After exploring the development of the vernacular language in the Ming-dynasty novel Outlaws of the Marsh in his first book, Ge Liangyan turns to an equally ambitious topic in his second, the relationship between scholarly elite and imperial state in late-imperial fiction. Specifically Ge argues that, as an ever more powerful and autocratic state increasingly encroached on a gradually more disenfranchised and disillusioned literary elite, the vernacular novel came to serve as the most powerful literary expression of political dissatisfaction, a harbinger of the eventual dissolution of the traditional relationship between scholar and state, and the early messenger of the modern age.

Ge makes his argument by revisiting some of the classics of late-imperial vernacular literature, The Three Kingdoms, The Scholars and Dream of the Red Chamber, as well as some less-studied genres such as the erotic scholar-beauty romance. Beginning with the idealized relationship between state power and intellectual elite depicted in Three Kingdoms and ending with the dissatisfaction with orthodox modes of scholarship and literary composition depicted in Dream of the Red Chamber, Ge offers a strong overarching narrative that illuminates much of vernacular fiction. Indeed, one wishes that Ge had extended his argument to include some of the other vernacular classics. Jin Ping Mei and Outlaws of the Marsh would have fit Ge's thesis perfectly well and by including these works into his study he might have offered readers something that presently is still lacking, that is a clear and succinct introduction to late-imperial vernacular fiction suitable for the class-room.

If the central theme of Ge's book is in some ways familiar, what makes his study worth reading is the way he finds surprisingly original readings within this central frame-work. Sometimes Ge manages to do so by suggesting a completely new take on familiar works. Ge's second chapter on the erotic beauty-scholar tales of Li Yu, for instance, sheds new light on these works by playfully juxtaposing the erotic pleasures of judging female beauty with the rigorous undertaking of selecting literary talent through the imperial examinations. Combining insights culled from visuality studies (the male gaze is central to any assessment of female beauty) with a helpful use of the notion of metaphor (sexual prowess and literary talent are read as vehicle and tenor respectively), Ge moves briskly through a variety of texts from Ji Yun's Unofficial Biography of the Ming Empress Dowager Yi'an to the legend of Wang Zhaojun, to show how the surface texture of romantic dalliance functioned to destabilize the mechanism that allowed the imperial state to co-opt the literati class, the imperial examinations.

Even more important is the way Ge breathes life into his overarching theme by contextualizing the central literary works with a rich and historically-informed set of other texts. In his first chapter, for instance, Ge nicely historicizes the paradigmatic bond between minister and ruler in The Three Kingdoms by arguing that the novel is most profitably read as a reaction to the expurgation of the text of Mencius and abolishment of the position of prime-minister in the early Ming. Similarly, in chapter three, Ge deftly juxtaposes his reading of The Scholars as a critique of state-sponsored writing with the literary persecution of scholars such as Qian Mingshi and Zeng Jing by the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperor respectively. Finally, Jia Baoyu's rebellion against career-oriented textuality is persuasively fleshed out by references to a broader high-Qing culture of scholars moving to different cultural realms by pursuing medicine, painting, calligraphy and fortune-telling.

In suggesting the novel as the outlet of a frustrated class of overeducated but underutilized authors, Ge may not be entirely breaking new ground. Ever since the late Qing, intellectuals such as Liang Qichao, Hu Shi and Lu Xun have championed vernacular fiction as an alternative to other, supposedly retrogressive forms of writing more closely aligned with state power, most notably the examination essay (baguwen), a genre that not surprisingly features large as central antagonist in Ge's book. Indeed, some readers might question the strong teleological thrust of Ge's argument and wonder if describing the examination system as inevitably moribund is the most productive way of engaging with a mechanism that provided stability and sponsored scholarship for over a millennium. Similarly, Ge's single-minded critique of the imperial state and unequivocal support of the scholar class might strike others as too closely aligned with the position forwarded by the elite authors themselves. Are there ways of thinking about vernacular fiction that broaden our view beyond the one per cent?

That said, in putting the relationship between scholar and state at the heart of vernacular fiction, Ge has provided us with a strong account some of the classics of the late-imperial novel. Moreover, by placing some of these classics in a broader, socio-political context, Ge offers a reading that escapes narrow-minded literary criticism as a purely aesthetic pursuit. Indeed, if Ge's narrative strikes us as familiar, perhaps this is because his tale of an over-reaching autocratic state which either burns or cannibalizes the labour of its intellectual elite remains frustratingly appropriate to our contemporary age.