his original plan and thrust upon his hero a tragic destiny. But he apparently never bothered to correct the resultant incogruity of thone in his story. 为什么《阿Q正传》在艺术上有瑕疵 P37

关于《彷徨》

Hesitation comprises eleven stories written during 1924-25. On the whole a finer volume than The Outcry, it has received less lavish praise because of its dominant mood of despondency. The author himself, however, is aware of its superiority; quite inronically he one commented on tis comparative neglect:"Later on, in such stories as 'Soap' and 'Divorce', while I have outgrown the influence of foreign authors and while my technique has become more mature and my depiction of reality more incisive, a diminution of pasion has at the same time take place, so that readers have paid them scant attention." P38 鲁迅解释为何《彷徨》影响力不如《呐喊》，虽然他认为《彷徨》艺术成就更高

祝福

The primitive peasant society to which she belongs, therefore, emerges from the story no less strangely and terrifyingly credible than the heroic society of Greak tragedy. Instead of being derogatory terms in the arsenal of antitraditional propaganda, "feudalism" and "superstition" take on here flesh and body. P39 对《祝福》艺术成就的高度评价

在酒楼上

There is little doubt that it was also Lu Xun's explicit intention to depict his friend as a wreck of a man who has lost his nerve and compromised with the old society. Yet, as actually realized in the story, the kindness and piety of Lu Weifu, however pathetic, also demonstrate the positive strength of the traditional mode of life, toward which the author must have been nostagically attracted in in spite of his contrary intellectual conviction. For Lu Xun "In the Restaraunt" is a lyrical confession of his own uncertainty and hesitation. He is rather like Mtthew Arnold, "wandering between two worlds, One dead, the other powerless to be born." The lines from Qu Yuan the great poet which Lu Xun adopted as the epigraph for Heisitation, fully confirn this mood.

对《呐喊》、《彷徨》两个集子的总结性评论

But even during this period of happy creativity, 1918-1926, Lu Xun's taste is none too sure...and his incapacity to draw creative sustenance from other experiences than those rooted in his native town also indicates a real limitation. P45

对《故事新编》的评价

In his fear of searching his onw mind and disclosing thereby his persimistic and somber view of China at compete variance with his professed Communist faith, Lu Xun could only repress his deep-seated personal emotion in the service of political satire. The resulting levity and chaos in Old Legend Retold mark the sad degeneration of a distinguished if narrow talent for fiction. P46