Interview with Popular Author Qiu Xiaolong- Part 3

What a long over-due post... Of course, I had to read A Case of Two Cities and Red Mandarin Dress immediately, so that derailed my timing in the most enjoyable way, but, as will be clear to some, writing about the environment has occupied my spare time of late. Because of the delay in writing this down, I have had to paraphrase much more than I would have liked. Hence, the scarcity of quotation marks. The link for part 2 of this interview is given above (long overdue ...), and part 1 of the interview with Qiu Xiaolong is found here.

So, on to the wonderful Mr. Qiu Xiaolong and the end of our discussion. I asked him about how Russian cultural and literary influence had fared through the Cultural Revolution, and he related that this, too, had ultimately been rejected: the earlier importance of Tolstoy, Pushkin and Dostoevsky was wiped away by Mao's insistence on what I would characterize as nothing but the most trivial written language.

On the subject of language, we then addressed translation: the translation of Qiu's novels from English into his native Chinese. This turns out to have been a nightmare. When starting out, Qiu was shocked and powerless over what the official Chinese translators did to his work. First, the books were not allowed to take place in Shanghai, where they are set, "because such crimes could never take place in a real Chinese city." Apparently China has no murders, officially. It is a wonder that they need any police. So, the books are set in a fictional, anonymous city, H_, which is absurd for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that the details of Shanghai itself make the city another character in the novels.

The title of the second Inspector Chen novel, A Loyal Character Dancer, was also unacceptable to Chinese officials. Qiu explained their dilemma without irony: a loyal character dancer existed only during the Cultural Revolution. This combination of words and concept didn't exist before the period of upheaval, and didn't exist afterwards! How can words just disappear?* They can because the new National slogan is "Look forward to the future", which apparently sounds almost identical to "Look forward to the money." Nobody wants to think back to the Cultural Revolution, to dwell in the past. In addition to appearing and disappearing during the Cultural Revolution, loyal character dancers were the ONLY dancers allowed at that time, so the connotations of the language are disturbing, but they also communicate the truth, a commodity that lost its value long ago in China. Now, of course, Mr. Qiu is fully-established as an internationally successful, professional writer and in great demand. He has had to leave his teaching post, even though he loves teaching, because the time and travel demands of his writing career are simply too great. Now, Qiu is in a position to say "No" in no uncertain terms: his books will be translated, unaltered, into Chinese, or they will not be published in China at all.

I mentioned that one of my scientific collaborators gave an invited lecture in Beijing last fall, and I was appalled to see the brochure advertising a great site-seeing tour for all cheerful tourists to visit Tiananmen Square. I associate the Square with army tanks, student protesters and atrocities committed by the Chinese soldiers against their nation's children. Mr. Qiu pointed out my naiveté kindly but firmly, making it clear that my CNN-driven impression of the Square carried little of the even more-exceptionally serious resonance that native Chinese would feel: it is a place of much more history and significance than my memory had conjured up. Tiananmen Square is the location where Mao first announced the Cultural Revolution, accompanied by his Red Guard. It is also the location of Mao's memorial hall with its crystal coffin, and far more. It still wouldn't be my choice of a tourist destination.

As part of his general address to the group at Barnes and Noble, Qiu told the story of his father's humiliation and persecution under the Cultural Revolution, and how Qiu himself, as a young boy, had to write the confessions for his hospitalized, frail parent. This was his introduction to writing. I chose not to ask him any further about it. I must say that Qiu's composure, with a lack of irony or bitterness, while discussing these experiences was remarkable. I was in tears, listening.

After reading comments on the web this weekend by people who are determined to blame someone or something for problems that have no clear cause, it is hard to reconcile our attitudes of entitlement in the USA with the joy for life and ability to survive and flourish exhibited by Qiu under the most trying circumstances. The good news is that we have the freedom to feel that selfish entitlement, if we choose, and hire a lawyer to act accordingly, with no repercussions from a totalitarian State.

I think a cautionary note is in order, however. Anyone who has watched the erosion of civil liberties in the United States might wonder just how close to totalitarianism the current (2008) regime has brought us. It is hard to know much about the horrors of our torture program in the US or the real story of who is in Guantanamo Bay's Prison and why they are there, but the recent novel The Mission Song by John Le Carre', is a brilliant and chilling glimpse of how the totalitarian State is alive and well for many who live on the margins of citizenship in Britain. Don't forget what this could signify for the US, especially given the "special relationship" that we enjoy with Great Britain.

We also touched on the subject of freedom in China when discussing crime fiction. Apparently there is now a type of crime fiction springing up in China, along the lines of the Western noir genre, that serves a useful, political and anti-corruption role. However, in these Chinese stories, there is never any mystery, because the crimes are always solved by a Communist Party cadre who uncovers the problem without the need for investigation. In China, all crime is political. I would call this The Case of the Ghost in the Party Machine.

I haven't yet given myself the pleasure of reading Cara Black's interview of Qiu, but you may find pertinent information about Qiu's childhood and later life there. Qiu spoke of Cara Black's hospitality, which I too have enjoyed, if only by email, discussing her novels and crime fiction in general. Ms. Black has written some of my favorite detective fiction, all set in Paris.

In addition to adjusting to a new schedule of publication deadlines and countless public appearances, it was good to hear that Qiu still has some time for poetry. I was able to pick up a few signed copies of his original verse and translations of Chinese poetry, and I look forward to reading them. I can say for now that Red Mandarin Dress is an outstanding novel, and somewhat of a departure in style. It is a tighter, more compact tale than we have seen before from Qiu, in part because Detective Yu is able to keep the investigation charging hard even while Inspector Chen Cao is struggling with his love of literature, academics and poetry and the resulting conflict with his investigative responsibility. A full review of the book will appear on this site.

I am grateful to Mr. Qiu Xiaolong for his kindness and time, for permission to interview him and to take and publish photographs of him and his work, and for his wonderful work.

*If you want more examples of how politics affect language, I strongly recommend Rates of Exchange by Malcolm Bradbury. It is an uproariously hilarious book, but not funny at all on some levels.

Technorati Tags:author interview, fiction, crime fiction, qiu xiaolong, a case of two cities, red mandarin dress, a loyal character dancer, tiananmen square, the cultural revolution, civil liberties, totalitarian state, crime and politics, china, translation, politics of language, malcolm bradbury, rates of exchange
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Books I'm reading and thinking about- murder included

A Year in Van Nuys, Depth Takes a Holiday and If You Lived Here, You'd be Home by Now, all by Sandra Tsing Loh (read years ago and greatly enjoyed- discussed recently with friends). Loh is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed on piano (see LA freeway performance art), vocals (hear her commentary on public radio shows, including Marketplace: The Loh-Down) and typewriter.*

Murder Duet: A Musical Case by Batya Gur (thinking about, read and enjoyed years ago, want to write about it but can't review this one without going through it again- a fine, complex mystery).

A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne (read recently and enjoyed, will review, suburbia gets the creeps, and maybe more!)

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (read recently, a richly developed novel of mystery, murder and families, not necessarily in that order, review on its way).

The Innocent and Death of an Englishman, by the late Magdalen Nabb, read recently. These are wonderful mysteries, though The Innocent is a tragic tale, if tempered by the joyously deep understanding and love of his people, and the quirky pragmatism, of the Florentine Marshall Guarnaccia. This has been much in my mind because a note from Cara Black really personalized the loss of this wonderful author, as did the fact that my late father and mother met in Florence.

Chronicles by Bob Dylan. I'm savoring this one- reading it remarkably slowly. I just don't want it to end. I almost never read slowly, though sometimes I read over decades. A few of Lawrence Durrell's books fit in that category, for example, but in those cases the writing reminds me of traveling through Norway: each page is so beautifully written, each sentence is such a gem, that wherever you are, there is no great hurry to go anywhere else. I've been discussing (with friends again) the Dylan-related book Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina, by David Hajdu, which I thoroughly enjoyed (in spite of the bad review by Greil Marcus, whose own books I also enjoy, but I felt this review of his was done poorly). Somehow I can't get over the fact that my wife was growing up in Chelsea Massachusetts and going to the beach right when and where Bob and Joan where picnicking (well, we haven't established actual simultaneity, but the year was the same).

The Chekhov short stories and literary crit. on Wilkie Collins mentioned in previous posts: both still in progress, both well worth it.

My Strange Quest for Mensonge: Structuralism's Hidden Hero (MSQFM) by Malcolm Bradbury. I have the oddest feeling that I somehow incorporated the entire text of this book into my memory of Dr. Criminale, also by Bradbury, so that my review of Criminale is really a review of a composite of the two books. This will require some research (or helpful feedback!!??). MSQFM is the postmodern novel that really makes an art of the wild goose chase.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, the book that helped spawn the environmental movement. I've been thinking about this because of the smear campaign being perpetrated against the memory of Rachel Carson by anti-environmentalists.

No musicology.

Amazingly, I can locate every single book mentioned on this page. In my house. Now.

I'll track down and add links and pictures later. Comments are welcome!

*Sandra is the sister of a very dear friend.

Added late: almost forgot that I just started The Vice-Consul by Marguerite Duras.

Added later: I've frequently found myself discussing The Emperor of Ocean Park (TEoOP) by Stephen L. Carter (a first novel for the acclaimed legal scholar). TEoOP is one of my favorite books of recent years because, while an excellent (if not absolutely perfect) mystery, it has also set me thinking a lot about race relations, white liberals (that would be me), African Americans and the Black church(es). Carter's protagonist makes some intriguing remarks on the subject, remarks that I suspect are rooted in truth. More to come.


© James K. Bashkin, 2007

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Fiction, The Emperor of Ocean Park, Batya Gur, Bob Dylan, cara black, DDT, david hajdu, greil marcus, marguerite duras, malcolm bradbury, Norway, wilkie collins, Stephen L. Carter, Silent Spring, environmentalism, environment, Chekhov, Sandra Tsing Loh, rachel carson, suzanne berne, magdalen nabb, kate atkinson, lawrence durrell
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No crime at all. Review of "To The Hermitage" by Malcolm Bradbury and The Eight by Katherine Neville

To The Hermitage (TTH) by Malcolm Bradbury is a most rewarding, if occasionally challenging, book. It contains two parallel stories. One story describes the great French philosopher and intellectual Denis Diderot, contemporary of Voltaire's and author/editor of the monumental Encyclopedia, finally making the perilous journey in 1773 from Paris to St. Petersburg. With this trip, he is fulfilling his long-avoided promise to visit Catherine the Great, who had purchased his vast library for her collection. The other story is a modern academic/artistic pilgrimage, The Diderot Project, following partly in the philosopher's footsteps to St. Petersburg on the eve of violent social change in Russia (in 1993).

One odd thing is that I read Katherine Neville's The Eight while reading TTH, and they had many of the same characters, in addition to having the same sort of temporally-split story line featuring contemporary and 18th century settings. The Eight is a thriller that mixes old myths, chess and modern intrigue. It pre-dates The Da Vinci Code by many years (published in 1988) and is quite well written, only losing some taughtness of storyline towards the end. What TTH and The Eight have in common is a large number of real historical characters, and reading them nearly simultaneously helped me recall or learn some history through immersion in Europe before (1773) and during (1789) the French Revolution.

What does one feel on first looking into a 500 page novel about a philosopher and some academics and sundry artistic types? I could admit to a little trepidation, even being a huge fan of Bradbury's. Luckily, the author put me at ease immediately, after a brief introduction, with an uproariously hilarious Chapter One. It begins with the remarkable shell game played on our modern narrator, an English novelist, by a delightful Swedish bank teller, who reduces a decent amount of English money to a tiny number of American dollars by a process of charging tax at every possible opportunity (and some that seem impossible). The bank converts everything to Swedish kronor both coming and going . All of this is done while denying the validity of credit cards (in 1993!) and offering the most cheerful, beautiful, blond, blue-eyed smiling face. The IRS might want to note the deadly tactics.

A series of initially confusing chapters take place THEN, with the great philosopher, but these are sandwiched in between each chapter taking place NOW, where we are treated to the most accessible and frequently funny assemblage of Diderot Project members and their subsequent departure on a ship to St. Petersburg. The events leading up to departure include a continual comedy of manners and errors, starting with

• A futile search of Stockholm for René Descartes’ tomb
• It turns out that Descartes died in Stockholm, but the journey that his remains took outdoes even the Australian Philosophers' Song for Groucho Marxian hilarity (see the link for lyrics or YouTube for audio/video). Trying to trace the remains of M. Descartes could reduce a man to tears.
• An extraordinarily chilly reception by our English narrator's Swedish hosts, the married couple Bo and Alma Luneberg (Bo is on the committee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and it is part of his job to give false hope to writers everywhere, as sincerely as possible).
  
• Alma essentially says, "we would have been happy to bring you to our home for dinner instead of to this crummy little restaurant, but in Sweden, we keep our homes for our real friends." Such warmth!
  
• The absolute inability of the poor narrator to convince his hosts that, as much as he likes it, he does not want to eat herring yet again on his first day in Sweden.

Then, while we begin to develop a feel for Diderot himself and for the form his story of 1773 will take, we meet gorgeous opera singer Birgitta Lindhorst, Swedish diplomat Anders Manders, skilled cabinetmaker Sven Sonnenburg, hip American professor Jack-Paul Verso (author of The Feminists' Wittgenstein) and other project members. In spite of the battle beginning between Boris Yeltsin and hard-line Russian communists, the group leaves port to sail up the Baltic and into Russia, accompanied by a dazzling assortment of chambermaids, bartenders, exotic dancers, and waitresses, all seemingly named Tatyana.

It turns out that the 18th century was a dangerous time for philosophers: a time when Emperors and Empresses needed the great men as advisers in court, but given the nature of the advice and nature of the men, a time when the philosophers often wound up in prison.

So it is with some justified fear that Diderot allows himself to be delivered, through a painful journey, to the court of Catherine. He proceeds to write a treatise on how to improve Russia, which he delivers once a week in written and spoken form to the Tzarina (I paraphrase):

• "What, you want me to free the Serfs? Are you mad? They would rise up against me!"
• "But no, Your Most Imperial Majesty, they would not, because of the extreme gratitude they would owe you. They would be your loyal servants."
• "They are my loyal servants now, with no option to be otherwise. I think it is better. Let us discuss something else- reform of my police force, perhaps."

So we find in Diderot quite an American sense of Democracy, one might say.

As the modern Diderot Project members travel to and around St. Petersburg, its members become rather dispersed, and the concept of The Project seems to crumble due to the combined and contradictory pressures of, for example, the charming Tatyana from Puskin and the thrilling examination of the remains of Diderot's library. The discovery of volumes signed by Diderot, with extensive notes in the margins, and similar volumes with Voltaire's imprint, is, to our novelist, like discovering the lost library of Alexandria. Jack-Paul Verso's discoveries tend more towards Pushkin, and I don't mean the author!

I find that in trying to capture the book I can only come up with a pale imitation of the original, so, enough with the synopsis! Suffice it to say that there are long discussions, practical, theoretical, and always with a hint of danger, that occupy Diderot and his patron, and Denis is quite happy to depart home for France as long as he doesn't have to worry about being executed for treason when he arrives. He achieves his goal eventually.

At the same time, the apparently disintegrated Diderot Project really ends up providing each member with what (or whom) he or she sought. Plans are already being drawn up for a second Project, if only, Alma reminds everyone, they would write their papers on Diderot before arriving, next time.

So what is the bottom line? This book might not be for everyone, but if you have a love of history, or philosophy, or writing, or language, and a desire to learn a bit about vastly disparate European cultures while laughing quite a lot through the nervous times of the 1770's and 1990's, pick it up right away.

© James K. Bashkin, 2007

Technorati Tags:descartes, catherine the great, denis diderot, st. petersburg, malcolm bradbury, to the hermitage, Voltaire, philosophy, the eight, katherine neville, russia, sweden, fiction
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David Lodge and Malcom Bradbury

Via Mark Vernon’s philosophy and life blog, I found the great article describing some of David Lodge’s interactions with his contemporary, colleague and friend, Malcolm Bradbury. This sheds some nice light on the two authors and I’m citing it to accompany my previous posts on Bradbury and Lodge.

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Dr. Criminale, Malcolm Bradbury, Gary Disher; see the Autralian post below

An excerpt from Crime Down Under is found just down under this post. I have yet to write on Gary Disher and it weighs heavy on my soul, especially with an Australian mother and so many relatives there. Hence the link to a good source. I have read these two and highly recommend them: The Dragon Man and Kittyhawk Down

So now I have this HTML/javascript problem: white rectangles show at the end of each post in IE but don't show in Firefox (but other things don't show in Firefox either, like the stat counter # and some pictures). I suppose is partly an Amazon script thing (actually Google, I now believe). I wanted to start with Booksense to support local bookstores but I'm not in the mood to add more javascript at the moment.


In lieu of a proper review of Dr. Criminale by Malcolm Bradbury, I offer my response to a comment found on the blog by Elizabeth Baines and her reading group (they have quite a lot of discussions about literature; you may enjoy them as I did).

"Sorry but I think your group missed the boat. First, Eastern Europe Constantly juxtaposed inappropriate bedfellows, like the poets in prison, and the poets not in prison but who maybe once were or will be again, so this switching of tone that bothered you (and I know that inappropriate tone can bother me, too) was actually an accurate and important part of the setting. Life in Eastern Europe in those days should bother us! Second, if you read Djinn by Alain Robbe-Grillet and other books of this genre (or maybe you have, sorry), you will recognize that the lack of resolution regarding the good Doctor is exactly postmodern, not a post-modern joke. So, what Bradbury did was (attempt to) inform us all about postmodernism with the help of humor and satire, and simultaneously write a perfect postmodern novel. I don't see this as one trick at all! I see it as a brilliant fusion of the text on literary theory with (the) question of whether text exists at all and if any text can be true without having an infinite number of truths (one for each reader, because we are all authors of our own texts which happen to inhabit the covers of a single book). Or some-thing like that. Or am I confusing deconstruction / post-structuralism and postmodernism here? I sort forget (but I just looked it up- I'm cool!), but at the time I read Dr. C, maybe 10 years ago, or whenever it first came out, it was all very clear. Thanks for posting on a favorite author of mine! Tried Rates of Exchange yet? Brilliant! Jim"

Added after the fact, on 9/12/07: via direct communication, it seems that Elizabeth and I are in agreement about nearly everything.

Comments are always appreciated, favorable or otherwise.

Technorati Tags:crime fiction, murder, police procedural, dr. criminale, malcom bradbury, gary disher, crime down under, the dragon man, kittyhawk down, booksense.com, elizabeth baines, djinn, alain robbe-grillet, rates of exchange, postmodernism, literary criticism, deconstruction
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A quick listing of authors to check out (or devour completely)

John le Carré is still a major force- Absolute Friends, for example, is required reading, and A Perfect Spy is terrific. His "post-classical period" books do not disappoint, and his "classical period" of Cold War writing is unparalleled. The thing is, when the world changed, he noticed. How many world leader's can you say that about?

Do you ever wonder what would you be like if you happened to be born in a different country, say one dominated by a different religion or political philosophy? This is a question for readers.

Alan Furst. Alan Furst. Some books are connected more than others (some aren't "connected" at all)- reading in sequence is advised. He is a man who refuses to bend to the demands of the central office in Hollywood when it comes to clean and neat endings. Hat's off to him.


Dust off some Graham Greene every now and then. I found the New Yorker review of his authorized autobiography to be hilarious, though one does feel sorry for its author. Be sure to watch The Third Man, also, which perhaps the #1 film of all time- its screenplay was written by Greene.

Lawrence Durrell is someone whose writing I spent a lot of time with in the 70's and 80's. I met him at Blackwell's in Oxford. Read it all, the poems, the novels, non-fiction. Tunc has a scene of stunning betrayal in it that really took my breath away, and I can still remember every bit of it, 30 years later. Oddly enough, I still haven't finished the sequel, Nunquam. With "Larry", the whole is sometimes less than the sum of the parts, but the parts, all of those wonderful sentences and paragraphs, are to die for.

Michael Connelly. Just read them all if you like crime fiction.

Faye Kellerman. Read them all, too. Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus nail the bad guys wherever they go. Lot's of great information about mixed marriages, conversion, marital compromise, and Judaism. Preferably, read them in the order published.

Richard Russo: Empire Falls, The Risk Pool and Nobody's Fool are examples of the best fiction around. Straight Man is a departure in style, and it is so funny that I laughed out loud constantly while enjoying it.

Malcolm Bradbury. Rates of Exchange is another book for belly laughs, though it helps to have a sense of England, Europe and European languages (you don't have to speak them, just make sure you've read an article or two on them). Is that really true, from "though" on? Let me know! There may be some Bradbury fiction I haven't read, but I can't think of it, so I'll be working up a number of mini-reviews.

David Lodge. I read Changing Places in 1977 just after moving from California to England (for 5 years). Perfect timing (I also read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis at the time). Though I was a little young to be Professor Morris Zapp in the flesh, there were parallels between 1969 and 1977 (I arrived to protests about the Shah of Iran by masked Iranian students). Some of the bits about figuring out life in England were contemporaneous for me any the book character I was reading about. I guess some of Lodge's fiction (Nice Work?) went on television in the U.K., which means I don't know what (what to tell me?), except it parallels the opera singing vs. dancing pectorals on X's got Talent, X being America or England (I don't really know the formal names of these shows, so bear with me or bring me up to date, please). I hope he made a good living off it. I think I've read all of his fiction, too, except I couldn't take Ginger, You're Barmy, so that's a lot of reviewing to do.

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