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The rise of metafiction in China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
Though it would be almost impossible to trace who first applied the term ‘Avant-Garde fiction’ (Xianfeng Xiaoshuo 
) to a recent trend in Chinese fiction since 1985, it is an appropriate name in many respects. All the previous schools of fiction in modern China—Wound fiction (Shangheng Xiaoshuo 
), Reform fiction (Gaige Xiaoshuo 
), Re-thinking fiction (Fansi Xiaowen 
), or Roots-Seeking fiction (Xungen Xiaoshuo 
)—received their names after their respective subject matters. The naming of Avant-Garde fiction itself seems to indicate that Chinese fiction has grown out of its thematic age to enter a new phase of life beyond themes.
The earliest authors of Chinese Avant-Garde fiction—Can Xue 
, Ma Yuan 
, Hong Feng 
, Zhaxi Dawa 
, Mo Yan 
and others—are all based in remote areas far from the centres of modern Chinese civilization. This led some critics to the conclusion that literary modernity was at odds with modern urbanized culture. Hardly had such an argument been put forward when, towards the end of 1987, there appeared a new group of Avant-Garde writers—Su Tong 
with The escape of 1934 (Yijiu sansi nian de taowang— 
:), Sun Ganlu 
with The letter from the postman (Xinshi zhi han
Ge Fei 
with The lost boat (Mizhou
) and Yu Hua 
with One kind of reality (Xianshi yizhong
)— all of them based in the Yangtze Delta, the most prosperous area of modern China. This would suggest, at least, that Chinese avant-gardism is not entirely dependent on economic-geographical conditions.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 90 - 99
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1992
References
1 Liang, Wu
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6 See Roman Jakobson's definition of ‘the metalingual function’ of speech; ‘Whenever the addresser and/or the addressee need to check up whether they use the same code, speech is focused on the code: it performs a metalingual (i.e. glossing) function’ (‘Closing statement: linguistics and poetics’, in Thomas, Sebeok (ed.), Style in linguistics New York: MIT Press, 1960, 356)Google Scholar.
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12 At the beginning the narrator steps forward to flaunt his (or perhaps we should say ‘her’, but we never know, as the narrator personality is never revealed throughout the novel) control of the narrative, ‘I want to tell a story, about a woman’. In the middle of the work, when the critical moment in the adulterous courtship is about to arrive, the narrator says, ‘Yes, I know something is going to happen. Among all these people on the tour, perhaps only I know it.’ But nothing real does happen in the adventurous relationship. And at the end, ‘beside all these, I can't think of anything else. I can't help but let her go, walking away from us, alone, without a story.’.
13 This is a term invented by Alan Wild (see Larry, McCafferey, The metafictional muse, Pittsburg, 1982, 263Google Scholar) to denote to fiction ‘that operates on a middle ground between realism and reflexity’. Such fiction is experimental to different degrees but does not primarily depend on the ‘reflexity method’.
14 Shouhuo, no. 6 1987. Ma Yuan's works before 1987 are collected in Gangdisi de youhuo 
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15 Wang Gan 
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Shanhai Wenxue, no. 5, 1989Google Scholar. This essay seems to represent the highest understanding the Mainland critics have reached on avant-gardism in contemporary Chinese literature. In the same issue of Shanghai Wenxue there is a discussion ‘Defend Avant-Garde fiction’ (‘Baowei Xianfeng Wenxue’ 
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, in which many extremist statements are made such a s ‘retreating from the space of civilization ahead of others’. There is an obvious want of theoretical support for these statements.
17 For instance in ch. iv of the novel, when Wukong enters the Million-Mirror Chamber of the King Xiaoyue, he sees his old friend Liu Boqin in the mirror. Wukong bows and asks,‘How come we are here together?’ Boqin says ‘How can you say we are together? You are in the world of others. I am in your world. We aren't together. We aren't together.’
18 Chinese critical circles have not been in agreement on the name for this trend. Some name it the Chinese ‘Beat Generation’ (Kuadiao Pai 
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19 Most of Liu Suola's works are collected in Ni bie wu xuanze 
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can be found in Qi wang 
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27 Zheng, Wanlong
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28 This short novel was published in Renmin Wenxue, no. 6, 1985. Some of Han Shaogong's works will be published in English in a collection being prepared by Renditions in Hong Kong.
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