MCLC: Mo Yan, the state, and the Nobel (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Xiaobing Max Tang <maxtang at umich.edu>
Subject: Mo Yan, the state, and the Nobel (1)
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Didi Kirsten Tatlow’s tirade at Mo Yan being awarded the Nobel Prize in
literature, upon close reading, is really directed at the Nobel Prize
committee.  How could you?!  How could you bestow such a prestige on a
Chinese writer still living in China?  A Chinese writer who is not in
prison or banned, but rather enjoys a reputation and an official status?
How could you not understand, for God’s sake, that the heart of the matter
has nothing to do with what he has written as a writer, but everything to
do with the political symbolism of him being emphatically a Chinese writer
and, listen, with the political purpose of the Nobel prize in literature?

She seethes at the Nobel prize committee for staging a Kafkaesque mockery
and betrayal, but as a political animal, she also knows she can’t afford
to discredit this powerful institution, so she turns on the Chinese state
and the writer himself.  Her logic: Mo Yan may have been given the prize,
but he has brought it disgrace.  A gift is given, but the recipient does
not understand what it is and therefore does not deserve it.  It is far
less troublesome to question the awardee than the gift from an entrenched
Western establishment.

A larger source of frustration for Tatlow and other puzzled pundits is the
fact that they do not have a good narrative to comprehend the complexity
of contemporary Chinese culture and society.

They simply cannot, for the life of them, accept that there is a
mainstream Chinese literature, that this literature is diverse,
innovative, and energetic in its own way, and that it is a vital part of
contemporary Chinese culture.  They do not see Chinese society as a living
and complex system with many institutions, and, because they never accept
the legitimacy of the Chinese political order, they refuse to believe that
many cultural practices and institutions there serve functions
structurally symmetrical to their counterparts in a Western democracy.
They regard China still as an alien and ultimately threatening other, so
they eagerly seek and endorse any and all signs of what they like, and
dismiss what they do not like or understand as either outlandish or
draconian.  

In this particular case, they are quick to quote certain netizens’
spontaneous comments on Mo Yan as representing the public opinion in
China, but they have no interest in covering the measured responses in
mainstream media or from respected opinion makers.

It is beyond Tatlow to ask what the latest award means for the Nobel prize
itself.  If we agree that such a prize is always a subjective and
contingent affair, instead of an absolute and universal standard, we
cannot but wonder about the Nobel committee’s decision finally to
recognize a prominent Chinese writer living and writing in China,
especially in light of previous Nobel prizes related to the topic of
Chinese literature or China at large.  It is a decision that can be
assessed from many perspectives.

Ultimately we realize this award is not so much an assessment of Mo Yan
and his literary achievements or, for that matter, of contemporary Chinese
literature, as it allows an assessment of the Nobel committee’s ability to
assess.

The final question Tatlow raises is as naïve as it is duplicitous.  Here
she seems to buy into the myth of a “lasting” or “eternal” literature
created in a vacuum.  Make no mistake about it.  When necessary, she will
turn around and embrace a literature presumably created under oppression
but expressing aspirations she wants to see embraced everywhere.

This is a familiar doublespeak.  When you do not like a writer’s politics
or political stance, you use the rhetoric of pure or eternal literature to
discount him/her; when you approve a writer’s politics, you praise him/her
for being brave and relevant to our time.  This doublespeak stems from the
blindness inherent in the liberalist vision that Tatlow wholeheartedly
subscribes to.  The world should be diverse and colorful, she reassures
us, but we should all be the same too, just like us.