MCLC: Mo Yan, the state, and the Nobel (2,3)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: yomi braester <yomi at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Mo Yan, the state, and the Nobel (2)
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Tatlow's attack on Mo Yan in the NYT is astonishing, not to say repulsive,
at many levels.

She casts doubt on whether Mo Yan deserves the Nobel. Or rather, she hides
behind sneering questions: "was he, even then, under a kind of spell?"
and, turning to the reader, "Do you [think he deserves it]?" She attacks
the writer personally: he is not only a collaborator with the forces of
Evil but also too inarticulate, insensitive, and perhaps lazy to have
shown up at Frankfurt events.

Tang Xiaobing has already addressed the faulty, indeed cowardly, logic of
Tatlow's piece, which refuses to take Chinese literature for what it is.
To turn to the specific case of Mo Yan -- after all, Tatlow's poisoned
arrows are directed at the single writer -- the question is, does Mo's
writing have any literary merits that justify the Nobel? Tatlow doesn't
even bother with this question, to which I'd answer with a resounding
"yes." (Proper disclosure: I've written encyclopedia entries on Mo Yan and
his _Red Sorghum_, which makes me a lackey's lackey, I guess.)

It is especially hard to swallow Tatlow's piece while reading, as I am,
_Joseph Anton_ -- Salman Rushdie's memoir of the Fatwa years. The pattern
of blaming the author for his purported politics and ignoring the words he
wrote is not new. I had thought that the Rushdie affair was behind us. But
maybe not, if Tatlow can help it.

Mo Yan's writing requires an ironic sensibility, but even Tatlow, with her
straightlaced reading habits, could find the answer to her quandary in Mo
Yan's overt reaction, mentioned in her own essay: "Mr. Mo was irritated by
the endless political questions." I'd be irritated too if I wrote a dozen
novels and the questions at a book fair reduced me to a chess piece in
global politics. Writing is indeed always political, but the author,
literally and figuratively, is in no position to answer to his politics.

Yomi Braester, University of Washington

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From: jjalvaro <jjalvaro at student.cityu.edu.hk>
Subject: Mo Yan, the state, and the Nobel (3)

I mean no disrespect, but I am not familiar with either Ms. Tatlow or Max
Tang and their political positions other than what I have just read in ‘Mo
Yan, the state, and the Nobel (1)’. I am however, very familiar with
Chinese state-run media, especially regarding what they say when things do
not go the way that they want them to on the international stage.
  
If we are to take the Nobel Prize(s) as the topic we might look back in
time a little at other awardees. Two years to be exact, when Liu Xiaobo
was awarded the Peace Prize for 2010. True, it was not about literature –
but then again it was about literature (if literature really matters at
all) and the freedom to publish a message like Charter 2008. So how did
China react when one of its dissident sons was awarded a Nobel Prize?

Firstly, the news was suppressed because the awarding Liu the Peace Prize
was considered ‘anti-China’. The mainland English-language media (i.e.
China Daily, People’s Daily online and Xinhua News Agency) combined,
published 49 articles on Liu. The Guardian (UK), New York Times and South
China Morning Post (Hong Kong) published 745 articles on it. This is an
obvious discrepancy, but based on what?

One look at the few mainland media headlines on Liu’s award shows overt
ideological bias
(from China Daily):
-- ‘Part of the plot to contain China’ (11/10/10)
-- ‘Prize winner is anti-China’ (1/11/10)

(from Xinhua News Agency):
-- ‘Big mistake to award Noble Peace Prize to non-contributory to peace’
(13/10/10)
-- ‘A prize that goes against Nobel’s ideas’ (14/10/10)
-- ‘Western governments have ‘no right to interfere’ in China’s affairs’
(14/10/10)
-- ‘Nobel Peace Prize no longer respects Nobel’s peace will’ (15/10/10)
-- ‘A peace prize that ignores true human rights development’ (17/10/10)
-- ‘Why was Jagland wrong?’ (29/10/10)
-- ‘China says ties with Norway affected by Nobel Committee’s decision to
award peace prize to Chinese criminal’ (2/12/10)
-- ‘Awarding Nobel Peace Prize to Liu ignores China’s true human rights
progress’ (10/12/10)

I particularly like this one:
-- ‘Nobel Peace Prize has fallen into disrepute’ (10/12/10).

If anyone (other than a dissident) from mainland China is ever awarded a
Nobel Prize for peace, it will be discovered, no doubt, that the Nobel
Committee has finally come to its senses.

Joe Alvaro