The Youth of a Dog: China's Post-avantgarde Cool Male Writer Fang Zhen

Author: Chu Chen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-06-01
Features: Pioneering spirit is always an indispensable cornerstone of literature. Human satisfaction with what exists is relative, while dissatisfaction is absolute; human acceptance of the present is temporary, while hope for the future is eternal; human recognition of social life is limited, while critique of social life is infinite. This is the basis for the existence of pioneering thought. Literature provides humanity with aesthetic ideals, not just depicting life—it is inherently a product of dissatisfaction and expectation. It was on this foundation that the May Fourth pioneering writers stood, creating the great era of aesthetic liberalism and individualism of the May Fourth period. In the 1980s, China's advanced writers picked up this proposition of May Fourth literature again, giving rise to the prevalence of humanistic narration in the early 20th century and the continuous reflection and innovation of writers on writing methods and approaches. However, since the 1990s, this true pioneering spirit has been lost. Artistic innovation has been replaced by commercial operations, and spiritual rebellion has been offset by considerations of interest. If the essence of pioneering writing lies in ideological subversion and artistic rebellion, then in the face of the alienation of humanity before commodities and the alienation of literature before commodities since the 1990s and into the new century, we must say that the spirit of pioneering writing is exactly what our literature needs. In the 21st century, Chinese literature—whether dominated by beautiful women or led by cool men? Pioneering writers Shen Wei, Tao Wenyu, Zhao Gang, Jin Hainu, and Chu Chen unite to create it! "Post-pioneering" insists on creating literature from the dimension of passion, upholding the hierarchical division of human subjectivity in the transition from natural person to social person to aesthetic person, and calling on humanity to confirm itself as an aesthetic subject through a historically defined pure subject.