Abstract
This essay notes the return of ghosts to the contemporary literary landscape and argues that contemporary literary ghosts are primarily historical ghosts, illustrative not of awe for the unknown, or concern over individual morality but of awareness of the problematic of modernity and anxiety over dispossession and moral responsibility. This essay analyzes Yu Hua’s ghost fiction The Seventh Day (2013) and argues that it not only evokes familiar elements of the zhiguai genre, such as issues of rites, boundary and time, but also reworks these elements responding to a new historical context and addressing new concerns. Ghosts in The Seventh Day neither abide to the historical time of development nor enter the cyclical time of reincarnation. Their final place of rest, the land of the unburied, evinces a utopian impulse, which must be understood in connection with the dystopian vision of the mundane world.
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Notes
For a fruitful discussion of Lu Xun’s innovative engagement with these traditions, see Cheng’s (2013) book chapters, “Mocking the Sages,” and “Disenchanted Fables.”
One notes the tremendous success of television series on ghosts and ghosts-related in post-Mao era: 聊斋 Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1980), 济公 Ji Gong (1985), 新白娘子传奇 The Legend of a White Snake (1992), 包青天 Judge Bao (1993).
“SARFT reiterates” (2008).
(Yu 1987, p. 432).
Huntington (2004).
Zeitlin (2007, p. 9).
Wang (2004).
Yu (1987, p. 403).
The original Chinese version of the fiction, see Yu (2013), provides this quotation in both English and Chinese. The English translator, Allan H. Barr, has left out this quotation, see Yu (2015). It would be interesting to learn of the translator’s reasons of not including this important biblical reference.
Yu (2015, p. 17).
Yu (2015, p. 28).
Yu (2015 p. 7).
Yu (2015, p. 48).
Wang (2004, p. 273.)
Yu (2015, p. 9).
Yu (2015, p. 9).
Yu (2015, p. 13).
Yu (2015, p. 15).
Campany (1991, pp. 17–18).
Yu (2015, p. 59).
Yu (2015, p. 57).
Yu (2015, p. 58).
Yu (2015, p. 85).
Yu (2015, p. 203).
Yu (2015, p. 89).
See Kinkley’s fine book exploring China’s new historical novels, Kinkley (2014).
Yu (2015, p. 3).
Yu (2015, p. 4).
Yu (2015, p. 3).
“Yu Hua’s response” (2013).
Yu (2015, p. 121).
Yu (2015, p. 122).
Yu (2015, p. 132).
Yu (2015, p. 137).
Yu (2015, p. 156).
Yu (2015, p. 156).
References
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余华回应《第七天》争议:交稿时就等着大家来骂 (Yu Hua’s response to the controversy of The Seventh Day: I’m ready to be criticized the moment I hand in my manuscript). (June 27, 2013). China Daily. Retrieved from http://caijing.chinadaily.com.cn/2013-06/27/content_16671104.htm.
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Huang, Y. Ghosts and their contemporary return: the case of Yu Hua’s The Seventh Day . Neohelicon 43, 59–71 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-016-0330-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-016-0330-4