Title: Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant. Yu Hua s novel Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (Xu Sanguan mai xue ji) departs

Transcription

1 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 1 Title: Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant Abstract: Yu Hua s novel Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (Xu Sanguan mai xue ji) departs radically from the style of his short stories written in the 1980s. Following the publication of this novel, the author was criticized for catering to a Western market: stories were judged to be too easily translated and even self-orientalizing. Critics have tended to interpret this stylistic shift as an abandonment of Yu Hua s avant-gardist role as a writer. In this paper, I discuss the theory of the avant-garde as developed by Peter Bürger and attempt to establish a comparative space between the Western European historical avantgarde and the Chinese avant-garde. In order to achieve this, I use the notion of avantgarde conceptually to show how it can be developed as a tool of reception and literary analysis rather than an absolute category. In this light, I look at Chronicle of a Blood Merchant to uncover how Yu Hua stages reality to disclose the fragmented nature of the novel, that at first may appear to present itself as a perfect and cohesive whole. According to Georges Luckas, the realist seeks to make invisible the process of the creation of the work of art. Upon reading the novel, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant indeed appears to be constructed as a coherent whole, which imitates the reader s perception of reality. However, a hermeneutic reading of the scene of the family confession and an analysis of Yu Hua s strategic staged reality enables me to challenge some of the assumptions that are made in Bürger s theory. I argue that using

2 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 2 Peter Bürger s theory of the avant-garde as a way to categorize the work of the non- European avant-gardes risks, by trying to identify patterns that are supposed to be present within a work, overshadowing subversive comments that are actually present. Instead, I demonstrate how it is possible for Peter Bürger s theory of the avant-garde to serve as a device that uncovers the subversive elements within a work that responds to a specific context of production and reception of art. Keywords: Yu Hua, Peter Bürger, realism, avant-garde, aesthetics.

3 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 3 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant Yu Hua s two novels To Live (Huo zhe) and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant Xu Sanguan mai xue ji depart significantly from the style of his short stories written in the late 1980s. 1 The author was criticized for catering to the market of readers and especially to a Western one. 2 The critique launched against Yu Hua is similar to the one elaborated by Stephen Owen of Bei Dao s writing, judged to be too easily translated and even self-orientalizing. 3 While scholars feel disappointed in what they see as Yu Hua s abandonment of his avant-gardist role, one must acknowledge the popularity of these works as well as Zhang Yimou s cinematic adaptation. In this paper, I discuss the theory of the avant-garde as developed by Peter Bürger and attempt to establish a comparative space between the Western European historical avant-garde and the Chinese avant-garde. In order to achieve this, I use the notion of avant-garde conceptually to show how it can be developed as a tool of reception and literary analysis rather than an absolute category. In this light, I look at Chronicle of a Blood Merchant to uncover how Yu Hua stages reality to disclose the fragmented nature of the novel, that at first may appear to present itself as a perfect and cohesive whole. 1 Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (New York: Anchor Books, 2003). See, for example, Noon of Howling Wind, 1986, This Story of for Willow, In China s Avant-garde Fictions Jing Wang (ed.), (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998) and and Jing Wang (ed), Introduction In China s Avant-garde Fiction, 14 and Liu Kang, Liu Kang, The Short Lived Avant-garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua, In Modern Language Quarterly, (2002) 63(1): Here and in this paper I use Western in the sense that it is an imaginary political construct. Stephen Owen, The Anxiety of Global Influence: What Is World Poetry? The New Republic, November 19, 1990: Especially see response by Rey Chow, Introduction: Leading Questions In Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), 1-26.

4 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 4 A comparative space between the Western European and Chinese avant-gardes The production of a realism or ultra-realistic effect is precisely the problem for those scholars who regard this novel as a departure from his previous short stories of radical aestheticism. Because in Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua has produced such down-to-earth figures [ ] with whom many Chinese can identify with, 4 some scholars interpret this novel as a clear divorce from the avant-garde engagement with writing. The abandonment of l art pour l art as a precept underlying Yu Hua s writing and a turn to a realistic style means that the author can no longer be considered as an avant-garde: [ ] in a few years the once subversive Chinese avant-garde became an innocuous label largely celebrated as elitist kitsch, neither challenging Mao s and Deng s cultural institutions any longer nor establishing itself as an autonomous institution in China. In other words, it no longer followed Bürger s model as a counter institutional force or a new institution. 5 This statement s underlying assumption is that Bürger s theory delimitates what can constitute an avant-garde work of art (or piece of literature) when in fact, the nature of the institutions and the artistic and literary traditions against which the Chinese avantgarde elaborates a protest are quite different from the Western European and American avant-gardes. Paradoxically, by using Bürger s theory to draw a line for distinguishing 4 Chen Jianguo, The World of the Sensory: Yu Hua s Obsession with the Real, In The Aesthetics of the Beyond (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2009), Liu Kang, The Short Lived Avant-garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua, 102.

5 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 5 the avant-garde formal aspects of a work, it contributes to an institutionalization of avant-garde practice. Peter Bürger s Theory of the Avant-garde does remain an important text that attempts to define the nature of the avant-garde with regard to the social functions of art. Although Bürger s study draws from the specific cases of the Western European avantgarde, his theory lies in a general conceptualization of avant-garde aesthetics and politics across artistic media and cultural boundaries. Within this framework, the case of the Chinese avant-garde has often been examined as a manifestation of a general, potentially international phenomenon. Although the Chinese avant-garde did indeed have access to European avant-garde writings and major theories that underlay their practice, it is not sufficient to look for the same aesthetic manifestations in order to determine the avantgarde quality of a Chinese work of art or piece of literature. This type of approach risks erasing what is actually present within the work in question in terms of formal aspects and narrative devices and highlighting what is absent or what is, against a predetermined list of criteria, supposed to be there. Bürger sees the development of art within bourgeois society as characterized by its historical shift towards increasing aesthetic autonomy, a condition he defines as the independence of works of art from extra-aesthetic uses. 6 This process of liberating art from extra-practical demands external to it culminates in the movement of aestheticism l art pour l art. Nineteenth century aestheticism constitutes an attempt to turn art upon itself: it becomes increasingly aware of the artistic means particular to the discipline of art. Consequently, because of this extreme aestheticism, the other side of autonomy, 6 Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde (Micheal Shaw trans.) (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 21.

6 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 6 art s lack of social impact also becomes recognizable. 7 In response to this recognition, the historical avant-garde emerges as a movement defined by its opposition towards this aesthetic, which is thought of being excessively self-centered. For Bürger, it is the particular character of the response of the avant-garde to aestheticism that is important because with the historical avant-garde movements, the social sub-system of art enters a new stage of development. For Bürger, the moment when the avant-garde no longer criticizes the aesthetic styles and schools that preceded it, but criticizes the institution, the historical avant-garde enters the stage of selfcriticism. 8 What this self criticism means for the historical avant-garde of the early twentieth century is that, unlike previous avant-garde movements, its subversive or revolutionary character is demonstrated in the way in which it turns itself to the institutional framework which enables the production and reception of art. For Bürger, the central goal of the avant-garde is to dismantle the institution of art and to lead the aesthetics experience out of its isolation in order to drive it back into the real world, where it can play its part in the transformation of everyday life. The avant-garde then opposes itself to an institution of art characterized by its detachment from everyday experience and thus creates works whose goals become the reintegration of art into life, the ultimate objective being the annihilation of the institution of art. 9 The avant-garde will then aim at a more practical kind of art with a clear social significance. The situation in China during the 80s and 90s was completely different than what Peter Bürger is describing as the historical conditions for the emergence of self-criticality in the institution of art. The Chinese avant-garde emerged when the Communist Party 7 Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, 72.

7 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 7 under Deng Xiaoping discredited the Cultural Revolution. 10 At that time, the problems within the Party gave rise to a generalized disillusionment and a subsequent discussion within literary circles emerged. The information explosion enabled writers such as Yu Hua, Ge Fei and Su Tong to write with great consciousness of Western post-modern and avant-garde theories such as those of Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Georges Louis Borges, Franz Kafka, Jean Beaudrillard etc. 11 Historically, the avant-garde in China does not emerge out of the opposition between the isolated status of art as a pure aesthetic experience l art pour l art, which was advocated by the modernists and the rest of society. Rather, experimental artists and writers in China orient their practice towards the search of this independence and self-governance of art as an institution, which had previously been denied by the Communist Party. Art already had a political dimension before the advent of the avantgarde in the 1980s. The main concern for Chinese avant-garde artists and writers is less of a social and political protest as is the case with the Euro-American avant-gardes: China s young literary rebels have indeed subverted everything that the revolutionary generation held sacred. Their greatest achievement started with depoliticization of language. 12 Ironically enough Chinese avant-garde writers use aestheticism to protest against the politicization of culture. 13 In the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the term avant-garde could conceptually help mediate conflicting notions of what the nascent Chinese post-modern 10 Liu Kang, The Short Lived Avant-garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua, In Modern Language Quarterly, (March 2002) 63(1): Zhang Xuejun, Borges and Contemporary Chinese Avant-garde Writings, Front. Lit. Stud. China 2007, 1(2): Jing Wang, Introduction In China s Avant-garde Fiction (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), Liu Kang, The Short Lived Avant-garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua, 92

8 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 8 literature would constitute of. The avant-garde schools saw themselves as pursuing what intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement had claimed to be necessary changes in literature and the arts, as though the rise of the Communist Party and the precepts developed at the Yan an Talks had prevented this development and thus created a break within the linear timeline expanding from pre-modern, modern, to post-modern periods. In this sense, in the 1980s, the Western European avant-garde presented itself as a logical model, which had, to a certain degree, already been indigenized during the May Fourth Movement. 14 Realism in Chronicle of a Blood Merchant For Luckas, the tasks of the realist are: first, the uncovering and artistic shaping s of these connections (i.e. the connections with social reality) and secondly and inseparably from the former, the artistic covering of the connections that have been worked out abstractly. 15 The realist thus seeks to make invisible the process of the creation of the work of art. Upon reading the novel, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant indeed appears to be constructed as a coherent whole, which imitates the reader s perception of reality. In other words, the work does not seem to be made up of fragments: the different parts remain invisible to the viewer. One of the most important features of the avant-garde work, as described by Bürger, lies in its power to defamiliarize. In other words, it sets out to break the current 14 Liyan Shen, Folkloric Elements in Avant-garde Fiction: Yu Hua s One Kind of Reality and World Like Mist, Georges Luckas, Es um den Realismus, F. J. Raddatz, ed., in Maximus und Literatur. Eine Dokumentation (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1969), vol II, 69f, As cited in Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant- Garde, 72.

9 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 9 perception of the world as imposed by the homogeny of capitalist ideology by proposing a radical rupture with anything produced heretofore. 16 The avant-gardist work must then break the traditional mode of perception of the work of art or piece of literature and thus will often make the different elements of which it is constituted visible to the reader. 17 The avant-garde work then favors an aesthetic of fragmentation, which presupposes the necessity for a systematic deconstruction of reality. 18 Reception is supposedly altered with the avant-gardist work of art because the fragmentation of the different parts, which refuse to constitute a whole, shocks the reader (for a finite amount of time). 19 This shock is meant to incite the reader to revolutionize his/her life in terms of the way he/she conducts it in a quotidian sense. 20 In Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua is reproached for employing an extreme realism and trying to cater to both Chinese and Euro-American readers and therefore could no longer be considered as avant-garde. 21 Despite some scholars disliking of Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, it is worth looking into how the readers might have reacted to the text as well as investigating what kind of satisfaction it provides. Fan reviews of Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, whether they are positive or negative, concentrate on the affect of the text. A portion of the responses to Chronicle of a Blood Merchant are dedicated to describing a physical involvement in the process of reading and how the text has impacted their senses. The novel allows the reader to feel the emotion provoked by the narrative in a very explicitly physical way: 16 Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Jacques Derrida, The Parergon, in The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Jing Wang, Introduction In China s Avant-garde Fiction, 10.

10 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page The novel enables the reader to fulfill the desire of experiencing the text with one s body. Many readers comments refer to their sensation felt on different parts of their bodies, as though they used them to interact with the text: [ ] 23 Some readers extract a certain form of satisfaction out of the vacillation of the positive and negative experiences that the characters undergo over the course of the narrative. They react strongly to the different range of emotions provided by the dramatic tone of the novel: [ ] [ ] 24 These bloggers comments tell us something about the affect of the novel, which demands the readers physical involvement. The readers cited above experiment different physical and emotional shocks through the course of the novel however; the precise cause of it is not identified. On the surface, the bloggers might only be reacting to the primary level of the narrative and the emotions of the characters. Nevertheless, the shock-like effect, similar to the one Bürger sets as a criterion for the avant-garde work of art, manifests itself. 22 A kind of desolate feeling arises from the bottom of (my) heart and slowly saturates my body. In Yu xin jiaoyu wang (August 23, 2011) (Accessed April 4,2012). 23 Only when I finished reading the book that my heart, which was in knots, was able to loosen, and feel for this conclusion, happy but also unhappy [ ] In Bo mi mi zuowen (February 14, 2012) (Accessed April1, 2012). 24 [ ] When I was reading this novel, sometimes I wanted to laugh, and sometimes I wanted to shed tears [ ] The main reason for this is because in this book there is a kind of human feeling. - - / In IB Mandarin (March 6, 2012) (Accessed April 2, 2012).

11 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 11 Here, I examine one passage in particular that constitutes a break with the general ultra realist tone of the novel and that plays to create ambiguity and to provoke a defamiliarizing experience for the reader. 25 Chapter Twenty-five is set during the Cultural Revolution. Xu Yulan suffers a great deal from being struggled against repeatedly. The people of her town accuse her of being a prostitute and make her stand outside all day. Xu Sanguan announces to her that they must hold a struggle session within the home because their neighborhood is watching. 26 This struggle session becomes a stage where a performance is set up. At this moment, it is ambiguous whether the characters of the novel are acting a second scene a mise en abyme or whether they are truly carrying out the struggle session. When Xu Sanguan announces that they must have a struggle session at home, Xu Yulan is setting up the props for the scene to take place, without protesting. The whole family occupies a position within the struggle session, and Xu Sanguan is the metteur en scène who makes the theatrical choices. The description elaborating how the characters and the space will be organized during the struggle session provides an effect similar to that of reading a script. The reader is told where every character is seated and where Xu Yulan must stand to make it appear as though she were still out on the street. 27 Xu Sanguan then proceeds to elaborate the guidelines in order give credibility to the struggle session and make it seem as real as possible: From now on you have to call her Xu Yulan. You re not allowed to call her Mom at the struggle session. You can t call her mom until we re finished with the meeting Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, 174.

12 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 12 Within the scene, there is a constant vacillation between the struggle session as a performance (mise en abyme) and the struggle session as a scene within the linear development of the narrative. This is complicated by the fact that Xu Sanguan, in this moment, leads the mise en scène of the performance and therefore embodies the role of the author, who is supposed to stand outside of the narrative. The superimposition of these two fictional realities operates to break the illusion that Chronicle of a Blood Merchant constitutes a whole or an organic work of art. 29 The scene is punctuated with different moments that amplify this break. For example, when the three sons are asked to speak up and actually critique Xu Yulan, they glance at each other and are not sure what to say, as though they had forgotten to memorize their lines written for them in the script of the struggle session. 30 Xu Sanguan assumes the leadership of the session and poses the question: Who exactly is it that sleeps in the same bed with Xu Yulan every night? 31 At this point, Sanle exclaims himself and declares that his own father sleeps in the same bed as Xu Yulan, Prostitute. 32 The absurdity of this response creates a comical effect. At the same time, there is another meaning to the statement, which is naively expressed by the youngest child. It may refer to the opinion that the children have of their parents who are both guilty of adultery. Simultaneously, the reader is unaware if it is indeed, or not, also meant to be part of the script of the struggle session. 29 Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, 174.

13 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 13 This ambiguity is reinforced by the response given by Xu Sanguan when the children agree that their father is indeed every one of Xu Yulan s johns. 33 Xu Sanguan is destabilized and becomes angry because his children do not obey to the desired scenario he had anticipated: Did I tell you to nod? 34 This constitutes a break within the mise en abyme and a momentary return to the primary level of fictionalizing reality. Xu Sanguan and his family fail to perform a realistic scenario in which Xu Yulan must be struggled against. To confer credibility upon himself, Xu Sanguan proceeds to a detailed enumeration of the scenario of his and his wife s wedding: When I married Xu Yulan, I spent a lot of money on the wedding. I hired six men to play drums and gong, and four men to carry the sedan chair. I had three-table spread, and all the friends and relatives I could think of showed up at the party to eat and drink their fill. Everything about our marriage was on the up-and-up. That s why I m not a john and she s not a whore. 35 Xu Sanguan describes all the objects and the people that were present, and for him, the fact that the ritual of the wedding filled all the requirements of what a wedding ceremony should be like, means that it is legitimate and actually did take place. Here, it is notable that it is not the narrator who recalls these events for the reader but it is Xu Sanguan. There is no way for the reader to verify the validity of this wedding which is said to have taken place in the context of a struggle session whose reality is itself questionable. Here, Yu Hua plays on this ambiguity to destabilize the readers assumption that the novel constitutes the representation of a coherent whole. 33 Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, 176.

14 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 14 The return to a mise en abyme is provided when Xu Sanguan asks his wife to tell her sons about the affair with He Xiaoyong: Just try to see them as the revolutionary masses who are denouncing you. 36 She then proceeds to describe the affair in detail, as though she had been asked to do so in a public struggle session. However, she is interrupted by her husband, the metteur en scène, who is unhappy with the way in which she is describing the affair. Xu Sanguan proclaims her guilty of corrupting the younger generation. 37 At this point, the vocabulary employed by Xu Sanguan is similar to that of the actual struggle sessions that take place in public. As such, the reader is unable to distinguish between whether the struggle session is actually being carried out as was requested by the neighborhood or whether it is still being performed by the Xu household. Unhappy with this development, Xu Sanguan tries to change the topic and asks Yile to speak only to be dissatisfied with his performance. When it comes to Erle s turn to speak, the child brings up his mom s affair once more. Xu Sanguan at this point loses control over the development of the struggle session altogether: If you didn t hear anything then what the hell are you talking about? 38 At this point, the boundaries between the performance of the struggle session and the fictionalized reality become blurred once more and the reader experiences a return to the illusion that Chronicle of a Blood Merchant constitutes a cohesive whole. The character of the responses from fans of Chronicle of a Blood Merchant indicate that the readers experience a kind of emotional and physical shock through the 36 Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, 178.

15 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 15 course of their reading. Although the causes of this might be different in each case, it is impossible to deny that the book has a particularly strong affect. On the surface, the melodramatic aspects of the narrative deny it the label of avant-garde. However, upon close reading, the novel is punctuated with moments of ambiguity where the reader is forced to distance himself from the text and acknowledge the illusion that the work of art constitutes a cohesive whole. This is achieved through the insertion of fragments, which functions to destroy the invisibility of the different parts that once assembled, make up the novel. Using Peter Bürger s theory of the avant-garde as a way to categorize the work of the non-european avant-gardes risks, by trying to identify patterns that are supposed to be present within a work, overshadowing subversive comments that are actually present. Instead, I have demonstrated how it is possible for Peter Bürger s theory of the avantgarde to serve as a device that uncovers the subversive elements within a work that responds to a specific context of production and reception of art. Through the analysis of a specific scene, I have shown how in Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, Yu Hua presents reality as a staged performance in order to destabilize and produce a strong response on behalf of the reader. This confirms how the novel, although popular, maintains some avant-gardist elements by presenting realism as a vacillating illusion.

16 Realism and avant-garde in Yu Hua s Chronicle of a Blood Merchant page 16 Sources: In Yu xin jiaoyu wang (August 23, 2011) (Accessed April 4,2012). In Bo mi mi zuowen (February 14, 2012) (Accessed April1, 2012). - - / In IB Mandarin (March 6, 2012) (Accessed April 2, 2012). Bürger, Peter. Theory of the Avant-Garde (Micheal Shaw trans). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Chen Jianguo, The World of the Sensory: Yu Hua s Obsession with the Real, In The Aesthetics of the Beyond. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2009, Derrida, Jacques. The Parergon, in The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), Jing Wang. Introduction In China s Avant-garde Fiction. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998, Liu Kang, The Short Lived Avant-garde: The Transformation of Yu Hua, In Modern Language Quarterly, (March 2002) 63(1): Liyan Shen. Folkloric Elements in Avant-garde Fiction: Yu Hua s One Kind of Reality and World Like Mist, In CRCL, (March 2008), Yu Hua, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant. New York: Anchor Books, Zhang Xuejun, Borges and Contemporary Chinese Avant-garde Writings, Front. Lit. Stud. China 2007, 1(2):