Trialogue | Black and White and Liu Jiming’s Narrative of Intellectuals

Moderator:

Qiao Mai (University Journal Editor, MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature, PhD Candidate in Sociology)

Discussants:

Zhu Yafang (MA in Literature, Editor of Left-Wing Literary Review)

Xiao Zhuo (Graduate Student, Secretary of the Cao Zhenglu-Liu Jiming Research Center)

Academic Advisor:

Kong Qingdong (Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University; Doctoral Supervisor; Director of the Cao Zhenglu-Liu Jiming Research Center)

Date: August 8, 2023

Qiao Mai: To cut to the chase, let us first map out Liu Jiming’s writing regarding intellectuals.

There is a general consensus in the literary world that Liu Jiming excels at writing about intellectuals. The "cultural care" novels he wrote in the 1990s were almost exclusively about them. When I was studying for my bachelor's and master's degrees, I noticed that Main Currents of China's New Era Literature, edited by Mr. Ding Fan, as well as several other histories of contemporary literature, gave these works high praise. To this day, the deepest mark Liu Jiming has left on the history of New Era literature remains his "cultural care" novels, such as Undersea Village and Heading to Huangcun, which have become classics of contemporary literature. He himself is regarded as a writer with a strong intellectual temperament. Critic Li Yunlei believes that in the contemporary literary scene, Liu Jiming, along with Han Shaogong and Zhang Chengzhi, are among the few contemporary writers who possess the intellectual capacity to speak on ideological and social issues. This assessment is, I would say, pertinent. Yafang, what is your take?

Zhu Yafang: I have been reading the Collected Works of Liu Jiming recently. I feel that if "cultural care" was the first stage of Liu Jiming's creation, then "bottom-layer writing" (or subaltern writing) can be viewed as the second stage. During this stage, although Liu Jiming produced influential works like Singing Aloud, The Little Apprentice, and Between Husband and Wife, and was hailed as a representative writer of "bottom-layer literature," he himself seems not to rate these highly.

Opinions differ on how to evaluate Liu Jiming’s work during this period. Teacher Yang Yan from Hubei University once pointed out in On Liu Jiming’s New Leftist Fiction: "If we consider Liu Jiming’s early novels like Undersea Village, Blue Temple, and Heading to Huangcun as interpreting and echoing the value of the humanist spirit through the hesitation and persistence of intellectual elites (poets, historians, musicians, etc.)—reflecting a strong tendency toward cultural idealism and romanticism—then, as he shifted toward bottom-layer narratives, Liu Jiming’s gaze began to turn toward ordinary people, commoners, and 'small' characters. He focused not only on their concrete survival in reality but even more so on their spiritual predicaments and psychological struggles. The impact and shock brought to people's spirits and souls by systemic changes and the market economy are immeasurable. From the mere display of suffering to a deep excavation of the spirit and history, Liu Jiming’s bottom-layer writing subsequently entered a more profound realm."

This analysis is precise, but I have a slightly different view: during the so-called bottom-layer writing period, Liu Jiming did not just write about the lower-class commoners; he continued the focus on intellectuals from his "cultural care" period. However, he no longer placed intellectuals in a closed spiritual space as he did before. Instead, he placed them in the same circumstances as other social strata to reveal a more complex social reality. The novella Enlightenment is a typical example. This story recounts the process of a former Rightist writer degenerating from an enlightenment elite into a capitalist power-holder. After publication, it was reprinted by Fiction Selections and selected for the 2012 Annual Selection of Novellas.

Li Yunlei once wrote an analysis: "In the context of literary history, Zhang Xianliang's Mimosa and Half of Man is Woman in the 1980s shaped the image of the Rightist intellectual suffering for the people,' forming a typical narrative mode; in the 1990s, Wang Anyi expressed disappointment with this generation of intellectuals in Uncle's Story, but merely felt they were untrustworthy on an emotional level. Entering the new century, however, Liu Jiming’s Enlightenment allows us to see how this generation of intellectuals shed their halos and moved to the opposite side of the masses and humanity. The piercing power of thought makes this novel full and solid; it not only reveals to us the 'truth' of history and reality, forcing us to reflect on the actions of elite intellectuals, but also compels us to rethink the dialectics of enlightenment at the fracture points of history and to choose our future path anew."

As Li Yunlei said, the profundity of Enlightenment lies in the fact that where the Rightist narrative mode stops, Enlightenment begins its telling, revealing the fissures in that narrative mode and another truth about history and reality. I feel the profundity of Enlightenment far exceeds those works from Liu Jiming’s "cultural care" period. Regrettably, few critics have noticed this. Their gaze remains fixed on the "cultural care" period, while Liu Jiming has long since moved on, walking to places their thoughts cannot reach.

Xiao Zhuo: I would like to add that Teacher Liu Jiming’s intellectual narrative did not stop or fracture during the "bottom-layer writing" stage as some believe; rather, it has continued and deepened. Enlightenment is a marker of this deepening, and another is the novel Human Realm ($Renjing$). Before Human Realm, Liu Jiming wrote another novel focused on intellectuals with a similar scale and length, Rivers and Lakes ($Jiang He Hu$). He considers it a transitional work, and Teacher Xiang Jing has written a critique on it. I believe Rivers and Lakes is not just a transitional work but a pivotal one—a turn from individuality to the people, from the "small self" to the "greater self." The two modern intellectual figures shaped in the novel, Zhen Yinnian and Shen Futian, possess significant typicality. It is quite important in Liu Jiming’s writing career, but perhaps because Human Realm, released shortly after, was too outstanding, Rivers and Lakes was overlooked.

Some might feel that the focus of Human Realm is not intellectuals, but the changes in urban and rural society, and that the protagonist Ma La is not an intellectual, but at best an educated peasant. This view is incorrect. Being an intellectual is not a profession—automatically acquired by holding titles like professor, writer, or artist—but rather the possession of a capacity to care about and think through social issues and even the "big questions" of human destiny. In fact, in many critical essays about Human Realm, critics analyze Ma La as an intellectual. Gui Lin’s paper, From 'Rivers and Lakes' to 'Human Realm': Liu Jiming’s Intellectual Novels, studies both books together as intellectual novels. Mr. Xu Gang, in 'Human Realm': Rebuilding Utopia, or the Reflection and Rupture of Knowledge, said: "Reminiscing about youth with a mood of nostalgia, engaging in a panoramic scan of the countryside and the city across a long historical span, and 'making the old new' amidst the seasonal rotation of literary trends to ponder where China's countryside is heading—and using this to clean up and reflect upon our knowledge and the so-called intellectual circles, preparing for the vision of rebuilding a world within the great trend of history—this is the inherent meaning of Liu Jiming’s novel Human Realm." In his view, Human Realm not only shapes the new intellectual images of Ma La and Murong Qiu but also attempts to "clean up and reflect upon our knowledge and the so-called intellectual circles."

Noted critic Mr. Zhang Ling pointed out in his article The Literary Image That Seems Not to Belong to Our Era that Ma La in Human Realm is very similar to the famous "superfluous man" in Russian literature. And Oblomov, the archetype of the "superfluous man," was an intellectual. He believes: "Ma La, this 'superfluous man,' is not a giant in thought and a dwarf in action. In a sense, his actions carry very distinct pioneering characteristics. If the writer initially thought more about the speculative significance of this character, then when Ma La walks into reality and consciously participates in the national action to solve China’s 'Three Rural Issues' and help farmers escape poverty, the significance of this character image transcends speculation. It restores the moral values we lost long ago, endowing them with new ideological connotations of the era, giving us much inspiration. Therefore, this character is not an image of a weakling or a failure. In fact, the writer began to realize that Ma La possesses a strong quality of praxis; he is the enlightener of our new life. He is a knight of classical rationalism, and even more so, an explorer changing life and destiny. Thus, the novelty and typicality of this character image emerge."

All this shows that Liu Jiming’s narrative of intellectuals has reached a new realm and height.

Qiao Mai: After this review, we have a clear understanding of Liu Jiming’s intellectual narrative. In these works featuring intellectuals as protagonists, the main characters appear as positive images. Whether it is Ouyang Yuqiu in early works like Undersea Village, or Zhen Yinnian and Shen Futian in Rivers and Lakes, or Qu Bo’an in Enlightenment—who also carries the halo of an enlightener "suffering for the people"—they all seem like ancient intellectuals such as Qu Yuan or Fan Zhongyan, bearing humiliation for a heavy burden and worrying about the country and the people. In New Era literature, this narrative mode has formed a tradition, and Liu Jiming’s intellectual narrative is part of this tradition, just as the shaping of worker-peasant-soldier images was in the literature of the previous thirty years.

But in Black and White, this narrative mode is subverted. Although Black and White cannot be counted as a work with intellectuals as the main protagonists, a group of intellectuals appears and is written about intensively. These include the protagonist Wang Sheng and Du Wei; Lang Tao, the Heidegger expert and "returnee" professor who abandoned teaching for politics; Lang Tao’s father, the literary history researcher Lang Yongliang; the mathematician and university president He Shouwu; the writer Li Xin; the female writer Song Xiaofan; Ouyang Peide, editor-in-chief of the Mass Art Media Group; deputy editor Zhang Xin, and others. I found that, apart from Wang Sheng, everyone else appears as a "villain" or "negative" image. How do you view this phenomenon?

Zhu Yafang: Intellectuals appearing as "negative images" is not a first in Black and White; Qu Bo’an in Enlightenment, whom we discussed earlier, is one example. However, Black and White is indeed the first to negatively portray intellectuals in such a large, clustered manner. Regarding the protagonist Wang Sheng and Du Wei, the collector of falsehood, evil, and ugliness, we have analyzed them more than once before, so I won't repeat it here.

What is worth analyzing are Lang Tao, Lang Yongliang, He Shouwu, Li Xin, Song Xiaofan, and even the veteran cadre Song Qiankun—who wrote amateurly, published a novel, and was praised by Mao Zedong as a "talent within the Party"—who can also be counted as half an intellectual. These intellectuals share a common characteristic: they all were criticized or at least depressed and frustrated during the first thirty years or the Mao era. For instance, Lang Yongliang, He Shouwu, and Li Xin were labeled Rightists in the 1950s, and Song Qiankun suffered greatly after being reported by his subordinate Luo Zheng on suspicion of being a "traitor." After the Reform and Opening Up, their bitterness turned to sweetness, and they all became elite power-holders. Their experiences and value stances created a closeness between them akin to blood ties.

The deepest impression I have is a scene in the novel where Lang Yongliang, He Shouwu, and Song Qiankun, who had been sent down to the May 7th Cadre School together, hold a family banquet. Their gathering was as harmonious as milk and water, affectionate like a single family. Song Qiankun solemnly apologized for wrongly labeling He and Lang as Rightists back in the day, swearing to carry the reform through to the end. Lang Yongliang was indignant about the Model Opera appearing on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, crying out to "be vigilant against a resurgence of the ultra-left," and proposing the "establishment of a Cultural Revolution Memorial Hall." This reminds one of Mr. Ba Jin’s Random Thoughts. Furthermore, the intimate relationships between their children—Lang Tao, Song Xiaofan, and He Li—make one feel that the spiritual bond between them has passed to the next generation, forming an unbreakable alliance. In the novel, under his father Lang Yongliang’s utmost matchmaking efforts, Lang Tao marries He Li, the daughter of Dongjiang University President He Shouwu, ruthlessly abandoning Li Hong who truly loved him. Then, upon Song Qiankun's recommendation, he abandons teaching for politics, enjoying a prosperous official career and rising rapidly to become a member of the Provincial Standing Committee and Director of the Propaganda Department.

The intermarriage and alliance of these powerful families is a microcosm of the tearing and solidification of Chinese society after the Reform and Opening Up. In Black and White, "Second-generation Reds" and "Second-generation Academics" with powerful family backgrounds like Lang Tao, Song Xiaofan, and Hong Taihang enter the upper echelons of society with ease. meanwhile, the vast majority of children of workers, peasants, and commoners can only wander at the bottom of society despite racking their brains. Even people like Du Wei, Ba Dong, and Lu Shengping, who rely on selling their souls and currying favor with powerful figures to finally climb up, are discarded like worn-out shoes the moment they encounter risk. Wang Sheng, Gu Zheng, and Li Hong are characters who constantly awaken in the face of this cruel reality.

Xiao Zhuo: In our last "Trialogue," we analyzed how the image of the reformer in literary works collapsed from a mythical hero to a negative image. In fact, in New Era literature and over forty years of Reform and Opening Up, the role of the intellectual has undergone the same process. In the "Scar Literature" of the 1980s, intellectuals like Qin Shutian in Gu Hua’s Hibiscus Town and Zhang Yonglin in Zhang Xianliang’s Soul and Flesh were deeply rooted in people's hearts as victims or martyrs, serving the function of correcting and capturing hearts for the shaping of the new ideological legitimacy.

There is a description in Black and White where Song Xiaofan meets the famous writer Li Xin at a pen conference. She is deeply attracted by his demeanor and his experience full of vicissitudes, and the two quickly fall in love. Yet, during the Cultural Revolution, a Rightist like Li Xin was exactly the object of criticism and abhorrence for an Educated Youth (Zhiqing) like Song Xiaofan. In Black and White, Song Xiaofan and Li Xin can be said to be two archetypes of moral corruption. Song Xiaofan not only sways with the wind politically, using her father Song Qiankun's status to chase fame and profit, but she is also fickle in her personal relationships. When she went down to the countryside as an Educated Youth, she fell in love with Guo Liang, a male Zhiqing from a worker background, but cut off ties immediately upon returning to the city. In the Donggang Art Troupe, she was the "other woman," intervening to marry Cheng Guojun, a prominent figure in the Cultural Revolution and head of the Donggang Revolutionary Committee. As soon as the Gang of Four fell, she divorced Cheng Guojun. Soon after, she "fell in love" with the famous writer Li Xin, who held power in the literary world. Her work won awards as a result. After a scandal broke out and they couldn't stay in the domestic literary scene, the pair went abroad. In the US, Li Xin first made a fortune by fabricating books on political insider secrets and cohabited with other women. Song Xiaofan then married Bai Wen, the son of Bai Shouhe, a former KMT secret agent and later a Microsoft executive who became the head of the American Duke Company’s "New Marshall Plan." To use the words of Farmer Sheshui: "She really took all the glory and didn't miss a single good thing." The novel has a vivid description of Song Xiaofan's snobbery and heartlessness: her down-and-out ex-husband Cheng Guojun sought her help for his son-in-law Gu Xiaole; she treated him to a cup of coffee but subsequently ignored the matter, and eventually, Gu Xiaole was sentenced to three years in prison.

The character Li Xin can be seen as a replica of Qu Bo’an, the famous writer who degenerated into a triad boss in Enlightenment. Both Li Xin and Song Xiaofan are vastly different from the common intellectual images in New Era literature. This role transformation from positive to negative is obviously not an accidental "accident" in Black and White, but a manifestation that the "Reform Consensus" formed in the 1980s has actually collapsed today after more than forty years of Reform and Opening Up involving Chinese society.

Zhu Yafang: From the perspective of the literary historical lineage and social evolution, Xiao Zhuo’s analysis is persuasive. But on the other hand, we can also look for answers in Teacher Liu Jiming’s personal experiences. For instance, his struggle against corrupt forces in the literary world in recent years has certainly had a non-negligible impact on his thinking and his perception of society. If we divide Teacher Liu Jiming’s writing into two stages—the "cultural care" period and "bottom-layer writing"—then the period marked by Black and White can be counted as the third stage. This stage includes Black and White and a large volume of current political commentaries with a tone of social critique, as well as his struggle against corrupt forces in the literary world, transforming him from a writer in the traditional sense into an activist intellectual.

I once saw a netizen in the Black and White reader group say that Black and White is permeated with a strong mood of gloom and depression, and a total disappointment with intellectuals. Liu Jiming has more than once quoted a line from Tolstoy’s I Cannot Be Silent: "I hope that my exposure of these people will, in some way, evoke what I very much hope for: to be expelled from the circle of those people. Living among them now, I cannot help but feel that I am a participant in the crimes occurring around me." From this, it is not hard to sense his extreme disappointment and pessimism regarding the intellectual elite group.

Xiao Zhuo: Disappointment and pessimism are certain, but that's not the whole story. In Black and White, aside from these corrupt and immoral intellectuals, Teacher Liu Jiming has, after all, shaped images of the broad masses of people who possess awe-inspiring righteousness, such as Luo Zheng, Wang Shengli, and the Old Principal. This is also why Black and White is regarded as "People's Realist Literature." Especially in the ending section, Wang Sheng's gradual awakening and the younger generation like Tian Qingqing and Liang Tian stepping onto the path of faith in Marxism allow one to see a streak of brightness amidst the gloom and heaviness.

However, even if such descriptions have a certain basis in reality, they might be criticized as a "bright tail" (a forced happy ending). But as Professor Liu Fusheng of Hainan University, a famous scholar, said when commenting on Human Realm: "In a sense, this doesn't seem to be Liu Jiming’s fault. When reality has not yet revealed alternative possibilities, he can only add a garland implying hope at the very end, amidst the deep lock of smog."

Qiao Mai: I saw a recent Weibo post by Teacher Liu Jiming: "Today's Chinese literary and academic worlds have become severely cynical and 'Jianghu-ized' (clique-ridden/lawless). Positions are hereditary, and powerful factions stand in great numbers. Looking around, it is hard to find a few people who write for ideals and beliefs and dare to speak the truth. Everyone is deeply stuck in the quagmire of fame and profit, unable to extricate themselves. Clearly, they are drilling and scheming for job promotions or professional titles, yet they wave the banner of the nation and people, putting on a sanctimonious, solemn facade. Fake art and pseudo-academia run rampant, and one can smell the stench of corruption from thousands of miles away. People have generally lost their moral sense, unable to distinguish right from wrong or beauty from ugliness. This is a typical symptom of social decay."

From this, we can see the trajectory of his thought, changing from a cultural idealist in the "cultural care" novel period to the critical intellectual and people's realist writer he is today. He once said in the interview Writing is a Tenacious Battle: "Starting from Human Realm, I had already run counter to mainstream literature, drifting further and further away. In a sense, my writing, including Human Realm, already exists outside that strictly hierarchical, rigid, and muddle-headed literary system formed since the New Era, becoming something like a foreign body. Against the background where historical nihilism, realistic nihilism, and commercial nihilism run rampant, it is a miracle that a work like Human Realm, which is full of heterogeneity and rebelliousness in both form and content, could be published at all, let alone receive genuine welcome. If it were today, perhaps like Cao Zhenglu’s Democracy Lesson, it wouldn't be published at all."

Although he was speaking of Human Realm, I feel it fits Black and White even better. Compared to Human Realm, Black and White "deviates" even further from the New Era literary tradition; one could say it is a practice of returning to Left-wing literature and Socialist literature. How to evaluate Liu Jiming’s subversion and even rebellion in Black and White is obviously a difficult problem for the mainstream literary world. They can habitually strike a high-minded pose and pretend to be deaf and dumb, but they cannot guarantee that people in the future will also turn a blind eye. Because, as Liu Jiming said, Black and White is not only a novel but also a "testimony of time," and "testimony" is very hard to erase.

Alright, that concludes today's "Trialogue."