Lu Xun is a controversial writer for many Chinese although the West praises him a lot.
In our book, p 242, line 7-9, “Few writers of fiction have gained so much fame for such a small oeuvre.” This is all because of Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the 1st chairman of the central committee of the Communist Party of China (1945-1976), used him for propaganda, to rise in rebellion, to destroy the Chinese culture. Mao Zedong had all students in China read his works, and praised him as a saint. His works led to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in China.
Here are some of my points of view about Lu Xun.
- When we google “Diary of a Madman,” what do we get? A farcical short story by Nikolai Gogol. Lu Xun not only stole the name from a Russian writer, but also stole the writing format.
- Our book, p 242, line 25-28, “Lu Xun was a controlled ironist and a craftsman whose narrative skill far exceeded that of most of his contemporaries;” First, he had only one novel written, The True Story of Ah Q, in which Ah Q is a man from the rural peasant class with little education. Lu Xun was a highly educated person, and he had never been a farmer. He looked at Chinese with Japanese perspective which sneered and tried to stomp Chinese as Japanese did in WWI and WWII. He was influenced and helped by Japanese a lot. For example, he and his brother, another famous writer, spoke only Japanese at home. All his other works are mostly prose, in which he did only one thing--- spoke out against and scolded everyone while other people sacrificing for the country. Second, Here is one of his contemporaries, Hu Shih. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Shih I respect Hu Shih but not Lu Xun, but very few people know about Hu Shih in the west.
- Our book, p242, on the right side, line 14-24,
In a famous anecdote describing his decision to become a writer, Lu Xun tells of
seeing a classroom slide of a Chinese prisoner about to be decapitated as a Russian
spy. What shocked the young medical student was the apathetic crowd of Chinese
onlookers, gathered around to watch the execution. At that moment, he decided
that what truly needed healing were not their bodies but their dulled spirits.
This is the picture he saw
The Japanese killers were laughing, the Chinese onlookers were apathetic.
These are his grades.
Anatomy 59.3 points
Histology 73.7 points
Physiology 63.3 points
Ethics 83 points
German 60 points
Physical 60 points
Chemistry 60 points
An average of 65.6 points,
He ranked 68 in a class of 142 students. https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%B2%81%E8%BF%85 (Sorry, the page is in Chinese.)
We can see his grades was lousy on the medical parts.
Most of all, I don’t believe he didn’t know that the crowd of Chinese onlookers were forced to be there. They were scared to death. Lu Xun, as a privileged person who was studying in Japan, Why he didn’t question that Japanese had NO right to execute Chinese in HIS motherland!
4. In our book, p243, right side, line 10-11, “His reading of ancient texts to discover evidence of cannibalism,” Those stories happened Before Christ. We’ve read a lot of similar stories in all ancient cultures. I think Lu Xun exaggerated the history to suit his need. Also, there are two deliberate mistakes.
Ch 5, p247, line 3
“In Medicinal… something or other by Li Shizhen, the grandfather of the doctor’s trade, it says quite clearly that human flesh can be eaten, so how can that old man say that he’s not a cannibal too?”
Li Shizhen (1518-1593) mentioned in his book Taxonomy of Medicinal Herbs that there is another Medicinal Herbs book written in 739, in which the author claimed that human flesh could cure tuberculosis. However, Li Shizhen rebuts this idea.
Lu Xun deliberately condensed the information.
Ch 10, p250, the third line from the bottom
“There’s an old story from ancient times about Yi Ya boiling his son and serving him up to Jie Zhou.”
Yi Ya (685 BC- 643 BC) boiling his son is a true story. He is a villain.
Jie (1652 BC- 1600 BC)
Zhou (1105 BC- 1046 BC)
Can an author write about history irresponsibly, and then we as readers have to find an excuse for him by saying: “the madman has mixed up some facts here”?
實在懶得再寫了,這魯迅到底是好在哪!
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