The Literary Field of Twentieth-Century China (review)

This volume edited by Michel Hockx is a collection of nine essays presented at a workshop of the International Institute for Asian Studies held in Leiden, the Netherlands, in January 1996. Overall, it is both readable and interesting. Apart from Raoul David Findensein and Marja Kaikkonen, whose chapters are slightly longer than the others, the remaining contributors managed to preserve the "paper spirit." The theoretical frame of reference indicated by the title, the notion of the literary field, is taken from the late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Some of the contributions either do not fit or fit rather loosely in such a framework; probably it would have been better if the editor had chosen a less technical focus. Nevertheless, this collection is interesting for two main reasons. First, it is a genuine attempt at assessing theory through literature and not vice versa; second, it also includes contributions that are obviously not in tune with Bourdieu's theory (especially the essay by Wendy Larson). The second aspect is particularly commendable if one considers the fact that very often today many such volumes are edited with an almost religious zeal and addressed to the already converted. The major strong point of this collection is that it aims at (re)evaluating Bourdieu's theory within a political and cultural context that is extremely remote from that used by Bourdieu himself to construct his sociological aesthetics. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that some of the contributors who question or interrogate Bourdieu's theory in its own context seem to rely exclusively on English scholarship on the work of Bourdieu.

The first essay, "An Act of Violence: Translation of Western Fiction in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period," by Wang-chi Wong, analyzes the rise of translation in the late Qing period and focuses on how different "translator-reformers" developed various strategies to persuade their readers of the need for and the legitimacy of introducing Western works in a very conservative environment. Wong makes some interesting remarks on the relation between translation and readership. The choice of a given expressive medium (wenyan or baihua) was made on the basis of some assumptions on the part of the translator about the actual reader of the translated text. Such assumptions (substantially unflattering, indeed) had a huge impact on the nature and extent of the actual "act of violence" mentioned in the title. This point is obviously a crucial one that opens up several interesting issues. The theoretical frame of reference within which Wong finally decides to justify the strategic aims of the Qing translators is based on Derrida's critique of Western metaphysics and its myth of the original text. This is obviously a legitimate and interesting hypothesis and deserves further discussion.

The second essay, "More than Butterflies," by Denise Gimpel, deals with the early years of the journal Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction monthly). Gimpel argues that the Xiaosho yuebao, even before the May Fourth period, was already far more political in nature than Mao Dun and other leading May Fourth figures could have imagined. Basing the theoretical framework of this essay very loosely on Bourdieu's notion of literary field, Gimpel states that that Bourdieu is not a lone voice in the wilderness (Lowenthal and Trotter are quoted as instances of literary historians who develop theories similar to Bourdieu's). Some of Gimpel's views are quite debatable. For instance, it is quite puzzling to read that pre-May Fourth writers who published in Xiaoshuo yuebao "may have no ideological stance" or that no ideological stance was required "since they wrote within a framework of general consensus" (p. 53). Elsewhere, Gimpel seems to oscillate between a quest for psychological insights and the desire to be able to recreate the exact historical context for any literary history. But here, one may think of Chen Xiaomei's Occidentalism rather than Bourdieu's notion of literary field. Also, Gimpel is quite selective in her...