The central argument in Wendy Larson's new book initially appears to be built around a dichotomy: Freudianism, while indisputably a product of Western culture, implicitly assumes the universality of the human mind; in contrast, a variant of historicism that in this book appears under the rubric “discourse of revolutionary spirit” locates the development of mentalities in local cultures and societies. Thus equipped with two theories on the mind that have been influential in shaping modern culture, Larson concludes that the first of these fails to provide a convincing rationale for the depiction of relationships between sexual and social imperatives in 20th-century Chinese fiction and film.
The first chapter sets out the author's investigation of these competing theories and their consequences. Beginning as a study of narratives on sexual relations during the Cultural Revolution (CR) in contemporary fiction and film, her project gradually moved towards a more complex examination of the underlying concepts of subjectivity, identity and cultural change. These introductory remarks are followed by a dense analysis of the development of modern theories of psychology and Freudianism, especially the association of the latter with personal and social liberation. The broad outlines of her critique of Freudianism will be familiar to many readers, but the detail is necessary for the comparison that follows.
The developing relationships between Freudianism and Marxism are investigated further in the context of their introduction into China, from the 1910s up to the 1980s. Larson also engages in chapter two with contemporary scholars of Freudianism's impact on modern Chinese literature, including Yin Hong, Liu Jihui, Liu Jianmei and Wang Ban; her literary examples are drawn from work by well-known writers from Lu Xun and Shi Zhecun to Yu Hua, Can Xue, Mo Yan and Ge Fei among many others.
Chapter three focuses on the development of theories of the mind in revolutionary culture from the beginning of the 20th century. The title of this chapter is virtually the same as the book itself, an indication that it embodies the author's key argument. It seems to me that Larson has succeeded in setting up a paradigm of equal weight to Freudianism in the analysis of modern Chinese literature; I am less convinced that these are the only (or the two main) such models of literary writing and critical interpretation. This chapter is for several reasons the most problematic in the book. For all its fuzzy edges, multiple sources and self-contradictions, Freudianism as a concept is based on the writing of a single person and thus has a high degree of internal coherence, while the discourse of revolutionary spirit is a construct based on the author's own perceptions and inspirations from diverse sources. From this juncture, the impact of Freudianism on post-CR literature fades as part of the thematic argument, although the broader implications of the initial dichotomy reappear in the conclusion.
Larson's hypothesis is tested in her three core chapters, in her examination of works by the writers Mang Ke, Wang Xiaobo and Anchee Min, and filmmakers Jiang Wen and He Jianjun. The common thread in these works (with one minor exception) is that the setting is the CR and the primary focus is on sexual desire, relationships and behaviour. Larson's project is in part a response to concerns about the study of modern Chinese literature in the US: Freudianism in Chinese literary studies represents the imposition of Western literary theories in general in the Chinese context, and its disappearance from these chapters signals the author's rejection of such impositions.
In her conclusion, Larson deplores the tendency for Sinologists to apply Western literary and cultural theories to Chinese data without adaptation or adjustment to local circumstances, and the consequent rarity of allowing the theoretical dimensions of literary phenomena to arise from these local circumstances themselves. The general argument is rounded out by the author's reflections on the unstable status of studies on modern Chinese literature in US universities.
Larson's meticulous and cogent readings are compelling; they should guarantee the book's inclusion in recommended texts for graduate courses. At the same time, her originality and spirit in confronting larger issues will surely set off further discussion. Larson once again makes an impressive contribution to modern Chinese literary and cultural studies.
