novelists-from-china

"Picture, if you will, a boy of nineteen, still slumbering in the limbo of adolescence, having heard nothing but revolutionary blather about patriotism, Communism, ideology and propaganda all his life, falling headlong into a story of awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, of all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden from me."

"Every nook and cranny of the land came under the all-seeing eye of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which had cast its gigantic, fine-meshed net over the whole of China."

"It would evidently take more than a political regime, more than dire poverty to stop a woman from wanting to be well dressed: it was a desire as old as the world, as old as the desire for children."

"“What happened to her books?” “They went up in smoke. Confiscated by the Red Guards, who promptly burnt them in public, right in front of her apartment building.”"

"I kept my door more securely locked than ever and passed the time with foreign novels. Since Balzac was Luo’s favourite I put him to one side, and with the ardour and earnestness of my eighteen years I fell in love with one author after another: Flaubert, Gogol, Melville, and even Romain Rolland."

"I was carried away, swept along by the mighty stream of words pouring from the hundreds of pages. To me it was the ultimate book: once you had read it, neither your own life nor the world you lived in would ever look the same."

"We had been so unlucky. By the time we had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left for us to read."

"Inside, piles of books shown in the light of our torch: a company of great Western writers welcomed us with open arms. On top was our old friend Balzac, with five or six novels, then came Victor Hugo, Stendhal, Dumas, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Romain Rolland, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, and some English writers, too: Dickens, Kipling, Emily Brontë… We were beside ourselves. My head reeled, as if I’d had too much to drink. I took the novels out of the suitcase one by one, opened them, studied the portraits of the authors, and pass them on to Luo. Brushing them with the tips of my fingers made me feel as if my pale hands were in touch with human lives. “It reminds me of a scene in a film,” said Luo. “You know, when a stolen suitcase turns out to be stuffed with money…” “So, are you weeping tears of joy?” I said. “No. All I feel is loathing.” “Me too. Loathing for everyone who kept these books from us.”"

"I hadn’t suspected that a tiny glimmer of hope for the future could transform someone so utterly."

"She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price."

"Four-Eyes’s parents probably wanted their son to be a writer. They must have thought it would be good for him to read books, even if he had to do so in secret."

"宁為太平犬，莫作亂离人！"

"1984的作者预见到了专制的进步，却没有预见到技术的进步。"

"一句话，技术是中性的，但技术的进步会让自在的世界更自在，集权的世界更加集权。"

"In technological terms, space voyages and environmental protections seem different in character, with the former being intense, high speed, and adventurous, with connotations of state-of-the-art technology, while the latter is a gentle green public-service activity, one which, though involving technology, doesn’t give the impression of being as difficult as the former. But that is only an impression. The true situation is: If we want to achieve the present targets for environmental protection, the technology needed is more difficult to develop than that for large-scale interplanetary travel."

"Of all the unexpected things that might interrupt Chinese science fiction’s development, social unrest has to be the most worrying. I once told readers at a conference that science fiction is the product of leisurely and carefree minds. No one agreed, but I was telling the truth. Only when our lives are stable and quiet can we allow the universe’s catastrophes to fascinate and awe us. If we already live in an environment full of danger, then science fiction won’t interest us. In fact, two of the last three bursts of creative progress that Chinese science fiction underwent were cut short by social unrest, which is lethal to the genre."

"Nostalgia ages people, but science fiction is a literature of youth. Its spirit is the youthful yearning for new worlds, and new ways of living. Mainstream literature is like Chinese baijiu, tasting better as it ages; science fiction, on the other hand, is like tap beer—you’ve got to drink it quick. Read today, even the sci-fi classics seem feeble, not revelatory. The nature of science fiction is to shine brightest in the present, then to be quickly forgotten. But science fiction shouldn’t be afraid of obsolescence. As a literature of innovation, it uses a constant stream of inventions and shocks to hold back obsolescence, like an everlasting fire. Just as ash falls, the flame springs back to life, emitting dazzling light. To accomplish this, it must hold on to its usefulness."

"Contemporary China is a complex society in transition. The kinds of technological and social changes that took societies in the west centuries to move through have sometimes been experienced by a mere two generations in China. The anxiety of careening out of balance, of being torn by parts moving too fast and too slow, is felt everywhere."

"As to the future of humanity, I’m essentially an optimist. I believe that with the advancement of technology, mankind has a hopeful future. But this optimistic view is based on reason: on one hand, whether the future will be bright or be dark depends largely on the choices we make today."

"The glories and obstacles of the past are just a speck compared to the vastness of the future."

"The world of fantasy and myth isn’t really that large. The universe, as depicted in Eastern and Western mythology alike, is hardly ever larger than two astronomical units in radius. The notion of a light-year could never have made it into a myth because such a scale is beyond the capacity of the mythological imagination. The most magnificent deities of the world of magic are dwarfed by the stars of the world of sci-fi, and its most terrible demons pale in comparison to the sci-fi world’s black holes."

"It’s an interesting thing, really: The rigorous, science-based predictions of scientists and futurologists and the spirited “flights of fancy” of sci-fi writers are just about equally (in)accurate!"

"A professor of philosophy once said that lesson one for freshman in his field should consist of a long, hard look late at night at the stars. I think this would be an even more apt first lesson for aspiring writers of sci-fi."

"The world described by modern physics has already moved far beyond our common sense and intuition, even beyond our imagination, and this is, of course, the richest resource for science fiction. I’ve tried to turn the magical world as demonstrated by modern physics into vivid stories. Most of my stories were based on and imagined along the lines of physics and cosmology."

"That humans will biologically alter themselves is inevitable, which makes life sciences the most terrifying of the sciences."

"Exploring the secrets of the universe is the basic instinct of all intelligent life."

"The cosmos had not chosen humanity after all. In the old timeline, humans had created the apex civilization on earth, but that had been a one-time and accidental chance. In our human conceit, we’d taken the accidental for the inevitable."

"It is science fiction’s mission to broaden and deepen people’s minds. If someone on the way home from work at night pauses to look thoughtfully up at the stars for a while because of a sci-fi story they’ve read, then that work is a great success. Unfortunately, our current sci-fi is also benumbed to a considerable extent, and I see two possible reasons. The first is conceptual. There’s an idea that sci-fi, like mainstream literature, is about relationships between people. This idea reduces the universe to nothing but a prop, a set piece, a supporting role. It cannot be denied that this idea has given rise to many excellent works, but sci-fi is at its strongest and most charming when it depicts the relationship between people and the universe. In sci-fi, the universe itself should be a protagonist, as much as any of its characters."

"The products of modern science have already surpassed the wonders of magic."

"In the remote future, when people remember the history of the mid-twentieth century to the present, all of the great events that seemed so momentous in this period will be milled away, leaving little trace, and only two things that we have overlooked will be seen as more and more important: first, humanity took its first step outside the cradle, and second, humanity then took a step backward. The importance of these two events cannot be overestimated."

"We tend to imagine that readers of fantasy recognize that what they’re reading is make-believe, which is certainly true today, but wasn’t necessarily so in ancient times. People of ages past regarded fantasies and myths as nothing less than fact. Back then, the real world and the world of magic were mixed together as an inseparable whole, and a large part of the appeal of magical fantasy was its perceived realism. Now, its sense of realism is gone for good, which is why modernity can produce only fairy tales, never myths."

"Mind you, what we are discussing isn’t religion, per se, but religious feeling. This isn’t the feeling someone has toward God—it’s atheistic, and not in the complicated way of Spinoza or whomever. The religious feeling of science fiction is a deep sense of awe at the great mysteries of the universe."

"Quantitative change eventually gives way to qualitative change."

"As a child, I witnessed a great deal of violence and persecution as well as social unrest during The Cultural Revolution...This experience has made me understand the complexity of human nature and society—I’ve realized that the future of human civilization is also full of danger and uncertainty. Such understanding is manifested in my science fiction novels…"

"Numbness to the universe is pervasive in society."

"Fantasy has been around since antiquity, and there’s been so much of it. The years have taken their toll and depleted some of its imaginative power. The rapid progress of science, on the other hand, constantly infuses fresh blood into the science-fictional imagination. The worlds described in today’s sci-fi are entirely different from those of a few decades ago, whereas today’s fantasy worlds aren’t so different from those of the Middle Ages."

"The truth is that sci-fi and fantasy have many more similarities than differences. They have the same goal: both strive to create ethereal, free worlds of the imagination from which readers can derive the shocks and delights of beauty. (Personally, I’ve never thought it’s sci-fi’s job to represent reality or human nature.) The only difference between the two is the source of their imaginings."

"I didn't have to do the research I did for my historical novels, especially Empress Orchid, on which I labored to line up every account/record — investigative journalism, so to speak. The challenge about writing The Cooked Seed as a memoir was the issue of honesty, as how far and how deep was I willing to go to expose, examine, and dissect my life — that included doing autopsies on my flaws and personal failures."

"I had no expectations. I thought, “If I don’t make it, it’s my own fault.” In China I had to suffer and labour for the Communist Party – here I was given the opportunity to suffer and labour for myself and to build my own life. I chose to look at the glass half full – I think that’s a very immigrant attitude."

"I cultivate my Chinese garden in the middle of an American town…I love China with all my heart and soul, although I feel fortunate to have escaped it."

"In all of my historical novels (from Becoming Madame Mao to Empress Orchid and The Last Empress to Pearl of China) I have tried to be as accurate as possible because accuracy gives my historical themes weight. But some have been more literally true than others. The advantage of being a novelist is having the freedom to go directly after the truth of the human heart…"

"Since my childhood I have enjoyed reading Martial Arts fiction. I write it myself first and foremost for my own pleasure, and then for the pleasure of my readers (there is also, of course, the financial reward...). I am just a storyteller, like the professional storytellers of the Song dynasty. I believe Martial Arts fiction is like Peking Opera, or ballad-singing, or dancing, or music—its main function is to give pleasure."

"Those who fail to provide for themselves will eventually injure their friends and those who always provide for their friends will eventually injure themselves."

"First we look at the hills in the painting, Then we look at the painting in the hills."

"When you meet the one among the millions, when amid millions of years, across the borderless wastes of time, you happen to catch him or her, neither a step too early nor a step too late, what else is there to do except to ask softly: "So you're here, too?""

"In this era, the old things are being swept away and the new things are still being born. But until this historical era reaches its culmination, all certainty will remain an exception. People sense that everything about their everyday lives is a little out of order, out of order to a terrifying degree. All of us must live within a certain historical era, but this era sinks away from us like a shadow, and we feel we have been abandoned. In order to confirm our own existence, we need to take hold of something real, of something most fundamental, and to that end we seek the help of an ancient memory, the memory of a humanity that has lived through every era, a memory clearer and closer to our hearts than anything we might see gazing far into the future. And this gives rise to a strange apprehension about the reality surrounding us. We begin to suspect that this is an absurd and antiquated world, dark and bright at the same time. Between memory and reality there are awkward discrepancies, producing a solemn but subtle agitation, an intense but as yet indefinable struggle."

"寥落古行宫，宫花寂寞红。 白头宫女在，闲坐说玄宗。"

"Wu Ching-tzu's The Scholars is the first novel in which a writer criticizes social abuses without any personal malice, directing his attack mainly on the literati. The style is warm and humorous, gentle and ironical. This must rank as China's first novel of social satire."

"Fan Chin feasted his eyes on this announcement; and, after reading it through once to himself, read it once more aloud. Clapping his hands, he laughed and exclaimed, "Ha! Good! I have passed." Then, stepping back, he fell down in a dead faint. His mother hastily poured some boiled water between his lips, whereupon he recovered consciousness and struggled to his feet. Clapping his hands again, he let out a peal of laughter and shouted, "Aha! I've passed! I've passed!" Laughing wildly he ran outside, giving the heralds and the neighbours the fright of their lives. Not far from the front door he slipped and fell into a pond. When he clambered out, his hair was dishevelled, his hands muddied and his whole body dripping with slime. But nobody could stop him. Still clapping his hands and laughing, he headed straight for the market."

"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."