Novelists From China

"Even with these dark eyes, a gift of the dark night I go to seek the shining light."

"A bird in the gusty wind Deftly changes directionA youth tries to pick up A pennyThe grapevine in fantasy Stretches its tentaclesThe Wave in retreat Arches its back."

"It is probably safe to say that Gu Cheng was the most radical poet in all of China's 2,500 years of written poetry."

"Clouds that are grey Can no longer be washed clean. We open the umbrella And simply paint the sky black."

"Yet, just as in any kindergarten, there are always a few naughty children who don't like to be told what to do. There are always some people who refuse to be administered amnesia. They are always trying to speak in their own words, always spreading their creative wings to fly beyond the boundaries of official memory. Following their conscience, they are willing to fly anywhere, into the past, the present or the future, in order to produce works that can pass our memories onto younger generations."

"China's censorship is not as rigorous as everyone thinks. The self-censorship of the authors is much worse."

"Reality is much more absurd and complex than any fiction."

"Anything negative about the country or the regime will be rapidly erased from the collective memory. This memory deletion is being carried out by censoring newspapers, magazines, television news, the Internet and anything that preserves memories."

"In March 2012 I met Torbjorn Loden, the Swedish professor of Chinese language and culture, in Hong Kong. He told me that while briefly teaching at Hong Kong's City University he asked the 40 students from China in his class what they knew about the June 4 Incident, the pro-democracy movement that ended in bloodshed in 1989, and if they were familiar with the names Liu Binyan and Fang Lizhi, two prominent democracy advocates of that era. All the students from China looked around at one another, mute and puzzled. That reminded me of something another teacher told me. She had asked her students from China if they had heard about the death by starvation of 30 to 40 million people during the so-called "three years of natural disasters" in the early 1960s. Her students responded with stunned silence, as if she, a teacher in Hong Kong, was brazenly fabricating history to attack their mother country."

"I used to assume history and memory would always triumph over temporary aberrations and return to their rightful place. It now appears the opposite is true."

"I wake up in the morning and seem to hear some one in the house sighing and saying that last night some one died. I immediately ask to find out who it is, and learn that it is the sharpest, most calculating fellow in town. Ah, is this not happiness?"

"As I write, a bee flies into my window and an ant crawls along the balcony. The ant and the bee are enjoying their present temporary life even as I am enjoying my temporary existence. When I become an "ancient one," so too will the ant and the bee become an "ancient bee" and an "ancient ant." What mystery and what joy that I should be living today at this hour by this place before this window with pen, inkstone, and paper spread before me, while my mind thinks and my hand writes in the company of the present bee and the present ant!"

"In Chin Sheng-t'an's commentaries his personality looms large and at times commands more attention than the text itself. To some extent, his commentaries are dialogues with the reader in which the literary work is but a pretext."

"Wasting one's time is one way of occupying it, not wasting time is also another way of occupying it, and not to mind going on wasting time even knowing that it is a waste of time is also another way of occupying it. ... I have well understood life, and therefore I can do what I naturally want to do. To do what I naturally want to do is also a way of occupying time."

"In making these comments, my motive is really not to go to all the trouble for the sake of the ancient author, but because I feel I have an obligation to the future readers and wish to do something about it."

"To have just finished repaying all one's debts. Ah, is this not happiness?"

"Chin Shengt'an regards reading a banned book behind closed doors on a snowy night as one of the greatest pleasures of life."

"A traveller returns home after a long journey, and he sees the old city gate and hears the women and children on both banks of the river talking his own dialect. Ah, is this not happiness?"

"To open the window and let a wasp out of the room. Ah, is this not happiness?"

"It has been raining for a whole month and I lie in bed in the morning like one drunk or ill, refusing to get up. Suddenly I hear a chorus of birds announcing a clear day. Quickly I pull aside the curtain, push open the window and see the beautiful sun shining and glistening and the forest looks like having a bath. Ah, is this not happiness?"

"冬夜饮酒，转复寒甚，推窗试看，雪大如手，已积三四寸矣。不亦快哉！"

"Eat pickled turnips with yellow beans. It gives the taste of walnut."

"To cut with a sharp knife a bright green watermelon on a big scarlet plate of a summer afternoon. Ah, is this not happiness?"

"It seems that in writing a composition, one must first have in mind a reason for writing. If there is a reason behind it, no matter what one writes about, it will turn out to be excellent writing. If there is no reason behind it, there is no way to write. Even if one can produce something, it will be as dry and unpleasant as chewing wax."

"The Western Wing is not a work written by an individual named Wang Shifu alone; if I read it carefully, it will also be a work of my own creation, because all the words in The Western Wing happen to be the words that I want to say and that I want to write down."

"To find accidently a handwritten letter of some old friend in a trunk. Ah, is this not happiness?"

"If anyone is in a hurry to read my novel, all he's got to do is keep me daily supplied with roast duck and good Shaoxing wine, and I'll be happy to oblige him."

"Wherever he was, he made it spring."

"Proud bones such as yours the world finds rare; These are the crags of a true eccentric. You wield your brush like a roof beam, propelled by wine; From out your bosom pour rugged rocks."

"一朝春尽红颜老，花落人亡两不知！"

"侬今葬花人笑痴，他年葬侬知是谁？"

"字字看來皆是血，十年辛苦不尋常 。"

"Ts'ao Hsüeh-ch'in's forte is the unhurried exploration of every nuance of a situation."

"问古来将相可还存，也只是虚名儿与后人钦敬。"

"假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无。"

"女兒是水作的骨肉，男人是泥作的骨肉。我見了女兒，我便清爽；見了男子，便覺濁臭逼人。"

"开辟鸿蒙，谁为情种？都只为风月情浓。"

"一个是水中月，一个是镜中花。"

"满纸荒唐言，一把辛酸泪！ 都云作者痴，谁解其中味？"

"Chinese novelists were afraid to let people know that they could condescend to such a thing as the writing of novels. [...] Because such literature was written for pleasure and self-satisfaction, its creation was determined by a true creative impulse and not by love of money or fame. And because it was ostracized literature in respectable circles, it escaped the banal influence of all classical, conventional standards. So far from giving the author money or fame, the authorship of a novel could endanger a scholar's personal safety. At Kiangyin, the home of Shih Nai-an, the author of All Men Are Brothers, there is still a legend about what Shih did in order to get himself out of trouble. In this legend, Shih was credited with the gift of foreknowledge of events. He had written this novel, and was living in retirement, having refused to serve the new Ming Dynasty. One day the Emperor came with Liu Powen, Shih's classmate and now the Emperor's right-hand man. Liu saw the manuscripts of this novel on his table, and recognizing Shih's superior talent, Liu plotted for his ruin. It was a time when the security of the new dynasty was not yet ensured, and Shih's novel, advocating as it did the common "brotherhood of all men," including the robbers, contained rather dangerous thoughts. So one day, on this basis, Liu petitioned the Emperor to have Shih summoned to the capital for trial. When the warrant came, Shih knew that his manuscripts had been stolen and realized that it would mean his death, so he borrowed five hundred taels from a friend with which to bribe the boatman and asked the latter to make the voyage as slowly as possible. Therefore on the way to Nanking he hurriedly composed a fantastic supernatural novel, the Fengshenpang, in order to convince the Emperor of his insanity. Under this cover of insanity, Shih saved his own life."

"家富人宁，终有个家亡人散各奔腾。"

"今风尘碌碌，一事无成。忽念及当日所有之女子，一一细考较去，觉其行止见识，皆出于我之上。何我堂堂之须眉，诚不若彼裙钗哉？实愧则有余，悔又无益之大无可如何之日也！当此，则自欲将已往所赖天恩祖德，锦衣纨绔之时，饫甘餍肥之日，背父兄教育之恩，负师友规谈之德，以至今日一技无成，半生潦倒之罪，编述一集，以告天下人：我之罪固不免，然闺阁中本自历历有人，万不可因我之不肖，自护己短，一并使其泯灭也。"

"A man should not marry after thirty years of age; should not enter the government service after the age of forty; should not have any more children after the age of fifty; and should not travel after the age of sixty. This is because the proper time for those things has passed. At sunrise the country is bright and fresh, and you dress, wash, and eat your breakfast, but before long it is noon. Then you realize how quickly time passes. I am always surprised when people talk about other people's ages, because what is a lifetime but a small part of much greater period? Why talk about insects when the whole world is before you? How can you count time by years? All that is clear is that time passes, and all the time there is a continual change going on. Some change has taken place ever since I began to write this. This continual change and decay fills me with sadness."

"What excites pleasure in me is the meeting and conversing with old friends. But it is very galling when my friends do not visit me because there is a biting wind, or the roads are muddy through the rain, or perhaps because they are sick. Then I feel isolated. Although I myself do not drink, yet I provide spirits for my friends, [...]. In front of my house runs a great river, and there I can sit with my friends in the shadow of the lovely trees. [...] When they come they drink and chat, just as they please, but our pleasure is in the conversation and not in the liquor. We do not discuss politics because we are so isolated here that our news is simply composed of rumors, and it would only be a waste of time to talk with untrustworthy information. We also never talk about other people's faults, because in this world nobody is wrong, and we should beware of backbiting. We do not wish to injure anyone, and therefore our conversation is of no consequence to anyone. We discuss human nature about which people know so little because they are too busy to study it."

"My friends are all broad-minded, and well educated, but we do not keep a record of our conversations. The reason for this is (1) we are too lazy, and do not aspire to fame; (2) to talk gives us pleasure, but to write would give trouble; (3) none of us would be able to read it again after our deaths, so why worry; (4) if we wrote something this year we should probably find it all wrong the next year."

"I have only [written the Water Margin] to fill up my spare time, and give pleasure to myself; [...] I have written it so that the uneducated can read it as well as the educated [...]. Alas! Life is so short that I shall not even know what the reader thinks about it, but still I shall be satisfied if a few of my friends will read it and be interested. Also I do not know what I may think of it in my future life after death, because then I may not able to even read it. So why think anything further about it?"

"能解者方有辛酸之泪，哭成此書。壬午除夕，書未成，芹爲泪盡而逝。余常哭芹，泪亦待盡。每思覓青埂峰再問石兄，奈不遇癩頭和尚何！悵悵！今而後惟願造化主再出一芹一脂，是書何幸，余二人亦大快遂心於九泉矣。甲午八日泪筆。"

"Cao Xueqin is a master of language. His prose is so exquisite and aesthetically pleasing that it almost attains perfection in every way."

"Both William Shakespeare and Cao Xueqin created more than 400 characters in their works. However, Shakespeare's cast of characters is distributed in thirty some plays and a few categories, such as the nobility and the servants, including the walk-on parts in different plays often with stereotypical personalities, while all of Cao's characters are tidily organized in one book yet every single one has a distinctive personality, a unique status and his or her own language, and none of them could be replaced by or mistaken for anyone else."

"It's a tragedy that a lot of people know more about Shakespeare than about Cao Xueqin."