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Conclusion: Straddling Traditionality and Postmodernity Someone said : since winter ha s come, spring can't be fa r away . But my stor y begins with winter an d end s with winter . Li Rui (postscrip t t o The Old Site) Basic tim e i s a tatter , a patchwork o r a mosaic, i t is a distribution, throug h which, a t times , redundanc y passes . A multiplicity mark s an d show s som e redundancy, i t become s spatia l whe n thi s repetitio n increases . Shoul d i t greatly decrease , the n tim e appears . Michel Serre s (1995 : 116 ) In Borges's "The Garden o f Forking Paths," Stephen Albert, a Sinologist, says to Yu Tsun, a Chinese i n Britain working as a spy for Naz i Germany : The Garden of Forking Paths i s a n incomplete , bu t no t false , imag e o f th e universe as Ts'ui Pen conceive d it. In contras t to Newton an d Schopenhauer , your ancesto r di d no t believ e i n a uniform , absolut e time . H e believe d i n an infinite serie s of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergen t and paralle l times . This networ k o f time s which approache d on e another , forked, brok e off , o r were unawar e o f one anothe r fo r centuries , embrace s all possibilities o f time . (1970 : 53 ) Although Ts'u i Pen i n the story may well be a fictitious character , Jorge Lui s Borges's attributio n o f thi s peculiar perceptio n o f time t o a Chinese i s no t without justification. Rea l Sinologists' studies of traditional Chinese historica l narrative, such as Gardner's discovery of a lack of "concatenation o f cause an d effect" i n Chines e traditiona l historiograph y (Gardne r 1961 : 69), Prusek' s observation tha t historical events were treated b y Chinese historian s a s "only isolated short episodes" (1970 : 24), and above all, Andrew Plaks's perceptio n of th e Chines e traditio n o f narrativ e a s being organize d accordin g t o th e conceptual schemes of "complementary bipolarity" and "multipl e periodicity " (1976: 435), suggest that the Chinese perception of time was both cyclical and 208฀Brushing ฀History ฀Against ฀the ฀Grain฀ pluralistic, a s compared wit h th e Western unilinea r progressiv e time . Whil e the European historiograph y has resembled epi c works or even novels which conceive what happened a s a continuous flow like a stream (Pruse k 1970 : 23), traditional Chines e historiograph y conceive d i t a s consistin g o f differen t episodes, each having its own distinctive series of time and its own specificities . This leads to our conclusio n tha t the NH F has come a full circl e back t o this traditiona l perceptio n o f tim e an d history , a s far a s its spatio-tempora l perception an d narrativ e structur e ar e concerned . Th e NHF' s restructurin g of the historical space and time , its proliferation o f heterotopias, its denial o f absolute spac e an d time , as I have discusse d i n th e precedin g chapters , ar e indicative o f its restoration o f a spatial logi c o f pluralism int o primac y ove r the tempora l logi c o f revolutio n an d modernity . Bot h th e NH F an d th e traditional mode o f writing have shown a conceptualization o f time and spac e that differ s fro m th e Wester n Enlightenmen t linea r irreversibl e tim e an d absolute unifor m space , th e latte r havin g been importe d an d instille d int o modern Chines e socia l and theoretica l thinkin g sinc e th e beginnin g o f th e twentieth century . Despite som e essentia l differences betwee n them , which I shall discus s below , wha t make s thes e tw o essentiall y differen t mode s o f narrative, i.e. the NF H and Chines e traditiona l narratives , converge ar e thei r similar predilectio n fo...

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