Reading Ma Yuan’s metafiction: a narratological analysis of “Xugou” and “Gangdisi de youhuo”

Abstract

Ma Yuan (马原) is widely regarded within China as one of the most important authors of the ‘avant-garde movement’ (先锋派 xianfengpai) of the 1980s and has been recognised as one of China’s first authors of metafiction. Initial critical reaction to Ma Yuan before he was identified as an author of metafiction varied greatly from a palpable enthusiasm for an ‘experimental’ form of writing on the one hand, to an often dismissive attitude towards the value of the author’s works on the other. Ultimately however, the most dominant early theory regarding the author’s works was the idea that his works were ‘narrative traps’ designed to ensnare and frustrate the reader rather than offer genuine insights into the human condition. The current scholarship on the author therefore is a mixture of the early ‘narrative trap’ theory and metafiction theory which has been primarily derived from ‘western’ works of literary theory. However, as metafiction theory became the primary interpretive framework through which to analyse Ma Yuan’s works, the scholarship on the author has primarily been engaged in generic identification whereby individual pieces of evidence of metafiction are identified from the author’s entire body of work. As such, few of the author’s individual works have been analysed to any great detail as overwhelmingly critics have escaped the ‘narrative trap’ theory through categorising Ma Yuan as an author of metafiction without engaging in detailed analysis of specific texts. Furthermore, many literary historians have attempted to understand the ‘implications’ and ‘deeper meanings’ of Ma Yuan’s work through understanding the author as being part of a sustained and consistent effort to engage in ‘experimental’ literature within a politically motivated cultural movement. Metafiction in this context is often used as evidence of an experimental impulse which is overwhelmingly understood through heavily politicised readings of literature. However, not only are many of Ma Yuan’s works not metafictions, but few of those that are indeed self-reflexive have been analysed to the extent that they can be interpreted as individual texts rather than merely pieces of ‘evidence’ to make general conclusions about Ma Yuan being a writer of metafiction or experimental fiction. This thesis aims to take the conclusion of many critics’ analysis (that Ma Yuan is indeed an author of metafiction) as a point of departure to analyse individual works of metafiction through their self-reflexivity. Through applying a methodological framework incorporating metafiction theory and aspects of narratology, this thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of two individual works of metafiction by Ma Yuan: his 1986 novella “Xugou” (虚构 “Fabrication”) and “Gangdisi de youhuo” (冈底斯的诱惑 “The Allure of the Gangdise Mountains”) published in 1985. This study draws conclusions about the narrative structures of these two texts and the specific self-reflexive functions within these structures. In providing a ‘narratological analysis’ of these two works this thesis will not attempt to provide an overview of Ma Yuan’s entire body of work in order to summarise the thematic ‘essence’ of this author; rather, this study will attempt to add a deeper layer of analysis to the scholarship on Ma Yuan by avoiding the strong trend within Chinese literary analysis to understand works of literature as socio-political artefacts and to understand authors through broad historical overviews of entire bodies of work rather than engaging in the detailed and theoretically grounded literary analysis of specific individual texts. This thesis will focus on analysing two individual texts in order to map out the narratological and metafictional realties of these specific works alone and to explore the interpretive possibilities that these texts allow. It is my hope that my proposed interpretive approach to “Xugou” and “Gangdisi de youhuo” can broaden the current understanding of one of China’s finest and most iconoclastic authors of the last 50 years.