Snakes Legs: Sequels, Continuations, Rewritings and Chinese Fiction (review)

Sequels to great novels have typically been considered the unwanted children of "great literature," labeled often as derivative and pandering, and evaluated, at best, as documents in the history of taste. In this intelligent conference volume, however, Martin Huang gathers ten reassessments of specific sequels to great works and reconsiders the nature of this difficult subgenre. Established scholars in the field of fiction take on the sequels to eight major novels: Journey to the West, Water Margin, Jin Ping Mei, Dream of the Red Chamber (with two essays), Sui Tang yanyi, Ruyijun zhuan, Jinghua yuan, and The Journey of Lao Can.

To begin the volume, both in his introduction and in his lead essay, "Boundaries and Interpretations: Some Preliminary Thoughts," Martin Huang takes on some of the difficult issues in the consideration of the genre. In the lead essay, in particular, he grapples expertly with the issue of definition: what is a "sequel." Where, in effect, does the masterwork begin and where does it end, since "almost all the long works of vernacular xiaoshuo . . . have undergone in one way or another, some complicated process of textual evolution and repeated rewritings" (p. 19). Many of the novels are themselves xu shu (sequels) of other novels. The Sui Tang yanyi is based on three earlier versions; the last forty chapters of the Honglou meng can be seen as a sequel to the first eighty chapters; the Jin Ping Mei is itself a sequel—greatly expanded—derived from the Shuihu zhuan; and then there is Liu E's own sequel to his novel Lao Can youji. Huang also considers the issue of novels that are "sequels" derived from other types of sources—classical poetry and history, for example. Huang examines the boundaries of this very slippery genre, developing a useful framework for his analysis by relying on both Western and Chinese terminologies.

Following Huang's essay, each of the subsequent contributions provides detailed comparisons of the original novels with their subsequent sequels, revealing the ways authors take possession of the parent novel, then reinterpret, shift, interpolate, and reshape it to create a new offspring. In addition to specific comparisons, however, the ten studies in this volume offer insights into larger issues, giving both specialists and nonspecialists of vernacular fiction an assessment of what constitutes reading and writing in the vernacular subculture of Late Imperial China. First, we see in these studies the role of the vernacular novel itself, for if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the hundreds of sequels and continuations pay obsequious homage to the novel form; this collection of studies is clear testimony to the status of fiction in Late Imperial China. Above all, sequels demonstrate a passion for reading and for the novel. Keith Mcmahon, in his "Eliminating Traumatic Antimonies: Sequels to Honglou meng" proves "the irresistible urge the authors felt to resurrect the mesmerizing world of Cao Xueqin's original novel" (p. 98). Here we see that in the later recastings authors hope to change the unchangeable—to alter the past, to resolve the love affair of the central characters and improve on Baoyu and vindicate Daiyu, to make right a world that is in some sense as real as the actual worlds of the readers.

But sequels did not simply show that fiction seized the imagination of the individual; sequels demonstrated that fiction resonated forcefully in the public realm. Although many contemporaries avowed that fiction was "mere entertainment," novels clearly were an influence in the larger world, seen to shape opinions, morals, politics, and events. Indeed, the novel clearly functioned both as a barometer of social change and as a vehicle for social debate. Novels were a battleground, as we see in the processes of making sequels, a culture in the process of defining itself; we see the conflict of narrative identities, the battle for the one true version, a battle never possible to win, and therefore subject to constant reinterpretation...