The Last Ten Years of Lu Xun

Author: Lin Xianzhi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Unlike other great figures who bring to the world only the dazzling brilliance that remains static in history or a particular stage, he brings not so much "consolation memorials," triumphal arches, or colorful bouquets, but rather the gap in the besieged city, the broken shield, and the rose bushes scattered without flowers. As a spiritual legacy of the contemporary era, it is vast, heavy, and intensely stimulating, causing one to be wounded by its depth, in pain, awakened, and willing to forge ahead with bleeding heels. This is Lu Xun, this is Lu Xun's philosophy of resistance. The book narrates the last ten years of Lu Xun from the perspective of a historian. These ten years were his most brilliant and radiant years, as well as his eternal years. Lu Xun was naturally sensitive and fierce, unable to tolerate harmful things. He strove to make the familiar strange, the hidden open, the stable and balanced extreme and sharp, in short, he wanted to reveal the "dark animal" and prevent the people in the "iron house" from sleeping or dozing. Lu Xun's entire effort was almost entirely devoted to revealing the truth of the era. —Lin Xianzhi
In China, there is no second figure like Lu Xun who launched such fierce attacks on servility—servility and slavery. Resistance can be said to be the core concept of Lu Xun's philosophy. Unlike other great figures who bring to the world only the dazzling brilliance that remains static in history or a particular stage, he brings not so much "consolation memorials," triumphal arches, or colorful bouquets, but rather the gap in the besieged city, the broken shield, and the rose bushes scattered without flowers. As a spiritual legacy of the contemporary era, it is vast, heavy, and intensely stimulating, causing one to be wounded by its depth, in pain, awakened, and willing to forge ahead with bleeding heels.
[Preface] Lu Xun died in the 20th century but lives in the 21st. This is a strange phenomenon of life. However, he does not bring to the world only the dazzling brilliance that remains static in history or a particular stage, like other great figures. He brings not so much "consolation memorials," triumphal arches, or colorful bouquets, but rather the gap in the besieged city, the broken shield, and the rose bushes scattered without flowers. As a spiritual legacy of the contemporary era, it is vast, heavy, and intensely stimulating, causing one to be wounded by its depth, in pain, awakened, and willing to forge ahead with bleeding heels.
In 1881, the year Lu Xun was born, it was close to the cliff of the empire, a fracture in time. China's modernization began to stumble in the humiliation of the nation, with many unfamiliar things appearing among the swaying queues and bound feet. With the awakening of the economy, a trial of political reform—the Hundred Days' Reform—arose and then vanished, marked by bloodshed. Where was China heading? This became a common question facing officials, scholars, and the people. The historian John K. Fairbank used the concepts of "Coastal China" and "Inland China" to explain the two major traditions of modern China. Lu Xun's birthplace fell squarely within a small or medium-sized town in Coastal China: Shaoxing. It was ancient yet young; it was the site of the Yue King's revenge and retribution, yet it was also where new books and newspapers were first disseminated. Surrounding it were numerous small and large villages, with a distinct marginal character. Lu Xun's large family declined prematurely, which bore a strong sense of isomorphism to the fate of ancient China. Due to his grandfather's imprisonment, he spent a brief period in the countryside as a "beggar." His grandfather was sentenced to "await execution," with his life and death decided in an instant by the highest ruler through a "special selection." This was absurd but also considered natural. The unpredictable power of authority made him gripped by an unspeakable anxiety, shame, and hatred. His father's long illness and subsequent death undoubtedly deepened his spiritual wounds; as the eldest son, he also had to bear the heavy responsibility. The two family upheavals mercilessly pushed him to the bottom of society; from prosperity to hardship, and ultimately to self-exile, leaving his homeland, "selling his soul to the devils." The vast gap in his life formed the broad and profound background for his later resistance to the existing order. It can be said that Lu Xun came from the dark depths of traditional China, from the source of modernity, from the waves of the conflict between Eastern and Western cultures, and from the rough friction surface of the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society, from autocratic politics to democratic politics. The relationship between Lu Xun and his era had a certain "prototypical" nature in the context of the entire modernization process. Due to the slow pace of reform, over a long period, many similar or even identical events would arise one after another; in other words, within the infinitely expanding reality, one would continue to encounter the ghosts of the past. This "repetition" is the most essential thing. Lu Xun always grasped this, and for this pre-modern society, he seized its knot: "man-eating." By "man-eating," he meant that the various rights of individuals—from survival to development—were completely stripped away; in Marx's summary of autocratic society, it was "to despise man, to scorn man, to make man not a man." However, people had long been accustomed to the inhuman condition of slavery, numb, compromising, and evading freedom. Regarding reality, one was either afraid to face it or good at forgetting it. Lu Xun's struggle lay not only in exposing the dark facts but also in revealing the various attempts to conceal them. What was frightening was that, apart from the arrangements of the authorities, there was also the collusion of "associates" and the participation of the masses. Lu Xun was naturally sensitive and fierce, unable to tolerate harmful things. He strove to make the familiar strange, the hidden open, the stable and balanced extreme and sharp, in short, he wanted to reveal the "dark animal" and prevent the people in the "iron house" from sleeping or dozing, to make everyone see the actuality of the facts, and to let the truth speak for itself. Lu Xun's entire effort was almost entirely devoted to revealing the truth of the era. Therefore, when we reread Lu Xun's texts, we are astonished to find that the facts revealed one after another—facts that Lu Xun devoted his entire life to changing—already contain an owl-like insight, like the prophecy of a seer. Who are we? Humans or slaves? Do we possess free will and rights?