Introduction: Professor Chen Xiaoming is from the Contemporary Literature Teaching and Research Section in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Peking University. His research focus lies in the studies of contemporary Chinese literature and post-modernism theories.


 
Q: Why did you choose contemporary literature as your research area?

A: Actually, when I was undertaking postgraduate and doctorate study, my research area consists in  artistic theories because I took a fancy to them, and had researched on them earlier on. Turning to contemporary literature was out of coincidence. At that time, contemporary literature was not well looked upon. A friend of mine was working on contemporary literature reviews from very early. We discussed some of the works together and he was surprised at some of my opinions. Then he insisted that I should work on reviews. Later I read an article of which he discussed avant-garde novels. He was really very bright, but I had different opinions from him on many issues. So I wrote a long letter to discuss with him and eventually, published my own article on post-avant-garde novels about a new terminology. Naming the term roused up my cognition of the alteration to contemporary literature, and I further divided the new period into two, in order to have a deeper understanding of the differences.
 
Q: In your opinion, what is the most important and most difficult part of researching on contemporary literature?

A: The most difficult part is to grasp the general picture. You have to make it precise and convincing. I have instructed my students majoring in contemporary literature studies to form an opinion of microcosmic contemporary history. Each decade, like the 80s, the 90s and the beginning of 21^st century, has gone through some alterations and even within these decades there were also huge differences. The way we talk about the Glorious Age of the Tang Dynasty, the Mid Tang Dynasty and the Late Tang Dynasty is based on a macrocosmic view of history. For example, the Glorious Age of Tang Dynasty has a rather long duration and there are numerous changes within it. You will not be able to summarize them with only one title. A macrocosmic view takes all of that into one. As for forming a microcosmic view, you need to differentiate the changes within each decade as if you have lived through the decades. Speaking of literature, you need to know how the year 1985 is different from 1989, and year 1992 is different from 1990. Of course, literature does not have that direct link with history, but our understanding of every single piece needs to be put into context of such historical backgrounds.

Another difficulty lies in the perception of art, which is in some way a birth right. Some people are numb in such perception, partly due to his childhood habits. The forming of artistic perception requires long-term cultivation. Some people today complain that there aren’t any good pieces of literature. I have two doubts: whether they have read carefully and whether they possess such artistic perception. People do have different opinions, as there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes, but people can also have acute perception of art. Some people can embrace numerous types of art, while some people only one. A good perception of art is critical in studying contemporary art and literature, or you may not recognize the greatness of many works. Some critics tend to put their own opinions on a higher ground than the literary works, considering themselves more correct than others and repelling other works, which is absolutely wrong. I appreciate some western critics like Trilling, who expressed that works weigh more than perspectives. Our current perspectives of criticism cannot embrace new works completely. Each of the new works should be understood as a new trial. We should inspire the exquisiteness, the complication of the work rather than judge it with fixed opinions.
 
Q: Which, of the historical background or the literary value, weighs more when appraising the value of a certain work?

A: It will be hard to evaluate many contemporary Chinese works if you distinguish the two, because Chinese works are quite different from western ones. We’re closely related to history. We praise and criticize some works depending on whether they express a certain historical view. Western writings have been focusing on humanity since the age of romanticism, by means of writing about interpersonal relations and psychological factors. But Chinese writings tend to write about people’s fates under important historical events. However, when it comes to judgment, the artistic value comes first. There are numerous works describing the 20^th century history of China. Some are outstanding, like Chen Zhongshi’s Bailu Plain, Mo Yan’s Big Breasts&Wide Hips, Tie Ning’s Stupid Flower and Wang Anyi’s Song of Everlasting Regret. Some are paid less attention to, because they expressed too much of the same things. The good works are exquisite in their characterization, structure, plot, as well as description of the locality. So a work is not valued by how well it describes the history, but by how well it expresses art.
 
Q: Do you think the quality of Chinese literature has declined after the 1985s?

A: No. On the contrary, the peak of Chinese literature was after 1985. What you have said is a mainstream opinion that I am against. There are many excellent works in Chinese contemporary literature. After the 1980s, our literature has just begun to mature. We say there was a trend called 85 in the 80s, but we also notice that many writers were young when they reached their prime, like Lu Xun, Guo Moruo and Cao Yu. Many writers today, like Mo Yan, have exceeded those earlier writers in the excellence of their works, because many of the earlier works are out of imitation. Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm is close to Eugene O’Neil’s The Emperor Jones in structure and characters. It is not difficult to understand. Before Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize, we lacked confidence. Mo Yan’s success gave us a rise in spirit, and granted us with a more objective view on contemporary literature.
 
Q: You mentioned that earlier writers reached their prime when they’re quite young, around their 30s. What about the writers nowadays?

A: There is a trend that a writer becomes mature in a much later period of his life. The time when a writer becomes famous at a young age has gone. There is a higher starting point for literature. It is great work if you can write a novel. The reason why the writers born in the 1970s cannot become that great is that writers of the 1950s and the 60s run ahead of them. The high starting point exists in the west as well. Alice Munro, who was the Nobel laureate of last year, wrote Runaway in her 70s. Margaret Atwood, who is now in her late 70s, wrote many of her great works in her 60s and 70s. Oe Kenzaburo had a novel written in his 70s published in China last year. So the maturity of writers nowadays is quite different. I did write an article on this. Many writers are in the trend, probably only just started up in their 30s and 40s, and gained more influence till they reach the age of 50. Oe Kenzaburo once told a famous Chinese translator that China now has a group of writers in their 50s that is very precious in the world. The Chinese literature is not to be looked down upon.
 
Q: In an earlier interview, you described your book on the history of Contemporary Chinese literature as probably the hardest one. Why?Chinese 

A: There are about 70 or 80 books on the history of literature, but only few are written individually. In my book, I introduced the idea of modernity in order to have a overall view of Chinese contemporary literature, to understand it as a phenomenon of modernity, as the radicalization of modernity. The writing after the Cultural Revolution has leaned towards openness, infected with western modernism, which can be viewed as the exchange of modernity. Instead of explaining a certain piece of work, my book tries to discuss its aesthetic value and philosophical meaning. So in a way it is more complicated.
 
Q: Do you think readers care more about foreign works than Chinese works?

A: Not exactly. Currently I am teaching a course on foreign contemporary short stories.  Now the major, once called foreign literature in the Chinese literature department has become comparative literature, which may not have a deeper view on either foreign or Chinese literature. University students today do not read foreign works that much. The writers in the 80s were so mad about foreign works, especially western ones. Our students today read little because they spend too much time online. I do not regard the writings online as useless, but they’re out of a stereotype, the value of one piece is close to that of a hundred. We should spend our limited time reading the classics, the well-known ones, with careful selection.

Written by Aria Gan