MCLC: Mo Yan wins the Nobel lit prize (19,20)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: jiwei xiao <jiweixiao at gmail.com>
Subject: Mo Yan wins the Nobel lit prize (19)
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Response to Timothy Pi's translation of Yezi's weibo posting in no. 18 in
this thread:

I find this posting offensive--not because of the satire itself, but
because the posting makes fun of the name of a writer I greatly respect
and admire and because like many other things said about Mo Yan's name, it
disregards the real story behind it. Such satirical appropriation slings
mud at a name that is in actuality associated with hunger and loneliness
rather than political self-censorship; it turns a blind eye to the fact
that this is a writer who "speaks" in torrential words despite his
recognition of the necessity and benefits of "not to speak" in certain
situations. Both through his books and through our brief encounters in
conferences, I see a most funny, self-deprecating, and candid guy/writer.
But let his own words speak. In "Hunger and Loneliness: My Muses," a
preface that he wrote for Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh (trans. by
Howard Goldblatt), the writer reminisces about how loneliness drove him to
talk, first to the cattle he herded, the clouds and the birds in the sky,
and then to himself:

<<Pretty soon I learned how to talk to myself. I developed uncommon gift
of expression, able to talk on and on not only with eloquence but even in
rhyme. My mother once overheard me talking to a tree. Alarmed, she said to
my father, "Father of our son, do you think there's something wrong with
him?" Later, when I was old enough, I entered adult society as a member of
a labor brigade, and the habit of talking to myself that had begun when I
was tending cattle caused nothing but trouble in my family. "Son," my
mother pleaded with me, "don't you ever stop talking?" Moved to tears by
the look on her face, I promised I'd stop. But the minute there were
people around, out came all the words I'd stored up inside, like rats
fleeing a nest. That would be followed by powerful feelings of remorse and
an overwhelming sense that I had once again failed to take my mother's
instructions to heart. That's why I chose Mo Yan--Don't Speak--as a pen
name. But as my exasperated mother so often said, "A dog can't keep from
eating excrement, and a wolf can't stop from eating meat." I simply
couldn't stop talking. It's a habit that has caused me to offend many of
my fellow writers, because what invariably comes out of my mouth is the
unvarnished truth. Now that I'm well into my middle years, the words have
begun to taper off, which must come as a comfort to my mother's spirit as
it looks down on me.>>

Yes, “Mo Yan,” is an aphoristic self-statement, but not the kind some
choose to interpret and appropriate. "Shifu," I tend to think, "would do
anything for a laugh." But his detractors do not laugh; they refuse to get
it. Or maybe they really don’t get it.

Jiwei Xiao 

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From: pjmooney <pjmooney at mac.com>
Subject: Mo Yan wins the Nobel lit prize (20)

Source: South China Morning Post (10/22/12):
http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1066541/writers-should-
be-true-their-convictions

Writers should be true to their convictions
Chang Ping

I still remember that afternoon more than 20 years ago when I first read
Red Sorghum. I was bowled over. I hadn't yet come across the works of
William Faulkner or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and as I read Red Sorghum
then, I felt a rush of elation that a story about "my grandfather" and "my
grandmother" could be told so boldly and without restraint.

Now when I reread the novel to try and recapture that thrill, I realised
it is gone for good. I also tried to read Mo Yan's other works that I
hadn't read before, but I gave up before long. A voice inside kept telling
me I was wasting my time.

I stopped reading his works some years ago because his verbose and
repetitious writing began to irritate me. Now, I must admit that I don't
like his work for reasons other than literary merit.

A writer can be politically incorrect or completely apolitical, but he
must be honest. If a writer writes honestly about something outside
politics, or reflects movingly about his inner struggles, that's something
of value to us.

But if a writer has to walk a fine line in his daily life, yet the content
of his works reflects nothing of this spiritual tussle, I can only
conclude that the works are not serious.

Mo Yan once told a foreign reporter after the June 4 crackdown in 1989
that he had lost faith in the Chinese Communist Party. Yet he kept his
party membership, accepted party promotions and today is the vice-chairman
of the state-run Chinese Writers' Association.

He spoke up for writer Gao Xingjian, whose Nobel win in 2000 was a thorn
in the side of the Chinese government, but at the Frankfurt Book Fair a
few years later, Mo Yan, along with a number of other Chinese writers,
walked out of an event that dissident writers Dai Qing and Bei Ling also
attended.

Most unbearably, Mo Yan accepted an invitation from a publisher to
hand-copy Mao Zedong's "Yanan Talks on Literature and Arts", which was
widely seen as the document that permitted and encouraged the repression
and persecution of Chinese artists and writers for over 60 years. As it
turned out, Mo Yan would not have got into trouble if he had refused to
take part.

In the section Mo Yan copied out in the commemorative publication, Mao
said: "Members of the Communist Party shall support the position, the
spirit and the policies of the party." Yet Mo Yan said that literature
should be independent of politics and political parties, and focus on
people and humanity.

This sets Mo Yan apart from the scores of "politically incorrect" writers
in history, including Zhou Zuoren, Eileen Chang, Jean-Paul Sartre and
Mikhail Sholokhov. All of them were sincere in literature and in their
political views. It isn't that Mo Yan takes life and politics lightly, but
he is not being true to himself or others.

Mo Yan is typical of this generation of Chinese writers. They have a
talent for words and are highly perceptive, and excel at borrowing ideas
from foreign contemporary writers and adapting them to China's context.
But they draw the line at a more serious examination of their lives, and
at taking any social responsibility.

This was once a position of rebellion; now it's a loser's refuge. At the
end of the Cultural Revolution, a generation of artists led the resistance
and detachment of arts and culture from politics. The late 1970s and early
1980s saw the rise of the so-called Misty Poets and a group of painters
who turned their backs on overt propaganda.

But the pushback from politicians came soon enough. A film on the Cultural
Revolution, Portrait of a Fanatic, drew a rebuke from Deng Xiaoping, who
decreed that art and literature should abide by four principles.

With direct criticism of party and politics forbidden, writers turned to a
more subjective exploration of the trauma and pain of the Cultural
Revolution. The genres of "scar literature", "roots literature" and
"pioneer literature" were products of this time, and young writers like Mo
Yan emerged and made a name for themselves.

There was an implicit resistance to politics in these literary movements,
in their refusal to allow art to serve political ends. But after June 4,
this kind of "pure literature" became an excuse for writers to escape the
political reality, and it was easy to take the coward's position of
keeping quiet, or the cynic's.

Market forces also played a role. This kind of writing found a popular
audience, and the works of these writers became best-sellers and brought
them some commercial success.

The relationship between literature and politics has been tested on
occasion since the 1990s. Mo Yan's award of the Nobel Prize in literature
is but the latest controversy to spark divided views. Sadly, these views
may not be debated in the mainstream Chinese media but are only found
sporadically on the internet.

Chang Ping is a current affairs commentator writing on politics, society
and culture. This commentary is translated from Chinese.