Selected Stories

Rating:
Summary: China's Cultural Doctor
Review: After studying to become a doctor in a Western-style medical school in Nanjing in the 1910s, Lu Xun decided that the real diseases afflicting China were not physiological, but sociological. Thus, in order to truly work toward the health of the nation, he decided to diagnose the nation's maladies as an author rather than a physician. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he took the radical stance that the source of China's social and economic woes was the very framework of Chinese culture itself, in the Confucian value system and the ancient hierarchy of social allegiance. In stories like "A Madman's Diary" (his first story, published initially in the magazine New Youth), he exposed the reality underlying the polished politeness of Chinese society, that the system forced people to consume one another and work toward each other's downfall.

Most of his stories are metaphorical, requiring a decent background in modern Chinese history and some ability for literary analysis. I'm not even close to a complete understanding of many of them, but the moments of insight these stories have given me into Chinese history (and into my own life) have been among the most pleasurable moments of my life. This book is indispensible for anyone who wishes to understand modern China; Lu is perhaps the greatest Chinese author of the last two centuries.