The other "Canon" [Archive] - Literature Network Forums

stlukesguild

08-11-2008, 01:31 AM

My own experience with literature outside of the Western Canon... with the Eastern Canon, if you will, is woefully limited comparatively. I will simply accept that Hebrew literature is part of the West as a result of the Judeo-Christian tradition... and subsequent Jewish participation in Western culture. By the same token I'll not speak of a Hellenized or Latinized writer from the Middle East or North Africa (such as Augustine of Hippo) as anything but Western. That leaves the whole rest of the Middle-East, Africa, Asia, Native North and South Americans and anything from the Americas pre- Western conquest. A vast world... and yet I'll admit to having read little from it.

My reading experiences outside of the West are largely indebted to my interests in given cultures as a visual artist. Among the non-Western cultures that have had the greatest impact upon me I would include those of the Middle East (Persia, Turkey, Arab and the Arab/Islamic Empire), China, and Japan. India has only begun to peak my interest with its marvelous temples and sensual paintings and sculpture. But I must admit to having read, as of yet, none of the great Indian texts: Mahabharata, Ramayana, Vedas, Upanishads, etc...:blush: This is somewhat embarrassing if only because of the fact that Indian literature is reportedly the source of a great many of the narratives that eventually work their way into Middle-Eastern and European literature.

My fascination with Middle-Eastern art led to a curiosity about the literature of the culture. Among the strongest works I have read I would count The Arabian Nights or more correctly the Thousand and One Nights (كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة‎ - kitāb 'alf layla wa-layla). Hakīm Abū l-Qāsim Firdawsī Tūsī or Ferdowsi is generally accepted as the greatest Persian poet and his epic Shanameh or Book of Kings is the Persian epic... perhaps second in importance solely to the Qur'an... (which goes without saying as a masterwork of non-Western literature). I have just recently read an acclaimed new translation of the Shanameh, and found it to be a fabulous collection of fables and fantastic narrative. I also enjoyed the Story of Layla and Manjun taken from the Khamsa of the poet Nizami. Of the lyrical poetry of the Middle-East I have certainly read Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam... which however heavily colored by his Victorian tastes is certainly a marvelous work. I also have several collections of poems by Hafez (Hafiz), Rumi, Saadi, Jami and others. I especially enjoy Richard le Galliene's translations of Hafiz which avoid the hippy-ish, new-age spirituality crap that so mutilates a lot of the vast body of translations out there... especially of Rumi and Hafiz. Perhaps my favorite work of Arabic lyric poetry is the slim volume entitled Poems of Arab Andalusia translated by Cola Franzen from the Spanish translations from the Arabic made by Emilio Garcia Gomez. These poems were a major source of inspiration for Federico Garcia Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernandez, and other great poets of the 20th century Spanish "Renaissance". I should add that like Virgil I would include Gilgamesh as a non-Western masterwork.

China has a history and a culture to rival any Western nation... and yet remains quite unknown to most of us. I even share a studio with a Chinese artist... and yet hear little of his heritage... probably because his own desire is to become assimilated to Western culture. Chinese literature surely dates from nearly as early as that of the Hebrews... but little survived the reign of the notorious "First Emperor", Qin Shi Huangdi (259 BCE – September 10, 210 BCE) who sought to consolidate his rule by outlawing Confucianism and destroying most books before his time thus establishing himself as the start of history. The Analects of Confucius... which may be problematic with regard to attribution, is still a fascinating bit of "wisdom literature". Among China's greatest prose works one usually hears the discourses of Mencius, The Dream of the Red Chamber, The Three Kingdoms, and The Journey to the West the most highly acclaimed. The highest art form, from my reading... just as it was in Persia... was reserved for poetry. The so-called "golden age" of Chinese poetry was that of the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907) which included poets such as Tu Fu (Du Fu), Li Po (Li Bai), Li Ho, and Wang Wei. To a lesser extent this continued into the Song Dynasty with poets such as Mei Yao Ch'en, Su Tung P'o, Li Ch'ing Chao, Lu Yu, and Ou-Yang Hsiu. The poetry of this period was very elegant... at once formally complex... yet apparently simple... and profoundly intertwined with the art forms of calligraphy and Chen (later "Zen" in Japan) painting in that it often stressed spontaneity, nature, man's place in nature (which was in no way central as in Western culture), and the returning cycles of life. I have greatly enjoyed several volumes of Chinese poetry including the translations by Kenneth Rexroth, Arthur Waley, David Hinton, David Young, Sam Hamill, Tony and Willis Barnestone, etc... Certainly there is no way to go into a discussion in any depth of the vast collection of brilliant lyrical poems and poets. I will simply note that my one of my longest held favorites has been Tu Fu's Jade Flower Palace:

The stream swirls. The wind moans in
The pines. Gray rats scurry over
Broken tiles. What prince, long ago,
Built this palace, standing in
Ruins beside the cliffs? There are
Green ghost fires in the black rooms.
The shattered pavements are all
Washed away. Ten thousand organ
Pipes whistle and roar. The storm
Scatters the red autumn leaves.
His dancing girls are yellow dust.
Their painted cheeks have crumbled
Away. His gold chariots
And courtiers are gone. Only
A stone horse is left of his
Glory. I sit on the grass and
Start a poem, but the pathos of
It overcomes me. The future
Slips imperceptibly away.
Who can say what the years will bring?
tr. by Kenneth Rexroth

This poem has long struck me with its similarity of mood and imagery with Shelley's Ozymandias.

Of all the non-Western cultures it is certainly the Japanese that have had the largest impact upon me as as artist. This should not be surprising as Japan has certainly had the largest influence upon Modern art in general. Japanese Screen painting would inspire the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists as well as artists such as Gustav Klimt. The impact of Japanese woodblock prints is immense... continuing into the current comic books and anime, and the simplicity, geometry, and respect for natural materials found in Japanese ceramics and architecture are among the greatest influences upon Modern design. The peak of Japanese culture might be divided between the Heian (794 to 1185) and the Edo (1603 to 1868). The Heian period was epitomized by an elegant, courtly style. Many of the greatest works of literature of the period were the product of women writers. The Tale of Genjii by Lady Murasaki is certainly the most highly respected masterwork of Japanese literature if only one considers the wealth of artistic interpretations by painters the work inspired. A romance... or novel exploring familial and court feuds, intrigues, affairs, and power-struggles, the work also lays claim to being the world's first novel. The Pillow Book, by Murasaki's contemporary and rival, Sei Shōnagon is a fascinating collection of court gossip, poetry, and observations painting a marvelous picture of Heian culture. Beside these two women, the Heian period was epitomized by a great array of lyrical poets... including the famous "36 Immortal Poets" who shared the love of nature... a studied and sophisticated appearance of artful ease or simplicity... spontaneity... etc... To this one should note the common element of brevity. Few poems go on for more than a few lines. A special calligraphic style... often referred to as woman's hand because of the many female poets such as Lady Akazome Emon and Lady Ise who utilized the manner... was stunningly artful:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/HeianCalligraphy.jpg

Much of this poetry was brought together into large collections such as the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, Kokinshū, and Shin Kokinshū. Translations can be found again by Rexroth, Waley, and others.

The Edo Period represented a resurgence of an absolutely brilliant cultural era. Japanese screen painting of the era was masterful and sophisticated beyond belief. The print makers such as Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro, etc... took an essentially low art form and created sophisticated visual masterworks. Even the erotic/pornographic "Shunga" prints achieved a magnificent artfulness rarely seen in Western erotica. Aubrey Beardsley is a rare example... and he is deeply influenced by Japanese art himself. Edo is also the period of the great Haiku poets such as Kobayashi Issa, Yosa Buson, and Matsuo Bashō. Once again these poets works were often presented in the most elegant of calligraphy which echoed the apparent artlessness and spontaneity of the poems, as in this work by the great painter, Tawaraya Sōtatsu:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/sotatsu-1.jpg

Again... much that I have read of this literature has been read in collected volumes... although I do have a few volumes by Basho, Issa, and Buson... as well as the later poetess, known for her exquisite erotic poetry and her delicate... perfect... "imagist" style. The manner in which both Japanese and Chinese poetry... and to an extent, Persian/Arabic lyrical poetry... often simply paints a visual image (as opposed to telling a story) intrigues me as I consider the importance of calligraphy in their cultures... and the importance of the visual appearance of text... something that was quite lost in the West after the standardization of letter forms under Charlemagne, and the later development of movable type.

JBI

08-11-2008, 01:53 AM

I believe the central problem is additions. The availability of such books in translation is often quite pathetic, given the availability of European literature. The most common books of canonical works available is clearly English novels, then poetry, then Italian, French, German, and Russian works, then perhaps a few more obscure works. I am hard pressed to find a complete volume of Li Po's poetry for cheap, than I am, for instance, able to find a volume of Tennyson, or from that era, Beowulf.

In fact, in the addition I had of his work, the translator made it clear that, though one could convey the meaning of the words in English, the actual writing system is able to add different elements to words in pictures, and as a result, can never be translated. Only the bare minimum of the work can be conveyed in another language.

When we are faced with something like that, it is quite difficult to know what, and how to read, without learning additional languages. As a result, these great works get pushed around.

And I will agree, that Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Turkish, Sanskrit, etc. are all different traditions of literature, and cannot be compared the same way English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German literature can be.

That being said, there is no real Eastern canon, because the list would be too long. The so called Western Canon only features works from maybe 1/6th of the world's population (being generous), and neglects over 5 billion people's cultural heritage. When we start to think of it, the amount of books in that canon cannot possibly fairly equal the amount of works in the Western canon, and as a result linguistic, and regional canons within the concept of the Eastern canon must assemble, so you get something like the Indian/Pakistani canon, or the Chinese/Japanese canon, or something similar. An all encompassing Eastern canon is far beyond hope.

In addition to this, I would like to note that it is also extremely difficult (if impossible) to get volumes on single poets of the Japanese and Chinese traditions, and is far easier to get big anthologies of a period, or a few poets' work. This creates an identity problem, as it is easier to remember something if you have a book of it, than if you have 3 short lyrics of it.

JBI

08-11-2008, 09:51 AM

Also, add Kālidāsa to your list of major Sanskrit writers, as he is somewhat of a giant.

curlyqlink

08-11-2008, 10:34 AM

don't you find that a refusal to read the Qur'an is a position that is increasingly unacceptable... if not dangerous in our present world?

I'm not sure how in what sense to understand "refusal". Me, I've chosen not to read the Koran because-- like many religious texts-- its meaning is fundamentally ambiguous and seems to depend largely on the mindset of the reader. Students who are native Arabic speakers, born into the culture, who have devoted years of intense study to the Koran, come up with diametrically opposite interpretations of the book; so what chance would I have of coming to any kind of meaningful understanding? Is it even possible to come to an "objective understanding" of the Koran, or the Bible?

Does familiarity with the Bible help to explain the actions of Western leaders? Did it ever, even when European kings and princes were not only universally Christian, but universally Roman Catholic?

JBI

08-11-2008, 10:42 AM

The fact that so many interpretations of a work can exist shows its depth, not its unimportance. The fact that it is taken as a personal address from Allah doesn't make it a bad book. When you read without the assumption of truth, you are able to generate clearer meanings, as the importance of each sentence isn't taken as fact.

curlyqlink

08-11-2008, 12:34 PM

Generally I agree that complexity is a good thing in a text, as are multiple interpretations. But in this case, of trying to relate the actions of people in in the news to the word of the Koran, that complexity and multiplicity just seems to result in confusion.

From the brief excerpts and analyses that I have encountered, it seems that some people find the Koran full of stern warnings, restrictions on behavior, and exhortations to be the sword of God. Other people find it full of love, neighborliness, and understanding. I might find reading the Koran to be an interesting intellectual exercise, but I'm not sure it would shed much light on current events. In that sense, I don't think it can be considered essential reading.

Virgil

08-11-2008, 01:44 PM

That being said, there is no real Eastern canon, because the list would be too long. The so called Western Canon only features works from maybe 1/6th of the world's population (being generous), and neglects over 5 billion people's cultural heritage. When we start to think of it, the amount of books in that canon cannot possibly fairly equal the amount of works in the Western canon, and as a result linguistic, and regional canons within the concept of the Eastern canon must assemble, so you get something like the Indian/Pakistani canon, or the Chinese/Japanese canon, or something similar. An all encompassing Eastern canon is far beyond hope.

I completely agree. I don't know enough about the Indian/Pakastani canon, but i would suspect that there might not be a Chinese/Japanese canon either. Though perhaps I could be persuaded otherwise.

JBI

08-11-2008, 04:30 PM

mortalterror

08-11-2008, 07:02 PM

As much as people like to gripe and whine about the impossibility of translation, if your native language is English, you will have no trouble finding many excellent translations of any major French, Spanish, Russian, or Italian work. There are so many good translations out there it's an embarrassment of riches. You just have to look for them. German's a little harder, but there are dozens of different translations of Faust alone; so at least one of them's bound to satisfy even the pickiest of dilettantes. But when I want to read Chinese and Japanese literature Rexroth and Waley are about the only show in town. Disgraceful. I wouldn't say that their translations are bad, but they aren't anywhere near the level I've come to expect from French or Italian.

As for StLukes ringing endorsement of The Shahnameh, I have to concur. What I've read is equal parts Dante and Homer. However, the only complete translation is the prose one he read by Dick Davis. What I've read from it is good, but doesn't begin to compare to the verse translation still in progress by Jerome W. Clinton. He's come out with two short books about a hundred and twenty pages each. These translations are obviously a labor of love, and remind me of Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat they are so good. It will probably take Clinton the better part of thirty years to finish his work, but it might be worth the wait.

Although I've only read a couple dozen of Tu Fu's poems, they've never reminded me of Shelley. I thought they were better. Li Po seems to be more romantic in tone and style if you want to make those kinds of comparisons. I'm still looking for a good translation of either poet though. Wang Wei, and Po Chu-i are also very nice.

From what I've heard, the position held by Confucius and Mencius in the East is a little like the one Plato and Aristotle hold in the West. I haven't read Mencius yet, but while the Annalects were great they were no Republic. The Annalects of Confucius actually reminded me more of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld and not so much of a structured fully realized philosophical system.

I have a couple of these big Eastern novels on my bookshelf which I've only dipped into: Three Kingdoms, Red Chamber, and Genji. They all look nice in their own way, but I'm still searching for a handle to grip them by. I could read Tolstoy's War and Peace with relative ease because I'd already read a bunch of other Russian classics, and had extensive practice reading the modern work his books influenced. But these are all so different than anything I've read before, it's hard to know what effect they are aiming at with each word or phrase. What am I supposed to take away from the books? What tradition are they writing in? Or maybe I'm just being lazy and making problems for myself because I'd rather read ten short books than one long one.

As it stands, I thought the prose of The Pillow Book and Essays in Idleness were much more interesting, showed more human character, and dare I say "warmth" than Murasaki's Genji.

The Bhagavad Gita is probably essential Eastern reading and I'd add to that Kalidasa's plays, specifically Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection.

If you want a good answer to "What middle eastern texts are we missing out on?" then you should probably ask Kafka's Crow. Aside from having like two masters degrees in literature, I think he told me once that he was Persian. He'd doubtless have some excellent advice. Here's some things he told me about Persian literature five months ago.

Though out of touch for over two decades, I could once read and write Persian, did an A Level in classical Persian Literature and enjoyed poetry no end. Firdawsi, Jaami, Nizaami, Hafiz, Roodki, Saadi, Omer Khayyam, the list goes on. I think it was Roodki, the blind poet who, when Sultan Mehmood of Ghazna asked him the price of his kingdom, the poet answered, 'a mole on my beloved's cheek.' (khaal i rukhsaar i yaar i mun). These people take great pride in their poetic heritage and quite rightly so. There are still people around who would not consider you educated unless you have read Gulistan and Bostaan by Saadi Shirazi. I hope we find a native speaker of Persian on this board. The common parlance is full of poetic anecdotes and even people on the streets know couplets by heart. Four hundred years before da Vinci, true 'renaissance men' or polymaths like Omer Khayyam, the poet, philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, lived in Persia or Iran. Persian poetry is a treasure trove of artistic achievement.

Shahnama for the epic grandeur, Hafiz and Saadi for wisdom, Rumi for the mysticism, Roodki for lyricism, Khayyam for the atmosphere in his Rubaiyaat.

...If you find time, read 'The Blind Owl' a novella by Sadeq Hedayat. Scary stuff! You can read it here:

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/BlindOwl/blindowl.html

There is still a strong tradition of oratory and poetry recitation in Iran, thanks to the high status of the genre called 'mersiya' or elegy written on the martyrdom of Prophets grandsons for which mourning is observed annually for forty days. 'Mersiya' employs the most elevated diction, grand style and requires a lot of oratory skills for its recitation. You may not agree but Persian is for poetry like English is for drama, or Russian and French for the novel. Poetry is an integral part of this language.

mortalterror

08-11-2008, 07:09 PM

Oh, the Japanese and Chinese canons exist within Chinese and Japanese culture, as they are part of their education system. If I recall correctly, at the high school level Japanese students are required to memorize 100s of poems. The Chinese have a similar system. Their canons are heavily developed. The reason why I grouped them together is because in the classical period, there was an exchange of poetry, as both languages used the classical Chinese alphabet, and therefore could be read without translation (though with different pronunciation).

Yes, I forgot to mention that for about a thousand years, like 0-1000 AD, there wasn't any difference between Chinese and Japanese literature. Everyone wrote in Chinese the way that during the same time period every western writer wrote in Latin. It's only in the second millennium that you get cultural divergence. Selling people on an all encompassing Eastern canon might be difficult but a China/Japan canon wouldn't be a harder sale than a comprehensive Western canon.

P.S. I know my dates are sloppy above, and I use the Gregorian calendar, not the Chinese calendar, for convenience.

Etienne

08-11-2008, 07:45 PM

I went to see that western cannon, and the omission of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy is absolutely unacceptable as it one of the most fundamental works of European literature. Also the bias toward English literature is far from being subtle. Has an author like, for example John Ford had such an important impact on Western culture? Over many omission from the Middle-Ages and Antiquity. Also there seems to be a strange inclusion of some works of philosophy, while leaving some of the most important out. I noticed also the omission of Juan Rulfo, probably the most important figure of Latin-American literature alongside Garcia Marquez and Borges...

In the end, I think calling this The Western Cannon is quite presumptuous (and why is Ancient India included?) I'd rather call it Harold's Little Melting Pot.

JBI

08-11-2008, 11:30 PM

You forget, he is one person, not an army. It is a pretty good list for a one man effort, especially up until 1900. The 20th century list is where the trouble occurs.

Of course, works that shouldn't be omitted are, but we must not only read from that list. Clearly philosophy is not really included, and only cliché philosophers, like Nietzsche and Kant made the list, while Aquinas (who is even bigger than Boethius) didn't.

The list serves its purpose as an appendix, and was never meant to be taken as the core of the book. The canons mentioned in the body of the book of criticism are the core of the critical book, whereas the list just gains more credit. Either way, sadly to say the "Western canon" in America, and Canada, is essentially the books available at a decent price that have lasted since the death of their original readers (meaning essentially written before 1940).

Etienne

08-12-2008, 12:07 AM

while Aquinas (who is even bigger than Boethius) didn't.

I was not even thinking of the philosophical scope of Boethius' work but of the literary one, since this list was obviously not a philosophical one, however, even on the philosophical level I would think twice before placing Aquinas over Boethius, considering that his influence of his work goes on up to the 12th century as a central part of European philosophy. The Consolation of Philosophy has often been considered the single most important work of European Literature. It's direct influence is well illustrated in Chaucer (who also made a translation of the Consolation of Philosophy) or Dante (who cites the Consolation regularly in his Divine Comedy), etc. How such a work could have been omitted by a so-called expert is beyond my understanding, not more forgivable than forgetting the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Shakespeare plays or the Bible.

I went back to watch the list and I'm baffled at the number of omissions (Diderot's Jacques and his Master?, Hugo's Legend of Centuries? - he did put an essay on Shakespeare though *cough*, where is Villiers de l'Isle-Adam? de Lautreamont? etc.) - in places where I am knowledgeable enough to pinpoint them and that excludes quite a good part of the list. So in the end, this list which I've seen so much praise about, while it has a good core look to me more like the work of an amateur who has done some research than the serious work of a real expert, he might be an expert in say, English literature, but then he should leave "western" literature or world literature, or whatever to some other people, or call his list of a perhaps less presumptuous name.

stlukesguild

08-12-2008, 12:35 AM

The availability of such books in translation is often quite pathetic, given the availability of European literature. The most common books of canonical works available is clearly English novels, then poetry, then Italian, French, German, and Russian works, then perhaps a few more obscure works. I am hard pressed to find a complete volume of Li Po's poetry for cheap, than I am, for instance, able to find a volume of Tennyson, or from that era, Beowulf.

Yes. Translations... or rather good translations of even the best writers can be difficult to come across. There's a lot of sappy "new-age" translations of key Eastern religious texts... a remnant of the hippie fascination with Eastern mysticism. Things are improving and there seem to be more quality translations being made of the central works of the various Eastern cultures... still we are limited to but a fraction of the work that surely must exist.

In fact, in the edition I had of his work, the translator made it clear that, though one could convey the meaning of the words in English, the actual writing system is able to add different elements to words in pictures, and as a result, can never be translated. Only the bare minimum of the work can be conveyed in another language.

Yes... something is always lost in translation. The best we can hope for is that a good translation succeeds like a good transcription of music from one instrument (or group of instruments) to another... preserving the music... and giving it voice in a new vocabulary... hoping to preserve the music in spite of the fact that not every instrument can play the same notes.

I have read a bit upon what I believe you are speaking of with relation to Chinese poetry. As a pictographic language Chinese (and as a result of shared symbols, Japanese) poetry often uses forms of visual parallelism... where an image in one line may echo (or contrast) an image in another line. It's far more complex than mere rhyming due to the pictographic nature of the language. In this manner it may be "read" not merely in a linear manner... but also across the whole work where a parallel might be perceived in a manner closer to how we might "read" a painting. The actual "writing" of the poem or calligraphy added further to the experience as such could be used to emphasize certain words/images through scale and handling. Most poets were also masters of calligraphy and often painters as well. Surprisingly very few Western authors have toyed with the visual impact of the written/printed poem. William Blake is the most obvious example... and then there's Apollinaire and Mallarme's Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard... in which he attempted something upon this level.

In addition to this, I would like to note that it is also extremely difficult (if impossible) to get volumes on single poets of the Japanese and Chinese traditions, and is far easier to get big anthologies of a period, or a few poets' work. This creates an identity problem, as it is easier to remember something if you have a book of it, than if you have 3 short lyrics of it.

Again... this is beginning to change. I have solid volumes on Tu Fu, Wang Wei, Hafiz, Rumi, Yosano Akiko, Ou-Yang Hsiu, Basho, Buson, and a few others... and I have seen strong editions of works by Lao-Tzu, Li Po, T'ao Ch'ien, Masaoka Shiki, Ryokan, and others. Part of the "problem" here is that many of these poems were originally collected as part of large anthologies... perhaps not unlike the manner in which the Hebrew Psalms... certainly the product of multiple hands... were collected into a single "canonical" volume. For example, in Japan the collection known as Man'yoshu or the "Ten Thousand Leaves" is still read as a unified whole (the entire collection can be found in several places on line). China has similar canonical anthologies such as the Shi Jing or "Book of Songs", which exists in translation by Arthur Waley. I somewhat suspect that part of the "problem" here is that in China and Japan there is a somewhat selfless world view that lacks the Western ego and desire for recognition and is closer to the medieval philosophy in which the artist loses himself in the higher purpose of the work.

Virgil

08-12-2008, 07:23 AM

Petrarch's Love

08-12-2008, 06:17 PM

St. Luke's--There you go again, adding more things to my reading list! Great idea for a thread. I'll have to note some of these works for future reading when I'm not quite so enveloped in a dissertation planted deep in the heart of the Western Canon (whatever that may be). Don't really have anything to add here, having only read some pitifully small slices of Asian and Middle Eastern Lit., but I'll look forward to seeing what people recommend here. I do think translation is a particular problem with Asian languages, especially when it comes to poetry, and especially because there's such a huge gap between those languages and English. I'm sure there's a whole amazing world of literary experience I'm completely cut out of because of the language gap. I'll just have to end the frustration one of these days by learning Japanese, Chinese and Arabic and...ah for world enough and time. :p

JBI

08-12-2008, 06:38 PM

The question though Etienne, is whether or not such a list can exist, or whether we must except the fact that we are ethnocentric, and can only read the most cliché works of other cultures (that's what I get out of 90% of his Italian list). A more obvious exclusion though, would probably Cavalcanti, and also almost the entire Medieval tradition cross-continent. You must give him credit though for having the nerve to make such a list in light of this fact. Though I think the problem with the list is that it isn't a list, and more a "suggest reading". It is, after all, smashed into the back of the book, and without commentary.

stlukesguild

08-13-2008, 09:51 PM

Etienne- "I was not even thinking of the philosophical scope of Boethius' work but of the literary one, since this list was obviously not a philosophical one, however, even on the philosophical level I would think twice before placing Aquinas over Boethius, considering that his influence of his work goes on up to the 12th century as a central part of European philosophy. The Consolation of Philosophy has often been considered the single most important work of European Literature."

Obviously this is debatable. Looking on the list of the 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written from the book of the same title by Martin Seymour-Smith one finds Boethius again slighted, while there are numerous other books that are also excluded from Bloom's "canon": Elements- Euclid, Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws-Philo of Alexandria,
Annals, from the Death of the Divine Augustus-Cornelius Tacitus,
Meditations-Marcus Aurelius, Outlines of Pyrrhonism-Sextus Empiricus, Guide for the Perplexed-Moses Maimonides, The Kabbalah, Summa Theologicae-Thomas Aquinas, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church-Martin Luther, Institutes of the Christian Religion-John Calvin, On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs- Nicolaus Copernicus, The Harmony of the World- Johannes Kepler, Novum Organum- Francis Bacon, Works-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ethics- Baruch de Spinoza, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy-Isaac Newton, The Encyclopedia- Denis Diderot, ed., A Dictionary of the English Language- Samuel Johnson, etc...

Bloom admits that his criteria is essentially aesthetic and that he has left of many important books of philosophical, scientific, and historical interest that are not, in his opinion, of great aesthetic merit. he also admits that he has excluded many Greek and Latin texts of real merit as they are probably outside of the reading scope of all but specialists. As JBI and I have suggested before Bloom has simply provided a list (in a mere appendix that was part of a larger work of essays upon major "canonical" writers) that provides what may be the most complete canon of Western literature for the English-language audience. Undoubtedly the list has its flaws. There are books that I think are glaring omissions and others whose inclusion I question. Undoubtedly it is also Anglo-centric... but no less so than a similar list compiled by a University department in France or Germany would favor French or German-language literature. It is also, as I have noted before, out of necessity. The truly interested reader can easily... even through the use of the internet... scope out a far more in-depth list of French, German, Spanish, or Italian literature... but to what avail? Without a mastery of these languages it is next to impossible to experience writers such as Sully Prudhomme, Alfred Victor de Vigny, Leconte de Lisle, José María de Heredia, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Rosalía de Castro, José de Espronceda, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Íñigo López de Mendoza, etc... Undoubtedly many of these writers are equal to such English-language figures as Thomas Wyatt, Sir Walter Raleigh, Andrew Marvell, etc... but without an access to the language only the most central canonical figures can be experienced: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Hugo, Cervantes, Lorca, Machado, San Juan de la Cruz, etc... Hell... it hasn't been until just recently that there has even been a decent translation available of a figure as central to Spanish literature as Gongora. Anyway... why are we once again disputing what is and is not part of the Western Canon in a thread directed specifically at the Eastern Canon? I guess it proves my initial supposition that we are all quite ethnocentric as illustrated by our ignorance of an entire universe outside of our own.

stlukesguild

08-13-2008, 09:55 PM

By the way... I'm doing my part... however small it may be... to rectify my own ignorance. I'm reading Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching.:lol: It seems to have earned solid reviews... and I have been quite pleased with other Mitchell translations.

stlukesguild

08-21-2008, 01:29 AM

I am currently reading a good deal of Asian poetry... and focusing upon Japanese at the present. As I've read a bit in anthologies and on-line I am surprised to discover how poorly represented Japanese poetry is. One can only readily find English translations of a few Japanese poets. Beside late 19th and 20th century poets such as Masaoka Shiki and Yosano Akiko the only anthologies of poetry by Japanese poets are those of Haiku masters such as Kobayashi Issa, Yosa Buson, and Matsuo Bashō are readily available... with the exception of a volume of poetry by the two women poets of the "classical" Heian era, Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu. Haiku, it seems, is often what is first thought of as the stereotypical Japanese poetry... and it is what is fashionable most in Western translation. Kenneth Rexroth, among others, suggest that for all the merit of the great haiku poets, neither they... nor the poetry of that era are anywhere near the finest examples of Japanese poetry. Indeed, Rexroth suggests haiku is largely a decadent style... and another writer on line notes that haiku actually grew out of a poetic form known as renga, which itself evolved as a result of the ossification of the earlier tanka, and involved linking verses by two or more poets in a manner not unlike the exquisite corpse of Surrealism. The initial poet would provide 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 sylables, and the next poet would add another two lines... each of 7 syllables. This collaborative improvisation could extend to hundreds of lines... but eventually the initial 5-7-5 became a form in and of itself.

Anyway... little is to be found outside anthologies of multiple poets of earlier "classical" poetry... this in spite of the fact that figures such as Yomabe No Akahito, Kakinomoto No Hitomoro, Izumi Shikibu, Onono Komachi, Lady Ise, and numerous others... including the so-called "36 Immortal Poets" are considered to be the greatest figures of Japanese poetry.

As I have been reading Rexroth's collection of Japanese poetry I have been struck by the great intensity and compression of the work... the focus or isolation of concern upon what Ezra Pound terms "the luminous details"... the focus upon a single image as opposed to any suggestion of narrative or drawn out discourse. In a way, Japanese poetry reminds me of little else than perhaps some early Greek lyrical poetry (Sapho and the Anthology), Imagist poetry, some Symbolist work... especially Mallarme... and Rilke's "thing poems" (dinggedichte) of such collections as The Book of Images and New Poems.

Among some of the Japanese poems that struck me I will include a few:

I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.

-Yomabe No Akahito

In a gust of wind the white dew
On the autumn grass
Scatters like a broken necklace.

-Bunya No Asayasu

In the empty mountains
The leaves of the bamboo grass
Rustle in the wind.
I think of a girl
Who is not here.

-Kakinomoto No Hitomaro

Of course these exquisite, delicate images were given even further impact by the manner in which they were rendered in the most graceful of calligraphy and often illuminated with a spontaneous or improvisational painted imagery as well:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/sotatsu-1.jpg

One of the most marvelous examples must be found in the collaboartive efforts of the calligrapher Hon'ami Koetsu and painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu illuminating a collection of poetry by various poets:

http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/interactives/deerscroll/enter.asp#

This interactive site allows you to scroll through the work, gives translations of the poetry and close-ups of the art.

Another great site I have found is here:

http://www.temcauley.staff.shef.ac.uk/introduction.shtml

This site offers a huge collection of Japanese poetry given in the original Japanese/Chinese characters, in Romaji text (in which the Japanese pronunciations are written out in the Western/Latin letters) and then an English translation. The site has quite an extensive collection of poetry from the major Japanese anthologies.

JBI

08-21-2008, 01:41 AM

StLukes, you may find this book interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Japanese-Poetry-Steven-Carter/dp/0804722129/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219296988&sr=8-1
I recently grabbed a copy from my library and am finding it (I am about half way through) quite enjoyable. the extensive notes on periods, publications, and poets, in addition to extensive footnotes, and a rōmaji rendering of the poems to allow the reader to experience somewhat of the feel of the original.

This, to me, is the most definitive works of classical Japanese poetry available I can find. I'm unsure if it is worth $30, but if you can get a copy from the library, it is very well worth looking into.

JBI

08-21-2008, 01:51 AM

Also, this book may be of interest to you;
http://www.amazon.com/Loom-Time-Selection-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140455213/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219297647&sr=1-1
It's a nice collection of works by Kalidasa (I am unable to find a thicker, more inclusive book of this masterpoet's works). Inside are one play, and two long poems. The notes and introductions as well are quite extensive and informative (spanning 90 pages) and provide a nice background and scholarly aspect to the book.

stlukesguild

08-21-2008, 09:41 AM

JBI... Yes, I have the Traditional Japanese Poetry on my wish list. The list price doesn't seem at all outrageous considering the size of the book and the fact that most volumes of poetry in translation run $10-15 for 100 pages or a bit more. I've added Kalidasa to my wish list. Thanks for the tip.:thumbs_up

LitNetIsGreat

08-21-2008, 11:34 AM

ah for world enough and time. :p

Too true.

All of this thread has made very interesting reading in itself, though perhaps only highlighting how far behind I am in my reading. Of course that means there is a world still yet to discover.

“Wisest is he who knows he does not know” as Socrates said, or is said to have said.

stlukesguild

07-12-2009, 12:46 AM

Bump!

islandclimber

07-12-2009, 01:11 AM

:) thanks!

I'm interested in seeing if anyone on the forum knows much about African Literature... I see lots about Far Eastern Lit (Japanese, Chinese, etc)... and also India has surged to a certain extent in the West recently, and then Latin America as well... but it seems there is an enormous body of work in Africa waiting to be discovered... I guess the same could be said for much of the Middle East, as it has for the most part been largely ignored by the west as well...

I've wondered too, if there are certain tendencies, lifestyles, ideas, philosophies, psychologies, stylistic differences, etc. that make it hard, even in translation, for Westerners to identify with Literature from some areas of the world? any thoughts on this?

stlukesguild

07-12-2009, 11:35 AM

Again, I think that questions of lifestyles, philosophies, religion, etc... have little to do with our exposure to the literature of other cultures. Certainly most cultures will be largely centered in their own traditions and in the US this has largely meant absorbing or even co-opting the traditions of Europe... especially Britain. But even that is but to a limited extent. Really it is the access to translations... good translations... that is the key. We may have a limited access to African, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Persian literature in the US... but in reality we don't do much better with regard to Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Dannish, Swedish, Finnish, Belgian, Dutch, etc... The reality is that it is far more likely that an American or British academic or writer will be well versed in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian... or the "classic" Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Obviously when one is attracted to learning a second language consideration must include "getting the most bang for the buck". Thus issues of military, economic, and cultural prominence come into play. It makes more sense to learn Japanese or Italian considering their economic and/or cultural importance than it does to learn Hungarian. Consequently, as there are far more academics/writers fluent in a given language it is far more likely that we will be blessed with competent translations of literature in those languages.

Of course things change. I'd almost guess that in the 19th century there were few translations of Russian literature available in English. As Russia/the Soviet Union rose to prominence, the language became a necessity. The same has happened with Japan (I have more Japanese literature by far than Dutch/Belgian. Am I to believe that the culture that produced Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Vermeer, Hals, Van Gogh, even Mondrian produced no literature of any lasting merit?). It is currently happening with China and Arabic literature. There is perhaps something of a realization that in both instances it is something of a liability to remain ignorant of these cultures and their language.

I would suggest that Spanish is far more central to America than it is to Canada or Britain due to our borders and relationships with Central and South America. Undoubtedly French is far more important to our neighbors to the North (JBI?) and perhaps even Britain. I know that my collection of Spanish writers rivals that of French and German which are surely the largest after English. I definitely come upon translation of Spanish works written in the last 50 years far more often than I come upon German or French literature from the same period.

kratsayra

07-12-2009, 04:37 PM

As Stlukes says, translation and availability is a real problem for many books from Africa, especially in the United States. Publication has to do with demand, though, so for whatever reason, there is not much demand. However, if more people knew about the books, perhaps there would be greater demand . . . it's an endless cycle.

I taught a course on African lit a few years ago, and I was severely limited by what my students would be able to purchase and what the bookstore could order. There are some ways around that, but in the end, you primarily need to be able to put books on a syllabus that students can actually get ahold of without breaking copyright law.

Despite all of France's problems with those from its former colonies, it is not all that difficult to find books from Africa in French on shelves of many bookstores there. There are also a few publishers that have their roots in the first writings in French from Africa like Presence Africaine, and they still offer a wonderful selection. Unfortunately, only the most well known of these books are available in English translation, and of those, most of them are out of print.

There is one major publisher of African lit in English - Heinemann's African Writer's series. They have a decent selection, but they are based in the UK, which can make getting the books for courses in the US a bit difficult (in my experience with the course I taught). A lot of books they have published in the past are also now out of print.

Luckily, with writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, some African writers are becoming easily available on shelves of American bookstores. I hope this leads to increased interest. But who knows. Is there some fundamental difference in style or culture that leads Americans to be uninterested in purchasing African lit? I hope not! Is it some kind of prejudice? I am hoping it is simply lack of knowledge and nowhere to start. But I really don't know.

And sorry to sound Amero-centric, it is simply that I don't know much about the reception of African literature in any other countries besides France.

islandclimber

07-12-2009, 04:43 PM

what's strange though I find, is that many writers in Africa are writing in English, French, etc. ie. common languages that either don't really need to be translated or are commonly translated at least in the case of the Nation that language belongs to (French for France, Portuguese for Portugal, etc..)

I agree with though in the case of Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian nations, and many other not so common languages from less prominent countries in the world.. not many would learn the languages and to translate must be quite a lot of work... as well, how interested do you think large publishing houses are in translating work from these languages?

Spanish is undoubtedly far more central to America than to Canada.. I'm from Canada as well... although Western Canada (where I live), I would suggest Asian languages and cultures are far more prevalent and important now than French... Sadly enough I know very little about French Canadien writers, and rarely see translations as I don't speak french...

I think a large number of latin american writers are still skipped over in terms of translation though.. I find the large majority of those translated must be near the Magical Realism school of Marquez and Cortazar to be translated... it is still hard to find good translations of writers such as Llosa, Fuentes, Basto, De Assis, etc... they are out there, but hard to find... and then if you want to go back into 19th century Spanish Lit it is almost impossible to find translations and I can't see that as being due to lack of good writers? Sarmiento, Isaac, Da Cunha, Unamuno and the rest of the Generation of '98??

but yes, I rarely see translations of contemporary French and German writers.. why do you think this is?

stlukesguild

07-12-2009, 05:49 PM

Of course the issue of interest is directly connected with learning another language. In the US it is far more likely that one will be interested in a major Western European culture or in Russia, China, India, Japan, or even the Middle East when one considers the cultural roots of the population and the major economic/political/social/cultural powers.

I am surprised at the difficulty in finding Latin-America translations in Canada... but perhaps it is an American advantage considering our borders, large Latin-American population and Hispanic history. Among my own library ignoring the major figures such as Borges, Cortazar, Gabriel-Marquez, etc... I still have volumes by San Juan de La Cruz, Calderon, Jimemez, Unamuno, Vinciente Aleixandre, Rafael Alberti, Jorge Guillen, Ramon Perez de Ayala, Alvaro Cunquiero, Gonzalo Torrente Ballister, Sor Juana Inez, Francesco Ayala, Jose Donoso, Cesay Vallejo, Alejo Carpentier, Machado de Assis, Carlos Fuentes, Augusto Monterroso, Mario Vargas Llosa, Homero Aridjis, Miguel Hernandez, etc...

stlukesguild

07-12-2009, 05:56 PM

I rarely see translations of contemporary French and German writers.

I agree here. I have but a few French: Jean Giono, Duras, Perec, Rio, Robbe-Grillet, Michel Tournier, Maurice Blanchot, Henri Michaux. My contemporary German is just as slim... especially if I eliminate Gunter Grass. All that remains are a few slim volumes by Eich, Krolow, Paul Celan, Michael Kruger, Max Frisch, Friederich Durrenmatt, Heinrich Boll, Hans Magnus Enzenberger, and Ingeborg Bachmann. Quite pathetic... especially considering that my own cultural heritage is German.:(

JBI

07-12-2009, 06:34 PM

Depends - essentially every book you can get in the US you can get in Canada, in one way or another - Amazon ships for essentially the same price to both countries, and book stores (that is, big ones) essentially carry the same stock, with the exception of perhaps a small shelf of Canadian fiction, and if you are lucky (which is very, very rare for book stores that don't cater to academic readerships) a Canadian poetry rack. French Canadian works are hard to come by, but luckily, there are some translations available, and if you live close to a major library, or university library, they should be there (where abouts in the West are you? I know UBC has an excellent collection of Canadian works (and an excellent Canadian lit program) and the University of Calgary and University of Alberta both have strong grounding in Canadian literature in both languages), but yes, in the average book store, it is hard to find stuff - in general it is hard to find stuff.

The Latin American translations are actually more easily findable than French Canadian literature, as it seems to be catchy - of course, it's mostly the big names that make the shelves, but if you know where to look you can find stuff. I think the Area-Studies departments in Canadian universities are just as strong and large as American ones, so generally that pulls in texts from everywhere to University Bookstores and libraries. I know, for instance, that in certain book stores in Toronto, if they don't have the book, the staff are very nice, and will get you a copy quickly, if one exists.

The internet too has done wonders, but on the whole, it's the limit of quality translations that I see as the major problem - I've read like 50 translations of Lao Zi's Dao De Jing, with each one seeming to add different pseudo-philosophy in different places, that I don't think really exists within the original (there is a link on the Wikipedia article to a site that lists links to a series of them - just flip through the first few verses to see what I mean). The general attitude until recently, I can't help but find, in terms of translation, was an aestheticized appropriation, rather than a fully realized attempt to render them within their own cultural context.

There is more Ezra Pound in Pound's Cathay, arguably, than there is Li Bai, more Bynner than Chinese poets, and more Western than Eastern.

I think the problem is that these translations aren't really brought forward as cultural specimens, but rather commercial ones, and as such, the verse ends up taking on a different shape. I can't really compare, for instance, Japanese poetry, as I know less about Japanese than Chinese (I've only cross referenced a few poems with their originals) but the great bulk of stuff I find seems to akin to Alexander Pope's rendition of Homer - perhaps entertaining, though not quite Homer.

Here's my question though - do you consider Canada part of the Western tradition - I personally don't consider contemporary Canadian work part of the West - Atwood is clearly Western, but I don't see anything particularly Western About Alice Munro for example. It seems the bulk of Canadian authors are generally either building on the Canadian mythology (the themes, essentially minus the biblical and cartological ones of Frye and Atwood), various indigenous motifs, and ultimately various other ethnic things carried over. Are we, for instance, to call Austin Clarke a Western Author - he is from Barbados, but I don't think he is particularly "Western". The Bible doesn't seem to really be his "Great Code".

Likewise, the bulk of Canadian literature, at least the good stuff, seems to be written by ex-centrics, and not to really fit properly into European or American models - there are as many people using Chinese culture as their ground work as there are using European culture, or Indian culture.

But I think here, in terms of canon, one generally needs to break down things country by country. Perhaps there is some consistency with Silk-Road bordering countries, and the spread of Buddhism seems to have created some sort of unity that, though not completely like Christianity, could be described as creating a solidity - but when you start to whack away, you realize that even a Western Canon seems ridiculous - there are as many borrowed cultural concepts as there are idiosyncratic ones, in terms of Russian literature.

Pushkin may have modeled Onegin on Byron, but there are still the loads of tales - in verse and prose, long and short, that deal with folk-tale stuff that seem outside of the realm of Western literature there - perhaps Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were writing Westernized texts, but there is still that underlying difference that is rooted in the culture (though perhaps less so than in Pushkin).

Likewise, Italian poetry doesn't read like English poetry - it has a very different sort of feel to it. Tasso's short lyrics are very, very different than, for instance, Ben Jonson's - his sense of lyric imagery, which is based on his own tradition, seems very different.

To really understand a cultural tradition then, it takes much, much work, and an availability of texts.

The only way to really get most Chinese texts, for example, is to be near a major library, or have a very, very big wallet. One is less likely to find a copy of Water Margin (I am yet to actually find one) than almost any Dickens book. Perhaps we can blame the whole construct of the system - Penguin seems to be where everyone turns for classics - sure there are Oxford classics, and a few others, but ultimately, they are all printing almost the same books. With the exception of a few works from each culture, most of which not as frequently printed, the scope of available books, because of the lack of profit in printing them, seems rather slim.

There is nothing these publishers like more, than buying a cheap old translation, or printing an English language book - it's essentially a win-win - they don't need to pay royalties, only perhaps a few bucks for an introduction and some footnotes. The only place to really turn for these then, it seems, are either 100 page mediocre translations, like those by Rexroth, who puts more of himself than the actual material into the text, or to university printed ones, which never make the shelves, and are only available in libraries. Tough luck I guess, though perhaps things will change in the future.

Then again, it's not as if many cultures receive that privilege either - I'm actually curious as to what other countries' book shelves look like.

kratsayra

07-12-2009, 10:14 PM

Here's my question though - do you consider Canada part of the Western tradition - I personally don't consider contemporary Canadian work part of the West - Atwood is clearly Western, but I don't see anything particularly Western About Alice Munro for example. It seems the bulk of Canadian authors are generally either building on the Canadian mythology (the themes, essentially minus the biblical and cartological ones of Frye and Atwood), various indigenous motifs, and ultimately various other ethnic things carried over. Are we, for instance, to call Austin Clarke a Western Author - he is from Barbados, but I don't think he is particularly "Western". The Bible doesn't seem to really be his "Great Code".

Likewise, the bulk of Canadian literature, at least the good stuff, seems to be written by ex-centrics, and not to really fit properly into European or American models - there are as many people using Chinese culture as their ground work as there are using European culture, or Indian culture.

I know almost nothing about Canadian literature. But I do know about French departments in the US and French literature. And to support your argument, I suppose, is the fact that Canadian authors in French are often very marginalized or nonexistent in US French departments. In terms of courses, scholars, work, etc in the US, Canadian lit in French is much less visible than books from Africa and Caribbean in French. And of course for the French, anything that isn't from the hexagon has, for a long time, been considered "other." So, yeah. In the world of "French and Francophone Studies," (although I don't like the word 'francophone,' but most still use it) writers in French from Canada are part of their own separate thing.

I suppose Canadian lit in French is also probably pretty separate from Canadian lit in English. But I think it still speaks to the kind of separation you are suggesting.

Virgil

07-12-2009, 10:36 PM

Here's my question though - do you consider Canada part of the Western tradition - I personally don't consider contemporary Canadian work part of the West - Atwood is clearly Western, but I don't see anything particularly Western About Alice Munro for example. It seems the bulk of Canadian authors are generally either building on the Canadian mythology (the themes, essentially minus the biblical and cartological ones of Frye and Atwood), various indigenous motifs, and ultimately various other ethnic things carried over. Are we, for instance, to call Austin Clarke a Western Author - he is from Barbados, but I don't think he is particularly "Western". The Bible doesn't seem to really be his "Great Code".

I would think so. The same observations you have about Canadian literature can be made about English literature. Look at some of the writers considered part of the contemporary English cannon: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, and V. S. Naipaul. And that's not even mentioning the Irish writers. The notion of fixed regional cannons are being dissolved. The world is getting smaller. People are relocating, learning the cannons of all types of places, exchanging ideas through peridocles (sp?), translations springing up within a year of an original publication, and now this darned thing we participate on called the internet. By the end of my life time I expect a sort of world cannon that will be shared. Of course the impossiblility of having students read everything will still require decisions of inclusions and exclusions, and that will still force regional literature to take some prominance. But it will not be exclusionary.

By the way, this is a great discussion. I enjoyed all the comments. :thumbs_up

stlukesguild

08-19-2009, 01:17 PM

"Bump"

bluosean

08-19-2009, 03:18 PM

One of my favorite non-western books is Maiba: A Novel of Papua New Guinea. It helps that it is writen in English.

lawpark

07-27-2011, 11:04 PM

I am impressed by how many Eastern authors stluke has already read ... I have constructed a short (36 texts) World Canon list with the objective "to provide guidance for contemporary readers seeking to obtain a relatively broad and balanced preliminary understanding of the world's major civilizational traditions through reading a limited number of their most influential and representative texts." Hope it provides good additional ideas for your reading. http://lawpark.jimdo.com

Arrowni

07-30-2011, 08:34 AM

The Western canon is much less than not-the-Eastern canon, you can readily ignore indo-american literature, pretty much all eastern-europe poetry and many medieval/colonial texts. The Western Canon is a collection within the collections, and thus, you will find several canons outside it which will be as valid and interesting as any other.

lawpark

07-30-2011, 02:29 PM

Interesting observation. I have been reading about the A Global History of Historical Writings by Daniel Wolff, and am surprised to find so many historical texts written in relations to the New World which I have not even heard about before... and of course, Davies Norman has long drummed about the exclusion of Eastern Europe from the Western in his Europe: A History.

Clearly the same skewed perspectives exist as much in literature as in historical writings.

ralfyman

08-02-2011, 03:17 AM

One can also look at various anthologies based on region or country, such as Southeast Asian literature or African literature. Several are linked in various online bookstores.

Arrowni

08-02-2011, 04:12 AM

Canons and academies are usually form under the concept of literary history, that's how they justify themselves, it's like an approval from history that makes them valid. But since historical speech is flawed -the right word would be biased-, the canons tend to be partial from a certain concept of history. This is not wrong, this is just how it is.

lawpark

08-02-2011, 10:33 PM

Another great point. Canonization is actually very much linked to how "history of literature" is written. Similar for art history.

And after a name become so canonized ... everyone tries to look out for how he influenced the rest. I've seen people in theology asking the naive question of "how was St. Augustine influential in the medieval times?" and demand specific evidence. It was "such a no brainer" at first sight of the question, but to show specific evidence (I suppose) turns out fairly hard. I don't know for sure - but I personally suspect that "Shakespeare is very influential" might have been true after the romantics made him a canon (but even then, Dickens? Austen? Mark Twain?), but "Shakespeare" actual influence before the early 19th century? I am not trying to deny Shakespeare's influence, but I feel some of that influence could be attributed to other authors if the same amount of academic resources over generations had been devoted to them instead of to Shakespeare.

Arrowni

08-03-2011, 01:56 AM

Yep, influence is a very phantom idea to prove. Take Borges for example. Saying Borges was influenced by Shakespeare is not unlike saying he was influenced by the 1000 other authors he wrote about. Some will point out Borges wrote several works on Borges, but he also did on Whitman and Chesterton, he loved english language. As an author, Borges decided exactly how much he would be influenced by each of them, with some subconscious choices among those, but still more or less a choice. So when he writes about Shakespeare, maybe he's reading him as Chesterton would, instead of just reading Shakespeare. Who is the actual influence there?

History is not as sorted in our minds as it is in history books.

lawpark

08-04-2011, 06:45 PM

Wondering what is the state of writing for "world literary history" is right now ... any good books / articles anyone can recommend?

JCamilo

08-04-2011, 07:58 PM

lawpark

08-04-2011, 09:08 PM

JBI

08-04-2011, 10:02 PM

Found a published version of a list of world canonical texts - the actual name being the Table of Contents for Norton Anthology of World Literature (Shorter Second Edition) - apparently is actually taught in some courses somewhere in US?

http://media.wwnorton.com/cms/contents/na_world2e_shorter.pdf

Anyone happen to have the preface / introduction to the anthology? Would be interesting to see how these guys come up with the list ...

As an advocate of World Literature, I am against that. Literature in the institution needs to be specific. What one reads at home is important too, but the study of literature is not about world literature. One gets somewhere by obsessing over one aspect.

For instance, had I not tried to absorb too much Chinese poetry and literature into me, I would have gotten nowhere - the hours spent trying to go character by character, word by word, paragraph by paragraph got me somewhere. If I was to keep going with different things at once, that is, not take a year off reading Western literature, I bet I wouldn't have gotten anywhere at all.

What is important to studying is not really important to enjoying. But still, some sort of specialization tends to help - we all cannot drink the sea, so we need to decide where to start.

As the concept of world literature emerges, so do the limitations and implications. Japanese literature is far better translated into English than Chinese because of American occupation. With all this nonsense of China the new world super power, I am curious to see where that puts Chinese literature.

Likewise the concept of nationalist promotion must be negotiated - China, a country that 40 years ago burnt copies of Confucius in the street, is now the great Harmonious Confucian nation in their press - and they promote the image worldwide with Confucius organizations.

That is an isolated example - one can add France, Germany, and various other countries onto the cultural propaganda bandwagon. Goethe institutes, Aliance Francais institutes, the list is endless - there is a war for recognition here going on, and world literature needs to address it.

With the decline of American appeal, internationalism is being sold as cultural product - Goethe has gone from author to product, as have any other number of authors.

Where does that leave a canon - well, it quite simply gives a very centralized control over it for the public, which is interesting. The world classics list is just another institution which regulates it, as is Penguin with its almost entirely Western collection, and Norton with its selected world authors, and so on.

JCamilo

08-05-2011, 07:57 AM

That is why I say, a list is fine. But the Canon is impossible. He is all others reading and knowledge, just not mine. He is shapeless, withouot a center, pretty much a Pascal's circle. Not to mention, it is always growing, building - it has potential to infinite and trying to limit with precision the infinite is a mathematical nightmary for most of us.

The best we can say is something geral "In Spain, there is Dom Quixote..." or "In Latin America those dudes like Borges and Marquez"...

ralfyman

08-05-2011, 02:47 PM

JBI

08-05-2011, 03:00 PM

The need for a canon is painfully obvious: one cannot read everything, and there are critics who have read more than most and are in a better position to advice others on what to read.

The same applies to film and music.

Why should it matter what one reads, or if one reads so widely - it isn't as obvious as you make it sound - simply put, if the purpose of reading is enjoyment, then does one necessarily have to read Chinese novels, which for the Western reader are oft far too long, contain far too many hard-to-memorize names and contain ideas which require extensive footnoting?

What about vice versa, should a Chinese person really need to care about their Korean neighbors? why is it so obvious.

Not that I disagree, but it is a rather bold statement and far too involved to be "obvious".

ralfyman

08-05-2011, 03:21 PM

Why should it matter what one reads, or if one reads so widely - it isn't as obvious as you make it sound - simply put, if the purpose of reading is enjoyment, then does one necessarily have to read Chinese novels, which for the Western reader are oft far too long, contain far too many hard-to-memorize names and contain ideas which require extensive footnoting?

What about vice versa, should a Chinese person really need to care about their Korean neighbors? why is it so obvious.

Not that I disagree, but it is a rather bold statement and far too involved to be "obvious".

That's because one doesn't necessarily read only for enjoyment, or at some point may realize that enjoyment is not the same as immediate gratification. Also, when one discovers that the world is much larger than he imagines, one also discovers that there are many works to appreciate. Finally, given that life is short and that there are many works to appreciate, then one will not be able to read everything, and must rely on those who have read a lot to give advice, which implies a canon.

All of these points are obvious reasons why there is a need for a canon. Of course, for those who will never be aware of a world beyond their own community or country, my argument might not apply.

JBI

08-05-2011, 03:39 PM

That's because one doesn't necessarily read only for enjoyment, or at some point may realize that enjoyment is not the same as immediate gratification. Also, when one discovers that the world is much larger than he imagines, one also discovers that there are many works to appreciate. Finally, given that life is short and that there are many works to appreciate, then one will not be able to read everything, and must rely on those who have read a lot to give advice, which implies a canon.

All of these points are obvious reasons why there is a need for a canon. Of course, for those who will never be aware of a world beyond their own community or country, my argument might not apply.

Need they be aware? What if they are receiving lasting enjoyment from their own native literature's canon, and feel no need to branch out - I have on my shelf an acquired collection of some 300 Chinese classics that I purchased - it will take me probably 10 years to get through the lot - there are tons more that I did not buy, or will buy next time - I have 300 English books on my wall, but I have not finished them all, most are good.

I have the benefit of being a lover of poetry, but rereading is also important - Dante probably had less than 50 books at his disposal throughout his life - will we say he had an impoverished reading experience? No, we will say he probably more thoroughly enjoyed his limited collection than some with 10,000at their disposal.

Don't get me wrong, I am an internationalist, as well as a reader of world literature. But well I know what the purpose is, and what the limitation is - simply put, there are about 5000 years give or take of excellent world literature, I would say about 2500 or so years of a good amount of productivity. Somewhere people are stuck - even what is deemed canonical is hardly consumable in 5 lifetimes if one reads with the will to reread.

Which leaves one at a problem, and in general, people solve it in many ways. They find niches they like - me it was first Italian, now it is Chinese, but I am starting to return to the Italian with greater force. For others it is Roman authors, or Latin American authors, or whatever.

Likewise I prefer poetry, most people prefer novels, some nonfiction, others drama - the possibilities are limitless.

Now, where does the canonical come in? Well, assume every language pretty much has its own canon, with all world literature being vaguely connected, some more connected than others, and you have a concept of world canon - Persian music is the essential element to the understanding of Chinese Song Dynasty Poems, but you do not need to know much about that because the music has been lost.

Likewise, Greek music was the fuel behind Greek poetry in the ancient days - how many of us know anything about the Lute?

Intertext is everywhere, but we all choose to focus not just because of necessity, but because of enjoyment and interest. I am bored sick of reading long 19th century novels, and am rather bored with 18th century English verse. In contrast, I get a lot of thrills out of other traditions - they just appeal to me, so I read them - I couldn't say much about Central Asian literature, but I could talk about East Asian literature, simply because of interest.

lawpark

08-05-2011, 09:28 PM

As I said in another note - I am on the road these days. Being in a place for 3-4 days, I need guidebooks, and those books have various stars to suggest what is "must see" and "what is just interesting to see". Today I am in Philadelphia - the guide book suggest I see the Liberty Bell, which I did.

So the Canon serves a similar function - I guidebook to someone "new" - "new" to what? In most cases, I think it is "new" to being considered "educated". In good old days in US - I think it is pretty fair to say that one wouldn't be considered educated if one had not read some Plato or Shakespeare (for example). Now with the emergence of the real need of "educated global citizen" (or other names to the same effect), what are some "basic texts" that an educated should have read? This is the question of the World Canon (at least one of the key questions, in my view).

Just like in the old days, one is not necessarily expected to be a Shakespeare expert (you might as well be a physicist, does not make one less respected) -- in today's world, there are more specialization possible. But the World Canon get at some "basics" as to what each "educated" person should know something about. And time is truly limited. What is that something? I think most now would agree that it is no longer the big long list of Western Canon - but what the World Canon or World Literature is needs definition. It seems to be exactly those types of courses the Norton Anthology is trying to design for - one can clearly argue whether it is the right list or not - but the attempt is not completely pointless.

JCamilo

08-05-2011, 11:59 PM

The problem is that tourism guide sucks...

ralfyman

08-06-2011, 09:41 AM

Need they be aware? What if they are receiving lasting enjoyment from their own native literature's canon, and feel no need to branch out - I have on my shelf an acquired collection of some 300 Chinese classics that I purchased - it will take me probably 10 years to get through the lot - there are tons more that I did not buy, or will buy next time - I have 300 English books on my wall, but I have not finished them all, most are good.

Yes, even for "one's native literature." The fact that you refer to one's "own native literature's canon" means that various local works have to be excluded.

I have the benefit of being a lover of poetry, but rereading is also important - Dante probably had less than 50 books at his disposal throughout his life - will we say he had an impoverished reading experience? No, we will say he probably more thoroughly enjoyed his limited collection than some with 10,000at their disposal.

Exactly, that's why what I said is "painfully obvious." Rereading implies that one will read even less.

Also, we cannot tell what Dante would have thought because he would probably not have been able to have at his disposal hundreds or thousands of books. Mass publishing and lower costs for books took place centuries later.

Don't get me wrong, I am an internationalist, as well as a reader of world literature. But well I know what the purpose is, and what the limitation is - simply put, there are about 5000 years give or take of excellent world literature, I would say about 2500 or so years of a good amount of productivity. Somewhere people are stuck - even what is deemed canonical is hardly consumable in 5 lifetimes if one reads with the will to reread.

This proves my point about the need for a canon being "painfully obvious." The fact that there is so much to read means that one has to make choices, or more logical, rely on those who have read much.

Which leaves one at a problem, and in general, people solve it in many ways. They find niches they like - me it was first Italian, now it is Chinese, but I am starting to return to the Italian with greater force. For others it is Roman authors, or Latin American authors, or whatever.

Likely these "niches" involve national canons, which brings me back to my point.

Likewise I prefer poetry, most people prefer novels, some nonfiction, others drama - the possibilities are limitless.

If someone is open-minded, though, or at least realizes that there is more to literature than what one prefers....

Now, where does the canonical come in? Well, assume every language pretty much has its own canon, with all world literature being vaguely connected, some more connected than others, and you have a concept of world canon - Persian music is the essential element to the understanding of Chinese Song Dynasty Poems, but you do not need to know much about that because the music has been lost.

Indeed, which is why the idea of a canon is "painfully obvious." One starts with realizing that even within one's preference, there may be too many things to read, so one is forced to exclude. If one realizes that one's preference is limiting and is inclined to move beyond it, one also realizes that there are too many works involved outside one's preference, so one is forced to exclude among those works, too.

Likewise, Greek music was the fuel behind Greek poetry in the ancient days - how many of us know anything about the Lute?

Indeed. The more one knows, the more one realizes he knows so little, so his world broadens, but the number of works that he can access to know more about that world increases significantly. Ultimately, he is forced to rely on the idea of a canon.

Intertext is everywhere, but we all choose to focus not just because of necessity, but because of enjoyment and interest. I am bored sick of reading long 19th century novels, and am rather bored with 18th century English verse. In contrast, I get a lot of thrills out of other traditions - they just appeal to me, so I read them - I couldn't say much about Central Asian literature, but I could talk about East Asian literature, simply because of interest.

But there are, unfortunately, so many other things to read in these other traditions. In addition, there may even be too many 18th- and 19th-century novels to consider, if not 18th-century English verse. Ultimately, one selects what critics recommend, or what one reads may already be what critics recommend as such works will likely be more accessible.

ralfyman

08-06-2011, 09:43 AM

The problem is that tourism guide sucks...

A guide is usually used because one lacks time and money to stay longer in a tourist spot and experiment.

Of course, one can look at, say, reviews of guides, and select one that doesn't "suck".

JCamilo

08-06-2011, 01:10 PM

You know, the majority of guides are actually for people who are not going to those places? Just dream about it...

Of course, the majority of people only have Harold Bloom book at home. How many here have wasted their times with the majority (or all) works of Dante? Shakespeare? Cervantes? Emily Dickinson?Borges? Tolstoy? Kafka?

In the end the canon is by exclusion, knowing what to read means nothing. Knowing why is quite better...

You know, this is for Stlukes... Bioy and Borges talk. And they are mocking some people. Obviously, Bioy and Borges make Mortal and JBI (to not name other few guys here :D) humble pals. Then Bioy: You know, we are that snob that we do not respect the classics (not the word canon, not fashionable here in South America). Those others do. They do not even read it. We can say : Reading Tolstoy sucks (Borges did a few times) and it would mean nothing. But them? They are afraid even to say the word.

stlukesguild

08-06-2011, 04:50 PM

The need for a canon is painfully obvious: one cannot read everything, and there are critics who have read more than most and are in a better position to advice others on what to read.

What JBI and JCamilo are suggesting is that a universal Canon is impossible because a Canon assumes an all inclusive list of that which is essential reading... and this is all but an impossibility in a great many languages. How many more works of truly marvelous writing exist in the German, French or Italian language beyond those recommended in Bloom's Canon? If we expand the Canon to a universal scale, we are faced with an infinite wealth of worthy writing itself worthy of a Borges' tale.

Certainly, we can act as tourists. Sampling one or two books from each culture... and that is fine. But ultimately, most of us find the a certain culture or language and perhaps a certain genre speaks to us far more than others. Even if we are not scholars... we will often find ourselves focusing upon a limited range of literature. Like JBI, I tend to focus far more upon poetry than the novel. Indeed, I may actually tend to read theater or plays, non-fiction, and shorter forms of fiction more than I read novels. I've read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and Checkov... but I'm not overly interested in delving deeper into Russian literature. I love Sterne, Swift, Voltaire, and Rousseau... but could do without most of the rest of the 18th century. I'm not overly interested in American literature after WWII with a few exceptions (Richard Howard, Cormac McCarthy, Anthony Hecht, etc...). I have little interest in Roman writings beyond Virgil, Ovid, and perhaps Horace, but I love the Greeks. I love the literature of the Renaissance and Baroque (Dante, Petrarch, Ronsard, Shakespeare, Spenser, Herrick, Cervantes) and the literature of Romanticism through Modernism... again especially poetry and especially from the English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin-American and German oeuvres (Holderlin, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Yeats, Hugo, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Maupassant, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme,Valery, Proust, Garcia-Lorca, Neruda, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Hernandez, Vallejo, Machado, Alberti, Rilke, Hesse, Mann, Wilde, Pater, Montale, Calvino, etc...)
from the non-Western world I have special interest in Japanese and Middle-Eastern literature which mirrors my interest in the visual arts of those cultures. certainly, I recognize that Russia, China, Holland, Portugal, Australia, JBI's beloved Canada, Indonesia, India, Africa, Norway, Sweden, etc... all certainly have works worthy of reading... but my time is finite... and so I stick with that which brings me the greatest pleasure.

JCamilo

08-06-2011, 05:43 PM

Which is exactly one of the themes of Borges, specially in tales like Funes.

WymanChanning

08-07-2011, 10:36 AM

I read novels written in English or in Chinese, but I do not read the translated versioln. In my opinion, Dream of the Red Chamber is, no doubt, outstanding all the other Chinese novels ever published, and I do believe, in near future, in China, there will be no novel better than it. If compare it to English novels I have read, it is a rival to the works of Charles Dickens or Shakespeare, and certainly better than Bronte Sisters or Jane Austen's novels. For the novels in other language I can not make comparison, because I have not read: do not understand the language and do not like translation. As to other Chinese novels, don't you bother to read.

lawpark

08-07-2011, 06:17 PM

JBI

08-07-2011, 06:38 PM

Red Chamber is good. But I would not count out Jin Yong just yet.

Really? Jin Yong has the worst female characters in his book, if you want to call them characters - he has shallow characterization, and redundant plot schemes - he has action in every seen because he was serialized, even when it isn't coherent. I don't dispute him as a major author, but compared to the dream? Not even close by my count.

If one was looking for a modern contemporary author to compete, I think one would be best to look at Yu Hua, or Han Shaogong.

lawpark

08-07-2011, 08:23 PM

JBI

08-07-2011, 08:38 PM

Dream of Red Chamber - the appeal are mostly for young feminine readers, and then of course it has good poetry embeded (so good that the poetry actually reflect the characters described); but I actually find it a bit rough-going upfront when I first read that - like Dante, the Red Chamber creates a world on its own - but it takes much more effort to get into it (and of course, I recalled someone actually called Dante's first Canto boring - might have been Gramsci but I could be very wrong). A lot of scholarly efforts go into authorship and trying to guess the ending. In a way the text is prone to academic interests because of the high poetry, requiring deep studies, and offers lot of room for textual studies.

On Jin Yong - the appeal is very different - most teenage boys AND girls love the stories from the beginning. The characters might be shallow, but actually hit the Chinese chords quite deep (you can consider those typical psychology / character of Chinese ladies in their late teens and early twenties - might be more from 1950's to 1980's, possibly different now - and actually matches with the ages of the supposed characters anyway). And it is in the Wuxia genre, not modern emotional novels like Jane Austen - the plot actually needs to be seen in the same way - exciting thorughout, though not without depth. In Jin Yong's third edition many of the plots actually get streamlined; yet the outcome is poorer than the second edition which still has hints of being a serialized output.

In modern literary study, of course Hong Xue (Red Studies) is big, and lots of studies on Lu Xun (mostly because of state-sponsored propaganda), but interests in studying Jin Yong is strong (despite not as much to study - no unfinished story, no mystery of authorship, no class interest of note). Maybe the liking for Jin Yong betrays my time and location of upbringing ... but at least among modern Chinese authors, I think he has the best shot of being canonized in the future.

Well, I am yet to see the study that says he is popular because he owned one of the most successful International Chinese newspapers. I mean seriously, he has maybe 4 superb novels, and he promotes them to this day in Ming Pao even after selling the paper.

He also rewrote his books twice, which shows he is obsessed with his own legacy, and with being "pleasing to the contemporary public."

Don't get me wrong, I've read him, and see his skill, but he is like Alexander Dumas, fun when you are reading, but kind of hollow afterward - one can get lost in a Dumas hero, like a Jin Yong hero (except for Guo Jing, awful characterization) but it is the idea of Jin Yong's world that is selling, the immoral China as it functions as a reflection to the contemporary scene (even more so in the Jin Yong generation of China that culminated in that event that didn't happen in 1989).

mortalterror

08-07-2011, 09:00 PM

Stluke, you like western literature from the Renaissance, Romantic, and Modern era. But have you read any of the literature from Greece, Hungary, Poland, or Portugal from those eras? Those countries generally don't make the western cannon lists, but Luis Camoes, Vitsentzos Kornaros, Janos Arany, Dionysios Solomos, and Constantine Cavafy are all very strong poets worthy of our collective attention. The western canon isn't complete by any means without them.

ralfyman

08-08-2011, 06:07 AM

The need for a canon is painfully obvious: one cannot read everything, and there are critics who have read more than most and are in a better position to advice others on what to read.

What JBI and JCamilo are suggesting is that a universal Canon is impossible because a Canon assumes an all inclusive list of that which is essential reading... and this is all but an impossibility in a great many languages. How many more works of truly marvelous writing exist in the German, French or Italian language beyond those recommended in Bloom's Canon? If we expand the Canon to a universal scale, we are faced with an infinite wealth of worthy writing itself worthy of a Borges' tale.

Certainly, we can act as tourists. Sampling one or two books from each culture... and that is fine. But ultimately, most of us find the a certain culture or language and perhaps a certain genre speaks to us far more than others. Even if we are not scholars... we will often find ourselves focusing upon a limited range of literature. Like JBI, I tend to focus far more upon poetry than the novel. Indeed, I may actually tend to read theater or plays, non-fiction, and shorter forms of fiction more than I read novels. I've read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and Checkov... but I'm not overly interested in delving deeper into Russian literature. I love Sterne, Swift, Voltaire, and Rousseau... but could do without most of the rest of the 18th century. I'm not overly interested in American literature after WWII with a few exceptions (Richard Howard, Cormac McCarthy, Anthony Hecht, etc...). I have little interest in Roman writings beyond Virgil, Ovid, and perhaps Horace, but I love the Greeks. I love the literature of the Renaissance and Baroque (Dante, Petrarch, Ronsard, Shakespeare, Spenser, Herrick, Cervantes) and the literature of Romanticism through Modernism... again especially poetry and especially from the English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin-American and German oeuvres (Holderlin, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Yeats, Hugo, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Maupassant, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme,Valery, Proust, Garcia-Lorca, Neruda, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Hernandez, Vallejo, Machado, Alberti, Rilke, Hesse, Mann, Wilde, Pater, Montale, Calvino, etc...)
from the non-Western world I have special interest in Japanese and Middle-Eastern literature which mirrors my interest in the visual arts of those cultures. certainly, I recognize that Russia, China, Holland, Portugal, Australia, JBI's beloved Canada, Indonesia, India, Africa, Norway, Sweden, etc... all certainly have works worthy of reading... but my time is finite... and so I stick with that which brings me the greatest pleasure.

Against the reality that there can never be an all-inclusive canon lies the reality that one cannot read everything. And knowing what brings you the greatest pleasure will involve, at least, going through works randomly and putting them aside when you feel that they don't give you pleasure.

If, at some point, you heed advice from another, then there's your canon: you have to exclude some works because you don't have the time (or even money) to read them.

Ultimately, we have to accept that our "time is finite," so we choose what has lasted and read them, or we buy or borrow one work after another and experiment.

Now, some will argue that "many" have lots of works at home or can access them easily in libraries or even online, but this is not true.

Finally, I am not surprised that most of the names mentioned in your message can also be seen in books like Bloom's The Western Canon, if not in various anthologies, all selected by professional critics and scholars.

ralfyman

08-08-2011, 06:11 AM

Which is exactly one of the themes of Borges, specially in tales like Funes.

Possibly, Borges had his own ideas of reading lists:

For example,

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtborges.html

JCamilo

08-08-2011, 11:13 AM

lawpark

08-08-2011, 03:35 PM

Well, I am yet to see the study that says he is popular because he owned one of the most successful International Chinese newspapers. I mean seriously, he has maybe 4 superb novels, and he promotes them to this day in Ming Pao even after selling the paper.

He also rewrote his books twice, which shows he is obsessed with his own legacy, and with being "pleasing to the contemporary public."

Don't get me wrong, I've read him, and see his skill, but he is like Alexander Dumas, fun when you are reading, but kind of hollow afterward - one can get lost in a Dumas hero, like a Jin Yong hero (except for Guo Jing, awful characterization) but it is the idea of Jin Yong's world that is selling, the immoral China as it functions as a reflection to the contemporary scene (even more so in the Jin Yong generation of China that culminated in that event that didn't happen in 1989).

I actually grew up in Hong Kong - never in my life read Ming Pao once - yet fascinated with Jin Yong actually not while I grew up, but after I've grown up - first finished reading all his novels after I started working. Personally, I did not feel Ming Pao at work in his getting famous - he is popular to the extent that many bookstores do not put their titles out - you need to ask before you will be presented a packaged set.

Yes, Jin Yong is no Virgil - he clearly didn't think about destroying his work after finishing it. And because of his obsession with legacy, he also stopped writing wuxia novels when young.

Jin Yong is very Chinese in that the world he describes is NOT immoral - it could be a tough world with lots of killings, but the main characters always are struggling with what is right to do. And there is no Krishna as a God saying in the background that killing your kinsman is okay as long as it is your responsibility in life, nor the glorification of an Alexander.

ralfyman

08-10-2011, 11:39 AM

Yes, he made them for fun and not for guidance. Simple as put, he was often hired to select texts , etc and saw listing as a style. Anyways, it is notable that as a teacher he didnt gave his students lists of what to read.

As ralfyman, who said you must list something not personal like a list? You can listen to critics, but mostly, listen to another authors. If you listen to Neil Gaiman you will hear "Chesterton". Much better.

One doesn't need to be a teacher or impose to students to exclude particular texts. A list from a famous author, anthologizing, and even editors' and publishers' decision on what to print are also factors involved in the same.

JBI

08-10-2011, 12:07 PM

I actually grew up in Hong Kong - never in my life read Ming Pao once - yet fascinated with Jin Yong actually not while I grew up, but after I've grown up - first finished reading all his novels after I started working. Personally, I did not feel Ming Pao at work in his getting famous - he is popular to the extent that many bookstores do not put their titles out - you need to ask before you will be presented a packaged set.

Yes, Jin Yong is no Virgil - he clearly didn't think about destroying his work after finishing it. And because of his obsession with legacy, he also stopped writing wuxia novels when young.

Jin Yong is very Chinese in that the world he describes is NOT immoral - it could be a tough world with lots of killings, but the main characters always are struggling with what is right to do. And there is no Krishna as a God saying in the background that killing your kinsman is okay as long as it is your responsibility in life, nor the glorification of an Alexander.

The only morality in his novels is "serving the people." or looking out for those caught in the struggles of China - he just lifted the concept from Water Margin and kept rehashing it with his xenophobic outlook on history, and his Han Chauvinist ideology.

The Chinese tradition has no morality, Chinese culture has pretty much never had an idea of morality, and Chinese governments, from ancient times to today have always been corrupt. He is looking for a heroism within there, well, I'll tell you where that heroism is, nowhere.

His father himself was part of the "scholarly elite," and as such, he has nostalgia for the time period, but any half-rate historian can realize the dream of China as a great scholarly country is fallacious, simply put, the scholar class always serves the rich in China, which is still the case, and gives a legitimization to the current government in power.

Now, his obsession with the heroism is always taken with a grain of salt - Guo Jing, the hero of his masterpiece, ultimately fails, though he is noble, as the Heroes in Water Margin do. Half of his other heroes retire from the world, his famed trilogy ends with the hero running off with a Mongol while a fascist regime sets on China. Others just leave the conflict, or kill themselves.

His world is problematic in that it still illustrates the contemporary flaws in China - but he supports a reigning power there.

He was, I believe, the first person to meet with Deng Xiaoping from Hong Kong. He supports a regime, and his fiction supports a regime - he is a king sellout politically, and does not hide it. How does that effect his fiction? Well, his fiction promotes the current regime's policy. He is very much involved in politics in his fiction, his fiction even illustrating development in communist Chinese history - his work is racist, it is xenophobic, and it is self-righteous. He himself even saw that, leading to him writing his last novel, but even that text is just another reaffirmation of how good Chinese culture is.

It's simple, you want a more well versed reading of Chinese culture, you read Dream of Red Mansions, or Jin Ping Mei, or a history book. World history right now is afraid to touch Chinese people, and Chinese historians are some of the most self-proud, xenophobic bigots around. They still teach that the west is responsible for the decline of China from number one, and we are the bad guys - that is what is taught in school in China. Why don't they teach how the Wong Merchants got loaded off of selling opium to China at an inflated price, or how the aristocratic class, which existed in China far longer than in Europe pretty much enslaved the local population, or how Chinese polygamy is still practiced to this day?

They don't for a reason - it's part of a propaganda model from a culture that is so self-important, and so afraid to criticize itself. The first real thinkers to do so have all been purged, Mao included. Now we have the Deng Xiaoping Jin Yong Model of historical and cultural discourse - China the Heroic, China the Beautiful, China the scholarly, China the fair, China the culturally rich, China the great - where is the criticism? Where is the person saying, if you are writing historical fiction, how is that woman able to walk when she would have been bound at the feet and forbidden to go outside just some 60 to 70 years ago, or, by extension, 15 years or so before the book was written. Where is the person saying at this time period, life expectancy was less than 30 for the vast majority of people. That doesn't factor in Jin Yong, and nor does it factor in Deng Xiaopingism which his ideology is matched with.

JCamilo

08-10-2011, 01:08 PM

One doesn't need to be a teacher or impose to students to exclude particular texts. A list from a famous author, anthologizing, and even editors' and publishers' decision on what to print are also factors involved in the same.

Really? Where are the anthologies of 100 years ago? And the publishers decisions that left out several of canonical authors?

And really, lists from a famous author? Who Stephen King canonized? There is a work that he lists several horror influences, but where is all this importance? Well, Borges has a list, but if you read Borges, you already access the canon, so such listing as beginers guidance is meaningless.

You certainly does not expect that something that is lasting is determiend or helped by stuff that people forget in 3 years, do you?

WymanChanning

08-10-2011, 09:11 PM

...or how Chinese polygamy is still practiced to this day?...

Is it really that polygamy is still practiced in today's China? Do you have any evidence to share?

JBI

08-11-2011, 09:46 AM

Is it really that polygamy is still practiced in today's China? Do you have any evidence to share?

Evidence？Just go to Beijing and take a look around, the whole culture is obsessed with it. They made TV shows (most removed) about it, and you see it on the street. It is not uncommon to see a Mercedes packed with 4 prostitutes in the back (who look like they are 16), or to see an old man anywhere picking up hookers. Likewise, culturally everywhere you go it is all people are talking about, so and so's 小三 (little three, slang for mistress). High divorce rates almost always point toward husbands having mistresses, and you see it everywhere.

Anywhere that business is done has prostitution linked to it - Karaoke bars, Bars, even fancy restaurants all have hookers at the go, seeing old men with young girls is not uncommon either, likewise, with the presence of migrant workers from the countryside, having a paid girl on the side has become common, especially in places like Beijing or Hangzhou, or other big cities.

Everyone knows it is there, it's just the government has decreed it is not to be talked about. The same way they told me in my text book that China has no gender discrimination.

I would say about 1 in 10 of the local students at my university would do sexual favors for men for money (all denying it, but you encounter them everywhere) and talking to people suggests it is the same in other institutions. Someone needs to be buying these women.

Likewise, my textbook told me that women are only worth something until they are 30, and that if a husband cheats and abuses her, the wife still should act to save her marriage, and not be selfish and divorce him. It's so ingrained in the culture it is ridiculous.

One need only look at how many old people are married to young women there to see what the problem is - 84 year old Nobel Laureate Yang Zhen, for instance, moved back to China and married a 28 year old student, having kids, and the Chinese public calls him a national hero - great example, some old bum having kids with his student, a national hero. And party members driving Ferraris packed with hookers (many poor migrant women from the country side) is another great example of the cultured, scholarly, equitable China. That's your culture without an ingrained sense of morality for you - basically a culture where anything is permissible as long as you have money.

Take Hong Kong for example, this from a 1996 clipping http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/07/news/07iht-lunar.html

Or this article will give you a better breakdown http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=108&catid=4&subcatid=20

The real problem is this, in China women are seen as marriage material only up to age 30. IF one gets divorced, remarrying is almost always more difficult for the woman, and there is societal pressure on her to accept infidelity as a part of her marriage. Likewise, for men, there is nothing telling them what they are doing is the least bit wrong, and everything telling them they have a right to it. Once their wife hits 30, she is rather unable to go anywhere without her losing something, so he would technically have a free reign.

This is not to say infidelity doesn't exist everywhere, but "supporting a mistress" in the Chinese sense is a very Chinese thing. Taiwan was infamous for it back in the day when the Chinese government really cracked down on it, but since they've started cracking down on it, and China has learned from example and has increased - with wealth come concubines if you will.

JCamilo

08-11-2011, 10:03 AM

JBI

08-11-2011, 10:10 AM

But then, prostitutes, marriage with young women, mistress, etc. are not exactly polygamy and not just in China, right? Hugh Heffner is Canadian right (or at least from reat Canadian nation people call America :D ) ?

he isn't married right now, he is just polygamous. There is a difference between a womanizer and someone who is married and supporting 3 other women, and whose wife probably knows everything and has society telling her it is his right.

Alexander III

08-11-2011, 10:29 AM

he isn't married right now, he is just polygamous. There is a difference between a womanizer and someone who is married and supporting 3 other women, and whose wife probably knows everything and has society telling her it is his right.

But once again it is not a chinese thing, so much as a third world thing. I remember that Moscow and most cities in eastern europe are ridiculously full of prostitutes; if you are a young man they often find you rather than the other way round. I remember being in a club in Moscow and being offered sexual services from half a dozen different girls, that night in the same club.

And keeping a woman on the side is not uncommon in europe, the only thing is that one needs more wealth to be able to pull if of in europe, but it is done. For example a famous Italian actor during the 60's had two wife, and children with them both, and he was open about it. The wife's new about each other and the public didn't overly criticize him for it, it was accepted because he was a rich and famous man and a rich and famous man may very well have several wives.

I guess maybe the shock might be stronger for you as I think that Canada and the USA are much more sexually puritarian and repressed compared to europe which is much more liberal. I mean one of the main attractions of Amsterdam is the prostitutes...And its no secret.

Another common example is that in America, university students don't use prostitutes as it is taboo - in my university and many universities in europe, students regularly visit prostitutes. Though this is more the Italians and French than the english, a middle class English student wont use a prostitute, a middle class french or italian one will, only the upper class english students use them for some reason. I find all these tidbits of anthropology fascinating. But I digress.

JBI

08-11-2011, 10:45 AM

But once again it is not a chinese thing, so much as a third world thing. I remember that Moscow and most cities in eastern europe are ridiculously full of prostitutes; if you are a young man they often find you rather than the other way round. I remember being in a club in Moscow and being offered sexual services from half a dozen different girls, that night in the same club.

And keeping a woman on the side is not uncommon in europe, the only thing is that one needs more wealth to be able to pull if of in europe, but it is done. For example a famous Italian actor during the 60's had two wife, and children with them both, and he was open about it. The wife's new about each other and the public didn't overly criticize him for it, it was accepted because he was a rich and famous man and a rich and famous man may very well have several wives.

I guess maybe the shock might be stronger for you as I think that Canada and the USA are much more sexually puritarian and repressed compared to europe which is much more liberal. I mean one of the main attractions of Amsterdam is the prostitutes...And its no secret.

Another common example is that in America, university students don't use prostitutes as it is taboo - in my university and many universities in europe, students regularly visit prostitutes. Though this is more the Italians and French than the english, a middle class English student wont use a prostitute, a middle class french or italian one will, only the upper class english students use them for some reason. I find all these tidbits of anthropology fascinating. But I digress.

It's perhaps similar to other ideas of the developing world, but lets take it back a second.

First of all, if someone frequents a prostitute, it is legal in many countries, or decriminalized. Secondly, if someone has a mistress, it is one thing, if a whole culture has one, it is another.

In general, if you had a second girl on the side, most Western women I think would divorce you for all you have as soon as they found out. Secondly, we are talking about people mostly in politics and business - in China it is illegal, yet all these politicians are doing it. They tell the world it doesn't happen, and they are harmonious, but anyone can see it - that's the real problem.

You say in Moscow you got propositioned at a night club - well, try China. Women are told by society it is not right for them to drink or smoke, or go to bars, so you can assume, unless they are a foreign person, that pretty much everyone in the place who is female and local is a prostitute, and people know this.

Likewise, it is not as systemic and hushed up in the rest of the world, and it is not so restricted to men - for instance, I am sure that women are as likely to frequent prostitutes as men in most modern countries - female sex tourism is also a giant industry, one need only go to Jamaica or Cuba, or Bali, or wherever.

To the next point is, for a university student, it is no big deal. To see a vulgar flaunting of money from people who are driving luxury cars with military license plates (basically means you are above the law and work for the government) loaded with hookers is a whole other story.

You need to see it to understand it - it isn't some old money womanizing, it is there new money vulgarity that says everything is permissible, and it is our right to have women, and it is the same culture that regards marriage as the purchase of a wife, and divorce as an ultimate shame to a woman. It's there on every level - if there are hookers in Moscow, that is a completely different beast - we are talking about whole cities with apartments filled with second and third wives.

The real problem I have with anything is just this propaganda that China feeds the world about how organized, polite, nice, and benevolent they are. They pretty much bought out the American academies now to praising them, and China criticism usually leads to ones career ending by never being admitted into China again. One who speaks out about social issues is generally silenced. The amount of control on what people no is staggering, even as it overlaps into what we know - when people talk about China, they talk of huge development, not of toilets without running water. There is such a facade of bull**** surrounding everything we are told in the west, that it makes us think we maybe are living in China.

Basically China is paying to feed us with this idea that they are these great humane scholars with a long benevolent tradition, rich history, and so on. We are supposed to buy into it, since it upgrades some rich guy's car, and hands him the cash to fill it with hookers.

I spent a year handed textbook after textbook of propaganda. The local textbooks for local students are the same, they also say a great many things about our countries, namely, Canada and Australia are for the taking, the US is a fallen empire because they are buying it, which makes China better than the US, and all sorts of other nonsense. We talk of Orientalism and Said, well, lets reapply it. We want a world Canon, well, who is included in the world - China, as my example, is promoting a national identity, but they know nothing of us other than that they want to rule the world - nobody, despite studying English since the beginning of elementary school, can speak English there - and yet you want to rule the world in English? You cannot even control your own education. Now we read them, call them part of our great books, which they are, but are they reading our great books? Do they even consider us people?

We were talking Jin Yong - What Jin Yong did was mythologize China, and make Chinese culture a universal thing - one can ignore people in the United States because you are Chinese and are better than those "Americans" - you don't think it exists, well minority Chauvinism totally does, and is caught in this whole issue.

If China came saying they want us to appreciate their literature, it is one thing, what they want is us to kiss their ***, since they are insecure about everything and need someone to pat them on the back every step of the way. That's basically what world literature is becoming - everyone pushing propaganda everywhere.

Jin Yong is the international Chinese author, but, by any western standard, he is a racist jingoist who is promoting an idea of China #1 which doesn't fit at all with any concept of history.

JCamilo

08-11-2011, 01:49 PM

he isn't married right now, he is just polygamous. There is a difference between a womanizer and someone who is married and supporting 3 other women, and whose wife probably knows everything and has society telling her it is his right.

That is the point, polygamy does not imply in moral decadency, but often implies in marriage.

Anyways, I would just point, Prostitution are not commun in brazil, no more than United States. Obviously big cities present their prostitutes, of course, there is sexual tourism, but this is not a third world thing. Brazil still a high moralist country from the catholic point of view, mysognist to some point. Someone as Berlusconni here would be almost impossible.

I am sure, economic and social unequality is a huge factor for those conditions, but japan had a similar problem simple because the western sexual freedom was not a process that developed slowly in there, but of course, the young generation wanted to it and of course, spoiled it.

JBI

08-11-2011, 02:26 PM

That is the point, polygamy does not imply in moral decadency, but often implies in marriage.

Anyways, I would just point, Prostitution are not commun in brazil, no more than United States. Obviously big cities present their prostitutes, of course, there is sexual tourism, but this is not a third world thing. Brazil still a high moralist country from the catholic point of view, mysognist to some point. Someone as Berlusconni here would be almost impossible.

I am sure, economic and social unequality is a huge factor for those conditions, but japan had a similar problem simple because the western sexual freedom was not a process that developed slowly in there, but of course, the young generation wanted to it and of course, spoiled it.

Well, Japan always had a long tradition of sexual markets. Prostitutes and sex slaves were pretty much always there, both male and female. They never really developed the idea of inequality or monogamy, but when women demanded more for their worth, Japan just turned its eyes to China, Taiwan and South East Asia. Likewise when more women got power and economic power, they turned their eyes to male prostitutes.

It's a rather strange system that doesn't value fidelity or monogamy - the culture believes in "pleasure for man" traditionally, with no concept of equality for women.

In the modern era there have been changes, but in general that has come from Western concepts being more and more accepted, especially after the US took over. In China, they have a weird time accepting it, and in Taiwan, which was traditionally modeled on the Japanese idea (since the takeover) they have now come well into embracing a Western idea of equality for women, and of monogamy.

Chinese people do not and seem to will not - why give up male privilege, we all know they kill many females at birth, so why is it surprising that they treat them like merchandise? Jin Yong is a great author, but he promotes this by generally declaring Chinese culture as all good, he promotes it, whereas Mao refuted it, but Mao got twisted, whereas he didn't so the synthesis is strange. You have two generations in China now who have grown up without knowing their immediate history. The country is ignorant, but is self proud, they quote Confucius when 40 years ago they were burning his iconography in the street, it's like they avoided synthesis by simply regressing back into feudalism with a new ingrained class system.

JCamilo

08-11-2011, 03:11 PM

But then, Confucious is often burned, no? That is what hold him secure in the "canon", it is impossible to get him out of the game. And powerful groups tried.

I only suppose that China is a proud nation since ever. But not a pratical nation. It may seem to the core, not very pragmatic, a dictomy (like Zhang Zimou movies, for example, the obvious western take he can give, hong kong influence, a political propaganda that ends exotic...) of shorts. I have very few contact with chinese people, in Brazil they are almost "jews", in the sense of isolation, weird costumes, no integration with society and related to considerable criminal activities (more by the hong kong based groups). One of them, a clear smugler was married to a woman which ties to the imperial family, some short of offciial chinese language teacher here, proud of it, greedy for money and high-tech and yet, their two kids were already "sold" in marriage but they had no pretession to return to china due the lack of support...

lawpark

08-11-2011, 07:30 PM

The only morality in his novels is "serving the people." or looking out for those caught in the struggles of China - he just lifted the concept from Water Margin and kept rehashing it with his xenophobic outlook on history, and his Han Chauvinist ideology.

This is a long post to reply to - hard to do after several more rounds of back and forth that has already happened. Will try to be as brief as possible.
- "Serving the people" - is actually very ancient, back to Confucius / Mencius etc.
- Xenophobic he is not, can you imagine anyone writing in Hong Kong being xenophobic?
- Han Chauvinist ideology - it was so in some novels, but Jin Yong clearly moved beyond that in his longest novels - Tian Long Ba Bu and Lu Ding Ji.

The Chinese tradition has no morality, Chinese culture has pretty much never had an idea of morality, and Chinese governments, from ancient times to today have always been corrupt.

- Here I would just ask you to use your comparative literature reading.

His father himself was part of the "scholarly elite," and as such, he has nostalgia for the time period, but any half-rate historian can realize the dream of China as a great scholarly country is fallacious, simply put, the scholar class always serves the rich in China, which is still the case, and gives a legitimization to the current government in power.

- That would really be half-rate historian. In Chinese history (vs. some other histories), civil bureaucracy staffed by the scholarly have always OPPOSED the rich getting richer (there is different levels of success at different times). In China, if anything, the "rich" per se was never ideologically glorified until after 1900, or maybe even after 1978.

Now, his obsession with the heroism is always taken with a grain of salt - Guo Jing, the hero of his masterpiece, ultimately fails, though he is noble, as the Heroes in Water Margin do. Half of his other heroes retire from the world, his famed trilogy ends with the hero running off with a Mongol while a fascist regime sets on China. Others just leave the conflict, or kill themselves.

- Why is retiring a failure? Here again comparative literature perspectives is useful. Retiring is a theme with long tradition in Chinese literature. Different from the West, but why a failure?
- And we were comparing Jin Yong with Red Chamber. This point hardly makes Jin Yong worse.

His world is problematic in that it still illustrates the contemporary flaws in China - but he supports a reigning power there. He was, I believe, the first person to meet with Deng Xiaoping from Hong Kong. He supports a regime, and his fiction supports a regime - he is a king sellout politically, and does not hide it.

- Jin Yong novels were all written prior to 1971/72, essentially during the Cultural Revolution in mainland. In his last novel, Lu Ding Ji, "Religious Master Hong" was clearly written as Mao gone mad. He definitely did not support the Communist Government in his writings (if he did, he wouldn't first move to Hong Kong), and as someone who grew up in Hong Kong, you would know that nothing in Hong Kong could have become popular before around 1980s if you were explicitly Communist. Period.
- Many Hong Kong people didn't like what he did during the handover, (I am not one of those). His "sell-out" (if you call it that) and his novels were clearly done in two different periods.

How does that effect his fiction? Well, his fiction promotes the current regime's policy.

- As said before, he wrote before Deng's time. And he was against Mao for sure. He did support Deng's China. Your statement is just hard to support timing-wise; unless you consider Deng's policies the same as Mao's policy - if you hold this view, please elaborate.

He is very much involved in politics in his fiction, his fiction even illustrating development in communist Chinese history - his work is racist, it is xenophobic, and it is self-righteous. He himself even saw that, leading to him writing his last novel, but even that text is just another reaffirmation of how good Chinese culture is.

- He wrote from late 1950's to early 1970's - given those time of de-colonialization, for someone who can transcend nationalistic sense by 1971/72 was really not something to be ashamed of. And in your view, a Chinese writer could not be great if his writings affirm how good Chinese culture is?
- In comparison with Red Chamber, you feel Red Chamber does not think Chinese culture is good in some sense?

World history right now is afraid to touch Chinese people, and Chinese historians are some of the most self-proud, xenophobic bigots around. They still teach that the west is responsible for the decline of China from number one, and we are the bad guys - that is what is taught in school in China.
Why don't they teach how the Wong Merchants got loaded off of selling opium to China at an inflated price, or how the aristocratic class, which existed in China far longer than in Europe pretty much enslaved the local population, or how Chinese polygamy is still practiced to this day?

- I have issues with propaganda Chinese text books, but I grew up in Hong Kong when British was in control. It was hard not to make the conclusion that some European (governments) have been bad guys. China's first defeat vs. Western powers, First Opium War. British had issues selling Opium in China. Were British themselves using Opium at that point? Why would it be an issue if a country decides to control how much Opium comes into its borders? Of course the British couldn't do it alone. But my guess (I am no expert of Qing history) is that the Qing government did not "knight" those merchants, as the British probably did to their own folks who helped in the Opium War.
- How did China "enslave" local population? That seems to be a Communist propaganda.
- On the polygamy point, there are many responses already.

They don't for a reason - it's part of a propaganda model from a culture that is so self-important, and so afraid to criticize itself. The first real thinkers to do so have all been purged, Mao included. Now we have the Deng Xiaoping Jin Yong Model of historical and cultural discourse - China the Heroic, China the Beautiful, China the scholarly, China the fair, China the culturally rich, China the great - where is the criticism?

- Jin Yong was well-liked because most people actually didn't agree with the level of over-criticism Chinese culture starting in the May Fourth movement that extended through Cultural Revolution. Jin Yong didn't side with the overly critical side of the intellectual current is hardly a valid criticism.

Where is the person saying, if you are writing historical fiction, how is that woman able to walk when she would have been bound at the feet and forbidden to go outside just some 60 to 70 years ago, or, by extension, 15 years or so before the book was written. Where is the person saying at this time period, life expectancy was less than 30 for the vast majority of people. That doesn't factor in Jin Yong, and nor does it factor in Deng Xiaopingism which his ideology is matched with.
- You yourself mentioned in one prior post that just because US has feminist and racial past to deal with does not mean that every other cultures in the world need to confront the same issues of the same force to be considered "good".
- Jin Yong wrote wuxia (i.e. imaginary kungfu hero) novels, where men usually were better even female had strong freedom of action and many paths to "the top" so to speak. Why does foot-binding need to come into the picture?

cl154576

08-11-2011, 09:05 PM

The Chinese tradition has no morality, Chinese culture has pretty much never had an idea of morality, and Chinese governments, from ancient times to today have always been corrupt.

In ancient times the Chinese were extremely moral (Confucius, for instance). Nowadays because of changing monetary circumstances there is a lot of corruption – many people think it started largely after Deng Xiaoping's 改革开放.

lawpark

08-11-2011, 09:33 PM

The real problem I have with anything is just this propaganda that China feeds the world about how organized, polite, nice, and benevolent they are. They pretty much bought out the American academies now to praising them, and China criticism usually leads to ones career ending by never being admitted into China again. One who speaks out about social issues is generally silenced. The amount of control on what people no is staggering, even as it overlaps into what we know - when people talk about China, they talk of huge development, not of toilets without running water. There is such a facade of bull**** surrounding everything we are told in the west, that it makes us think we maybe are living in China.

- Chinese government is no doubt doing lots of propaganda, and paying to get some points across.
- With ability of critical thinking, you can clearly decide what you believe or what you do not believe.
- My personal experience after living in mainland China (on and off for 8 years) is that there is also so much money-backed propaganda behind much of what most normal people read or see on TV every day. Also in the same loudness that discourages truly critical discussions on many fundamental and significant issues.
- If anything, this is a problem of modern society.

I spent a year handed textbook after textbook of propaganda. The local textbooks for local students are the same, they also say a great many things about our countries, namely, Canada and Australia are for the taking, the US is a fallen empire because they are buying it, which makes China better than the US, and all sorts of other nonsense. We talk of Orientalism and Said, well, lets reapply it. We want a world Canon, well, who is included in the world - China, as my example, is promoting a national identity, but they know nothing of us other than that they want to rule the world - nobody, despite studying English since the beginning of elementary school, can speak English there - and yet you want to rule the world in English? You cannot even control your own education. Now we read them, call them part of our great books, which they are, but are they reading our great books? Do they even consider us people?

- When did China want to rule the world? Even now I would say it is not anyone's objectives to do so. China has its own national border claims, and to some people maybe it is more than what it should own - but who decides that? And to rule the world? British clearly had such an ambition once, US also clearly tried to do that (you can see how US tried to set up the HQ of "United Nations" in New York City), but China?
- Chinese tried to learn English - how well they came out is another issue, but clearly not because of lack of efforts or money spent. Why does that consitute a criticism?
- I have the most problem with the us and them mentality. World canon really should be for a contemporary person, who tries to understand great books in the world. What makes you think that they are not reading the Bible, or Shakespeare?
- "Do they even consider us people?" I recalled some British "scientists" at one point did not consider Indians truly "people" ... I would say some Chinese consider any westerners gods ...

We were talking Jin Yong - What Jin Yong did was mythologize China, and make Chinese culture a universal thing - one can ignore people in the United States because you are Chinese and are better than those "Americans" - you don't think it exists, well minority Chauvinism totally does, and is caught in this whole issue.

- How is this different from some US people consider Canadians non-existent? In reverse, would a major author in US be non-canonical if he / she completely ignore the Chinese and/or the Indians?

Jin Yong is the international Chinese author, but, by any western standard, he is a racist jingoist who is promoting an idea of China #1 which doesn't fit at all with any concept of history.
- It comes down to a very important question - to be accepted in the West as a World Canon, one needs to have a political view that is acceptable to some current western standard? Is the same standard apply to even ancient / medieval western writers?

JBI

08-11-2011, 09:34 PM

In ancient times the Chinese were extremely moral (Confucius, for instance). Nowadays because of changing monetary circumstances there is a lot of corruption – many people think it started largely after Deng Xiaoping's 改革开放.

I'll pick at this one first - is Confucius moral? Where do we get the idea he is moral from? From reading him, he is an elitist who favors hereditary rights, he is sexist, and he is militant, and has no philosophical basis - he supports an upper class, which was where Mozi got most of his criticism for him from (Confucius being rich (relatively), and Mozi being poor (arguably)). Now, he was part of the hundred schools movement - what of the other 99? Well Han Feizi seems the best example, since he and Confucius are complementary elements - for instance, Han WuDi, the great Confucian emperor was also the most militaristic and expansionist, leading to the collapse of the Chinese economy.

Likewise, the Ming Emperors who come in for the next stage of Confucian government were preaching confucius, and merely imposing the best level of control they could as an authoritative regime - the Qing Confucianists did that further, and better.

Confucius is a nice idea, but it is flawed, it justifies a sort of autocracy that assumes it is benevolent - lets face it, we aren't going to see omens now, and when have Chinese leaders ever led by example? It's a nice funny idea, but it has never been shown to work to do anything other then create a good excuse for autocracy - namely, purging political unrest as "unharonious" or whatever.

I'll reply to the Jin Yong Comment in a moment, just thought I would nitpick that.

lawpark

08-11-2011, 09:45 PM

Chinese people do not and seem to will not - why give up male privilege, we all know they kill many females at birth, so why is it surprising that they treat them like merchandise? Jin Yong is a great author, but he promotes this by generally declaring Chinese culture as all good, he promotes it, whereas Mao refuted it, but Mao got twisted, whereas he didn't so the synthesis is strange. You have two generations in China now who have grown up without knowing their immediate history. The country is ignorant, but is self proud, they quote Confucius when 40 years ago they were burning his iconography in the street, it's like they avoided synthesis by simply regressing back into feudalism with a new ingrained class system.
- Back to the original question, how does this aspect make Red Chamber better than Jin Yong?
- This seems to summarize your view: Chinese culture is not good, Mao got it right. But please remember why the country is now ignorant of its immediate history, and why Confucius was burnt in the street, and how earlier China was labeled as "feudal".
- I can understand that in your one year in China, you don't like many things you see. Me neither. Remember several things though:

> In Chinese tradition history was used a lot to criticize the present (which often in history has not been easy to criticize without one being prepared to be sacrificed)
> Chinese literary tradition (before the past couple of generations) did not glorify the military successful, violence, or the material success as much as in other traditions. If you can think more about this point, your year in China might not have been wasted.

lawpark

08-11-2011, 10:15 PM

I'll pick at this one first - is Confucius moral? Where do we get the idea he is moral from? From reading him, he is an elitist who favors hereditary rights, he is sexist, and he is militant, and has no philosophical basis - he supports an upper class, which was where Mozi got most of his criticism for him from (Confucius being rich (relatively), and Mozi being poor (arguably)). Now, he was part of the hundred schools movement - what of the other 99? Well Han Feizi seems the best example, since he and Confucius are complementary elements - for instance, Han WuDi, the great Confucian emperor was also the most militaristic and expansionist, leading to the collapse of the Chinese economy.

- Confucius might not be highly "philosophical" in the western sense, but his teachings emphasized how to act and how polical goals should be to make sure the people live (reasonably-)well.
- In what case was Confucius militant?
- Why is someone not "moral" if one supports hereditary rights? And Confucius seems to be keen to get his students educated so that educated folks with the right idea of government would be helping the governing of society. I would say the only thing Confucius was not was "revolutionary" in the military / violent sense.
- Let's look at say Plato or Socrates - elitist? yes; sexist? yes; supports an upper class? yes? Lives in Athens which uses slaves. Clearly not moral in your view.
- They reason you know of Han WuDi as a bad guy, is because Sima Qian, who is a Confucian-scholar, criticized WuDi's policies (not just personally because of the harm he did to Sima Qian himself), which as you say was military, expansionists, and led to economic collapse. Did we find an equivalent critic of say Alexander the "Great"? Did his teacher Aristotle say anything about that?

Likewise, the Ming Emperors who come in for the next stage of Confucian government were preaching confucius, and merely imposing the best level of control they could as an authoritative regime - the Qing Confucianists did that further, and better.

- Those preaching Confucius might not be nice regimes. But here is the danger of conflating the ideas with the regimes. Just like it should be clear by now that Marx's ideas should be separated from the Soviet regimes.

Confucius is a nice idea, but it is flawed, it justifies a sort of autocracy that assumes it is benevolent - lets face it, we aren't going to see omens now, and when have Chinese leaders ever led by example? It's a nice funny idea, but it has never been shown to work to do anything other then create a good excuse for autocracy - namely, purging political unrest as "unharonious" or whatever.

- So Plato is a nice idea? His idea in the Republic not flawed? What has really been shown to work? Dante? Nietsche?

JBI

08-11-2011, 10:28 PM

[QUOTE=lawpark;1062867]This is a long post to reply to - hard to do after several more rounds of back and forth that has already happened. Will try to be as brief as possible.
- "Serving the people" - is actually very ancient, back to Confucius / Mencius etc.
- Xenophobic he is not, can you imagine anyone writing in Hong Kong being xenophobic?
- Han Chauvinist ideology - it was so in some novels, but Jin Yong clearly moved beyond that in his longest novels - Tian Long Ba Bu and Lu Ding Ji.

Even Tian Long Ba Bu maybe he is more accepting of non "Han" people, but he still has a wall around China to the last story in Lu Deng Ji, where he has his protagonist and the novels tenure essentially laugh in the face of Russians, and by extension the world. He never really got beyond the idea of China, though he moved away from Han racism (a product really of the Boxer rebellion not really ancient Chinese thought) toward Nationalism in the Jingoist sense, we can trust those Dali people now, and those Liao people (who were absorbed pretty much completely into China) but not those Russians, or Englishmen, or Portuguese, or whatever.

As for China wanting to rule the world - well, right now, for instance, Qin through Han Dynasties definitely, Qing dynasty, most likely, and Tang dynasty, maybe not rule but get tribute from. The general imperial system as set up by Han Wudi is that you give a present to people, and then they run and kiss your bum and kowtow to you. You pay people to kiss your a$$ essentially, which was the system of China up until the Brits decided they wouldn't bow - we are the best, we are the centre of the universe, there is only one son of Heaven and he is me, and you need to rub your face on the ground.

- Here I would just ask you to use your comparative literature reading.

- That would really be half-rate historian. In Chinese history (vs. some other histories), civil bureaucracy staffed by the scholarly have always OPPOSED the rich getting richer (there is different levels of success at different times). In China, if anything, the "rich" per se was never ideologically glorified until after 1900, or maybe even after 1978.

Yes, but in practice? How many got rich? How many wrote the exams for the sake of getting rich? How many fictionalized for power and wealth - aristocrats are one thing, but the Song dynasty saw the power of selfish games - that's where Jin Yong's most famous novel is born from - the fact that Chinese people, including scholarly class people, generals, and emperors, are more concerned with their own decadence and careers than the state of affairs. As for rich never being glorified, well, how many idioms do you know that involve with getting rich? What do people put on their doors every new year? What is Jin Pingmei about? What is the Imperial exam about, and what is blood about? The country developed monetary system quite quickly, do you mean to tell me nobody cared about getting rich? The merchant class of people in Chinese culture are the most ridiculed and loathed, that gestures to a sense of immorality and ruthlessness on their part - the modern equivalent would be landlords, and seeing as how in almost every major Chinese city there is a property bubble, I would think the issue is hardly over.

- Why is retiring a failure? Here again comparative literature perspectives is useful. Retiring is a theme with long tradition in Chinese literature. Different from the West, but why a failure?

They fail, and that is the lesson of the book, 碧血剑 would be a good example - the hero ultimately realizes his country is destroyed, and goes into exile - exile is the ending for almost all his major books, and it is almost always self-imposed. The heroes almost always fail at the end of the book, except in reaching maturity - his books are set in episodes of crisis in Chinese history, and the heroes go on the Good Chinese guys side, and retire when the Good Chinese Guys lose - Mongols, Manchus, Jurchens, even Western people in some cases - the whole idea of the genre of Wuxia fiction is about the Chinese paranoia with the Western enemy - the big white guy who comes to fight the kung fu master in all the movies - big white imperialism coming to destroy merry old China, or what they've disillusioned themselves is Merry old China anyway.

- And we were comparing Jin Yong with Red Chamber. This point hardly makes Jin Yong worse.

To compare them, I think Cao is better at painting the more nuanced concept of traditional Chinese culture - he is far more ironic, and post modern in that youcan look in there, even in the introduction, and find a sort of duality in everything, and a parallelism in everything - for instance, the funeral at the beginning and the funeral at the end, or the contrast between richness and poorness, women and men, there are contradictions which makes it a more rich novel rather than an amateurs work - that's why it's prized, since you can never really hold still with anything there, as it turns and it second guesses itself, and that it lacks an ending.

- Jin Yong novels were all written prior to 1971/72, essentially during the Cultural Revolution in mainland. In his last novel, Lu Ding Ji, "Religious Master Hong" was clearly written as Mao gone mad. He definitely did not support the Communist Government in his writings (if he did, he wouldn't first move to Hong Kong), and as someone who grew up in Hong Kong, you would know that nothing in Hong Kong could have become popular before around 1980s if you were explicitly Communist. Period.

Ok, lets discuss here the serialized editions - lets just say for arguments sake that he is best known not for the serial, but for the reprint in second edition.

Now, to take the first half - his career parallels Mao's Red China essentially. They share the same view. In terms of outward politics, according to a paper I read on the subject, Ming Pao refused to align itself with any viewpoint until really the cultural revolution, where they of course opted against Mao.

Now, to the next point, what is the China lost, and what does it mean to write in exile? Well, the first point, as an exiled author, he is overwhelmed with nostalgia, that is a given. Secondly, as someone living under British Hong Kong, I would argue he essentializes himself as Chinese, and tries to stamp a notion of universal Chinese identity - his forward to his last novel that he penned later about Wei xiaobao would agree with this. But who is he writing for? Well, namely Chinese people, and by extension, Chinese people in exile (be they in Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Canada, or Wherever). Seeing himself in exile, he glorifies a Chinese past created out of nostalgia and identity crisis, as well as a slight rejection of modernization (as you insist, comparison, I would bring Soseki's Kokoro into this).

As to your last point about supporting, he remained neutral until the outbreak of the cultural revolution, and even then reported obliquely, besides which, he controlled a nice chunk of the news.

- Many Hong Kong people didn't like what he did during the handover, (I am not one of those). His "sell-out" (if you call it that) and his novels were clearly done in two different periods.

True, but he rewrote them for a mass audience (China). Now we must talk about the second edition - the rewrite, the reconfiguration - he was not silent for the years afterward, there is even a third edition, he changed the novels as clearly to support the regime change - he could get his stuff in, so he polished it, and increased details, like adding a Brunei Chinese exile's return to war torn China at the beginning of 碧血剑. Or by making characters more nuanced and less cut and dry.

- As said before, he wrote before Deng's time. And he was against Mao for sure. He did support Deng's China. Your statement is just hard to support timing-wise; unless you consider Deng's policies the same as Mao's policy - if you hold this view, please elaborate.

No, I think the opposite, I think Deng's views are the same as the views held by such rulers as H. H. Kung, and quite close to those of Chang Kai-shek, or even holding closely with the Manchu court. He basically supported pure capitalism, but with a slow transition, and intense nepotism and corruption. He basically embodied all that Mao warned the party against before calling on the cultural revolution, and ironically, after the revolution failed, that's what happened.

- He wrote from late 1950's to early 1970's - given those time of de-colonialization, for someone who can transcend nationalistic sense by 1971/72 was really not something to be ashamed of. And in your view, a Chinese writer could not be great if his writings affirm how good Chinese culture is?

It is obsessed with it - it is obsessed with leaving historical details out, like how can a woman kick when her feet would have been bound, or how would someone like that have learned to read - these details are called history, a nuanced view would have made the fiction a lot more tolerable. And he never transcended nationalism, he very much encouraged it - he was the King nationalist of new China, meaning, you may be the few % of the population who isn't Han, but you are still within our borders which means you can grow crops for us. The same Han China that is engaged in cultural wars within its own borders but reaffirms them as part of the tradition, after all, Jin Yong's novels reaffirm them, and so does our history (a vague occupation only in name of most of Xinjiang during the Tang dynasty, and then a further vague annexation during the Qing, for instance) or a religious tradition sort of linked to Tibet, or a Buddhist tradition that kind of mirrors the tradition of Dali (who are part of China in most of his novels and he considers Chinese), or a culture that historically loved to absorb by genetics or the sword, causing things like the old enemy Jurchens, or the old enemy Mongols, or the old enemy Liao to not really be conflicting with his Nationalist agenda.

- In comparison with Red Chamber, you feel Red Chamber does not think Chinese culture is good in some sense?

I think Red Chamber is not a novel about China, but a novel about a household and an idea - nationalist ideas hide behind Chinese novels in the 20th century, but at that point I see nothing distinguishing it as "Chinese." As such, it has a cultural criticism, but it has no discussion really of nation, since nation is not a concept local to the time it was written (the concept really gets its shape after the first opium war, but solidifies with Han Chauvinism during the Boxer rebellion).

- I have issues with propaganda Chinese text books, but I grew up in Hong Kong when British was in control. It was hard not to make the conclusion that some European (governments) have been bad guys. China's first defeat vs. Western powers, First Opium War. British had issues selling Opium in China. Were British themselves using Opium at that point? Why would it be an issue if a country decides to control how much Opium comes into its borders? Of course the British couldn't do it alone. But my guess (I am no expert of Qing history) is that the Qing government did not "knight" those merchants, as the British probably did to their own folks who helped in the Opium War.

In essence, the Chinese government set 4 merchants as a council to deal with foreigners, holding a monopoly. Likewise, they cheated, and opium increased in demand. Europeans were at that period mostly eating opium rather than smoking it, but yes there was a domestic market. It's just the Chinese could not get enough of it, and became addicted - I would like to think that the emperor would have had to go through withdrawal if not for the English keeping him in good supply. The Chinese themselves were producing opium locally during that time period, but they couldn't grow enough to support themselves. As for not letting things in, well, they shut themselves off from the world, and the rest of the world said no - as far as history goes, China had ego problems and shut themselves off, so the rest of the world barged in half invited - there were enough people buying the opium, we all know - the market wanted their drugs, it wasn't that they just wanted to sell them - you try putting 30% of the male population of a country through withdrawal.

As for the war itself, the cost was something I believe like 500pounds of silver as a tribute to England for the first one, in compensation for the drugs dumped into the ocean in protest. Nothing much for China to handle. What really off set the population was the local markets undergoing trouble because of a failed feudalism, and, the local bourgeois looking for foreign ideas. England was as much welcomed as anything, but the Qing court could not adapt to a modern world, likewise, the rich folks in China would not let their populations adapt, and the squeeze on money tightened, leading to almost a necessity for immigration, be it legitimate or slavery. The Americans may have Shanghaied people to work on their railroad, but back home they would most likely have starved to death. The traditional feudalism long stopped being supportable, throw in a lack of mechanical advancement and you have a Malthusian situation.

As for the presence of the West, well it is exaggerated on all things but the opium. They were barely there, and had rather minimal influence - what hit China were plagues of rebellion and overpopulation, and they spiraled and their court kept playing polo and claiming to be the Sons of Heaven and the best place on the planet while their upper class kept on cutting from the lower class - I've been to 刘文彩‘s house, I've seen it. Likewise, the Empress Cixi, whose clothing took over a year to stitch, was said to never have worn the same thing twice - there was decadence, and extravagance, and serfdom, not unlike today.

- How did China "enslave" local population? That seems to be a Communist propaganda.

Not really, just read something like Mao Dun's Ziye, for instance. It's like this, there is not enough farm land, the taxes on farms are too high, and people are not really able to do anything but borrow - eventually, their standard of living deteriorates, meanwhile they get no advances. It's an economic diagram - there was clearly a peasant class, which exists today. The population is still more or less enslaved, only now it's harder to enforce (a Hukou is pretty much a ticket of serfdom, especially with the farms now pretty much unowned by the ones who make it). Even wage labour took forever to develop properly.
- On the polygamy point, there are many responses already.

- Jin Yong was well-liked because most people actually didn't agree with the level of over-criticism Chinese culture starting in the May Fourth movement that extended through Cultural Revolution. Jin Yong didn't side with the overly critical side of the intellectual current is hardly a valid criticism.

Didn't agree, no they had a relapse, why give up? Why would a richer class ever give up their right? They didn't exactly have it bad in Hong Kong did they, especially when the mainland free'd up. The May Fourth movement is strange in that it failed completely - it was important, but in the end, there has been a huge reversal. As for not agreeing, he basically tried to take 阿Q and make a new one, his Wei Xiaobao, the cute, overly loyal, overly clever hero of his last novel - he tried to answer to Lu Xun. He wrestled with it clearly, since he was so freaking nostalgic, and patriotic, and heaven forbid this guy criticize. There is no nuance either, no irony, he wrote fiction as if it were written 200 years ago - no irony or metafictional level. It takes itself real seriously.

- You yourself mentioned in one prior post that just because US has feminist and racial past to deal with does not mean that every other cultures in the world need to confront the same issues of the same force to be considered "good".

True, but lets be honest, you saw what happened in 1989 when the tanks rolled in, the whole world did. China has forgotten it, since the benevolent ruler could never harm its population, and everything is equitable, but 16 year old kids roll down the window of their Benz and spit on the poor old vendors selling potatos for less than a dollar a day.

- Jin Yong wrote wuxia (i.e. imaginary kungfu hero) novels, where men usually were better even female had strong freedom of action and many paths to "the top" so to speak. Why does foot-binding need to come into the picture?

He wrote historical fiction. It's like writing an historical novel set in the Southern US during slavery times no racism, let alone slavery to talk of. IT cheapens the historical narrative, which is particularly dangerous given that the books are written with a semi-intention of inspiring nationalism and reaffirming a rich Chinese culture. You would think pointing out the bad things to get away from (things the May Fourth people were writing about) would be at least part of the agenda, but no, he cheats. We never had a sexist past, we are the most equal people in the world. Nothing happened here in 1989, or better yet, there is no inequality in China - yeah right people.

JBI

08-11-2011, 10:46 PM

- Confucius might not be highly "philosophical" in the western sense, but his teachings emphasized how to act and how polical goals should be to make sure the people live (reasonably-)well.
- In what case was Confucius militant?
- Why is someone not "moral" if one supports hereditary rights? And Confucius seems to be keen to get his students educated so that educated folks with the right idea of government would be helping the governing of society. I would say the only thing Confucius was not was "revolutionary" in the military / violent sense.
- Let's look at say Plato or Socrates - elitist? yes; sexist? yes; supports an upper class? yes? Lives in Athens which uses slaves. Clearly not moral in your view.
- They reason you know of Han WuDi as a bad guy, is because Sima Qian, who is a Confucian-scholar, criticized WuDi's policies (not just personally because of the harm he did to Sima Qian himself), which as you say was military, expansionists, and led to economic collapse. Did we find an equivalent critic of say Alexander the "Great"? Did his teacher Aristotle say anything about that?

- Those preaching Confucius might not be nice regimes. But here is the danger of conflating the ideas with the regimes. Just like it should be clear by now that Marx's ideas should be separated from the Soviet regimes.

- So Plato is a nice idea? His idea in the Republic not flawed? What has really been shown to work? Dante? Nietsche?

As a simple answer, I do not see any Plato institutes preaching around the world.

As a longer answer, yes, we know Marx is flawed, as is Confucius, an d as are Plato, Dante, and Nietzche's ideas. The problem is, Confucianism is professed as a state ideology, whereas Plato's works are dialogs. Confucius was a rather interesting philosopher, but his works have historical implications - his disciples made a trade off with Han Wudi, for instance, giving them charge over the country in exchange for giving him feudal control (the story goes they said you can be the medium between the world and heaven, but you need us to help you administer).

As for Confucius being militant, it is his conflicting views with Mozi, who was a pacifist, whereas Confucian thought doesn't rule out military command, nor military expansion as long as you are "holding with the will of heaven".

As for hereditary rights, well, true, so, for instance, if you are a woman your job is to birth men, if you are born in the low caste, you are basically worthless. The only way to become good is through education, well, if you work the field, good luck, your father worked the field, he wasn't educated, well I guess you're out of luck - that's Confucian thought tested.

I didn't say Han Wudi was bad, I was just pointing out his contradiction - he practiced Daoism at home (his mother was overly devout), gave Confucianists state control, and implemented policy and expansion of government (the first Han emperor to do so). His most immediate predecessor would be Qin Shihuang, the great militant - the difference is Han Wudi masks it as a benevolent son of heaven, that's what I am pointing to. How the ideology works as a mask.

I was pointing the parallel between that and the current regime. It is easy for Hu Jintao to call himself a Confucian, a scholar, someone for the harmony of the country, and a great humanist, with all the confucian bull**** to back it up, but in practice what is he doing? I am not trying to criticize the regime, namely point out that these things are not without checks, it's the confucian bull**** that irritates and the fact that there is censorship there and they call themselves harmonious.

My point was a direct attack on the propaganda system, and to talk about China's bull**** facade they sell to the world in the form of Confucian crap. We give excuse because they are not western, but if they want to play in the house, they need to be held to the same accountability. If we can call The Birth of a Nation a racist movie, why can't we call Jin Yong's novels? We talk of Orientalism, well lets talk of Occidentalism. We talk about our colonialism, lets talk of theirs. Nobody should be granted immunity, they already don't take criticism from themselves as it is.

We read colonial fiction, we see racism, well lets read Chinese fiction and see racism, lets read policy, lets read poetry. Lets see sexism there if we can see it in us, lets take the dark out - this is a world canon, world literature held to the same standards - you say Plato is a whack, I agree, but add Confucius there. You say Europeans butchered Africa, well add China to that equation. We talk of riots, of fascism, of propaganda, of all these issues that literature is so much a part of, and culture is so much a part of, well lets apply them to everything.

Jin Yong to me is a jingoist, and a chauvinist. You want to say he is a great author, lets put him through my butchering from a non Chinese viewpoint. What does he say about me?

lawpark

08-11-2011, 10:59 PM

As a simple answer, I do not see any Plato institutes preaching around the world.

If I don't spend my whole night responding, I would say - support for professorship in Platonic studies do take up lots of professorships in the West, and there are many courses in Philosophy who took up study of Plato. If Plato is in the canon (which he is), and to count Confucius out because he is not "moral" based on some criteria which also applies to Plato does not help.

lawpark

08-11-2011, 11:11 PM

As a longer answer, yes, we know Marx is flawed, as is Confucius, an d as are Plato, Dante, and Nietzche's ideas. The problem is, Confucianism is professed as a state ideology, whereas Plato's works are dialogs. Confucius was a rather interesting philosopher, but his works have historical implications - his disciples made a trade off with Han Wudi, for instance, giving them charge over the country in exchange for giving him feudal control (the story goes they said you can be the medium between the world and heaven, but you need us to help you administer).

As for Confucius being militant, it is his conflicting views with Mozi, who was a pacifist, whereas Confucian thought doesn't rule out military command, nor military expansion as long as you are "holding with the will of heaven".

As for hereditary rights, well, true, so, for instance, if you are a woman your job is to birth men, if you are born in the low caste, you are basically worthless. The only way to become good is through education, well, if you work the field, good luck, your father worked the field, he wasn't educated, well I guess you're out of luck - that's Confucian thought tested.

I didn't say Han Wudi was bad, I was just pointing out his contradiction - he practiced Daoism at home (his mother was overly devout), gave Confucianists state control, and implemented policy and expansion of government (the first Han emperor to do so). His most immediate predecessor would be Qin Shihuang, the great militant - the difference is Han Wudi masks it as a benevolent son of heaven, that's what I am pointing to. How the ideology works as a mask.

I was pointing the parallel between that and the current regime. It is easy for Hu Jintao to call himself a Confucian, a scholar, someone for the harmony of the country, and a great humanist, with all the confucian bull**** to back it up, but in practice what is he doing? I am not trying to criticize the regime, namely point out that these things are not without checks, it's the confucian bull**** that irritates and the fact that there is censorship there and they call themselves harmonious.

- Not against the use of force does not mean being militant. So does anyone in the world now a pacifist like Mozi? On a relative scale, my point is that at least the ideals as written in the classical Chinese texts are list militant / chauvinistic than those in the classical western texts.
- So what does the modern western world do in terms of breaking down hereditary rights? Did they just hand off land and money? No, they try to get their public to be educated. Oh, that was just what Confucius did in a broad way. If your father lives in inner-city slump, your chance to become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur? Well, I guess you are out of luck too. The real world has not been just - neither Confucius, Marx, Mao, founding fathers of US, whoever have been able to fix. So what is the point?
- Ideology works as a mask - clearly a great problem. Here I would simply say that it does not just happen to China, or Communism.

JBI

08-11-2011, 11:22 PM

If I don't spend my whole night responding, I would say - support for professorship in Platonic studies do take up lots of professorships in the West, and there are many courses in Philosophy who took up study of Plato. If Plato is in the canon (which he is), and to count Confucius out because he is not "moral" based on some criteria which also applies to Plato does not help.

It's not the same as China making institutions called the Confucius institute with clear state sponsorship and control.

JBI

08-11-2011, 11:25 PM

- Not against the use of force does not mean being militant. So does anyone in the world now a pacifist like Mozi? On a relative scale, my point is that at least the ideals as written in the classical Chinese texts are list militant / chauvinistic than those in the classical western texts.
- So what does the modern western world do in terms of breaking down hereditary rights? Did they just hand off land and money? No, they try to get their public to be educated. Oh, that was just what Confucius did in a broad way. If your father lives in inner-city slump, your chance to become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur? Well, I guess you are out of luck too. The real world has not been just - neither Confucius, Marx, Mao, founding fathers of US, whoever have been able to fix. So what is the point?
- Ideology works as a mask - clearly a great problem. Here I would simply say that it does not just happen to China, or Communism.

One would think the true great thing of countries I do not like like the United States is the people's commitment to an ideal where people can become the king of Silicon Valley coming from nothing. That's generally in this world what equality means, and what countries try to do by providing state education, healthcare, and other problems. It's no wonder that Norway, for instance, is regarded as one of the most desirable places to live. Many Chinese people too have sought the shores of other countries for that exact same reason, to go from being a nothing to someone regarded as a person, an equal, who can better themselves. Grow up? Isn't that what the world is striving for, to allow this kind of equality?

I told you my problem is based on the Chauvinism, it's a similar criticism I apply to American policy, but because the actual literary tradition is unquestioned, I find myself required to raise the questions. There is no need to be on such a defensive. IT's like this, China, and its government right now preach how good they are because of their 5000 year long tradition, so why not deconstruct that? They preach confucianism, so lets ask what it is exactly they are preaching. Jin Yong has an idea of China, lets look at it.

Seriously, these are all legitimate questions.

lawpark

08-12-2011, 12:32 AM

Even Tian Long Ba Bu maybe he is more accepting of non "Han" people, but he still has a wall around China to the last story in Lu Deng Ji, where he has his protagonist and the novels tenure essentially laugh in the face of Russians, and by extension the world. He never really got beyond the idea of China, though he moved away from Han racism (a product really of the Boxer rebellion not really ancient Chinese thought) toward Nationalism in the Jingoist sense, we can trust those Dali people now, and those Liao people (who were absorbed pretty much completely into China) but not those Russians, or Englishmen, or Portuguese, or whatever.

- Jin Yong writing clearly has a Nationalistic element, but jingoist as in someone advocating extreme foreign policy? I would clearly disagree. The episode in Lu Deng Ji was really a entertaining episode reminding people that up till the 17th century, China was probably a much more civilized country than Russia - a fact in world history which I doubt most scholars now would disagree. If I recalled correctly, the novel's treatment of Kangxi's Jesuit advisors were not objectionable.

As for China wanting to rule the world - well, right now, for instance, Qin through Han Dynasties definitely, Qing dynasty, most likely, and Tang dynasty, maybe not rule but get tribute from. The general imperial system as set up by Han Wudi is that you give a present to people, and then they run and kiss your bum and kowtow to you. You pay people to kiss your a$$ essentially, which was the system of China up until the Brits decided they wouldn't bow - we are the best, we are the centre of the universe, there is only one son of Heaven and he is me, and you need to rub your face on the ground.

- Qin / Han might have wanted to rule the world, but Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi was clearly discredited in the tradition before the 20th century.
- Getting tribute in the form of first giving a huge present - was it that bad? Wasn't that also the US policy after WWII to support Germany / Western Europe (Marshall Plan) and the support to rebuild Japan? I would argue this form is better than the Roman peace, which require others to become subjects first.

Yes, but in practice? How many got rich? How many wrote the exams for the sake of getting rich? How many fictionalized for power and wealth - aristocrats are one thing, but the Song dynasty saw the power of selfish games - that's where Jin Yong's most famous novel is born from - the fact that Chinese people, including scholarly class people, generals, and emperors, are more concerned with their own decadence and careers than the state of affairs. As for rich never being glorified, well, how many idioms do you know that involve with getting rich? What do people put on their doors every new year? What is Jin Pingmei about? What is the Imperial exam about, and what is blood about? The country developed monetary system quite quickly, do you mean to tell me nobody cared about getting rich? The merchant class of people in Chinese culture are the most ridiculed and loathed, that gestures to a sense of immorality and ruthlessness on their part - the modern equivalent would be landlords, and seeing as how in almost every major Chinese city there is a property bubble, I would think the issue is hardly over.

- People wanting to become rich is one thing (can any system of thought / ideology stop that?); glorifying it in the tradition is another. There was no glorifying of entrepreneurs / industrialists who made it big - until really just 20th cenutry.

They fail, and that is the lesson of the book, 碧血剑 would be a good example - the hero ultimately realizes his country is destroyed, and goes into exile - exile is the ending for almost all his major books, and it is almost always self-imposed. The heroes almost always fail at the end of the book, except in reaching maturity - his books are set in episodes of crisis in Chinese history, and the heroes go on the Good Chinese guys side, and retire when the Good Chinese Guys lose - Mongols, Manchus, Jurchens, even Western people in some cases - the whole idea of the genre of Wuxia fiction is about the Chinese paranoia with the Western enemy - the big white guy who comes to fight the kung fu master in all the movies - big white imperialism coming to destroy merry old China, or what they've disillusioned themselves is Merry old China anyway.

- The lesson about retiring is that pockets of conscience might not win against the tide of history, but does not mean that conscience would be completely lost or bad deeds eventually forgotten.

To compare them, I think Cao is better at painting the more nuanced concept of traditional Chinese culture - he is far more ironic, and post modern in that youcan look in there, even in the introduction, and find a sort of duality in everything, and a parallelism in everything - for instance, the funeral at the beginning and the funeral at the end, or the contrast between richness and poorness, women and men, there are contradictions which makes it a more rich novel rather than an amateurs work - that's why it's prized, since you can never really hold still with anything there, as it turns and it second guesses itself, and that it lacks an ending.

- Cao is of course good - all your points are good. But my original point is against you saying Jin Yong is sexist, which does not differentiate Cao from Jin - in fact in Jin Yong's world, because it is Wuxia (imaginary - no one takes them seriously as reflecting true historical settings btw), he has more leeway to give more prominent roles to female characters than Red Chamber (which is a novel set in a historical setting).

Ok, lets discuss here the serialized editions - lets just say for arguments sake that he is best known not for the serial, but for the reprint in second edition.

Now, to take the first half - his career parallels Mao's Red China essentially. They share the same view. In terms of outward politics, according to a paper I read on the subject, Ming Pao refused to align itself with any viewpoint until really the cultural revolution, where they of course opted against Mao.

Now, to the next point, what is the China lost, and what does it mean to write in exile? Well, the first point, as an exiled author, he is overwhelmed with nostalgia, that is a given. Secondly, as someone living under British Hong Kong, I would argue he essentializes himself as Chinese, and tries to stamp a notion of universal Chinese identity - his forward to his last novel that he penned later about Wei xiaobao would agree with this. But who is he writing for? Well, namely Chinese people, and by extension, Chinese people in exile (be they in Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Canada, or Wherever). Seeing himself in exile, he glorifies a Chinese past created out of nostalgia and identity crisis, as well as a slight rejection of modernization (as you insist, comparison, I would bring Soseki's Kokoro into this).

As to your last point about supporting, he remained neutral until the outbreak of the cultural revolution, and even then reported obliquely, besides which, he controlled a nice chunk of the news.

True, but he rewrote them for a mass audience (China). Now we must talk about the second edition - the rewrite, the reconfiguration - he was not silent for the years afterward, there is even a third edition, he changed the novels as clearly to support the regime change - he could get his stuff in, so he polished it, and increased details, like adding a Brunei Chinese exile's return to war torn China at the beginning of 碧血剑. Or by making characters more nuanced and less cut and dry.

- Here I think to support your points the burden of proof is in establishing that in the second edition the novels were modified significantly to cater to support the Deng regime.

No, I think the opposite, I think Deng's views are the same as the views held by such rulers as H. H. Kung, and quite close to those of Chang Kai-shek, or even holding closely with the Manchu court. He basically supported pure capitalism, but with a slow transition, and intense nepotism and corruption. He basically embodied all that Mao warned the party against before calling on the cultural revolution, and ironically, after the revolution failed, that's what happened.

- Agreed with you mostly here. But in this case, to say Jin Yong wrote to "support" the "current regime" (of Deng's), the burden of proof is in pointing out the significant changes in the second edition that does this; because clearly the first serialized edition was against the then "current regime" (of Mao's).

It is obsessed with it - it is obsessed with leaving historical details out, like how can a woman kick when her feet would have been bound, or how would someone like that have learned to read - these details are called history, a nuanced view would have made the fiction a lot more tolerable. And he never transcended nationalism, he very much encouraged it - he was the King nationalist of new China, meaning, you may be the few % of the population who isn't Han, but you are still within our borders which means you can grow crops for us. The same Han China that is engaged in cultural wars within its own borders but reaffirms them as part of the tradition, after all, Jin Yong's novels reaffirm them, and so does our history (a vague occupation only in name of most of Xinjiang during the Tang dynasty, and then a further vague annexation during the Qing, for instance) or a religious tradition sort of linked to Tibet, or a Buddhist tradition that kind of mirrors the tradition of Dali (who are part of China in most of his novels and he considers Chinese), or a culture that historically loved to absorb by genetics or the sword, causing things like the old enemy Jurchens, or the old enemy Mongols, or the old enemy Liao to not really be conflicting with his Nationalist agenda.

- Wuxia is imaginary kungfu novel - the heroes don't need to earn money. And no one believe that you can point a figure and kill the others like with a gun. C'mon. It is like criticizing a Monty Python movie that it is not really medieval enough as people did not pretend to have horses by making similar noises with coconut shells in the middle Ages.

I think Red Chamber is not a novel about China, but a novel about a household and an idea - nationalist ideas hide behind Chinese novels in the 20th century, but at that point I see nothing distinguishing it as "Chinese." As such, it has a cultural criticism, but it has no discussion really of nation, since nation is not a concept local to the time it was written (the concept really gets its shape after the first opium war, but solidifies with Han Chauvinism during the Boxer rebellion).

- Clearly Red Chamber cannot be nationalistic because the concept hasn't been developed in Europe, or if it has, it hasn't spreaded to China yet.
- But to count out anyone as a great author because he is nationalistic? That would disquality many 18th / 19th century Western and 20th century non-Western authors.

In essence, the Chinese government set 4 merchants as a council to deal with foreigners, holding a monopoly. Likewise, they cheated, and opium increased in demand. Europeans were at that period mostly eating opium rather than smoking it, but yes there was a domestic market. It's just the Chinese could not get enough of it, and became addicted - I would like to think that the emperor would have had to go through withdrawal if not for the English keeping him in good supply. The Chinese themselves were producing opium locally during that time period, but they couldn't grow enough to support themselves. As for not letting things in, well, they shut themselves off from the world, and the rest of the world said no - as far as history goes, China had ego problems and shut themselves off, so the rest of the world barged in half invited - there were enough people buying the opium, we all know - the market wanted their drugs, it wasn't that they just wanted to sell them - you try putting 30% of the male population of a country through withdrawal.

- Emporer Dao Guang clearly looked addicted in his portrait.
- US has drug demand, does it mean US government should just let it go in? Your argument hardly makes common sense.
- Let just assume China since Ming after Zheng He has shutted itself off (which really wouldn't be true because its silver base came from trade), and it were all reasonably well (with big ups and down, and at least on the surface) till end of 18th century. Then some Westerners come in with guns, trying to sell opium and claim that Chinese has a ego problem of not opening the door, wouldn't it actually make sense for people in China to think that the problems do start with the Westerners? Similarly, Romans did think the "barbarians" at gate were the problems. It is hard to argue that it wasn't.

As for the war itself, the cost was something I believe like 500pounds of silver as a tribute to England for the first one, in compensation for the drugs dumped into the ocean in protest. Nothing much for China to handle. What really off set the population was the local markets undergoing trouble because of a failed feudalism, and, the local bourgeois looking for foreign ideas. England was as much welcomed as anything, but the Qing court could not adapt to a modern world, likewise, the rich folks in China would not let their populations adapt, and the squeeze on money tightened, leading to almost a necessity for immigration, be it legitimate or slavery. The Americans may have Shanghaied people to work on their railroad, but back home they would most likely have starved to death. The traditional feudalism long stopped being supportable, throw in a lack of mechanical advancement and you have a Malthusian situation.

It stopped being a sustainable situation because the "modern" world was being created, staring in the West - further supporting the view that the problem for China indeed started from the West. China was more established, of large scale and took longer to adapt. It have not adapted well - but it also didn't have the free continent and slave labor at its disposal in dealing with the transition.

As for the presence of the West, well it is exaggerated on all things but the opium. They were barely there, and had rather minimal influence - what hit China were plagues of rebellion and overpopulation, and they spiraled and their court kept playing polo and claiming to be the Sons of Heaven and the best place on the planet while their upper class kept on cutting from the lower class - I've been to 刘文彩‘s house, I've seen it. Likewise, the Empress Cixi, whose clothing took over a year to stitch, was said to never have worn the same thing twice - there was decadence, and extravagance, and serfdom, not unlike today.

- Was it that different from the difference in wealth between the British Royalty in UK vs. the Indian farmers at the turn of the 19th/20th century? Or between the Rockerfellers vs. the railroad workers at that time in US?

Not really, just read something like Mao Dun's Ziye, for instance. It's like this, there is not enough farm land, the taxes on farms are too high, and people are not really able to do anything but borrow - eventually, their standard of living deteriorates, meanwhile they get no advances. It's an economic diagram - there was clearly a peasant class, which exists today. The population is still more or less enslaved, only now it's harder to enforce (a Hukou is pretty much a ticket of serfdom, especially with the farms now pretty much unowned by the ones who make it). Even wage labour took forever to develop properly.

- Well, many US households went broke, house prices went too high, taxes are also high, they were not able to buy their own home but to borrow, eventually they suffer. But this is NOT slavery.

Didn't agree, no they had a relapse, why give up? Why would a richer class ever give up their right? They didn't exactly have it bad in Hong Kong did they, especially when the mainland free'd up. The May Fourth movement is strange in that it failed completely - it was important, but in the end, there has been a huge reversal. As for not agreeing, he basically tried to take 阿Q and make a new one, his Wei Xiaobao, the cute, overly loyal, overly clever hero of his last novel - he tried to answer to Lu Xun. He wrestled with it clearly, since he was so freaking nostalgic, and patriotic, and heaven forbid this guy criticize. There is no nuance either, no irony, he wrote fiction as if it were written 200 years ago - no irony or metafictional level. It takes itself real seriously.

- My personal view - you are reading it too seriously. Wuxia clearly is a non-serious form of novel; and Lu Ding Ji made it even less serious as a Wuxia. And if anyone writing in the late 20th century needs to be post-modern (similar to in arts in the 20th century - if you made art this not as distorted as what the Europeans felt as a result of the two world wars - you really shouldn't be considered to be in the leading edge), then, no Jin Yong was not; but his was not nearly as linear as some other popular Wuxia.

True, but lets be honest, you saw what happened in 1989 when the tanks rolled in, the whole world did. China has forgotten it, since the benevolent ruler could never harm its population, and everything is equitable, but 16 year old kids roll down the window of their Benz and spit on the poor old vendors selling potatos for less than a dollar a day.

- If you talked to older people in Beijing - no one has forgotten about it. But why does that need to come into Jin Yong's novel discussion?

He wrote historical fiction. It's like writing an historical novel set in the Southern US during slavery times no racism, let alone slavery to talk of. IT cheapens the historical narrative, which is particularly dangerous given that the books are written with a semi-intention of inspiring nationalism and reaffirming a rich Chinese culture. You would think pointing out the bad things to get away from (things the May Fourth people were writing about) would be at least part of the agenda, but no, he cheats. We never had a sexist past, we are the most equal people in the world. Nothing happened here in 1989, or better yet, there is no inequality in China - yeah right people.
- Wuxia is probably more like Harry Potter; by no means historical fiction.
- Actually the novels are full of bad things about China - in fact, the world the heroes operated in are pretty bad.

I did end up spending my whole night responding. Time to call it off now.

lawpark

08-12-2011, 12:38 AM

It's not the same as China making institutions called the Confucius institute with clear state sponsorship and control.

The similarity is both uses taxpayers' money.

lawpark

08-12-2011, 12:44 AM

One would think the true great thing of countries I do not like like the United States is the people's commitment to an ideal where people can become the king of Silicon Valley coming from nothing. That's generally in this world what equality means, and what countries try to do by providing state education, healthcare, and other problems. It's no wonder that Norway, for instance, is regarded as one of the most desirable places to live. Many Chinese people too have sought the shores of other countries for that exact same reason, to go from being a nothing to someone regarded as a person, an equal, who can better themselves. Grow up? Isn't that what the world is striving for, to allow this kind of equality?

I told you my problem is based on the Chauvinism, it's a similar criticism I apply to American policy, but because the actual literary tradition is unquestioned, I find myself required to raise the questions. There is no need to be on such a defensive. IT's like this, China, and its government right now preach how good they are because of their 5000 year long tradition, so why not deconstruct that? They preach confucianism, so lets ask what it is exactly they are preaching. Jin Yong has an idea of China, lets look at it.

Seriously, these are all legitimate questions.

I agree yours are reasonable questions to ask - but if they were to be real, they need to be based on more than just a general dislike of the current Chinese regime, and more than a general dislike as a result of being too immersed in propaganda that exists in the Western world. My defensiveness comes from your claim that the Chinese tradition is not moral becaue the reality on the ground is bad. I would say "equality" as in everyone could become king of Silicon Valley is as much a myth, an ideological propaganda as much as the Chinese sort.

JBI

08-12-2011, 01:12 AM

I agree yours are reasonable questions to ask - but if they were to be real, they need to be based on more than just a general dislike of the current Chinese regime, and more than a general dislike as a result of being too immersed in propaganda that exists in the Western world. My defensiveness comes from your claim that the Chinese tradition is not moral becaue the reality on the ground is bad. I would say "equality" as in everyone could become king of Silicon Valley is as much a myth, an ideological propaganda as much as the Chinese sort.

Why not connect world politics with world literature? if we are talking about a world tradition here, doesn't world esteem play a roll? After all, Japanese texts are so available in English translation for the exact same reason - namely the occupying forces payed money into "studying" the defeated.

JBI

08-12-2011, 01:14 AM

The similarity is both uses taxpayers' money.

Yes, but the difference is this. Plato is not a state ideology, and academics do not agree on it. Confucius is not monolithic in interpretation, but the Chinese government funds a preaching of one set of views based on it for the purpose of spreading propaganda. Likewise, there is no freedom of media there, which means there is no accurate debate.

Hong Kong is different to an extent, but lets ignore there since in the grand scheme it's more confusing to look at Hong Kong in this picture.

JBI

08-12-2011, 01:30 AM

As a reply to the seriousness, well, Jin Yong himself is obsessed with his seriousness. He even published in his Ming Pao a "classics of Wuxia" line up to try to get himself recognized as part of a tradition. As for the version, well, lets just deal with the second/third edition, as you said you have not read Ming Pao ever, which means you are getting him on a reprint anyway, we might as well look at the format is he most known by.

On that regard, what does he hold up most of all - firstly, heterosexual romantic love - the woman falls in love, and is married in the end to her husband, who generally by the end of the book is the most powerful living person or close to it, with the exception of Lu Deng Ji, where he just marries a series of women and never learns anything.

Themes of loyalty, of self-betterment, of questing, and of doing what is right dominate his work. That isn't bad in itself, except they always fail, or realize they are hypocrites, or march off into exile.

The problem with the Deng era is it comes after a time period that tried to break with feudalism, Jin Yong's novels attempt t glory that era - how does one go backward - well, it's easy, the whole system just lurched backward. The view of imperial China now is so warped we are stuck in a problem - the old feudalism is merely continued, and Jin Yong's novels do nothing to undercut it, as they never really support people's movements, or governmental change.

As for them being stupid novels, well I agree, but they are taken seriously, so lets move away from the serialized versions, which we know were sloppily written, and lets look at the published versions since they are what he tried to "preserve." He clearly took himself seriously, that is why it is fair to poke. He wrote historical fiction, he is using history, so let us look at what he screwed up with, and what he bent.

Even notions of romantic love are troubling to look at in classical Chinese thought - arguably the idea of romance is negative, whereas duty is more important, women of higher classes in much of when the books are taking place would not even be seen outside, and would probably see their husband right before he took her to the back room to hump (age 14 give or take).

Now, you have hero and heroine roaming this fictional world made up of fancy, then we can only hope to understand the construct as something out of an allegory or a game, it's troubling to read it seriously since it is so absurd. Likewise he cannot map out time, so the distance and time lapse in his novels are out of whack, which causes in a headache. Even the setting then feels strange as it is confused.

Now as for characters, I didn't say he was misogynist particularly, I just don't think he understands women at all. His characters are ridiculous, intentionally perhaps, but it doesn't work to his credit. In general, the female leads function as romantic sidekicks who are kicked into a nationalist drive by their others - with the exception of only a few novels, his texts all deal with nationalism, one of the protagonists of one of his novels is female, I have not read it, and it is not one of his most famous ones. In general, his books are about men going out into the world, finding a romantic sweet heart, and saving the country to an extent, before retiring in disgust, or removing themselves from the conflict.

Since nationalism and national identity are so central to his thought, then lets look there first, and apply that to his resurgence on the mainland, as the first to shake Deng's hand, and the first to welcome reunification. What does it mean for him to have this ingrained Chinese identity that is universal - a Chinese cultural "gene" if you will that transcends borders and makes people better. That is my question, what is he meaning by that. It gives a weird impression that Chinese people are all alike, but having been to all ends of the country, I can tell that is hardly true, much less applicable for those in different countries. What then does he mean? Where is he going with his idea?

WymanChanning

08-12-2011, 03:58 AM

I heard Chinese believe in nothing but money nowadays, I believe it is true. From the ancient time till this day, China is a place lack a sort of religion that every one could easily worship. They do have the Buddhism and Confucius, but they are more for upper class and well educated people and too fuzzy to be understood. What JBI said about the "Polygamy" means mistress, which is different from prostitution. The former is more evil than the later. It crushes family and cultivates corruption. I guess "Mistress" is quite a spectacle in China now. Whether in developed or developing contries, whether regarded as legal and illegal, it is certain that there are many cities in the world have prostitutions not only China, which is ok, especially when it is managed decently as a business.

ralfyman

08-12-2011, 04:48 AM

Really? Where are the anthologies of 100 years ago? And the publishers decisions that left out several of canonical authors?

I'm not referring to works that will remain in what should be an ever-growing list or anthologies that should last. It's that works are excluded, and teachers are not the only ones doing that.

And really, lists from a famous author? Who Stephen King canonized? There is a work that he lists several horror influences, but where is all this importance? Well, Borges has a list, but if you read Borges, you already access the canon, so such listing as beginers guidance is meaningless.

Well, you already mentioned Borges, if not the claim that by reading Borges, one can "already access the canon." In which case, you implicitly gave a list. It's just it contains only one name: Borges.

You certainly does not expect that something that is lasting is determiend or helped by stuff that people forget in 3 years, do you?

That's not my point. My point is found in my previous message.

JCamilo

08-12-2011, 08:07 AM

I'm not referring to works that will remain in what should be an ever-growing list or anthologies that should last. It's that works are excluded, and teachers are not the only ones doing that.

Teachers are quite influential, but the point is that such anthology are almost irrelevant. Either excluded or included. The anthologies respect first the rules of market, not of aesthetics.

Well, you already mentioned Borges, if not the claim that by reading Borges, one can "already access the canon." In which case, you implicitly gave a list. It's just it contains only one name: Borges.

And? I am not denying the lists. I am saying those guides are not so relavant, as they say almost nothing about anything. There is no real conection when you read a list that may put together Voltaire, Edward Gibbon, Goethe, Schiller, Diderot, William Beckford, Samuel Johnson and they do link enough to make a list.

That's not my point. My point is found in my previous message.

Your point is that such lists works as a travel guide. I point it not so great. The lists have no clue or path to which place you should turn. Even the most famous of them, Bloom canon, is impossible (and lazy, as he resume several authors with a complete works edition) and easily replaced by some classic section on a library. And he is not canonical at all, therefore his influence wont last as his classics. Right now, he is even missing something, as Harry Potter can be find in almost all libraries and the books you can borrow is a stronger influence than the books Bloom or any critic listed to make money with self-help (yes, because it is boil down to it) be a good reader list.

lawpark

08-12-2011, 08:23 AM

Why not connect world politics with world literature? if we are talking about a world tradition here, doesn't world esteem play a roll? After all, Japanese texts are so available in English translation for the exact same reason - namely the occupying forces payed money into "studying" the defeated.

It is ok to connect world politics with world literature, but if you link "world esteeem" based on current Anglophone media ideology, ultimately you just get token recognition that the rest of the world exist (unimportantly), as in the most historical survey of old-school world history (like those by J.M. Roberts), or world philosophy, or world literature, or world art history, etc. If one consider that satisfactory, there is no need to really talk about further making world canon truly more worldwide.

Secondly, if we talk politics, let's apply the same type of criticism to all potentially canonical texts. Say, why didn't Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky criticize selfdom? Why is it ok that the Red Chamber is not against feet binding when it was happening right then, but not ok if Jin Yong wrote with a moderate nationalism right after de-colonization?

Third, ultimately, I believe Harold Bloom has a little bit of a point in that ultimately, the "school of resentment" (essentially studying the canon with just politics) can only go so far - and the problem with using world politics to screen world literature ends up just excluding the non-western texts from the view of most layman, and as such enforces continuity of a western canonical domination the texts in which are known to contain as much "bad politics" as those excluded. How is that constructive?

Arrowni

08-12-2011, 11:59 AM

The aesthetics of world culture would be hard anyways, not just anyone can "get" chinese ancient music.

cl154576

08-12-2011, 03:48 PM

Why not connect world politics with world literature?

Because what you say about China can be very offensive.

Where exactly did you stay there? China is too diverse to generalize the way you do in some of your comments.

Also, if you were to nitpick with every country in the world the way you do with China, what country would come out entirely clean?

Alexander III

08-12-2011, 04:16 PM

cl154576

08-12-2011, 05:43 PM

He is not ragging (not a proper word, but cant think of la mote juste right now) at the fact that china has problems, the problem and I agree with JBI is that China is unwilling to look at itself in the mirror, while it scrutinizes everyone else in their mirrors. JBI is railing against the Hypocrisy. And in the most part I agree with him, from when I spent some time in China I saw a lot of what he seems to have seen as well. Of course China has plenty of good, but its determination to pretend that the bad doesn't exist and it never has, and how it has mind-washed generations into actually thinking that, is infuriating - especially for a westerner who has grown up with different notions of what society should be, and different notions of individual liberty and freedom.

Most people in Chinese cities at least aren't as mind-washed as it might appear to outsiders. They realize that the government is lying to them, and sometimes they know the truth too, only they're not allowed to show it (for instance in the case of the recent train crashes). No adult I know in China is happy with the government but no one dares to complain either.

Also, as a passing note, most governments conceal some of their history, maybe just not as much.

I find the Chinese government infuriating, but I don't think it's fair to call the entire culture corrupt or immoral, or that "Chinese believe in nothing but money nowadays" ... That's some people, and that's a stereotype. It's impossible to generalize like that with a whole nation.

lawpark

08-12-2011, 06:52 PM

He is not ragging (not a proper word, but cant think of la mote juste right now) at the fact that china has problems, the problem and I agree with JBI is that China is unwilling to look at itself in the mirror, while it scrutinizes everyone else in their mirrors. JBI is railing against the Hypocrisy. And in the most part I agree with him, from when I spent some time in China I saw a lot of what he seems to have seen as well. Of course China has plenty of good, but its determination to pretend that the bad doesn't exist and it never has, and how it has mind-washed generations into actually thinking that, is infuriating - especially for a westerner who has grown up with different notions of what society should be, and different notions of individual liberty and freedom.

- For "China" in your first sentences - are you referring to the government? the culture? the people?
- the "infuriating" part is interesting - as one who grew up elsewhere with different notions would be convinced that the Chinese are "mind-washed" (which I actually agree they are, especially true for the generation before me); but as with reading outside of one's culture, if that can lead to one questioning how much as a westerner who has grown up elsewhere has been similarly "mind-washed" (or "mind-breached", whatever you prefer), it does serve a good purpose

JBI

08-12-2011, 09:45 PM

- For "China" in your first sentences - are you referring to the government? the culture? the people?
- the "infuriating" part is interesting - as one who grew up elsewhere with different notions would be convinced that the Chinese are "mind-washed" (which I actually agree they are, especially true for the generation before me); but as with reading outside of one's culture, if that can lead to one questioning how much as a westerner who has grown up elsewhere has been similarly "mind-washed" (or "mind-breached", whatever you prefer), it does serve a good purpose

It's different when you have free press, and are brought up to think an academic setting is a place for discussion. I'll give you an example, I've been in a seminar meeting discussing China and Chinese policy - the difference between local students and Chinese exchange students (of which there are many) is that they are not brought up thinking these things can be discussed, or trained to discuss them. For about half of it, the local students generally spent time cutting at this issue and that, but the Chinese students remained silent, dumbfounded and scribbling notes. Then one exchange student asked, "Why do we sit here and discuss governments, why do we criticize these things and spend so much time pointing out what's wrong." Well, the leader of the tutorial remarked, "Well, firstly, it is considered a part of democracy to discuss these issues and be involved, and to self-criticize and point faults out, the same way Canadians would complain about domestic issues, and vote accordingly, secondly, as an institution, the university is supposed to act as a buffer and a place where this sort of discussion can be had, and where these areas can be debated - that is essentially the point of the discussion, to try and understand what is going on, why, and to act as an interpreter and critic, as that is the role the institution is filling in the public." To which she returned to sitting quietly dumbfounded.

We come from a culture that believes democracy, and self-criticism, accountability, historical evaluation, and critical analysis are essential to being part of a community and being a citizen. Likewise, we come from cultures that think public speech, and debate about issues is essential to functionality. You would probably agree being raised in Hong Kong, where a mass rally in memorial of the Tian An Men Massacre happened with 150,000 people showing up this year. China thinks differently, the population was denied access to that information, and is unaware that the protest happened, let alone the massacre.

It's that kind of warped logic - we value criticism, because that is the point of studying, that is essential to literature, as it is to democracy, and to international relations. We should floor issues, like how benevolent China supports Dictatorships and Genocides in Africa, let alone at home, or how Shell, and BP and others do the same - as people who read, it is considered part of a social responsibility.

The point is, our mind washing isn't state run, we don't have a ministry of propaganda, or a central news agency, or intense censorship. There is still propaganda, but it is buffered, the same way warped CNN's take on the first Gulf War was undermined by the emergence of other news agencies like Al-Jazeera.

I'll give you a different example. My past teacher for Chinese in China told me, after going to Japan first as an exchange student, then as a Chinese teacher, she was required to publish a paper about her experiences on her return. She told me how the publisher told her her article was not sufficient, as it was too flattering of Japan, and didn't criticize them, and therefore was not suitable to meet with State censorship, she was in the end forced to criticize. IT's little things like that that cause problems, where simple movies are banned nonstop, arts, culture, media, etc. all are weaved through a censorship board.

As for economic communism, that is all but disappeared. What you have now is something that as a model is a cross between 19th century American capitalism, and 20th century South American Capitalism, with rich families, connected and controlling everything, media, construction, transportation, etc.

Beyond this, the influence of the propaganda model is used as an imperialist doctrine, the same way British colonists made use of propaganda, and American colonists after them, the only difference is, the game has changed. What they are doing is trying to gain political influence everywhere, and a different reputation, they are doing what Qaddafi did before his fall, namely creating a new BS reputation through self-promotion. In the process, they are also running a colonial regime, and a Caste system back home that need speaking of, with a wide gap that is widening. They don't want us to know about it, don't report it, and keep on with human rights violations that are forbidden to be known - they don't even have academic freedom in that country, and the education system functions as an outlet for government policy - museums function to promote the regime (Hu Jintao has a shrine in the newly built national museum in Beijing, with an ironic painting of the Yangtze Dam as it smooths over the rough waters and brings harmony to the country (painted for the exhibit of course).

We talk of foreign irritation, well, as a Canadian, going to these Canadian universities and hearing outward racism from students there in Chinese, people who aren't citizens, and are studying in the institution because their parents have money and they couldn't get into a great university in China (and are too bourgeois to go to one of those other mediocre ones, besides the fact that virtually all institutions there have no academic credibility by international standards) and you cannot help but think, what are you doing here? You come here, you spout racism in Chinese about "外国人“ or foreigners (the local population) and have all Chinese parties and look down on people and plan on making money off of the country and you cannot help but think, where do you get such ego from? Where do you get this "I am Chinese so I am better than you attitude" if not from your culture. Namely, governmental promotion, literature, art, policy, and ignorance.

Seeing textbooks in China and what they say about Canada just illustrates the point - we are seen as a crop for the picking. They have no regard for us, do not want to discuss things, are self-righteous, and ignorant, and have the nerve to spit on local people because they happened to be born in the place that so nicely welcomed them. That's what we call imperialism, colonialism, racism, and Chinese policy, and as soon as you begin to question China, you get the dialog about how China is a victim, how it's not fair that we criticize, how it's not such a bad place, how we are racist, how we are intolerant of x, y, and z.

Well bring it on China, and Chinese culture, if one can be critical of Western culture, and Western history, and Western governments, why the hell can they not be critical of big old China too? Why can't we look at 5000 years of history and break it apart. The truth of the matter is, every place has 5000 years of history, every place with a population that has lived there 5000 years. Most cultures are ashamed of certain practices that the culture preformed, likewise, most cultures are proud of moving forward. Others like the Chinese one think it was those damn foreigners who ruined the party and colonized them, yet ironically are the only real government with sway supporting a genocide in Sudan, and are a major player in African and world colonialism (ancient China had a huge colonial history, anybody who denies it has not clearly looked at the size of China C. 2000BCE and the size of it C 1200BCE and the size of it today, likewise look how many places have fallen off the map). But why don't we discuss that? Why don't we talk about these things?

Jin Yong's fiction is necessarily linked with politics, because everything is. Likewise, you may choose to only look at the text relative to the author, but the text has implications based on its readers - it promotes a grand idea of China, and has become part of the propaganda model of China. So we should be able to look at that and say, does he support nationalism, Han Chauvinism, Jingoism, do his readers get that sort of message from his texts, how is he interpreted?

JBI

08-12-2011, 10:03 PM

Because what you say about China can be very offensive.

Where exactly did you stay there? China is too diverse to generalize the way you do in some of your comments.

Also, if you were to nitpick with every country in the world the way you do with China, what country would come out entirely clean?

I stayed in Beijing which gets the brunt of my criticism. I was in China for a total of one year minus about two weeks. I traveled extensively to every province but Heilongjiang, Hainan, Qinghai, Tibet (closed to foreigners in honor of the celebration of the 60th anniversary since liberation), Ningxia and Gansu. Meaning I have been to almost every region and seen far more of the country than the vast majority of locals. I have spent extensive time in both rural and urban China, as well as spent time in some of the poorest villages of Guizhou, and the richest neighborhoods of Shanghai's urban core.

As for nitpicking, I do, the same way I advocate things about my country's own domestic policy, and international policy. The same way I criticize the history of Canada, and the histories of the regions my family come from. As a citizen, that is my duty, and as someone who thinks himself in the intellectual class of the country, taking a stand is integral.

You can ask anybody, I've taken a fair number of stabs at many countries, but on questions of human rights violations, one is limited with certain countries. For instance, I cannot talk much about Canadian foreign policy, since we are not a particularly important player on international levels (we don't have the corporations that own countries in all but name). We also do not have the military, and we have a rather clean human rights record back home. In general, there are only a few issues one could nitpick, namely Aboriginal Affairs, Quebec Separatism (which isn't a human rights issue) and illegal and temporary labour. Our government in the past little while has had a relatively clean slate, minus our treaty obligations that led us to Afghanistan which the vast majority of people at home, including myself, has opposed.

Tell me, am I not allowed to criticize others? Then why even have world literature? IF I cannot criticize Chinese culture and literature, as well as government (who control publications TV, Media, Radio, and other forms of cultural outlets) then what is world literature? You would have me what, sit here praising Confucius without reading him? Sit here reading Jin Yong and not discussing defects in his ideology and literature? What is the point of debate then, to just sit there flattering. Well if that's world literature, namely not being able to nitpick and discuss issues, then I want out.

It's that old Chinese racism again, the Jew from Canada dared to criticize us, what ground does he have to criticize? Americans tell me the same thing. But the ground is this, one has a right to criticize internationally, one gains that right by knowledge and by evidence. I know a great deal more about Chinese literature than probably the vast majority of Chinese people. As someone who is treated in China as a perpetual outsider (yes, they literally stop to take pictures) I should have a right to pass a judgement other than "You guys are the best."

I have been a strong promoter on these boards of Chinese literature. I promote good things about culture, and I can criticize bad things. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I am not knowledgeable. Your problem is not that I am talking about China, but that I am allowing myself to say something that doesn't agree with what the regime wants me to say, well, I am not a Chinese citizen, I will say whatever the hell I want to, and will criticize them for not giving their citizens the same right, and for pumping them so full of bull**** that they probably couldn't even if they tried.

According to polls they think they have a democracy there, and according to state doctrine certain things never happened, and do not exist. We know that to be fact, so we cannot exactly trust what they say any more than we can trust what we ourselves say anyway.

JBI

08-12-2011, 10:23 PM

Most people in Chinese cities at least aren't as mind-washed as it might appear to outsiders. They realize that the government is lying to them, and sometimes they know the truth too, only they're not allowed to show it (for instance in the case of the recent train crashes). No adult I know in China is happy with the government but no one dares to complain either.

Also, as a passing note, most governments conceal some of their history, maybe just not as much.

I find the Chinese government infuriating, but I don't think it's fair to call the entire culture corrupt or immoral, or that "Chinese believe in nothing but money nowadays" ... That's some people, and that's a stereotype. It's impossible to generalize like that with a whole nation.

A fair point, and granted, but that isn't to say we should adhere to Chinese opinion that it doesn't happen either. As for the train crash, they know about it, and people are not afraid of their government having done something to them, but are in contrast just afraid of crashing - big difference then the government rolling a tank over you - a safety standard (with a freak accident) and a massacre are two different beasts.

As for governments censoring history - not really. I think that is illegal in Canada, as in many other places - historians do not work for the government. Burning history is one thing, concealing it is a whole other. No governments without censorship conceal their history, since historical writing and direct government control are usually quite separate. Take an example. There were a few Dams that burst in communist times that led to the virtually instant deaths of a few hundred thousand (I believe they were in Hubei, cannot recall exactly, but that is not the point). During the communist regime, that information was withheld. Now, if that happened in Canada and the information was withheld, well, that isn't impossible since there is freedom of the press, the extent of government censorship would be to stop news that would cause moral panic. Likewise, the Canadian government was sued severely because of the mishandling of AIDS blood in the medical system, something which they were not able to cover up, and never did - China would have, as I believe they have a major AIDS activist in house arrest in Henan for talking to much.

As for people in China criticizing, not really. The reason the criticism in cities is tolerated is because those people who have the ability to sit and cities and criticize are the ones most likely to be benefiting from the current regime. It's rare when someone shoots themselves in the foot. It's no big deal if some girl goes on and says "I should get facebook here, this sucks," while her father says, well, it's my bribe that keeps it there, and funds you getting a new Mercedes. You have a conflict of interests on most scales there, so it has become fashionable to complain and do nothing, to make jokes yet take advantage of the situation at hand. Those Beijing people are not likely to say, "we should let these people have free immigration to the city," they are more likely to say, "those dirty, thieving 外地人“ so they may complain, but they are still well fed.

lawpark

08-13-2011, 01:01 AM

It's different when you have free press, and are brought up to think an academic setting is a place for discussion. I'll give you an example, I've been in a seminar meeting discussing China and Chinese policy - the difference between local students and Chinese exchange students (of which there are many) is that they are not brought up thinking these things can be discussed, or trained to discuss them. For about half of it, the local students generally spent time cutting at this issue and that, but the Chinese students remained silent, dumbfounded and scribbling notes. Then one exchange student asked, "Why do we sit here and discuss governments, why do we criticize these things and spend so much time pointing out what's wrong." Well, the leader of the tutorial remarked, "Well, firstly, it is considered a part of democracy to discuss these issues and be involved, and to self-criticize and point faults out, the same way Canadians would complain about domestic issues, and vote accordingly, secondly, as an institution, the university is supposed to act as a buffer and a place where this sort of discussion can be had, and where these areas can be debated - that is essentially the point of the discussion, to try and understand what is going on, why, and to act as an interpreter and critic, as that is the role the institution is filling in the public." To which she returned to sitting quietly dumbfounded.

- Consider relative weakness in thinking through verbalizing (debates) is actually not just Chinese - cf. the book Can Asians Think?
- Have it occurred to you that if one does not have right to vote (e.g. exchange student in Canada), there is much less points for one to be involved in policy discussions?

The point is, our mind washing isn't state run, we don't have a ministry of propaganda, or a central news agency, or intense censorship. There is still propaganda, but it is buffered, the same way warped CNN's take on the first Gulf War was undermined by the emergence of other news agencies like Al-Jazeera.

- Mind-washing is more scary if it is successful, which means that one does not even know one's mind has been washed. In China, everyone knows there is a Party and there is censorship. In US, how many people would question their news source? It actually is quite a bit more scary (cf. I read it from Chomsky - actually too scared and too depressed so I stop reading his political writings which are mostly just documentations)

As for economic communism, that is all but disappeared. What you have now is something that as a model is a cross between 19th century American capitalism, and 20th century South American Capitalism, with rich families, connected and controlling everything, media, construction, transportation, etc.

- It is actually a problem other parts of the world, especially China, has with the West. It is actually very often accused of things it hasn't done, based on analogy of bad things that have been done by the West one or two centuries ago. Yes, 19th century American capitalism wasn't nice - but it was actually nice because it was done under democracy. Yes, extreme Nationalism wasn't nice - but it was actually ok that it was invented in the West when it created so much loss of lives in two world wars but it is not ok for someone like Jin Yong to write with moderate nationalism.

Beyond this, the influence of the propaganda model is used as an imperialist doctrine, the same way British colonists made use of propaganda, and American colonists after them, the only difference is, the game has changed. What they are doing is trying to gain political influence everywhere, and a different reputation, they are doing what Qaddafi did before his fall, namely creating a new BS reputation through self-promotion. In the process, they are also running a colonial regime, and a Caste system back home that need speaking of, with a wide gap that is widening. They don't want us to know about it, don't report it, and keep on with human rights violations that are forbidden to be known - they don't even have academic freedom in that country, and the education system functions as an outlet for government policy - museums function to promote the regime (Hu Jintao has a shrine in the newly built national museum in Beijing, with an ironic painting of the Yangtze Dam as it smooths over the rough waters and brings harmony to the country (painted for the exhibit of course).

- You seem to be talking about the current Chinese regime. Exactly just what I said - Chinese regime is bad - granted - but it is often accused of things it have not done by using analogies of things that the West actually has done. I am reacting to the imperialism and colonialism here.
- I think this is the type of criticism that undermines the criticisms that are much more valid. My stand is: of course China or Chinese can be criticized, but it has to be done based on sufficient fact and sound logic. If one starts criticizing because one has the right to, that is not good enough.

We talk of foreign irritation, well, as a Canadian, going to these Canadian universities and hearing outward racism from students there in Chinese, people who aren't citizens, and are studying in the institution because their parents have money and they couldn't get into a great university in China (and are too bourgeois to go to one of those other mediocre ones, besides the fact that virtually all institutions there have no academic credibility by international standards) and you cannot help but think, what are you doing here? You come here, you spout racism in Chinese about "外国人“ or foreigners (the local population) and have all Chinese parties and look down on people and plan on making money off of the country and you cannot help but think, where do you get such ego from? Where do you get this "I am Chinese so I am better than you attitude" if not from your culture. Namely, governmental promotion, literature, art, policy, and ignorance.

- You clearly have the rights not to like the Chinese; especially some particular Chinese people or groups.
- If you read your posts again, it is hard not to read it as "JBI does feel that he is superior over any Chinese".

Well bring it on China, and Chinese culture, if one can be critical of Western culture, and Western history, and Western governments, why the hell can they not be critical of big old China too? Why can't we look at 5000 years of history and break it apart. The truth of the matter is, every place has 5000 years of history, every place with a population that has lived there 5000 years. Most cultures are ashamed of certain practices that the culture preformed, likewise, most cultures are proud of moving forward. Others like the Chinese one think it was those damn foreigners who ruined the party and colonized them, yet ironically are the only real government with sway supporting a genocide in Sudan, and are a major player in African and world colonialism (ancient China had a huge colonial history, anybody who denies it has not clearly looked at the size of China C. 2000BCE and the size of it C 1200BCE and the size of it today, likewise look how many places have fallen off the map). But why don't we discuss that? Why don't we talk about these things?

- Let's talk about this China being too big theme - which I read in a Times magazine cover as a college student actually "infuriated". The logic was exactly what I was saying, it goes like "Well, every Western countries gain land by winning wars, like how we colonized Americas and Oceania; look at how big China is, it must have done the same." That's it. Well, purely logically it is flawed, because a country can grow big also because of mergers - e.g. Scotland with England; or European Union. On a factual basis, yes, the worse guys have been Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi, which the Chinese tradition really didn't like. Tang was pretty expansionist, but in really pretty ineffective at that - especially in the Northeast / Korea. China actually got a lot bigger afterwards by being conquered (Yuan and Qing). (Of course in the official ideology now the Mongols and Manchus are now officially Chinese - but at the point they were making the conquests the ethnic identities have not thus developed yet.) You may now call this the "victim" theory. But if you compare the maps it is hard to argue against.
- Of course, if there are better documentations, let's bring them up and compare how bad Colonialisms had been. By the way, as you make the comparison, don't forget the things that were done by the Greek colonists and the Roman imperialists.

JBI

08-13-2011, 01:55 AM

Heteronym

08-13-2011, 06:00 AM

- It is actually a problem other parts of the world, especially China, has with the West. It is actually very often accused of things it hasn't done, based on analogy of bad things that have been done by the West one or two centuries ago. Yes, 19th century American capitalism wasn't nice - but it was actually nice because it was done under democracy. Yes, extreme Nationalism wasn't nice - but it was actually ok that it was invented in the West when it created so much loss of lives in two world wars but it is not ok for someone like Jin Yong to write with moderate nationalism.

The West isn't a monolithic culture. 19th century capitalism wasn't accepted by everyone because there was also marxism, socialism and anarchism suggesting different approaches, and in their heyday they had millions of followers.

Nationalism also came under fire by many writers, philosophers and politicians during the two world wars. Many brave people died or were ostracised for speaking against it.

Finally, I'd be shocked to find any novelist in the West today writing from a perspective of uncritical nationalism. Perhaps Tom Clancy, who writes porn about the USA army; that guy surely seems to love his country. But then I turn to José Saramago, and he had to live in exile because he was censored by his won country; I turn to Dario Fo, and he's hated in Italy for constantly mocking the corruption of its politicians; I turn to Ismael Kadare, who's always criticisng Albanian backward culture. Nationalism has, thankfully, fallen into disrepute in the West. And I think it's telling that in a totalitarian country like China it still exists and informs the works of its novelists.

lawpark

08-13-2011, 09:00 AM

The West isn't a monolithic culture. 19th century capitalism wasn't accepted by everyone because there was also marxism, socialism and anarchism suggesting different approaches, and in their heyday they had millions of followers.

Nationalism also came under fire by many writers, philosophers and politicians during the two world wars. Many brave people died or were ostracised for speaking against it.

Finally, I'd be shocked to find any novelist in the West today writing from a perspective of uncritical nationalism. Perhaps Tom Clancy, who writes porn about the USA army; that guy surely seems to love his country. But then I turn to José Saramago, and he had to live in exile because he was censored by his won country; I turn to Dario Fo, and he's hated in Italy for constantly mocking the corruption of its politicians; I turn to Ismael Kadare, who's always criticisng Albanian backward culture. Nationalism has, thankfully, fallen into disrepute in the West. And I think it's telling that in a totalitarian country like China it still exists and informs the works of its novelists.
- The West is not monolithic just like China is not monolithic. Just like even Confucianism or Christianity is not monolithic.
- If what you are saying is right, some pockets in the West was repressing ideas based on ideologies as late as WWII. I would add that this general trend lasts until at least end of Cold War.
- The author we are talking about, Jin Yong, is still living, but his novels (his main works) was written from late 50's to early 70's. And his views are what I would call moderately Nationalistic, and not jingoism as JBI was claiming - it is not like someone like Nazis come to life again, or in Japan when on the street you sometimes see cars with flags showing their war-time (WWII) flag broadcasting military music down the street.
- Just for the record, I am not a fan of Nationalism - but, the modern world system (e.g. United Nations; international relations) are still founded on the basis of nation-states. So it is also extremely difficult of not using some concept of Nation to talk about anything.

cl154576

08-13-2011, 06:16 PM

I have been a strong promoter on these boards of Chinese literature. I promote good things about culture, and I can criticize bad things. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I am not knowledgeable. Your problem is not that I am talking about China, but that I am allowing myself to say something that doesn't agree with what the regime wants me to say, well, I am not a Chinese citizen, I will say whatever the hell I want to, and will criticize them for not giving their citizens the same right, and for pumping them so full of bull**** that they probably couldn't even if they tried.

I am not a Chinese citizen either. I admit that a lot of the Chinese are extremely racist, and it bothers me in my relatives. It's a sort of hypocrisy – they prefer Western culture over their own, but still they look down on the people who produced that culture. Also, many of the Chinese are racist even inside their country: Beijing residents scorn Shanghai residents, mainland China residents scorn residents of Hong Kong and Taiwan. I think that relates to your comments about historical division.

I agree that you have a right to criticize. I think you're very knowledgeable, I also don't like the current regime, and I've often criticized China too. I just disagreed with the severity of some of your criticisms. I didn't realize that you criticize all countries.

According to polls they think they have a democracy there, and according to state doctrine certain things never happened, and do not exist. We know that to be fact, so we cannot exactly trust what they say any more than we can trust what we ourselves say anyway.

About mind-washing in general, I'll agree that the modern generation is largely mind-washed. But their parents really aren't. They hear snippets of news leaked out; they might not know the full story, but they're suspicious that they're being lied to. Sometimes I get phone calls from my relatives asking about what really happened in some current events in China.

With the train crashes, the government was lying to them about how many people died. A lot of people realized that their relatives' names were missing from the lists and that when the police went in to "rescue" people from the train some people were buried alive (once there was a baby heard crying from inside the train as the train was being buried). Instead of printing what the government told them to print, newspapers left the page blank.

There are web pages criticizing the Chinese government, some of them by writers whose works have been censored. To avoid being censored online, however, they've had to replace characters with other characters of the same phonetic pronunciation.

I do not look down on you at all for not being Chinese, but the people criticize the government in secret, and it's possible you might not have heard a lot of it consequently. Not all the people who criticize are benefiting from the current regime, or joking. My relatives won't criticize in emails or phone calls for fear of being monitored, but they do talk about it in private.

JBI

08-13-2011, 09:22 PM

The whole idea of secret criticism of a government is rather contradictory - criticism by nature is supposed to be public. That's what gives it its power. Otherwise it is just grumbling.

lawpark

08-13-2011, 09:59 PM

It's simple, Tibet, seized, and recently, Xinjiang is currently undergoing something one would call colonialism - Dali was conquered during the early Ming - border pushes within sichuan itself, including the integration of the Tibetan and Yi portions are 20th century enterprises. The border with North Korea has a large Korean speaking population.

If we take the Han Dynasty though, where was Guangdong then, a renegade vassal state as was the area around it under the leadership of Nanyue - the Xixia regime outwest was pretty much wiped off of history, as was the Liao regime in the north. The uyghar autonomous regimes that coexisted with Qing land claims are still being fought over today, often bloodily. Likewise, a North South, East West divide is culturally and linguistically there - in addition to various pockets of land that never were really under Chinese authority, like the Southern part of Hunan, or Guizhou as a whole - generally where the minority groups lived. Likewise the Mongolian nomads who ran up up top.

If one wants a clue as to how divided the country historically was, one need only look at breakdowns of religion, language, or better yet, look at food. Are you telling me there was always a Chinese presence in Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai? Or Yunnan, or Manchuria, or Mongolia? Those are all new ideas that haven't even to this day really settled in. The Ancient Chinese concept of the end of the world is right near Dunhuang at the 玉门。 Hainan before it was beach resort was desolate place of exile.

Yes, all countries have expanded, and we have novels like Blood Meridian which give s an idea of what that expansion was like. We don't have 60th anniversary parades where all foreign spectators are kicked out.

Likewise, most countries today have historical identities that try to understand the darkness in their path, China has no humor about it - they just don't talk about the bad, and act like it wasn't there.

The reason why China didn't go out to conquer as far as they could was because they failed, not because they didn't try. Even the Mongols failed their expansion southward into Indochina. China tried to take Korea more than once, and got told to beat it by delegations from modern day Afghanistan.

As to the point about other countries doing it in the past, well, we aren't in the 19th century are we? Americans have a dark history, does that give China the right to take its turn creating its own dark history? London got polluted during Wordsworth's time, so does that give China the right to dump all sorts of trash everywhere, and to clog up their skies?

You forget something, we are in an international world, in the 21st century, to be a part of it, you cannot be playing with 19th century rules. You do not get a get out of jail free card for not being developed.

Truth be told, China had just as dark a history in the last centuries. One or two centuries ago they were doing just as nasty things as they are now. Just because plumbing is a new idea, and modernity is newer doesn't mean they can get away from social responsibility. Taking forever to develop doesn't give a country a right to not develop basically accepted ideas, especially ones like the UN Charter of Human Rights that they've even signed onto. They signed it themselves, with a quote from Confucius to head the thing off.

My question of expansionism was not to take a stab at ancient expansion, it was more to point out what 5000 years really means - basically if you are from Henan, you will come close to it - you've had 5000 years of Chinese writing, or not quite, or... Beyond that - no resemblance. The regime changed, the culture changed, the language changed, the territory changed - massive migration and blood mixing occurred. Which is what occurred everywhere. Truth be told China proper spent more of those 5000 years divided than it did united - the idea of continuous national history is ridiculous, but alas, it is still part of the propaganda model.

As for me being superior or not, I don't find myself superior, as that is a difficult thing to claim, or justify. I just think people take things and they put them under this we don't touch this category, and as soon as I shake the boat a little, everyone drops the racist, white, imperialist western guy line to shut me up, well, it won't work that easily. The same way Chomsky can yell about American policy, he can yell about Chinese policy, he's a coward in that regard. Does he hate his country? Not at all, but he thinks he has a social responsibility to point out what it does wrong.

You can criticize without hating something. I enjoyed my year in China, but there is a difference between enjoying something and being stupid about it. They literally paid me to have a good time, and spread the word of their benevolence but it isn't likely to happen. It's not about superiority, it is about leveling the playing field.

You do not need to be racist to criticize. Feel free to take that nonsense and can it - Apartheid in South Africa ended because of international criticism - just because those complaining weren't South Africans doesn't mean they didn't have a right to complain and pressure the country. Did that mean that everyone involved was looking down on South Africans?

Geez, quit putting the country on a pedestal. IT shouldn't be immune from criticism just because I am white.

- Tibet was seized but it was also part of Qing at least in less than half a centuries’ time. That is why the question of legitimacy is murky – but clearly less so than US’s invasion of Iraq in this decade.
- Dali was first conquered by Mongols. Same issue as PRC vs. Tibet.
- On China being “colonial”, you seem to subscribe to the theory that a “people” that is of a distinct culture and language should be governed differently. Canada has Aboriginal Reserve – should that be a separate country? There are also lots of Chinese in Canada too – does it make Canada naturally bad when you just look at the demographics?
- Nanyue was a direct result of Qin Shihuang’s expansion. I’ve said Qin Shihuang’s policy was not really liked in the tradition.
- Xixia was wiped out by the Mongols, and Liao by the Jins/ Mongols
- Should all minority groups in all countries form their own separate state? In your phrasing of colonialism, you are actually basing it on a version of nationalism, which is that a “people” with distinct culture / language / religion / food should have its own state. This I disagree, but the funny thing is you are using this concept of nationalism to criticize China’s “colonialism” and its “nationalism” at the same time. Sense any inconsistency?
- Of course there are migrations that happened. Lots of ethnic Chinese now live “overseas” – these must have been some sort of colonialism by the Chinese too? Did anyone in the world keep talking about how US annexed Hawaii?
- I get back to my point – many of these situations are that, situational. If there are specific documentation about how things have been done in a bad way, that would make good criticism.
- There are of course things about how the governance of different parts of China that is problematic. But its phrasing of its history may not be fully factual (no current national history as taught in schools are), yet its phrasing is clearly not explicitly racist of the earlier South African type.
- China really didn’t go out to conquer as far as they could – one example being the border war with India – I have heard (not from Chinese source) that the Chinese army could have marched to Calcutta, but didn’t.
- If Americans have a dark history and generally paints its history with corresponding darkness, then of course it has every moral right to accuse China of (potential) wrong-doings. But what you have is that Americans have a dark history and paints it brightly (and in the mean time continuing to create these dark moments), then it really does feels like many of the slings it swings on China is hypocritical.
- We are in the international world, which is ‘inter-national’ – the basis of this world system and its rules are still based on nation states, where myths of nations are used as a matter of course. Somehow, China is the only country it seems like that cannot do its own propaganda. You will say that it is different because China does not have freedom of speech. I’d agree that freedom of speech is a problem in China, but that does not make China’s version of propaganda more wrong than any numbers of countries.
- China’s histories in the past centuries were of course dark, and in fact the same applies to the whole world since around the industrial revolution after 1800’s – does wonders for some (I would say including myself), but the history for most folks in the world have been brutal.
- Interesting that you mentions UN – United Nations. The UN system is vote-driven, not democratic in the sense that votes are proportional to population, but every country has a vote. And votes can be bought by money, overt or implicit, as in promise of tax cuts, etc. – as in most democracies. China is clearly playing the game, and reasonably successfully now. Of course it wouldn’t be successful for too long, for the West would soon find a way to change the rule so that China will look like the bad guy soon; just like the propaganda on China’s forex rates that happened in the past several years.
- Not to disagree with you that nationalist histories are faulty; but it actually turns out that China has more of a sets of historical records to spin a reasonably compelling nationalist history without as much twists as other nations.
- I agree that it is difficult to claim superiority – almost on every topic one needs to do quite serious information gathering and analysis before even generally relevant criticism. And even so the pre-conception could have misguided the “evidence” thus gathered. So as a western student you can think you have critical thinking and is thus in a position to criticize; on the other hand I can assure you that most loud criticisms have its basis as propaganda by someone – it is actually much more intellectually sound to be Socratic than accusative. That is why I think Chomsky is good – he is critical, but he makes sure he understands what he is criticizing, and is not doing general blanket criticisms. That is also why you see China’s propaganda machines in the past decade work reasonably well in the international scene as it is mostly on the defensive – it clearly can more easily muster information about its own situation, than launching broad general criticism (as it used to do) based on ideological banners.
- I think you are relatively more knowledgeable than most critics of China, and are not racist. I am suggesting that for someone with your intellect and knowledge, criticism of China – if you want to do that – is much more constructive if it is done specifically rather than generically – because it just detracts the force of the real criticism.

JBI

08-14-2011, 02:08 AM

Uh, I believe the Mongols under Kublai lost in Dali. As for Tibet, there were delegations with the Dalai Lama, but it was never "controlled" by China. Neither was Xin Jiang for that matter even if there were military garrisons.

JBI

08-14-2011, 02:13 AM

ralfyman

08-14-2011, 03:43 AM

Teachers are quite influential, but the point is that such anthology are almost irrelevant. Either excluded or included. The anthologies respect first the rules of market, not of aesthetics.

My sense is that administrators are influential, with teachers usually following directions. Also, about rules of the market, that was my point, and it's not just anthologies that follow "the rules of market".

And? I am not denying the lists. I am saying those guides are not so relavant, as they say almost nothing about anything. There is no real conection when you read a list that may put together Voltaire, Edward Gibbon, Goethe, Schiller, Diderot, William Beckford, Samuel Johnson and they do link enough to make a list.

I think there's relevance. I see that, at the very least, when I talk to those who are stuck with Harry Potter.

Your point is that such lists works as a travel guide. I point it not so great. The lists have no clue or path to which place you should turn. Even the most famous of them, Bloom canon, is impossible (and lazy, as he resume several authors with a complete works edition) and easily replaced by some classic section on a library. And he is not canonical at all, therefore his influence wont last as his classics. Right now, he is even missing something, as Harry Potter can be find in almost all libraries and the books you can borrow is a stronger influence than the books Bloom or any critic listed to make money with self-help (yes, because it is boil down to it) be a good reader list.

I don't understand what you're trying to point out: are you saying that instead of reading Harold Bloom's book, one should just go to the "classic section" of a library? But Bloom's selection does not cover everything in the "classic section."

Second, why do you refer to Bloom as "canonical"? I don't understand the relevance of that argument, although I do notice that you imply that "his classics" will last longer. In that case, does that make his list of readings relevant?

Third, are you saying that Harry Potter should be added to his list because it has a "stronger influence" than his own book? If so, then are you saying that a canon should include works based on, say, sales? With that, would it be better to, say, just look at sales reports of books sold?

JCamilo

08-14-2011, 10:02 AM

My sense is that administrators are influential, with teachers usually following directions. Also, about rules of the market, that was my point, and it's not just anthologies that follow "the rules of market".

Administrators of what? There is no such thing as Administrators of Canonical works, Shinning brotherhood of Classics, anything as such. Even Academies, english and american academies have different approaches to literature (or even other fields, as one give more credit to Freud, while other dont)....

And of course Rules of market do not command just anthologies, but they do not command the canonical process either, which is what matters here.

I think there's relevance. I see that, at the very least, when I talk to those who are stuck with Harry Potter.

Explain to me how.

I don't understand what you're trying to point out: are you saying that instead of reading Harold Bloom's book, one should just go to the "classic section" of a library? But Bloom's selection does not cover everything in the "classic section."

I am saying, his list, possible the most popular list of canon in the recent years, has almost no influence and is pointless as guidance. As you should see by your worlds : the list does not solve the problem of acessibility of books or any of the very "negociations" that lead someone to read or like a book. (I will add that like JBI points, the list make it a geographical busines, which is false. It also makes some short of chronological organization. False too. And put together works which give no clue to the reader if he will conect with those works).

Second, why do you refer to Bloom as "canonical"? I don't understand the relevance of that argument, although I do notice that you imply that "his classics" will last longer. In that case, does that make his list of readings relevant?

It does not. That is what I said.

Third, are you saying that Harry Potter should be added to his list because it has a "stronger influence" than his own book? If so, then are you saying that a canon should include works based on, say, sales? With that, would it be better to, say, just look at sales reports of books sold?

Nope, but I am saying his list has such influence that is completelly ignored by the younger reader. It is not the list of canon but Harry Potter the one read, so he is missing something.

lawpark

08-14-2011, 10:13 AM

You are arguing about pseudo-readings of history, not the point I was trying to make, the point I was trying to make was that everywhere has 5000 yeas of history, and that there is no such thing as this "great Chinese tradition" that is a continuous beast. I do not know what you are arguing about.

The point I am attacking is this idea of "Old wonderful tradition" that is spoken of every time we hear about Chinese culture. Simply put, every place with people has a long history. you are just rambling about particular events that only illustrate my point.

- I am just responding to some of the factual aspects of your points that I feel require additional thinking.
- Everywhere has 5000 years of history, fine, but if "there is no such thing as this great Chinese tradition that is a continuous beast", there is also no such thing as the great Western tradition as conjured up in all academic history books - but while you would tolerate the latter, you just couldn't tolerate the former - because China currently has no freedom of speech. I argue that this view is just faulty.
- BTW, Dali was conquered by Mongols in 1251, but the Duans continued in power as kind of governors on behalf of the Mongols.

AS for Jin Yong's fiction then, he has imposed an idea of nationalism then into a fake historical discourse. As you put it, nationalism is a new idea - so why don't we read that in him hmmm? Why don't we discuss how he is obsessed with a false idea created by my understanding during the Boxer Rebellion.

- We can discuss nationalism in Jin Yong for sure, but you are making that the basis of why he is bad, and accuses him of Jingoism, accuses of being obsessed with the idea ... yet you don't respond to Alexander III's points about Tolstoy being as twisted about his Russian nationalism in W&P.

As for Chomsky, well he is a whack, he was alright in the beginning but now he is just selling things out. Check on Tudou.com for instance for a speech he made in Beijing - anybody who could sell out like that is pathetic. He knows what he is talking about and knows how to spin it to sell books. He never agrees with anyone, and never says anything positive, he is just someone who likes to piss on everything and charge as much as he can for it. He can get up in China in front of an audience and rant about how bad American policy is, meanwhile getting a foreign honorary degree and not once mentioning them - why didn't he say something like,m we are in an intellectual environment, 20 years ago those same intellectuals got plowed by your government.

But no, he took the pay check.
- I am not familiar with Chomsky's recent work (I stopped reading him - too depressing), I personally just can't believe that he does things for money. Maybe it is the same type of emotional believe as yours ("that everyone who talks positive about China is a sell-out, because China is bad full stop."). In my view, Chomsky is clearly a highly ethical person, and super intellectual; someone who can clearly makes his life easy and makes a lot more money than working double job to try to document issues with American foreign policies.

lawpark

08-14-2011, 10:23 AM

(I will add that like JBI points, the list make it a geographical busines, which is false. It also makes some short of chronological organization. False too. And put together works which give no clue to the reader if he will conect with those works).

Interesting view - why false?

In one of these threads one has mentinoed (which I agreed) that ultimately any canon list (in literature, or art), is linked with how history (of literature, or of art) is (to be) written. Thus my interest in why you feel a list making some time-space distinction is false.

JCamilo

08-14-2011, 10:47 AM

Because the history of literature is not true the history of countries. Making it by nations is false, as the existense of western canon. It does not guide anyone. Eça de Queiroz is not near Flaubert or Machado de Assis or all else. Camoes is closer to Petrarca than all other italian poets, and he is not even near him. The history of literature is not the history of political fronteirs.

JBI

08-14-2011, 02:24 PM

The idea of a Western tradition is just as false, as I've argued elsewhere. I will put an example, and an additional example.

Essentially very regime change in China sought to end the tradition of the regimes before it. Each dynasty had its own motifs, culture, and symbols. The writing of official history was traditionally part of the process, as it would mark the previous regime as history. This was followed by religious change (the tang, for instance, claimed to be descendants of Laozi, and Wu Zetian claimed to be a Buddhist Goddess, and essentially destroyed the Confucian bureaucracy by removing the material from her Imperial exams, and favoring Buddhism), The Song Dynasty emerged with its own culture, and a set of values.

Lets look at literature - each major dynasty seems to have even changed in literary development, from Han dynasty Fu poems, to Tang Shi poems, and Song Ci poems, and Yuan Qu poems, and Ming novels, and Qing anthologies - even the literary culture did not remain continuous.

There was always a clear understanding of a break - of one regime failing, and another taking it over, of the past being illegitimate, and of discontinuity.

Take the west, the whole idea is ridiculous. In a sense there is no real idea of the west, the same way nation, and even religion are fluctuating things. The west is just grouped together so that it can justify colonial range - simply put, the was a network of communication since Roman times from Rome through China, including southern seas. The whole idea of a notion of a Silk Road undermines these things.

Simply put, the West emerges when Europe goes to war with Muslims - the same way The Orient is "discovered" when Napoleon invades Egypt. There is no real concept to it, the same China has no real concept of continuous history.

History is merely something used to say we have and you have not - that is also an implication of culture.

The Western tradition of literature if you will is given solidity by the racism and rejectionism of other players from the tradition - England, France, Italy, etc. all narrowed themselves and cut themselves off from other linguistic and cultural traditions - that is the idea of the west - commerce and culture though still walked all over it - the idea of Western tradition is xenophobic in its construction, and narrow-minded in its outlook. IT even plays at war with itself cutting out its own players, the way English authors disliked their French contemporaries, or ignored their Spanish ones - the same way Italians view opera even to this day as something only possible in their language (they are one of the few countries I can think of that still regularly preform translated operas).

JCamilo

08-14-2011, 02:59 PM

JBI

08-14-2011, 04:09 PM

lawpark

08-14-2011, 04:58 PM

And of course, this imply that geographical references are unable to guide the artistic tradition. Italians are romans? No, but in a list people will place it just due to the geographical place and funny enough, one of most influential works of rome, the bible is obviously not roman.

If some guides by geographical data, one may think that Italy had nothing to do with German fairy tales of XIX century, when it is where the re-recording tradition starts. Simply put, someone who reads only the listed canonical texts is missing a considerable "local color" of a given style and genre. The failures, mistakes, minor works that build up the sustainance for the canonical works. Not that people cannt ask for lists or anything, but their vallue as preservation or formation of a tradition is considerable small.

Granted - proximity of time and space and languages and countires might not gesture proximity in style or other aspects of aesthetics. But if we start out and say that time and space is not really (that) relevant, what is? I guess it comes down to - what is a better view on these two questions:

1) What is the (historical / social) process of canonization? It may not have comes from a list, but it is generated somewhere in some circles - e.g. Bloom's list, or Norton's Anthology, or any guidebooks to any portion / sub-set of literature that has ever been written.

2) Is history of literature (or art history, or intellectual history) broadly-speaking, useless? If it is not completely useless, what would be the better ways to organize the phenomenon of literature rather than time and space? Style? Genre? "Spirit"? Personality?

lawpark

08-14-2011, 05:15 PM

The idea of a Western tradition is just as false, as I've argued elsewhere. I will put an example, and an additional example.

Take the west, the whole idea is ridiculous. In a sense there is no real idea of the west, the same way nation, and even religion are fluctuating things. The west is just grouped together so that it can justify colonial range - simply put, the was a network of communication since Roman times from Rome through China, including southern seas. The whole idea of a notion of a Silk Road undermines these things.

Simply put, the West emerges when Europe goes to war with Muslims - the same way The Orient is "discovered" when Napoleon invades Egypt. There is no real concept to it, the same China has no real concept of continuous history.

History is merely something used to say we have and you have not - that is also an implication of culture.

The Western tradition of literature if you will is given solidity by the racism and rejectionism of other players from the tradition - England, France, Italy, etc. all narrowed themselves and cut themselves off from other linguistic and cultural traditions - that is the idea of the west - commerce and culture though still walked all over it - the idea of Western tradition is xenophobic in its construction, and narrow-minded in its outlook. IT even plays at war with itself cutting out its own players, the way English authors disliked their French contemporaries, or ignored their Spanish ones - the same way Italians view opera even to this day as something only possible in their language (they are one of the few countries I can think of that still regularly preform translated operas).

I'd question whether this is going too far. First on the western tradition:
- If something fluctuates, it does not exist. I'd argue that this extreme (Nagarjuna-like argument) position is not very useful for studying anything. As long as we don't hypostatize a concept, like a fixed "West", the concept might still be of some use - of course after critical thinking about the concept itself.
- And historically, I think the concept of the West is earlier than colonialism - not the term, but the idea of Christendom, should be as early as the time of Crusades (you are clearly right that it is developed against Islam), so saying the concept is used to justify colonialism is probably anachronistic.
- Yes, in canon war, there are many propagandas, half-truths, etc. involved. While the Western traditional internally has been set up with a lot of internal exclusion, once it is set up, it actually has real effects - e.g. Virgil was canonized in Roman times, and became part of Latin education curriculum. Many later major authors in Europe probably know of Virgil - some might be more directly influenced by it (e.g. Dante), while some may not (e.g. Shakespeare). It became a social reality that has effects. At any point in the link, the perception could be false, or half-truth; but it does not make the fact that a system of long-range dialogues / reactions get set up. This is not to say that Dante is not influenced by other local works / factors; this just says that calling labelling the West as a tradition has some basis. Of course, how compelling this basis is, is up for argument.
- It is the same question for JCamillo - if you feel the Western canon as it is constructed right now is too xenophobic / colonial - what would make it less so? Saying the concept of canon is just useless really does not work, because it is actually used in countless classrooms and academias, by practical necessity of selection given finite time - thus, refusal to propose an alternative actually just supports the status quo. And if further, this refusal also applies to the literature in the rest of the world, it actually further strengthens the Western canon

JCamilo

08-14-2011, 05:21 PM

1 - Bloom and Norton is a reflect of canonization, not the proccess. They give continuity to it, granted, but it is not the main factor.

2 - As JBI pointed, the canonization reflects a mentality. Obviously, the more broad it is (the canon since day one, the western canon, the world canon) you will have a caledoscopy of mentalities reflected there.

3 - The public taste is a tricky one. Because it is today something that is confused with the popularity. Even Dante reflected public taste, as difficulty it is. But a narrow public inside a public even narrow of readers. The democratic process of inclusion of readers certainly add more factors to the process of canonization. Not because of popularity per si, but because you will have to include the canonized works of other sources while a process of canonization when artificial is not inclusive, rather selective. So, when Bloom do it, he fails, it is false, it is pointless.
One of results is the school of resentment. And of course, Bloom as member of a minority (and he attempted to list hebrewish books) should understand that he just cannt deny them. Because it would be judging their influence (which leads to the inclusive process) is basead on poor quality and this is ridiculous as imposing only the european-colonial view.

4- A person must understand that a canon is not a ranking. If so, it would be very narrow. But those days, Homer is a canonical as every single of his imitadors of epic tradition. And of course, not all of them are Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Camoes, etc. Some are quite bad. Some could point Thomas Mallory for example is canonical albeit he never got in the level of Ariosto or Tasso. But he sits in the same place as them, He is canonical and him to fail the entire production of arturian circle would need to be erased from our memory.

A list is simple an attempt to limit the potential infinite. It is like having a map for the universe says "16 meters from the border you turn right" knowing universe is is constant expansion. The list will fail, logically so. As funny they maybe.

lawpark

08-14-2011, 05:33 PM

Essentially very regime change in China sought to end the tradition of the regimes before it. Each dynasty had its own motifs, culture, and symbols. The writing of official history was traditionally part of the process, as it would mark the previous regime as history. This was followed by religious change (the tang, for instance, claimed to be descendants of Laozi, and Wu Zetian claimed to be a Buddhist Goddess, and essentially destroyed the Confucian bureaucracy by removing the material from her Imperial exams, and favoring Buddhism), The Song Dynasty emerged with its own culture, and a set of values.

Lets look at literature - each major dynasty seems to have even changed in literary development, from Han dynasty Fu poems, to Tang Shi poems, and Song Ci poems, and Yuan Qu poems, and Ming novels, and Qing anthologies - even the literary culture did not remain continuous.

There was always a clear understanding of a break - of one regime failing, and another taking it over, of the past being illegitimate, and of discontinuity.

- Agreed that in China dynastic change signifies many aspects of changes at the same time. I would add that in the 20th century the break was even more severe - grammar of the written language change (baihuawen instead of guwen), the script change (simplified vs. tradition), and some actually argued that the lingua franca changed (I am no expert here - the theory was that the lingua franca was a putative Nanjing Mandarin inherited and developed from early Ming, and was not Beijing-style Mandarin used throughout Ming / Qing).
- But all literary people, have access to what happens in the last dynasties and read some those dynasties' works (might not agree to any of them), and has those at the back of their mind when writing new works. So while there is a conscious break, there is also a practical level of continuity.
- Take the example of Shi Jing - the Book of Songs. It got so much commentaries throughout the many dynasties. The version Mao Shi Zheng Yi codified in early Tang (7th century A.D.) includes the original text (material from Zhou, supposedly compiled by Confucius or at least during Spring/Autumn or Warring States), Mao's uncle and son interpretation of the texts in Western Han, commented on by late Eastern Han Zheng Xuan,
and also a yin yi (phonetic-semantic glossary) by Lu De Ming in late Six Dynasties (Chen), which then the Tang Kong Yingda and his team wrote sub-commentaries on, mostly based on many work done on the topic throughout the Northern-Southern Dynasties. Subsequently, of course, the Song folks did not agree with the interpretation, and you have other works like Zhu Xi's commentaries on the Odes becoming canonical, and the commentaries tradition continued to be strong in Qing dynasty. Yes, every dynasty might understadn the text differently. But to say that because of this change the Chinese tradition of literatue simply does not exist, is really a difficult thing to argue.
- I guess for both the western and Chinese tradition examples - your argument that they don't exist is like the Russell dilemma (a shoe which you first changed the bottom and then replaced the surface - is it still the same shoe?), a fun intellectual question, but at the end, it should be possible to treat historically (i.e. "shoe got changed bottom first and then with surface replaced", a statement that does have a substantive content).

JCamilo

08-14-2011, 05:41 PM

I'd question whether this is going too far. First on the western tradition:
- If something fluctuates, it does not exist. I'd argue that this extreme (Nagarjuna-like argument) position is not very useful for studying anything. As long as we don't hypostatize a concept, like a fixed "West", the concept might still be of some use - of course after critical thinking about the concept itself.

Each exactly? Usuallly literary studies have the tendency to specialization. Like, someone specialized in that language, time period and style. He may grasp something general, like you need to study Virgil, know about greece, but you just limit it making the whole canon not our subject, a guideline or anything.

- And historically, I think the concept of the West is earlier than colonialism - not the term, but the idea of Christendom, should be as early as the time of Crusades (you are clearly right that it is developed against Islam), so saying the concept is used to justify colonialism is probably anachronistic.

I think it predates cristians, roman are westernes already. Alexander is probally the first real western enterprise and his work has all traits of colonical imperialism.

- Yes, in canon war, there are many propagandas, half-truths, etc. involved. While the Western traditional internally has been set up with a lot of internal exclusion, once it is set up, it actually has real effects - e.g. Virgil was canonized in Roman times, and became part of Latin education curriculum. Many later major authors in Europe probably know of Virgil - some might be more directly influenced by it (e.g. Dante), while some may not (e.g. Shakespeare). It became a social reality that has effects. At any point in the link, the perception could be false, or half-truth; but it does not make the fact that a system of long-range dialogues / reactions get set up. This is not to say that Dante is not influenced by other local works / factors; this just says that calling labelling the West as a tradition has some basis. Of course, how compelling this basis is, is up for argument.

But they didnt. It didnt matter, Virgil is the classical author by all means, but he was Roman author. Yet, the roman's self proclammed themselves the new greeks, and this is false. Alexandria was out of their borders, they absorved much of non-greek influence, the bible does not came from there, the very greek literature is based on west-east conflict (Troy, persians)...

- It is the same question for JCamillo - if you feel the Western canon as it is constructed right now is too xenophobic / colonial - what would make it less so? Saying the concept of canon is just useless really does not work, because it is actually used in countless classrooms and academias, by practical necessity of selection given finite time - thus, refusal to propose an alternative actually just supports the status quo. And if further, this refusal also applies to the literature in the rest of the world, it actually further strengthens the Western canon

Well, for once the canon is being build not in classrooms, it is not xenophobic.

The concept is not useless, the attempts to define it are. I dunno if it is taught in all classrooms, etc.

So, the canon is a nice chat, not a tool for work. Ultimatelly when we end talking about canon, lets say, people know that Mortal will bring canonical works, but he does not bring the canon, he brings the works (which are usually classical stuff), JBI goes sometimes for italians, chinese, etc. Stlukes has a borges idea or two, bring some european neo-classicism, etc. Nobody talks about canons and nobody know all the other know. Overall knowledge about all, but that is pretty much. For example, if the talk is Borges, them I can follow Stlukes pretty fine, but if it some italian poetry, specially not Dante or more old, it is Stlukes and JBI. But if I talk about Camoes, it is over... Not much to add except what i know. Nobody is using canon but we end in specific knowledge. Simple as that.

lawpark

08-14-2011, 05:49 PM

A list is simple an attempt to limit the potential infinite. It is like having a map for the universe says "16 meters from the border you turn right" knowing universe is is constant expansion. The list will fail, logically so. As funny they maybe.

It is clear that fundamental different in understanding would not end by forum discussions (or most other discussions anyway).

Just to end this (at least for myself, finishing my long summer vacation after today) with an anecdote.

I was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY City earlier this week, and picked up their "Guide". Here are some sentences from the Introduction:

"The Metropolitan Musem is a living encyclopedia of world art... A guide to the Museum's immense holdings ... can be only the briefest of anthologies. Through a selection of some of the finest works in every department we have attempted to give a balanced picture of the collection. Inevitably many legitimate candidates had to be excluded ... The difficulty we faced in these choices makes it clear that the works of art reproduced here are only signposts to direct and introduce the visitor to the various parts of the Metropolitan. ..." Philippe de Montebello, Director.

The Guide is organized by departments, with sections such as "The American Wing", "Arms and Armor", "Asian Art", "European Paintings", "Photographs", etc.

I have no prior training or knowledge of art - I find the guide fascinating, and I may even pick up a book or two of Art History after flipping through this "Guide". If I were to drill deep into the topic and become good at it, maybe a decade or two later I would come back and say the "Guide" is not balanced, or say that this "Guide" is quite useless, and "failed".

JCamilo

08-14-2011, 05:52 PM

and How was the trip by the museum?

lawpark

08-14-2011, 06:02 PM

It was a nice walk - awed by the whole room of Rembrandt (awed by how rich the Museum was, and also how much black he liked to use, and the care he took to draw out the very fine, neckware type stuff that was part of the costume back then), saw some interesting African / Papua New Guinear works (never seen before), thought the lighting of the Chinese Suzhou-style garden was good (though the garden itself hardly justifies the real estate in middle of NY City, for someone who was living in Shanghai just before moving to US), the South Asian / Chinese buddhas were quite impressive (many Northern Wei and Sui dynasty stuff - same as what was in the Freer Museum in Washington D.C., made me wonder why). The place is clearly too big for an afternoon (we brought two kids too, and my wife had a slightly injured ankle on that day). It was great time spent!

JBI

08-14-2011, 10:38 PM

The problem about the idea about the West with Virgil and Homer etc. is that Homer was Greek - namely, not part of the Western European tradition (how many other Greek authors, that is, post-Roman Greek authors are included in the Western Tradition), Aristotle an Alexandrian (Egyptian tradition?) with influence on Alexander (Macedonian?) who conquered Persia (Persian tradition?) and Helenized where he conquered, mainly, the Near East (Islamic, Arabic, Jewish, etc. tradition?). Even the Bible and Christianity are not Western in creation. Virgil may have been, but Carthage, and Troy are not. Homer is not, even Ovid was Greek, and spent the last years of his life writing verse in Greek that has since been lost.

There is the foundation of your Western culture. By my estimate, the true centre of western literature is Dante, and he reading Virgil and appropriating him based on geography.

JCamilo

08-14-2011, 11:07 PM

Geography? But what does Dante is exactly to deny the geography of itaian peninsule at that time and claim a tradition for a new geography (not of Rome, but italy which is what Dante asks for. The roman empire was already the mode of the Church and dante is not just repeating them.) and even the flourishing of his city is due the east contact by commerce, the whole Marco Polo travel. Virgil is a model, but Dante drinks on Agustyn (African), Averrois (muslim), Rome (Cicer, Ovid, Boethius), Cavalcanti and cia (Florence), the hebrew (bbile). If anything, it is safe to know that Dante also defy the geography, and mix all in a idea that is a the classic tradition.

I would not imagine the idea of west with Dante. Not while the Roman empire had already his political problems related to his own division in west/east. The colonial ideas - specially the benefector colonialist, which is what works for real is there already. It is based on commerce like rome, supported by militar power, with law and social beneficts and one hand that allow the culture of conquered to exist (to allow the metropolis to absorv it cheaply to his own) and yet, to have his own culture admired. This is all rome, this is all that Alexander started. Of course, until him, the west was the poor guy, resisting invasions, for while Alexander changed it, but it was only definitive with Rome. Then they withdraw with the huns and musims and return with the XV age of discovery... But all really repeating the commercial routine of Rome, which already absorved oriental influences (Alexandria library was there, Zoroastrism, Christianism).

ralfyman

08-19-2011, 10:31 PM

Administrators of what? There is no such thing as Administrators of Canonical works, Shinning brotherhood of Classics, anything as such. Even Academies, english and american academies have different approaches to literature (or even other fields, as one give more credit to Freud, while other dont)....

Administrators of schools, which teachers who "are quite influential" follow.

And of course Rules of market do not command just anthologies, but they do not command the canonical process either, which is what matters here.

I don't understand this sentence.

Explain to me how.

One may be stuck with Harry Potter because it is heavily marketed.

I am saying, his list, possible the most popular list of canon in the recent years, has almost no influence and is pointless as guidance. As you should see by your worlds : the list does not solve the problem of acessibility of books or any of the very "negociations" that lead someone to read or like a book. (I will add that like JBI points, the list make it a geographical busines, which is false. It also makes some short of chronological organization. False too. And put together works which give no clue to the reader if he will conect with those works).

If it is possibly "the most popular list of canon in the recent years," then why do you argue that it "has almost no influence"? If it has almost no influence, then it cannot be "popular."

Next, it is certainly pointless, but very likely only for those who don't know how to order from online stores and buy used copies, which is what I've been able to do, or to use places like libraries or to consider collections like the GBWW. In general, I find such an excuse irrelevant.

About "negotiations," you can read his interviews and his other books in order to understand his intellectual formation. If you don't want to follow Bloom, then consider another critic. If you are still not satisfied, then be your own critic and see what "negotiations" you had to go through. In any event, you end up with a canon.

It does not. That is what I said.

My point is that the idea of a canon remains, whether it consists of works selected by Bloom, works selected by another critic, or one driven by the "rules of market."

Nope, but I am saying his list has such influence that is completelly ignored by the younger reader. It is not the list of canon but Harry Potter the one read, so he is missing something.

They are reading Harry Potter likely because it's marketed heavily and not likely because they compared it with many other children's books from the present or the past. That's something that only critics can do.

Darcy88

08-19-2011, 10:43 PM

ralfyman

08-19-2011, 11:07 PM

1 - Bloom and Norton is a reflect of canonization, not the proccess. They give continuity to it, granted, but it is not the main factor.

There is no main factor in canonization but many factors, including what Bloom and others do.

2 - As JBI pointed, the canonization reflects a mentality. Obviously, the more broad it is (the canon since day one, the western canon, the world canon) you will have a caledoscopy of mentalities reflected there.

Not just a mentality but a philosophy based on the realization that there are too many works to consider and not enough time to read all of them.

3 - The public taste is a tricky one. Because it is today something that is confused with the popularity. Even Dante reflected public taste, as difficulty it is. But a narrow public inside a public even narrow of readers. The democratic process of inclusion of readers certainly add more factors to the process of canonization. Not because of popularity per si, but because you will have to include the canonized works of other sources while a process of canonization when artificial is not inclusive, rather selective. So, when Bloom do it, he fails, it is false, it is pointless.

Tricky, but it may remain constant across several generations.

And what Bloom does is not to come up with an "artificial" selection but ironically follow what you wrote. That's why Dante is also found in his list. That's why many of the works found in his list are also found in others.

One of results is the school of resentment. And of course, Bloom as member of a minority (and he attempted to list hebrewish books) should understand that he just cannt deny them. Because it would be judging their influence (which leads to the inclusive process) is basead on poor quality and this is ridiculous as imposing only the european-colonial view.

Actually, the school of resentment takes place across the board. I can imagine years from now how (now older) Harry Potter fans see what replaces Harry. And I'm sure many of Bloom's critics will want to replace his "Hebrewish books" with their own choices. Thus, a "European-colonial" view can be replaced by an opposing view that has the same limitations.

In which case, one should consider Bloom with lists from other critics.

4- A person must understand that a canon is not a ranking. If so, it would be very narrow. But those days, Homer is a canonical as every single of his imitadors of epic tradition. And of course, not all of them are Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Camoes, etc. Some are quite bad. Some could point Thomas Mallory for example is canonical albeit he never got in the level of Ariosto or Tasso. But he sits in the same place as them, He is canonical and him to fail the entire production of arturian circle would need to be erased from our memory.

There are actually different canons, and all of them are essentially rankings because they exclude various works for one reason or another (which is why for you some are "quite bad").

A list is simple an attempt to limit the potential infinite. It is like having a map for the universe says "16 meters from the border you turn right" knowing universe is is constant expansion. The list will fail, logically so. As funny they maybe.

The list is logical because one's life is finite. That means even with a "constant expansion" one is forced to exclude for obvious reasons.

If the list fails, it will be because one will simply read what is heavily marketed, not realizing, of course, that those who select what should be published do their own excluding. In which case, one simply does not follow one list because one is following another.

lawpark

08-20-2011, 10:01 AM

Zhuangzi happen to have the opening of its third chapter as something like: "Our lives are limited, but knowledge is unlimited."

scarjo

08-20-2011, 11:30 AM

Some interesting books by non-Western writers:
Orhan Pamuk (Turkey): "Snow"
Naguib Mahfoez (Egypt): "New Cairo"
Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria): "Half of a Yellow Sun"
J. M. Coetzee (South Africa): "Disgrace"
Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan): "The Kite Runner"
Salman Rushdie (India): "The Satanic Verses"

Paulclem

08-20-2011, 07:09 PM

Orhan Pamuk is a great writer. Snow has a beautiful haunting qality about ii, though it does address serious Islamic issues. My Name is Red is also a favourite.

I haven't read The satanic Verses, but Midnight's Children is just brilliant. The narrative is packed with meaning.

JBI

08-20-2011, 09:20 PM

Don't know if anyone's mentioned him yet, but Zhuangzi, Lao Tse's great disciple, would have to have his work included in "the other canon." His thoughts on relativism will turn your brain positively inside out.

If only we could understand him for certain, it's all so relative. Such a headache to read, I'll tell you that, fun, but it gets annoying very very fast, especially since he had a penchant for making fun of his readers.

JBI

08-20-2011, 09:42 PM

As for Canon's like Bloom's advancing things, well, not really. IF anything he has done things to set back the study of literature by providing a rather basic, obvious list, and promoting it. Literature functions best when one picks up books they didn't expect to, or discovers new areas - think Upon Looking into Chapman's Homer by Keats - the world is expansive, and is so rich, and to stick to a list is to limit oneself.

A general introduction to literature is of course a requirement. Generally that list is 50 books for each "tradition" if you will.

Namely, ten or so authors of them stand out for the west (English):

Dante,
Homer,
Virgil,
Ovid,
Shakespeare
The Bible (for English, KJV, historical, the Vulgate)
Milton
Petrarch

That's about it for an English reader, for French add Racine, but for the most part English authors do not like French authors.

What is needed to understand most texts are those few books. One could probably catch 90% or more of our cultural literary references from there.

Likewise, I can think of 10 or so books in Chinese that probably would constitute the Chinese understanding, or come up with a Japanese list.

Does that mean that is how one should read? And beyond that, where does the list go?

These are obvious questions, and quite difficult to answer. But what Bloom did was to try to answer it, and, something which he regretted later, tried to write a list of it. I think that was the big screw up - the list was given way too much attention, and it is a pathetic list, without any of his actual opinions or ideas - simply a person's taste, not a canon, but instead it was interpreted by some internet users as the be all and end all.

Everyone who studies tries to specialize, everyone has their niche. Everyone has their own ideas, and these ideas are tied in with all forms of politics, society, and linguistic associations. Bloom has his too.

The whole list problem is it takes the idea from the canon, which is an oral tradition, and tries to make it a written idea - which is impossible since written forms are impossible to change, only oral forms can adapt properly.

The best advice one can give is just read around books you like - then you are sure to like what you do - recommendations are nice, but even Bloom has a limit, likewise, the norton is nice too, but it is a limited text.

JCamilo

08-21-2011, 12:32 PM

Exactly, what the accomplishment of Bloom's List?

None. He fails, he reckonized it. Inside academy, his reputation wasnt helped much. Anyone could see it was a work of mass generalization of a specialist. For the generation of new readers? They still reading the same works that he attacks, his influence on them seems small and it must piss off that one like Stephenie Meyer was able to give Wuthering Height a burst whie his recent crusade certainly didnt caused much impact. No academic needs to be told about Shakespeare after all. And in most of the case, his message to the average reader was seem as pure snoberry.

For the canon itself? Nothing. He caused some discussion about it, not with the list which pretty much diverged from the books discussion. But then again, discussing the canon is not that useful. Discussing authors yes, but not the canon. It is like defending a restaurant because its menu and not because the food itself.

As tour guide, the museum guide? It would mean nothing if there wasnt the museum, the works which are seem. How loving the works because the guide and not because the works itself?

His list is artificial, non sense. Browning, Lewis Carroll and Conan Doyle are all in the same section. How does the reading of the monologue poetry of Browing, the fantasy of Carroll and the detective stories of Doyle appeal to the same average reader? It does not at all. It is like a tourism guide that takes you at sametime to ice skating and swim in the ocean. As if both appeal to all. Even the classic section. It opens with GIlgamesh and Book of Dead? What the narrative of Gilgamesh and a book about rituals of burial have in commun? And worst, Gilgamesh is not even a book, but several fragments more or less up together in different editions. Yes, in his guide he does not pinpoint to editons of books that existed or are even avaliable. So, if I read the Gilgamesh section in Britania Encyclopedia I have just followed Bloom guide.
Serious, when you want to guide people to read Keats, you tell him to read all that Keats wrote? His complete works? Or Yeats? Or Shakespeare. Sure, lets read Pericles, right?

And this because Bloom himself didnt read his entire list, so he just misses badly places like South America. It is like "Hey, in South America you visit Buenos aires and Brazil, you visit Just Rio de Janeiro!" It is just a bad guide. A failure that Bloom himself regrets.

lawpark

08-21-2011, 02:30 PM

JCamilo

08-21-2011, 03:00 PM

You didnt need a list to get Rushidie name right? He is a world wide famous writer, favorite for nobels for more than a decade, for what? for 20 years he was hunted because a book he wrote. He also have several essays, which being an ok writer, must be interesting and answer your question quite better than well, Indian writers of xx century?
Because after all, how many of them are similar to Rushidie? Probally Kipling...

lawpark

08-22-2011, 10:53 AM

Thank you very much for your list of one name.

Your list happens to have excluded the likes of Tagore and Prem Chand, which I found from a chapter on "Modern Indian Literature" which has lots of other names from a book called "A Cultural History of India" edited by A.L.Basham in 1984. And somehow in THAT list Iqbal name wasn't mentioned (not prominently at least) because he might have been considered Pakistani now ...

aliengirl

08-22-2011, 12:36 PM

Midnight's Children is interesting ... wonder what other good Indian literature in the past several centuries are worth reading.

Oh, but of course, I have to consult some introduction / canon lists created by someone else, which clearly are of no use. Oops! Doomed.

Here is a list of some Indian authors of the past centuries. May be it can be of some use.

Rabindranath Tagore - Gitanjali

Prem Chand - Godan, Niramala, and a collection of his short stories.

Muhammad Iqbal - Bang-e-dara, Bal-e-Jibrael, and Zarb-e-Kaleem are great if you know Urdu. As for his Persian works Armagaan-e-hijaz and Ramooz-e-bekhudi are wonderful. If you are going to read a translation than Bang-e-dara would be best.

(You have mentioned them yourself.)

Now some others -

Ghalib- His verses flow like blood in every Indian's vein. He is clearly the most quoted poet in India. Again it would be better if you can read his original work although some good translations are available.

R.K. Narayan- His novel 'The Guide' is one of the most famous Indian novels. Malgudi Days, Bachelor of Arts and The Vendor of Sweets are other good ones. He portrays a realistic picture of south India while Prem Chand presents the culture of North.

Mulk Raj Anand - Untouchable and Coolie are his best works. A messiah of the downtrodden, Anand's novels can sometimes be too didactic. He portrays the deplorable living conditions of the poor all right but rubs his Marxist philosophy quite hard.

Salman Rushdie- He has been mentioned earlier in this thread.

Arundhati Roy - Her novel 'The God of Small Things' is a must read for anyone interested in Indian literature.

Amitav Ghosh - Ghosh is a contemporary author known for his fiction as well as non-fiction. 'The Shadow Lines' ,'The Hungry Tide', and 'Sea of Poppies' are some of his good works.

Arvind Adiga - Probably you have heard his name. His debut novel 'The White Tiger' won the 2008 Booker Prize and justly so.

And now if you want to go back a few centuries then-

Kalidas - Shakuntala

Veda Vyas - Mahabharata

Tulsidas - Ramayana

This is all I could think of now. I hope you don't feel doomed now, if you like to depend upon this list by some one else.

JCamilo

08-22-2011, 01:18 PM

lawpark

08-22-2011, 05:21 PM

Here is a list of some Indian authors of the past centuries. May be it can be of some use.
Rabindranath Tagore - Gitanjali
Prem Chand - Godan, Niramala, and a collection of his short stories.
Muhammad Iqbal - Bang-e-dara, Bal-e-Jibrael, and Zarb-e-Kaleem are great if you know Urdu. As for his Persian works Armagaan-e-hijaz and Ramooz-e-bekhudi are wonderful. If you are going to read a translation than Bang-e-dara would be best.

(You have mentioned them yourself.)

Now some others -

Ghalib- His verses flow like blood in every Indian's vein. He is clearly the most quoted poet in India. Again it would be better if you can read his original work although some good translations are available.
R.K. Narayan- His novel 'The Guide' is one of the most famous Indian novels. Malgudi Days, Bachelor of Arts and The Vendor of Sweets are other good ones. He portrays a realistic picture of south India while Prem Chand presents the culture of North.
Mulk Raj Anand - Untouchable and Coolie are his best works. A messiah of the downtrodden, Anand's novels can sometimes be too didactic. He portrays the deplorable living conditions of the poor all right but rubs his Marxist philosophy quite hard.
Salman Rushdie- He has been mentioned earlier in this thread.
Arundhati Roy - Her novel 'The God of Small Things' is a must read for anyone interested in Indian literature.
Amitav Ghosh - Ghosh is a contemporary author known for his fiction as well as non-fiction. 'The Shadow Lines' ,'The Hungry Tide', and 'Sea of Poppies' are some of his good works.
Arvind Adiga - Probably you have heard his name. His debut novel 'The White Tiger' won the 2008 Booker Prize and justly so.

And now if you want to go back a few centuries then-

Kalidas - Shakuntala
Veda Vyas - Mahabharata
Tulsidas - Ramayana

This is all I could think of now. I hope you don't feel doomed now, if you like to depend upon this list by some one else.

Thanks for your help. Several questions:

Iqbal - is Javednama any good? I am asking because the English translator's name (A.J. Arberry) I recognize (he is a translator of Quran - his version most used in academia I've heard)

Ghalib - he writes ghazals only? Is there a most read / authoritative collection?

Ramayana - interesting that you recommend the Urdu/Hindi version rather than the Sanskrit (Valmiki) version - how much of a difference there is in two versions? Big difference? Small difference?

mortalterror

08-23-2011, 11:04 AM

Here's a list I've been working on. It's not finished though.

The Eastern Canon
Various (2400-700BC) Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous (1800BC) Story of Sinuhe
Anonymous (1800BC) Epic of Gilgamesh
Anonymous (1600BC) Enuma Elis
Various (1000-700BC) Book of Odes
Kabti-ilani-Marduk (764BC) Epic of Erra
Vyasa (400BC) Mahabharata
Valmiki (350BC) Ramayana
Qu Yuan (340-278BC) and Song Yu (290-223BC) Chu Ci
Vishnu Sharma (300BC) Panchatantra
Sudraka (150BC) The Little Clay Cart
Various (347-759) Manyoshu
Kalidasa (370-450) Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection, Meghaduta
Bhartrhari (450) Satakatraya
Various (550) Mu'allaqat
Bharavi (550) Kiratarjuniya
Muhammad (570-632) Quran
Dandin (600) The Adventures of the Ten Princes
Wang Wei (699-759) Poems
Bhavabhuti (700) Málati and Mádhava
Amaru (700) Amarusataka
Li Bai (701-762) Poems
Du Fu (712-770) The Song of the Wagons
Han-shan (730-850) Cold Mountain Poems
Bai Juyi (772-846) Song of Unending Sorrow, Song of the Lute Player
Various (800-920) Kokinshu
Rudaki (858-941) Poems
Various (900-1300) One Thousand and One Nights
Al-Mutanabbi (915-965) Poems
Li Houzhu (937-978) Poems
Ferdowsi (940-1020) Shahnameh
Sei Shonagon (966-1017) The Pillow Book
Murasaki Shikibu (973-1025) Tale of Genji
Nasir Khusraw (1004-1088) Poems
Su Shi (1037-1101) Poems
Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) Rubaiyat
Vidyakara (1050-1130) Treasury of Verses
Moses Ibn Ezra (1055-1138) Diwan
Judah Halevi (1075-1141) Poems
Khaqani (1121-1190) Gift of the Two Iraqs
Anvari (1126-1189) Tears of Khorasan
Nezami (1141-1209) Khamsa
Attar (1145-1221) Conference of the Birds
Kamban (1150) Ramavataram
Sa'di (1184-1283) Gulistan, Bostan
Jayadeva (1200) Gita Govinda
Rumi (1207-1273) Masnavi
Fakhruddin Iraqi (1213-1289) Divine Flashes
Guan Hanqing (1225-1302) Injustice to Dou E
Bai Renfu (1226-1306) Rain on the Paulownia Tree
Wang Shifu (1250-1307) Romance of the Western Chamber
Ma Zhiyuan (1250-1321) Autumn in Han Palace
Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) Second Divan
Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350) Essays in Idleness
Shi Nai'an (1296-1372) Water Margin
Gao Zecheng (1305-1368) Romance of the Lute
Hafez (1329-1380) Divan
Luo Guanzhong (1330-1400) Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Ubayd Zakani (d.1370) Ethics of the Aristocrats
Jami (1414-1492) Haft Awrang
Kabir (1440-1518) Songs
Ali-Shir Nava'i (1441-1501) Poetry
Fuzuli (1483-1556) Diwan
Wu Cheng'en (1500-1582) Journey To the West
Baki (1526-1600) Elegy for His Excellency Suleyman Khan
Tulsidas (1532-1623) The Ramcharitmanasa
Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) The Peony Pavilion
Sa'ib (1601-1677) The Campaign Against Qandahar
Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (1610) Jin Ping Mei
Pu Songling (1640-1715) Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) Narrow Road to the Deep North
Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) The Battles of Coxinga
Takeda Izumo (1691-1756) Chushingura
Cao Xueqin (1715-1763) Dream of The Red Chamber
Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810) Ghazals
Nguyen Du (1766-1820) The Tale of Kieu
Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) Ghazals
Qa'ani (1808-1854) Elegy for Imam Hussein
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Gitanjali
Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) Kokoro
Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) Wings of Gabriel
Lu Xun (1881-1936) Ah Q - The Real Story
Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) The Makioka Sisters
Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) The Hell Screen
Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) Snow Country
Sadegh Hedayat (1903-1951) The Blind Owl
R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) The Financial Expert
Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) The Sea of Fertility
Adunis (1930-) Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs
V.S. Naipaul (1932-) A House For Mr. Biswas
Salman Rushdie (1947-) Midnight's Children
Haruki Murakami (1949-) The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
Orhan Pamuk (1952-) My Name is Red
Khaled Hosseini (1965-) The Kite Runner

JBI

08-23-2011, 04:31 PM

Well, let me propose a question, any takers on some close reading of any of these texts? Yelling about Canon's is one thing, but if there are any takers at actually conquering some of these texts, and of those, anyone who wishes to do it as a discussion, please speak up. As it is, it's cool to jump up and list names, but lets see if we can get a discussion going. I, for instance, would be more than happy finally getting a discussion on something other than classic English novelists or traditional humanist education.

So, let me propose this, any takers? If so, do you think we could have something similar to what goes on in the poetry section?

Alexander III

08-23-2011, 06:41 PM

Paulclem

08-23-2011, 06:51 PM

Vyasa (400BC) Mahabharata
Valmiki (350BC) Ramayana

These are huge, but the Bhaghavad Gita is quite short, as is Basho's The Narrow Road to The Deep North. Midnight's children is great, as is Orhan Pamuk and Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat.

We could start another thread or propose that the eastern canon be included in the Book Club after the current raft has finished.

It would be good to get the input of those Litnetters from these traditions, or people who have studied them.

Alexander III

08-23-2011, 06:58 PM

Another little quibble I have with Eastern cannon - is the inclusion of turkish writers, and even Ottoman ones. The turks have much more in common with the west than they do with China or South east Asia.

mortalterror

08-23-2011, 11:58 PM

So, let me propose this, any takers? If so, do you think we could have something similar to what goes on in the poetry section?

Oh, you mean like when a bunch of people who know nothing about the subject ignore every aesthetic aspect of a work and continually harp on the antiquated morality of the time it was written, start debating theology, which they know even less about, complain for several pages about the need for translations, then StLuke posts a bunch of pretty pictures inspired by the work and the whole thread gets derailed into talking about the pictures? Count me in.

JBI

08-24-2011, 12:12 AM

Oh, you mean like when a bunch of people who know nothing about the subject ignore every aesthetic aspect of a work and continually harp on the antiquated morality of the time it was written, start debating theology, which they know even less about, complain for several pages about the need for translations, then StLuke posts a bunch of pretty pictures inspired by the work and the whole thread gets derailed into talking about the pictures? Count me in.

Welcome back to the party :p

lawpark

08-24-2011, 07:50 AM

Here's a list I've been working on. It's not finished though.

Various (1000-700BC) Book of Odes
Qu Yuan (340-278BC) and Song Yu (290-223BC) Chu Ci
Wang Wei (699-759) Poems
Li Bai (701-762) Poems
Du Fu (712-770) The Song of the Wagons
Han-shan (730-850) Cold Mountain Poems
Bai Juyi (772-846) Song of Unending Sorrow, Song of the Lute Player
Li Houzhu (937-978) Poems
Su Shi (1037-1101) Poems
Guan Hanqing (1225-1302) Injustice to Dou E
Bai Renfu (1226-1306) Rain on the Paulownia Tree
Wang Shifu (1250-1307) Romance of the Western Chamber
Ma Zhiyuan (1250-1321) Autumn in Han Palace
Gao Zecheng (1305-1368) Romance of the Lute
Luo Guanzhong (1330-1400) Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Wu Cheng'en (1500-1582) Journey To the West
Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) The Peony Pavilion
Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (1610) Jin Ping Mei
Pu Songling (1640-1715) Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio
Cao Xueqin (1715-1763) Dream of The Red Chamber
Lu Xun (1881-1936) Ah Q - The Real Story

Looking at this Chinese portion - huge time gap between Chu Ci and Wang Wei ... and quite a bit on the yuan songs / dramas and vernacular novels.
The interesting thing to me, is that your sources' do not like Du Fu (otherwise wouldn't just pick one poem rather than selecting all for Li Bai and Wang Wei). Du Fu is considered the poet in traditional China, though I have to confess that I personally enjoy Wang Wei a lot more than Du Fu. Li Bai clearly has great literary qualities - but somehow the personality that shines through is not as interesting to me. Su Shi is an all-rounded genius ... the literary quality of his work may not be as refined (in my view) as Wang Wei, but Su Shi's intellectual capacity is way broader, and shows a personality that is much easier for Chinese intellectuals to identify with. Li Houzu is good read, but not much works left - and the appreciation of his works intrinsically ties to the fact that he was a king of a polity and his best works were written in captivity. Han Shan poems - more didactic - in my view not very strong (despite it is a different style for sure) literarily speaking. I have interest in Han Shan mostly because he probably wrote from the cultural milieu of a Tiantai (Buddhism) efflorescense that happened in the second half of the 8th century. Bai Juyi is more literary than Han Shan, and the long poems are famous - yet the total of Bai's output are probably less interesting than that of a Su Shi or Wang Wei or Li Bai.

So among the poems portion of the list, my favorites are Wang Wei and Su Shi.

JCamilo

08-24-2011, 08:10 AM

mortalterror

08-24-2011, 10:53 AM

The interesting thing to me, is that your sources' do not like Du Fu (otherwise wouldn't just pick one poem rather than selecting all for Li Bai and Wang Wei). Du Fu is considered the poet in traditional China, though I have to confess that I personally enjoy Wang Wei a lot more than Du Fu.

I know that. It's just that is my favorite of his poems. Where I suggest that someone read all of a given author's poems it is because I'm not as familiar with their work and couldn't single one out.

So, you think when Stlukes starts to post pics is because he is trolling?:biggrin5:

It's not that he's trolling. It's more like his artistic sensibilities are those of a painter. It's his training, his comfort zone, which he frequently falls back on, rather than coming at a text from a more literary angle such as JBI would choose, or from a historical angle like perhaps Petrarch's love might adopt, or even from a psychological one such as Virgil might use. Those are all valid methods of analysis. Stluke just happens to think in pictures, and when he shares his thoughts he's a bit of a show off. It's not his fault that people are idiots who get distracted by shiny things and then can't remember what they are there for.

aliengirl

08-24-2011, 11:40 AM

Thanks for your help. Several questions:

Iqbal - is Javednama any good? I am asking because the English translator's name (A.J. Arberry) I recognize (he is a translator of Quran - his version most used in academia I've heard)

Ghalib - he writes ghazals only? Is there a most read / authoritative collection?

Ramayana - interesting that you recommend the Urdu/Hindi version rather than the Sanskrit (Valmiki) version - how much of a difference there is in two versions? Big difference? Small difference?

Welcome. :) It seems that you are acquainted with Indian writers, even those who do not write in English. If you know Urdu/Hindi then you are at a vantage point. Now for your questions:

Iqbal - I forgot to mention Javednama perhaps because I've not read it. I've mentioned only those books (or authors) whom I've read. Iqbal is not called 'the Poet of the East' for nothing. All of his works are splendid. If Javednama is available then go for it.

Ghalib- You're right that he wrote only ghazal but his creativity was not limited to it. His personal letters have been collected and published in two voulmes - Aud-e-Hindi and Urdu-e-Mua'lla. They are considered classics in their own field and are widely read. The authoritative collection of poetry is called Diwan-e-Ghalib which is available in translations.

Ramayana - To tell you the truth I've not read the original Ramayana by Tulsidas (for it is written in Awadhi) or by Valmiki. I've read its modern Hindi version. But I don't think that there is any basic plot difference between Valmiki's Ramayana and that of Tulsidas.

JBI

08-24-2011, 12:46 PM

Looking at this Chinese portion - huge time gap between Chu Ci and Wang Wei ... and quite a bit on the yuan songs / dramas and vernacular novels.
The interesting thing to me, is that your sources' do not like Du Fu (otherwise wouldn't just pick one poem rather than selecting all for Li Bai and Wang Wei). Du Fu is considered the poet in traditional China, though I have to confess that I personally enjoy Wang Wei a lot more than Du Fu. Li Bai clearly has great literary qualities - but somehow the personality that shines through is not as interesting to me. Su Shi is an all-rounded genius ... the literary quality of his work may not be as refined (in my view) as Wang Wei, but Su Shi's intellectual capacity is way broader, and shows a personality that is much easier for Chinese intellectuals to identify with. Li Houzu is good read, but not much works left - and the appreciation of his works intrinsically ties to the fact that he was a king of a polity and his best works were written in captivity. Han Shan poems - more didactic - in my view not very strong (despite it is a different style for sure) literarily speaking. I have interest in Han Shan mostly because he probably wrote from the cultural milieu of a Tiantai (Buddhism) efflorescense that happened in the second half of the 8th century. Bai Juyi is more literary than Han Shan, and the long poems are famous - yet the total of Bai's output are probably less interesting than that of a Su Shi or Wang Wei or Li Bai.

So among the poems portion of the list, my favorites are Wang Wei and Su Shi.

As for who is the greater poet, Du Fu or Li Bai, that is such a Western debate - both are so different, and so incredible, that such comparisons are not necessary - it is more interesting to feel how they both reacted and experienced a rather turbulent time period completely differently.

On another note, Li Bai does it for me far more - reading his poems (in Chinese) gives a feeling unlike any other - he seems like a wizard almost, so simple, but so magical, with such a nuanced understanding of layering and subtle associative elements.

As for the debate, it is rather pointless, different poets speak to different audiences, I still like Du Fu, but I generally am far more enthralled by the more romantic poems of the Chinese tradition then the rhetorical artwork and realism of the more dense poets - satirical poetry doesn't do it for me much either, which is what the Shi eventually ended up as because of the dominance of such tropes.

As for Ci poets - with the exception of Su Shi, most are underrepresented in English - I am not even sure such basic anthologies such as 300 Song Ci even have been translated.

Still, if I needed to choose, with the exception of a half dozen or so Su Shi poems I absolutely love, I tend to find the more romantic Liu Yong or Li Qingzhao far more interesting - no doubt he was a great mind, and no doubt an excellent artist in almost every field, but something in much of his (Su Shi's) poetry feels contrived to me, as if he is pretending, and not well. All poets lie of course, but it feels weird to not believe it for the duration of the poem.

As for pre-tang poets - well, with the exception of a few translations, the bulk remain rather unheard of. Buddhist studies did great works with some buddhist poets, but in general, they started with Tang writers. With the exception of Confucius, Qu Yuan, and Tao Yuanming very little is available in English from the early poets (to my knowledge) and much less are focused. I am unaware of a translation of much of the poems from the Han through Sui, and have only found one really good translation of such seminal poems as 孔雀东南飞 which was buried at the top of an essay in a literary journal from I believe the 70's.

Post-Tang and especially post-Song has not done much better, in fact, up until contemporary poetry there is roughly no representation in translation. Arguably, Chinese people themselves seem to prefer Tang and Song poetry above all else, but still it would be nice to at least have some awareness.

Still, prose is far less represented with the exception of novels. The 8 Neo-Classical masters have been translated forever (in a rather nice bilingual text) but are still more or less unread. Still, it would be nice if more simple prose works, like the well translated poet Tao Yuanming's great prose work 桃花源记 (peach blossom source record) which provides an interesting contrast to something like More's Utopia, and might as well be discussed along side it.

The whole tradition of 散文 seems to be neglected in terms of Western readership. I think this is primarily because Western readers do not like prose artwork, even their own.

That's the biggest problem, genre - most readers only are looking for some Zen 3rd age nonsense, or for novels. The more subtle arts are all lost on people not looking for them. To me reading Wang Wei as a "Buddhist poet" and searching for his buddhist secrets is rather cheap since, though Buddhism is central to his thought, he is still writing poetics, and should be enjoyed in that respect too - he is somehow greater and more dynamic, less easily pinned down, but alas, he is reduced, like how they tried to reduce Li Bai and Du Fu, but failed since those are far more chaotic poets.

lawpark

08-24-2011, 12:46 PM

Welcome. :) It seems that you are acquainted with Indian writers, even those who do not write in English. If you know Urdu/Hindi then you are at a vantage point. Now for your questions:

Iqbal - I forgot to mention Javednama perhaps because I've not read it. I've mentioned only those books (or authors) whom I've read. Iqbal is not called 'the Poet of the East' for nothing. All of his works are splendid. If Javednama is available then go for it.

Ghalib- You're right that he wrote only ghazal but his creativity was not limited to it. His personal letters have been collected and published in two voulmes - Aud-e-Hindi and Urdu-e-Mua'lla. They are considered classics in their own field and are widely read. The authoritative collection of poetry is called Diwan-e-Ghalib which is available in translations.

Ramayana - To tell you the truth I've not read the original Ramayana by Tulsidas (for it is written in Awadhi) or by Valmiki. I've read its modern Hindi version. But I don't think that there is any basic plot difference between Valmiki's Ramayana and that of Tulsidas.

I am only "acquainted" to the extent I read some introductory essays to Indian literature ... tried to learn Sanskrit in college - dropped out after one quarter; tried pick up Hindi / Urdu in my late 20's - did not move beyond the first few lessons; now consider myself too old to learn Hindi / Urdu.

Some findings from my "sniffing around":

Site on Iqbal - translated version of Javednama is online free
http://www.allamaiqbal.com/

Looks like this is a good Ghalib book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195692381/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=A21P482E31ZZ9P

Was writing blog as just my own notes on my "sniffing around" on Indian Literature lists I have been reading:
http://lawpark.jimdo.com/2011/08/21/key-figures-in-modern-indian-literature/

lawpark

08-24-2011, 04:40 PM

As for who is the greater poet, Du Fu or Li Bai, that is such a Western debate - both are so different, and so incredible, that such comparisons are not necessary - it is more interesting to feel how they both reacted and experienced a rather turbulent time period completely differently.

Agree with you on your sentiment, but have to add that it was actually a huge debate within the Chinese tradition - pick up any Shi Hua (诗话) ("Discussions on Poetry") and loads and loads of comments about Li vs. Du, Su vs. Huang ... pretty amazing.

On another note, Li Bai does it for me far more - reading his poems (in Chinese) gives a feeling unlike any other - he seems like a wizard almost, so simple, but so magical, with such a nuanced understanding of layering and subtle associative elements.

Agreed. Li also does more for me. In fact, I would say, somehow Du just does not work for me most of the time. Even many of those selected in "300 Tang Poems" does not work for me.

Still, if I needed to choose, with the exception of a half dozen or so Su Shi poems I absolutely love, I tend to find the more romantic Liu Yong or Li Qingzhao far more interesting - no doubt he was a great mind, and no doubt an excellent artist in almost every field, but something in much of his (Su Shi's) poetry feels contrived to me, as if he is pretending, and not well. All poets lie of course, but it feels weird to not believe it for the duration of the poem.

About whether Su Shi is pretending ... ultimately one needs to decide for oneself. After reading some famous shi or ci many times, I have to say sometimes I have to say I have the same feeling ... e.g. 莫听穿林打雨声. If one believe his "innocense" - also well attested by contemporary accounts, it is great; but if one sees him as a celebrity (he was a celebrity back then), it is harder to say.

As for pre-tang poets - well, with the exception of a few translations, the bulk remain rather unheard of. Buddhist studies did great works with some buddhist poets, but in general, they started with Tang writers. With the exception of Confucius, Qu Yuan, and Tao Yuanming very little is available in English from the early poets (to my knowledge) and much less are focused. I am unaware of a translation of much of the poems from the Han through Sui, and have only found one really good translation of such seminal poems as 孔雀东南飞 which was buried at the top of an essay in a literary journal from I believe the 70's.

I believe many of these issues are with the current Chinese view of its own tradition - yes, except for Tao Yuanming and the 19 Gu Shi - the other works are really not as central to the Chinese canon (at least as it is represented in curriculums and popular writings). I used to have a complaint (still does) that the poetic prose (the 4-6 style prose) and Buddhist writings wasn't really taught to me in high school - thus making things much harder to understand. I personally spent probably a decade on getting myself literate on Buddhist writings; can't say I have done the same for poetic prose - which often still puzzles me.

Still, prose is far less represented with the exception of novels. The 8 Neo-Classical masters have been translated forever (in a rather nice bilingual text) but are still more or less unread. Still, it would be nice if more simple prose works, like the well translated poet Tao Yuanming's great prose work 桃花源记 (peach blossom source record) which provides an interesting contrast to something like More's Utopia, and might as well be discussed along side it

The 8 Masters ... I heard someone say (I kinda believe) that those masters are actually important thinkers that somehow cannot fit in with the Zhu Xi Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy, and the "8 masters" is a good way for the tradition to remember these 8 guys - well, since they are not Zhu Xi type, instead of thinkers / philosophers, let's call them literati, as they themselves believe in "use of literature to carry the message / Way". The 3 Su's are hated by Zhu Xi, but no one wants to throw them away. Wang An Shi was even hated by more people because of politics, but he was a great personality that people also don't want to forget.

The whole tradition of 散文 seems to be neglected in terms of Western readership. I think this is primarily because Western readers do not like prose artwork, even their own.

Interesting observation - Bacon and Montaigne are probably canonical writers in name only, that is not much read. As elsewhere poetry is more reputable ... but as the Western tradition changes language a few times, and as it is much harder to translate poetry (especially short lyrical poetry) across languages, the tradition I think gives a lot more weight to Epics and Drama (still has a story and structure, but also non-prose) over other forms.

That's the biggest problem, genre - most readers only are looking for some Zen 3rd age nonsense, or for novels. The more subtle arts are all lost on people not looking for them. To me reading Wang Wei as a "Buddhist poet" and searching for his buddhist secrets is rather cheap since, though Buddhism is central to his thought, he is still writing poetics, and should be enjoyed in that respect too - he is somehow greater and more dynamic, less easily pinned down, but alas, he is reduced, like how they tried to reduce Li Bai and Du Fu, but failed since those are far more chaotic poets.
Cannot agree more - and in any case I feel people are actually confused by the artistic stage Wang Wei portrays and confuses that with Zen enlightenment - they have similarity but are distinct. In that, I personally subscribe to distinction made by Mou Zong-san.

If you are truly interested. My view on a Chinese forum (#302-309)
http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=239630&extra=&page=21

Mr.lucifer

08-24-2011, 06:30 PM

Are there any good translations of Chinese Poetry?

ralfyman

09-02-2011, 06:33 AM

Exactly, what the accomplishment of Bloom's List?

The issue isn't whether or not he accomplished anything but the logic of coming up with a list of works to read. The most obvious reason for doing so is that one can't read everything.

None. He fails, he reckonized it. Inside academy, his reputation wasnt helped much. Anyone could see it was a work of mass generalization of a specialist. For the generation of new readers? They still reading the same works that he attacks, his influence on them seems small and it must piss off that one like Stephenie Meyer was able to give Wuthering Height a burst whie his recent crusade certainly didnt caused much impact. No academic needs to be told about Shakespeare after all. And in most of the case, his message to the average reader was seem as pure snoberry.

But the formation of a canon that attempts to encompass various cultures is supposed to be "mass generalization."

About readers still going through the same works that he attacks, that's doesn't anything about his list. What it does say is the ability of readers to be swayed easily by marketing. As for Meyer referring to _Wuthering Heights_, that actually leads credence to Bloom, not the opposite. The same goes for celebrities like Oprah recommending Tolstoy.

In which case, the argument that he is a snob is valid. How else would someone who has read little of what Bloom recommends react?

For the canon itself? Nothing. He caused some discussion about it, not with the list which pretty much diverged from the books discussion. But then again, discussing the canon is not that useful. Discussing authors yes, but not the canon. It is like defending a restaurant because its menu and not because the food itself.

But not everyone can try all of the food in all restaurants for one reason or another. That's why we have restaurant critics. The same goes for literature critics.

As tour guide, the museum guide? It would mean nothing if there wasnt the museum, the works which are seem. How loving the works because the guide and not because the works itself?

The problem is that one cannot know everything about the contents of a museum unless one refers to readings about their contents and guides.

The issue, then, isn't that tour guides would be useless without museums but the other way round.

His list is artificial, non sense. Browning, Lewis Carroll and Conan Doyle are all in the same section. How does the reading of the monologue poetry of Browing, the fantasy of Carroll and the detective stories of Doyle appeal to the same average reader? It does not at all. It is like a tourism guide that takes you at sametime to ice skating and swim in the ocean. As if both appeal to all. Even the classic section. It opens with GIlgamesh and Book of Dead? What the narrative of Gilgamesh and a book about rituals of burial have in commun? And worst, Gilgamesh is not even a book, but several fragments more or less up together in different editions. Yes, in his guide he does not pinpoint to editons of books that existed or are even avaliable. So, if I read the Gilgamesh section in Britania Encyclopedia I have just followed Bloom guide.

All lists are artificial, and even choices people make based on marketing are the same. And like marketing, critics can make mistakes.

The fact that you disagree with the presence of _Gilgamesh_ and _The Book of the Dead_ shows that you are, like Bloom, a critic. Thus, why do you believe that the function of coming up with a list of canonical works is irrelevant when you implicitly do the same, i.e., exclude _Gilgamesh_, etc?

Finally, if you're saying that reading, say, the GBWW is similar to following Bloom, then doesn't that show the sensibility in what Bloom did and not, as you insist, the opposite?

Serious, when you want to guide people to read Keats, you tell him to read all that Keats wrote? His complete works? Or Yeats? Or Shakespeare. Sure, lets read Pericles, right?

Certainly not, especially when one won't have the time to read all of Keats' works. But are you saying that Bloom's list isn't worth noting because he didn't specify which works by Keats to read? If so, then why not add to his list by choosing such works?

And this because Bloom himself didnt read his entire list, so he just misses badly places like South America. It is like "Hey, in South America you visit Buenos aires and Brazil, you visit Just Rio de Janeiro!" It is just a bad guide. A failure that Bloom himself regrets.

Probably, which is why I always look at different lists and anthologies. In any case, even those other lists may have flaws. The same goes for anything recommended through heavy marketing.

ralfyman

09-02-2011, 06:38 AM

The best advice one can give is just read around books you like - then you are sure to like what you do - recommendations are nice, but even Bloom has a limit, likewise, the norton is nice too, but it is a limited text.

I think that advice is irrelevant because it's possible most people do that. Very likely, what they read is what is heavily marketed and also sufficiently short, with stories that are easy to follow, clear-cut characters, and a satisfying ending.

In which case, for most people, what Bloom recommends would not even be standard or limiting but the opposite.

It's even worse for more who won't even read as much and just, say, watch film or TV versions.

JCamilo

09-02-2011, 09:27 AM

The issue isn't whether or not he accomplished anything but the logic of coming up with a list of works to read. The most obvious reason for doing so is that one can't read everything.

It is not logical to give someone a list of works and then say it is not a good guide, as you cannt read everything, so you would have to produce another list, narrowing it, and go on, in some short of modern version of Zeno Paradox, when you cut in half something infinite task, hoping to accomply it in finite time.

But the formation of a canon that attempts to encompass various cultures is supposed to be "mass generalization."

No, the formation of a list that pretends to represent the canon is a mass generalization. And it fails.
The Canon itself is neither a mass generalization or even someone you can define.

About readers still going through the same works that he attacks, that's doesn't anything about his list. What it does say is the ability of readers to be swayed easily by marketing. As for Meyer referring to _Wuthering Heights_, that actually leads credence to Bloom, not the opposite. The same goes for celebrities like Oprah recommending Tolstoy.

No sense. It is bloom ironic failure. He combats Meyer (and a few others) because they take away the reading of canonical books (or good books) and Meyer's book (not even her personal merit, but the merit of how market explores the public meyer gathered) give a boost of new readers of a classical book, promoting the re-edition of Wuthering heights, etc. Meanwhile, Bloom book had no effect on market, didnt provoked a boost of new editions of anyone, didnt moved readers to a new layer of reading (even because the public of Bloom is already formed by readers with some experience which will not have any trouble to guide themselves on a library) and what remains is his list, that some people may indulge (and quickly dismiss) the idea of following it as a guide. But any day that you start with the Book of Dead and jump to Gilgamesh, you are lost.

In which case, the argument that he is a snob is valid. How else would someone who has read little of what Bloom recommends react?

I do not think it is a problem being a snob, per si. Does not affect me, I am a snob. We are all snobs. But ssshhh, dont advertise. The problem is that Bloom sounds like a snob and do not conect with the new readers, the exactly public he in fact wanted to change. And because the commerical nature of "The Western Canon" (book) he moved away even from his previous academic public, people already confortable with the notion of classical books, more interessed in theorical discussion and able to produce their own reading options.

But not everyone can try all of the food in all restaurants for one reason or another. That's why we have restaurant critics. The same goes for literature critics.

Yes, and see, Restaurant critics talk about the dishes, not the list of dishes. Critical work is basically good when they can analyse works that are not exactly unknow and find something new. A List becasically is a repetition of titles, no critical work. I am not against the Bloom's essays (not specifically, he has some good essays, not exceptional) but just like him, the object of listing.

Let's say if Lawpark decides to read Bloom's chapters is Western Canon he may hear about Fernando Pessoa and be interessed, because Lawpark may be interessed on Whitman, maybe Neruda... maybe in latin-languages, all informations that are not in the list. But if he see Pessoa name in a list, mixed with all rest there, what is to spark his interest? The collector interest to fill the list?

The problem is that one cannot know everything about the contents of a museum unless one refers to readings about their contents and guides.

No doubt. So, there is much to read it. The guide in the museum is just a how to walk here, not how to love art. Specially because art works themselves are better suited to express this than a guide.

The issue, then, isn't that tour guides would be useless without museums but the other way round.

What? Museum Guide would not be useless without the museums? That is why when they change the exposition inside the museum they just change the guide? I am very sure, Museums predates their guiding tour guides and many will still working if the guides are vanished from the face of earth. While a guiding tour to a Museum that does not exist is useful for what?

All lists are artificial, and even choices people make based on marketing are the same. And like marketing, critics can make mistakes.

The fact that you disagree with the presence of _Gilgamesh_ and _The Book of the Dead_ shows that you are, like Bloom, a critic. Thus, why do you believe that the function of coming up with a list of canonical works is irrelevant when you implicitly do the same, i.e., exclude _Gilgamesh_, etc?

You are mistaking: I am not against critics and I am not against the inclusion of those two works. In fact, I have editions of both, so if I made a list of my books they would be there. My point is how mislead is a list - a supposed guide - can be putting two works completelly different as if they have similarities. You know, one of the reasons we cann't read everything is simple because we do not like everything. We have the tendency to search for similarities, you have done it before "Oh, you liked Conan Doyle? Try Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie" and this is more true in inexperient readers (those whould benefict from a guide). And bloom list, just lump together different works (which is a bummer, you know, you expect to read an epic narrative and get some afterlife manual) without giving any information about it, to really guide you.
And then, the same way we cann't read everything, bloom didnt and he cann't give any information about it. And you end with the only option: blindly follow the list, trying to read part of everything, or just dismiss it and search for yourself more information based on your experience.

Finally, if you're saying that reading, say, the GBWW is similar to following Bloom, then doesn't that show the sensibility in what Bloom did and not, as you insist, the opposite?

There is no sensiblity. It was more an mnemonic exercise for him in that list. A sensible list would reckon differences, would demand more studies, etc. Bloom was in fact careless in his list. I expect, the museum guide to be much better.

Certainly not, especially when one won't have the time to read all of Keats' works. But are you saying that Bloom's list isn't worth noting because he didn't specify which works by Keats to read? If so, then why not add to his list by choosing such works?

That is obviously the only option. But by them, someone may have stuck on Hyperion and think "Wow, this poem sucks and it is big. I saw that movie with the pretty girl, there was pretty poems there, none sucked as this one" and goodbye, Keats.
Anyways, I am just pointing Bloom wasnt even careful to really guide you - twhich would be point which works are better for a start... Keats is just an example, he fills with complete works everywhere, do not indicate good translations, etc.

Probably, which is why I always look at different lists and anthologies. In any case, even those other lists may have flaws. The same goes for anything recommended through heavy marketing.

But it seems to me that you have already information to guide yourself to the point you can pick flaws in lists and expand your information beyond it. This is not a guide to someone who is just giving his first kicks in the ball.

lawpark

09-02-2011, 10:32 PM

Now I finally understand J's point better ... J is not against all lists (which I took as J's position up till just now), but against a list without any guidance.

I tried to be "guided" by Bloom in Shakespeare ... but unfortunately I still feel what he wrote is just hyper-exageration.

J - you know of any good "guides" of Romance (French, Spanish, Italian, Portugues) literature? Seems like you are the expert in the area.

JCamilo

09-03-2011, 12:18 AM

Yes, in the end, a good list, would not look like one and more like the chat we have here...

I am not an expert, but there is lineage that is good Eco (I like the selection of essays on About Literature) --> Italo Calvino ---> Borges. In the end, from Borges you will get a great vision on spanish literature. Portuguese sadly is not well guided, at all. Very ignored outside portuguese speakers. French is soo popular and prolific that is a bigger swamp. It is probally the most complex of all european traditions. It depends much on who do you like in French universe...

kinesj

09-03-2011, 07:09 AM

TU FU is among the greatest poets of any canon, eastern or otherwise.

lawpark

09-03-2011, 08:59 AM

lawpark

09-03-2011, 09:00 AM

TU FU is among the greatest poets of any canon, eastern or otherwise.

I beg to differ ... I think he is very "divisive" in a way - there are just quite some people who are taught to like him but really couldn't. Especially vs. Li Bai and Wang Wei ...

joelavine

09-03-2011, 09:33 AM

An east meets west canon: Or is it west meets east:

The Royal Chronicles of the Incas by Garcilaso de la Vega (la Inca). The author, the son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador, should not be confused with the Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega.

kinesj

09-05-2011, 02:59 PM

I beg to differ ... I think he is very "divisive" in a way - there are just quite some people who are taught to like him but really couldn't. Especially vs. Li Bai and Wang Wei ...

Li Bai and Wang Wei are fantastic as well, Tu Fu just happens to be my favorite. There isn't a single writer, eastern or otherwise, to whom the phrase ". . .some people who are taught to like him but really couldn't" does not apply.

JBI

09-05-2011, 03:19 PM

Li Bai and Wang Wei are fantastic as well, Tu Fu just happens to be my favorite. There isn't a single writer, eastern or otherwise, to whom the phrase ". . .some people who are taught to like him but really couldn't" does not apply.

Still, with poetry I find I turn more to specific poems than poets as the best moments, for instance, something like this works wonderfully regardless of the rather insignificance of the author's total oeuvre.

新裂齐纨素，皎洁如霜雪。
裁作合欢扇，团圆似明月。
出入君怀袖，动摇微风发；
常恐秋节至，凉飚夺炎热；

The poem resonates, and that is how Chinese poetry works in general, and anthologies work in general - most poets write only a handful of excellent works, and the rest is usually discarded. To say Du Fu is the best or something is irrelevant - you mean about 20-30 or so poems of Du Fu, with the best being about 5-10. The same with any major poet.

kinesj

09-05-2011, 09:31 PM

To say Du Fu is the best or something is irrelevant

I never said, nor meant to imply, that he was the best, rather just that he was one of my favorites and certainly a worthy candidate for canonical status. I agree completely with your comment about individual poems, but I found it easier and perhaps more efficient to contribute to the thread with one great poet that was yet to be mentioned.

JBI

09-05-2011, 09:38 PM

I never said, nor meant to imply, that he was the best, rather just that he was one of my favorites and certainly a worthy candidate for canonical status. I agree completely with your comment about individual poems, but I found it easier and perhaps more efficient to contribute to the thread with one great poet that was yet to be mentioned.

True, true, though he was mentioned several times on this thread.

lawpark

09-05-2011, 10:57 PM

Still, with poetry I find I turn more to specific poems than poets as the best moments, for instance, something like this works wonderfully regardless of the rather insignificance of the author's total oeuvre.

新裂齐纨素，皎洁如霜雪。
裁作合欢扇，团圆似明月。
出入君怀袖，动摇微风发；
常恐秋节至，凉飚夺炎热；

The poem resonates, and that is how Chinese poetry works in general, and anthologies work in general - most poets write only a handful of excellent works, and the rest is usually discarded. To say Du Fu is the best or something is irrelevant - you mean about 20-30 or so poems of Du Fu, with the best being about 5-10. The same with any major poet.

- I don't recognize the poem you quote - it reads a little artificial ...d probably uses too many words to my taste. Who was the author?

- Agreed that even among the Tang poets, there are folks like 王之涣 with two poems, and 王昌龄 who probably are not that prolific, yet has some really good works comparable wtih any top poets.

kinesj

09-05-2011, 11:39 PM

True, true, though he was mentioned several times on this thread.

I now realize that, and I'm honestly uncertain how I'd missed it, mea culpa.

JBI

09-07-2011, 12:18 AM

- I don't recognize the poem you quote - it reads a little artificial ...d probably uses too many words to my taste. Who was the author?

- Agreed that even among the Tang poets, there are folks like 王之涣 with two poems, and 王昌龄 who probably are not that prolific, yet has some really good works comparable wtih any top poets.

Consort Ban(班婕妤), it's where the idea of the autumn fan comes from - her invention. As biography suggests, she was abandoned by the emperor and left to brood. And hence, wrote the poem. The best part is her snide remark for her successor at the end.

lawpark

09-07-2011, 12:30 PM

Thanks. If it was Consort Ban(班婕妤) then I would retract my comments for "artificial" - as I was guessing it is done by a later men-poet. And since she is chronologically very early, it would be asking too much for her to be ultra-minimalist in her use of words.

ralfyman

10-22-2011, 10:15 AM

It is not logical to give someone a list of works and then say it is not a good guide, as you cannt read everything, so you would have to produce another list, narrowing it, and go on, in some short of modern version of Zeno Paradox, when you cut in half something infinite task, hoping to accomply it in finite time.

If Meyer can do that, why not Bloom?

No, the formation of a list that pretends to represent the canon is a mass generalization. And it fails.
The Canon itself is neither a mass generalization or even someone you can define.

I think any selection of works can be considered a "mass generalization," including a list of the most popular books based on sales.

No sense. It is bloom ironic failure. He combats Meyer (and a few others) because they take away the reading of canonical books (or good books) and Meyer's book (not even her personal merit, but the merit of how market explores the public meyer gathered) give a boost of new readers of a classical book, promoting the re-edition of Wuthering heights, etc. Meanwhile, Bloom book had no effect on market, didnt provoked a boost of new editions of anyone, didnt moved readers to a new layer of reading (even because the public of Bloom is already formed by readers with some experience which will not have any trouble to guide themselves on a library) and what remains is his list, that some people may indulge (and quickly dismiss) the idea of following it as a guide. But any day that you start with the Book of Dead and jump to Gilgamesh, you are lost.

I think your point is that Bloom has to find a way to encourage Meyer's readers to appreciate "classical" books without angering them. But I think that has never worked. Likely, Meyer's fans will look for "classical" books that resemble Meyer's works. I suppose beggar's can be choosers, but I don't see why this should discourage people like Bloom from getting angry and speaking up.

I do not think it is a problem being a snob, per si. Does not affect me, I am a snob. We are all snobs. But ssshhh, dont advertise. The problem is that Bloom sounds like a snob and do not conect with the new readers, the exactly public he in fact wanted to change. And because the commerical nature of "The Western Canon" (book) he moved away even from his previous academic public, people already confortable with the notion of classical books, more interessed in theorical discussion and able to produce their own reading options.

Your argument makes sense, but only if there is a chance that writers like Meyer will promote "classical" books and thus allow readers to move to that. But I don't think that's going to happen. Likely, her fans will only take a few works that resemble Meyer's, and then stop there. In general, Meyer and anyone else who will replace her will do the same. For other processes, we will probably see more "classical" books with androids and zombies inserted, coupled with funny Hollywood and video game versions.

Finally, I'm not sure if Bloom wants the public to change. Perhaps he is simply angry and expressing it. Didn't he mention in the Western Canon that nothing that he does will lead to changes? Recall the part where he talks about teach poetry and imagines lit departments changing to studies of Batman and hip hop.

Yes, and see, Restaurant critics talk about the dishes, not the list of dishes. Critical work is basically good when they can analyse works that are not exactly unknow and find something new. A List becasically is a repetition of titles, no critical work. I am not against the Bloom's essays (not specifically, he has some good essays, not exceptional) but just like him, the object of listing.

Actually, several of them also have recommended dishes, and even recommended restaurants. Those are lists.

Let's say if Lawpark decides to read Bloom's chapters is Western Canon he may hear about Fernando Pessoa and be interessed, because Lawpark may be interessed on Whitman, maybe Neruda... maybe in latin-languages, all informations that are not in the list. But if he see Pessoa name in a list, mixed with all rest there, what is to spark his interest? The collector interest to fill the list?

You are expecting too much from Bloom. For that to happen, his book will have to be several volumes long. Given that, the reader will have to take the effort to look up a book about Pessoa and related literature.

In any event, you still end up with lists, especially from readers who will recommend Pessoa and not another contemporary writer, etc.

No doubt. So, there is much to read it. The guide in the museum is just a how to walk here, not how to love art. Specially because art works themselves are better suited to express this than a guide.

But not everyone will visit the museum unless there is something interesting in it, and there are too many works of art to choose from. In which case, some guides will select those works of art that based on their marketing team will attract the most visitors.

What? Museum Guide would not be useless without the museums? That is why when they change the exposition inside the museum they just change the guide? I am very sure, Museums predates their guiding tour guides and many will still working if the guides are vanished from the face of earth. While a guiding tour to a Museum that does not exist is useful for what?

No, museums would be useless without guides. In fact, the first guides of a museum are essentially those who select which works to display. Or are you imagining that works are displayed randomly or by accident?

You are mistaking: I am not against critics and I am not against the inclusion of those two works. In fact, I have editions of both, so if I made a list of my books they would be there. My point is how mislead is a list - a supposed guide - can be putting two works completelly different as if they have similarities. You know, one of the reasons we cann't read everything is simple because we do not like everything. We have the tendency to search for similarities, you have done it before "Oh, you liked Conan Doyle? Try Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie" and this is more true in inexperient readers (those whould benefict from a guide). And bloom list, just lump together different works (which is a bummer, you know, you expect to read an epic narrative and get some afterlife manual) without giving any information about it, to really guide you.

Bloom is a critic. And you can't read everything not because you "do not like everything" but because you can't read everything, or are you telling me that you've read everything?

When someone recommends Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie to someone who has read Conan Doyle, then that is what a critic does, and he does exactly what you argue is supposedly misleading: he has created a list of recommended writers: Conan Doyle, Sayers, Christie. And yet there is nothing misleading or illogical about that. What's even more ironic is your own example that challenges Bloom does the same, i.e., Meyer recommends Meyer and Bronte.

Bloom cannot discuss everything on his list because that would take numerous volumes. But a reader can find out more about each author or work by consulting an encyclopedia.

And then, the same way we cann't read everything, bloom didnt and he cann't give any information about it. And you end with the only option: blindly follow the list, trying to read part of everything, or just dismiss it and search for yourself more information based on your experience.

And yet he has read more than the average reader, which means we have a more experienced reader giving recommendations to a less experienced again. Again, there is nothing misleading or even illogical about that.

Furthermore, your own example, i.e., concerning Meyer, goes against your own arguments about Bloom, unless you are arguing that Meyer has read everything or that market forces are driven by readers who have done the same.

There is no sensiblity. It was more an mnemonic exercise for him in that list. A sensible list would reckon differences, would demand more studies, etc. Bloom was in fact careless in his list. I expect, the museum guide to be much better.

In that case, come up with your own list, or correct what he did. Again, you appear to be playing both sides of the field. First, you question the presence of guides, stating that it is illogical or misleading to give recommendations. Then, you state that some guides are not very good, which implies that your first point is wrong, i.e., if one can find "better" guides, then these guides won't be illogical or misleading. Third, you point out that "better" guides are those who will appeal to new readers, like Meyer. And yet this goes against your fourth point, which involves guides who make lists that "reckon difference" or "demand more studies," which isn't what Meyer does.

That is obviously the only option. But by them, someone may have stuck on Hyperion and think "Wow, this poem sucks and it is big. I saw that movie with the pretty girl, there was pretty poems there, none sucked as this one" and goodbye, Keats.

See what I mean? Apparently, Bloom has to make a "sensible list" and "demand more studies." But even if he does that, and someone argues that the "poem sucks," then there is no use coming up with a "sensible list" or "demand more studies."

More important, the reference to "that movie with the pretty girl" should be noted. With that, one will say "goodbye" not only to Keats.

With that, the only option is to select works that will remind readers of, say, movies with pretty girls.

Anyways, I am just pointing Bloom wasnt even careful to really guide you - twhich would be point which works are better for a start... Keats is just an example, he fills with complete works everywhere, do not indicate good translations, etc.

Why bother being careful if, as you put it, one will be proven wrong by someone who will say that many works in the list "suck"?

But it seems to me that you have already information to guide yourself to the point you can pick flaws in lists and expand your information beyond it. This is not a guide to someone who is just giving his first kicks in the ball.

That's obvious. That's why Bloom has a book of recommended children's literature. ;)