"Black and White"—A Magic Mirror of a Century of History 

Kong Qingdong written December 25, 2023 

Liu Jiming's masterpiece "Black and White" arrived at the end of June in the first half of the year. I finished reading it long ago, and while many specific plot details have faded, the profound impressions remain fresh with time. It's like the ancient idiom "pinmu likuang" [note: describing how ancient people assessed fine horses], where one has forgotten the color and even the gender of a thousand-li horse, but firmly remembers: this was an outstanding thousand-li horse.

I don't specialize in contemporary literature, especially current literature. My main research is modern literature, specifically the approximately half-century of novels and plays before 1949. From my own knowledge structure, I most enjoy ancient literature and aspire to be like Su Dongpo. So why did I later choose modern literature and to study Lu Xun? To put it nobly, it was for the needs of the country and the times, because modern literature is the intersection of ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign. Those who research Su Dongpo need not study Lu Xun, but those who study Lu Xun must not only research Su Dongpo but also the Soviets. To put it more personally, certain forces have always prevented me from living a life like Su Dongpo's. To live such a life, I must first fight like Lu Xun, clearing a relatively clean space to set up a relatively quiet desk—with a bowl of Dongpo pork on it.

Due to the natural extension of literary history and personal interest, I also pay scattered attention to some contemporary literature and have written several reviews of current literary works. Therefore, I will roughly discuss my understanding of "Black and White" from the perspective of over a hundred years of modern and contemporary literary history—these three "periods" translate into a single word in foreign languages; this is a uniquely Chinese concept of time.

Modern Chinese literature originated in the national crisis of the late Qing Dynasty, which is fundamentally different from ancient literature. Neither late Tang nor late Ming literature emerged from a sense of national extinction crisis. Classic works of modern literature, in my personal view, have the nature of a "magic mirror," because only by exposing demons can we find the root of our nation's illness and provide accurate and powerful remedies.

Han Bangqing's "The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai," published in 1894, is regarded by many scholars as the beginning of modern novels. This book can be seen as a symbol of a nation's cultural appearance, depicting the bizarre Shanghai society of the late Qing through a group of prostitutes and their clients. The author said: "This book was written for admonition." A pair of siblings came from the countryside to Shanghai; one became a prostitute, the other a worker in a brothel. The work not only satirizes the abnormal society with acerbity but also contains compassion for humanity in its storyline. Unfortunately, the novel was written in Wu dialect, limiting its distribution range. Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang), with her artistic intuition that bridged the refined and the popular, believed this book should be a world classic. In her later years, she invested tremendous effort to translate it into Mandarin as "Flowers of Shanghai." Similarly, decades later, Lao She, the new literature writer with the most readers, wrote his representative work "Rickshaw Boy" about an upright, healthy rural youth who comes to Beijing, this "big city," and is contaminated and devoured by various demons and monsters. The ugly image of Tiger Girl in the original work is like a terrifying female demon who destroys the last bit of "clean air" in the protagonist Xiangzi.

After "The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai" created a sensation, an even greater sensation was caused by the "Four Great Novels of Exposure" published in 1903: "The Bureaucrats: A Revelation," "Strange Events Eyewitnessed over Two Decades," "The Travels of Lao Can," and "Flowers in a Sea of Sins." Independently of each other, using old novel techniques, they depicted the late Qing Dynasty's world of inverted black and white, a world of demons. For this reason, Lu Xun gave them high praise.

After the May Fourth Literary Revolution, new literary works represented by Lu Xun's "A Madman's Diary," "The True Story of Ah Q," "Kong Yiji," and "Blessing" exposed the man-eating nature of the old society thoroughly. Lu Xun himself can be said to be a master demon-detector; all demons and monsters found it difficult to hide under his pen. My series of interpretations of Lu Xun's novels, including lectures, primarily helps students and readers see those demons clearly.

After the 1930s, the social analysis school represented by Mao Dun, along with excellent writers like Lao She and Cao Yu, collectively depicted a vivid canvas of semi-feudal, semi-colonial society, figuratively participating in the debate on the nature of Chinese society. Through this literature and its dissemination and derivatives, the Chinese people gained a profound and clear understanding of Chinese society's nature, awakening together to the realization that without overthrowing this man-eating society, there would be no tomorrow for the Chinese nation. The literature of Communist Party-led liberated areas not only depicted the struggle between light and darkness and the Communist Party's heroic fight in the Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation but also portrayed various dark aspects within the revolutionary ranks and liberated areas, expressing concerns and foresight about the revolutionary cause's development. For example, Zhao Shuli, both a cultural cadre of the Party and a spokesperson for peasants, insisted on depicting bad people within the revolutionary regime, expressing concerns about the revolutionary cause, and combining the Party's interests with the people's interests—paying for this insistence with his life. This tradition continued throughout contemporary literature that grew from liberated area literature.

The mainstream of contemporary literature beginning in 1949 was never the literature of praise and glorification that public intellectuals slander it as being, but was full of criticism and reflection, depicting the struggle history of the Chinese people from ancient times to the present with a grander vision. From "Three Red Banners," "Two Pioneer Two Creative," and "Qingshan Protects the Forest" to model operas and Hao Ran, contemporary literature not only strived to create a series of heroic figures but also depicted various open enemies and hidden enemies, showing the possibility of transformation between good and bad people, between ordinary people and heroes.

After entering the reform and opening-up period, contemporary literature generally maintained the excellent tradition of punishing evil and promoting good. Despite some political misconceptions and distortions from blindly learning foreign literature, it maintained its critical spirit on one hand, and on the other, due to the popularization of literary education over decades, critical art generally improved. Some well-known important writers, including controversial ones with possible issues, such as Wang Meng, Zhang Xianliang, Zhang Chengzhi, Jia Pingwa, Zhang Jie, Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Wang Anyi, Wang Shuo, Xu Zechen, Bi Feiyu, Mai Jia, Chi Zijian, Yang Zhijun, Li Er, Fan Wen, etc., regardless of whether their stance leans left or right, all strive to search for the demons of society, era, and nation through their respective narrative styles.

In this group, Cao Zhenglu and Liu Jiming stand out with their distinct socialist stance and critique of capitalism. From the perspective of 21st-century literary environment, they seem somewhat born at the wrong time. They appear lonely not only among writers but also particularly lack applause in mass media. But as Mr. Lu Xun said, they resolutely raised their javelins.

In this situation, Mr. Liu Jiming spent five years producing what I personally consider his creative peak, "Black and White." When I recently met Liu Jiming, I joked that his book touches on too many sensitive topics. Unlike Chen Zhongshi's "White Deer Plain," which could win awards after removing excessive erotic descriptions, if the sensitive content were removed from "Black and White," it would become "a vast expanse of whiteness, truly clean."

However, the true value of "Black and White" does not lie in those sensitive topics and content, just as Dao Lang's "Mirage City," though perhaps related to "The Voice of China" talent show, is not merely a satire of that program but depicts a reality where black and white are inverted and beauty and ugliness distorted, thus earning hundreds of billions of clicks and triggering a nationwide cultural carnival.

"Black and White" first portrays a full panorama of Chinese society in the reform and opening-up era from the 1980s onward. At the same time, through flashbacks and supplementary narratives, it depicts a perplexing century of Chinese revolutionary history through the experiences of several main characters. This makes the tone of the work not simple criticism and indignation, not just acerbic satire, but filled with heavy sighs and reflections. If the revolutionary history education we received as children was like a story of catching demons and monsters, then "Black and White" presents to us that these demons existed not only in obviously opposing camps but from the very beginning infiltrated the revolutionary ranks, developing as the revolution developed, growing as the revolution grew, and even passing down through generations, with offspring surpassing their predecessors. It can be said that "Black and White" has found the internal source of the revolutionary cause's many disasters, becoming a new beacon in Chinese demon-detecting literature.

"Black and White" portrays the complexity of characters and history, thereby also showing the complexity of revolution and reform, objectively proving the brilliance of Lu Xun's humanistic thought—Lu Xun renamed his three brothers Shuren (Establishing People), Zuoren (Being People), and Jianren (Building People), containing the idea that only by first establishing new people can one build a new country. Lu Xun believed that water flows from water pipes, and blood flows from blood vessels—without truly mature revolutionary people, there is no truly mature revolutionary cause. The positive characters in the novel are very moving, but they are not without flaws. Their most important flaw is insufficient awareness of the revolution's complexity and lack of sufficient vigilance that the revolution could be reversed after victory. Only two great men maintained foresight and vigilance about restoration after revolutionary victory for over a hundred years: Lu Xun and Mao Zedong. Lu Xun foresaw that after revolutionary victory, it might become Ah Q's world, with the purpose of Ah Q's revolution being personal revenge, seizing property, and choosing women. Yet Lu Xun still firmly supported and participated in the revolution. Mao Zedong believed that nationwide victory was only the first step of the Long March, and the road ahead would be more difficult yet more glorious. Unfortunately, they both lacked kindred spirits in their time. Today, when we realize their greatness as prophets, we are merely wise after the event.

Ten days ago, I met Liu Jiming at a conference commemorating Chairman Mao's 130th birthday. I mentioned organizing fans to read "Red Crag" and proposed a hypothesis: If Fu Zhigao, the traitor in "Red Crag," had heeded the Party organization's warning and not gone home that night, he would not have been arrested and betrayed. With the nationwide revolutionary victory, he might have become an important leader in the southwest region. In the political movements after the founding of the People's Republic, Fu Zhigao, always active and good at observing trends, might have labeled Jiang Jie and Xu Yunfeng as rightists, while he himself continued to be promoted. During the Cultural Revolution, he might have suffered some grievances or been criticized as a capitalist roader, spending a few days in a "cowshed." But by the reform and opening-up period, he might have made a comeback, becoming China's Khrushchev or Gorbachev. This image forms an "intertextuality" with Song Qiankun in "Black and White," providing a compelling comparison. Fu Zhigao's arrest and betrayal had a certain accidental nature, but his opportunistic essence of appearing left while actually being right, causing enormous harm to the revolutionary cause, was inevitable. We can imagine how many unarrested, unbetrayed Fu Zhigaos existed in the revolutionary ranks. With their connections and administrative abilities, they controlled many important powers and positions, able to make black white and white black with a turn of hand. Fortunately, movements like the Cultural Revolution struck and deterred these demons and monsters in the revolutionary ranks, ensuring that China has not yet split apart, has not yet become a colony of imperialism, and Chairman Mao's portrait still hangs high on Tiananmen Gate. But as Chairman Mao said, they are still alive, and their hearts have not died. Driven by their deeply rooted exploitative class thinking, these interest groups that have already seized enormous socialist wealth will not withdraw their evil claws until they completely destroy socialism and thereby erase their original sin. They will exploit various mistakes and setbacks in the revolutionary process, especially during the Cultural Revolution, engaging in historical nihilism, continuing to invert black and white, and ultimately pushing the People's Republic of China into an abyss from which it cannot return. "Black and White" exposes these demons, truly as the ancients said, "illuminating with a rhinoceros-horn lamp," penetrating to the spirit.

Artistically, "Black and White" is vast in scale, magnificent in momentum, broad in structure, with effortless temporal and spatial shifts, like the combination of parallel and free prose in the works of the eight great Tang and Song dynasty writers—disciplined yet graceful. The novel jumps and interweaves from the Red Army period, the Anti-Japanese War period, to the Cultural Revolution period and the reform and opening-up period, showing flexibility within orderliness, with both subtle threads and brilliant flourishes. In the afterword, the author says that "Black and White" "has at least four or five narrative main lines, each like a folding screen; opening each screen is like opening a world." The author's metaphor is very apt. This structural approach allows some chapters to exchange positions, complementing and reflecting each other. This is not only an artistic innovation but also fully expresses the maze-like complexity and variability of history and human nature, with unexpected twists and turns. As a three-volume epic of 1.2 million words, it reads both smoothly and profoundly, standing up to close reading and rereading, demonstrating the author's superb structural control.

In character creation, "Black and White" displays an extremely high level of realism. First, it achieves what Ban Gu praised in Sima Qian: "neither falsely beautifying nor concealing evil," controlling subjective emotions and describing truthfully. Positive characters are not placed under spotlights, and negative characters are not caricatured. In Liu Jiming's own words: "I faithfully recorded everything I saw, experienced, and thought about." More than ten characters in the work come vividly to life, especially showing the developmental and evolutionary history of character personalities. Characters like Zong Da, Song Qiankun (Huang He), Song Xiaofan, Zong Tianyi, Wang Shengli, Wang Sheng (Wang Cheng), Young Master Hong Taixing, Hong Yanbei, Chen Yimeng, Luo Zheng, Du Wei, Ba Dong, Gu Zheng, Li Hong (Xu Ke), the Lang father and son (Lang Yongliang and Lang Tao), Grand Master Wu Bozhong, Old Principal Yu Jiefang, the aunt and niece Tian Fang and Tian Qingqing, Cheng Guojun, Liang Tian (Zong Xiaoxiao)... all appear both full and credible. For example, high-ranking second-generation red aristocrat Young Master Hong Taixing ransacked his middle school teacher's home during the Cultural Revolution and disabled one of the teacher's arms, but he fought in the bingtuan [note: Production and Construction Corps] in Beidahuang for eight years and, to guard against Soviet invasion, lay in the snow at minus 30 degrees for a night, later becoming disabled in both legs. Yet this same character, after reform and opening up, manipulated politics and economy through his extensive connections, while his personal life was extravagant and dissolute. His disabled image in a wheelchair can be seen as a symbol of some second-generation reds who once felt revolutionary passion and contributed to just causes, but due to their inherent aristocratic notions, gradually betrayed their fathers' original intentions, spiritually forever unable to stand up from their wheelchairs.

Many readers have noticed the unique figure of Song Qiankun. It can be said that this is Liu Jiming's distinctive contribution to the gallery of Chinese literary characters. Liu Jiming himself calls him "true at both ends"—he is both a genuine revolutionary and a genuine destroyer of revolution. He has already transcended the "character combination theory" invented by Mr. Liu Zaifu decades ago as a literary theorist, because such character creation does not come from theoretical thinking behind closed doors but from profound observation and sharp insight into history and life.

The language skill in "Black and White" is also mature and accomplished, with narrative rhythm under control, scenery and psychological descriptions captivating, and various hypertexts like diaries and letters inserted, both increasing authenticity and varying narrative angles. This helps the author achieve his creative purpose of writing "a testimony of time." Overall, it presents what Lu Xun instructed Sha Ting and Ai Wu: "Have true meaning, remove embellishment, reduce affectation, avoid showing off."

The depiction of gender relations in the novel deserves special discussion. Gender relations in literature can both reveal the deep secrets of character personalities and form a kind of political allegory. For instance, Luo Zheng's pure love for Bai Xue and Wang Sheng's for Tian Fang establish their upright and noble character while also reflecting their simplicity. Li Hong's gender relationship journey with Lang Tao, Ba Dong, and other men synchronizes with the reform era's rhythm of worshipping foreign things and pursuing material goods while also witnessing the character's progression from confusion to gradual awakening. Ba Dong's sexual impotence after marrying Hong Yanbei, the daughter of a powerful figure, allegorizes how those who climb from lower levels into powerful families through so-called personal struggle can only be tools and slaves of those families. The qigong master-disguised woman-seducing master Wu Bozhong, who deceived from the Republic era all the way to the reform era, eating from both Kuomintang and Communist tables, implies that primitive human nature, savage and vulgar, has always lurked behind all righteous causes and even all historical events. Yet even a deceiver like Wu Bozhong cherishes true love; his feelings for Miss Zhan are sincere, lasting until old age and death. He also has the loneliness of a bad person and a yearning for goodness. Behind the mystery of Zong Da, one of the important characters in the book, Song Qiankun, first greatly admired Zong Da's British wife Anna and eventually had her, and second, his original motivation for joining the revolution was because the female classmate he fancied was taken by her father as his fifth concubine. His seemingly righteous revolutionary action actually contained strong personal desire. These depictions of gender relations, with real-life examples throughout, deepen the novel's theme as a magic mirror, leaving readers with thought-provoking reflections.

As a relatively picky literary critic, I have a few detailed opinions on "Black and White." First, possibly due to publishing reasons, there are slight proofreading oversights, with occasional typos and misprinted names. Though less than one in ten thousand, they may add up to more than a dozen instances. Second, Wang Cheng's name, which he changed to Wang Sheng after entering university, is an important detail for the character's personality—this father-killing detail. But the character 晟 is usually pronounced "sheng," only pronounced "cheng" in surnames. Having multiple pronunciations for main characters' names might affect readers' reading experience. I wonder if the author considered adding an explanation. I joked that it might be better changed to the "cheng" in "Hu Cheng." Third, regarding the liberation history of Dajiang City, from various descriptions in the book, it's not hard to see that Dajiang is Wuhan, and many plots are based on Wuhan's real history. The three towns of Wuhan were peacefully liberated on May 16, 1949, when the Nationalist 19th Army Group announced surrender due to the Fourth Field Army's pressure after crossing the Yangtze River. The book now portrays it as captured by the Second Field Army after bloody battles, which may be unnecessary. If possible, would it be better to adjust this? For example, the battle story of how Wang Shengli and Luo Zheng met could be moved to another location.

Speaking of historical facts, let me add more admiration for the author. The author's descriptions of campus life in the 1980s, metropolitan features, and small-town characteristics are all supported by rich and accurate details, such as poetry, music, signboards, advertisements, and even camera models and restaurant menus, all evoking readers' vivid memories. Also, Zong Da's confession shows that the author has deeply pondered Qu Qiubai's "Superfluous Words." Evidently, the author is not only a talented novelist and poet but also a rigorous and meticulous scholar, which is why this massive work, blending emotion and reason, took five years to write.

Finally, borrowing Zhang Ailing's approach to evaluating "The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai," I believe "Black and White" is not only a major achievement in contemporary Chinese literature but will eventually join the family of world literary classics. For its excavation of history and interrogation of human nature far surpass most Nobel Prize-winning works.

I wish Mr. Liu Jiming eternal creative youth. I also hope people would write the world again where black and white are inverted.

Hastily written on December 25, 2023