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Cheng, Eileen J. Literary Remains: Death, Trauma, and Lu Xun's Refusal to Mourn. Nonfiction. Honolulu. Hawai'i University Press. 2013. 313 pages. $54.00 USD. ISBN 9780824835958
Literary Remains is an engaging study of a writer who needs no introduction. The purpose of this book, as suggested by its title, is to address the literary remains that derive from Lu Xun's (1981-1936) critical engagement with the past in his creative writing. Eileen Cheng introduces the owl as a leitmotif that signifies "darkness, death, and life in the midst of destruction" (2), and further explains that this cultural destruction manifests itself in the form of literary and historical remnants that Lu Xun re-worked into "new graves, burying and memorializing at once." (Lu Xun, Preface to Graves). The author analyses Lu Xun's use of traditional Chinese texts as "a critical vantage point for assessing the present" (171), and his preoccupation with death and loss as a refusal to mourn that which has been wrongfully silenced. Cheng sets her book apart from other seminal English-language studies by attempting to "overcome the artificial divide between the 'modern' and 'premodern' that has long defined Chinese studies" (6-7). She demonstrates instead that Lu Xun's modern literary works are repositories of traditional forms and conventions and that, in spite of his image as quintessential iconoclast, Lu Xun nurtured a deep attachment to past traditions.
Literary Remains is artfully designed and features many interesting introductory quotes. The eight chapters are grouped into three main parts: Lu Xun's rethinking of the past and of the literati tradition (chapters 1-3); a critique of new literary trends and of the lack of moral imperative of writing (chapters 4-6); and a reworking of traditional legends, fables, and myths (chapters 7-8). The variety of texts and themes justifies chapter by chapter summaries and comments.
Chapter 1, "The Limits of Subjectivity," addresses Lu Xun's fascination with death and loss, and relates it to the perceived failure of modern Chinese literature to deal ethically with suffering and death. In reading his famous "Preface" to Call to Arms as well as some autobiographical accounts, Cheng explores Lu Xun's endeavor to expose the power that the past continues to exert on the present. The "refusal to mourn" derives from Walter Benjamin and is defined...