Into the Labyrinth: An Introduction to Postmodern Chinese Fiction

Abstract

A prehistoric sheep's head appears to a wandering man in the middle of the wilderness; a woman is haunted by the death of a friend who either was murdered or committed suicide; an illiterate peasant suddenly finds that he knows tales of ancient kings, and acquires the powers of the bards to chant epic stories; a landlord's beautiful concubine mysteriously disappears and the only one who seems to know why is her maidservant; an assassin appears and disappears like an apparition in a snowy landscape. At first reading, one might be tempted to conclude that the Chinese postmodernists have dedicated themselves to proposing mysterious statements about the human condition. But deep meanings about life, to be uncovered below the surface of a mesmerizing story, are not at all what postmodernism is about. What distinguishes the postmodernist writer from other writers is not dedication to hidden thematic undercurrents, in the manner of traditional realist and modern fiction, but dedication to experimentation in fictional form. Indeed, experimental forms are the postmodernist writer's passion. Through radical experimentation with every element of fiction, they seek to question the very meaning of "story" and all of the conventions that drive our assumptions about narrators and narration—and even meaning itself. Through ironic wordplay, misdirection, and self-consciousness, they seek to remove their stories from what we call the "real world," creating instead fictional worlds sufficient unto themselves. In these stories, there may well appear a personalized representation of humanity's painful existence, including solitude, violence, misfortune, and despair—and the role that sexuality often plays in these conditions—but the postmodern writers' aim is to subvert every authority (including literary authority) and shatter the conventions that presume the relevance of any "text" to the "real world."