...and again, it's been a while

...and ironically, this is not an entry I am writing because I am feeling very inspired, but because I am feeling like a blog should be kept or abolished. Haven't quite decided what it's going to be yet, but as I am already writing these lines, I might just as well keep on going.

Good books I have recently been reading include Sun Yuming's Hongxue:1954 紅學: 1954 (Redology:1954; Beijing: 2003), which I might just give a short summary of, as I would for once say: this is a Chinese work of secondary scholarship on modern China that is actually worth reading. Clearly, Sun Yuming 孫玉明, who is (among other things) the vice-editor-in-chief of the redologist journal Hongloumeng xuekan 紅樓夢學刊, devoted much time and research into his case study of Yu Pingbo's downfall at the hands of the Communist literary critics in the mid-fifties: at the end of each chapter, there are pages of footnotes revealing not only his source material, but also the contradictions he battled in analyzing it (I should perhaps mention that this is indeed a rare trait of Chinese modern historical studies).

The book is divided into nine chapters, and pretty much treats the first national literary campaign from every possible angle, beginning with the protagonist Yu Pingbo 俞平伯 and gradually moving on to all those involved either directly or indirectly in both the prelude and aftermath of the case. From Mao Zedong's direct involvement in the publication of the two central incriminating articles to the fall of the editors of Wenyibao 文藝報 and Guangming ribao 光明日報 who at first refused to publish them, from two no-name postgraduate students from the periphery to the upper echelons of the CCP and the political and personal rivalries playing into what allegedly started as an academic debate, Sun Yuming's book gives an insight into the literary field of the P.R.C. in 1954 and beyond. If one looks past the occasionally overwhelming display of rhetorical allusion and speculation as to possible alternative twists and turns to the plot, this book has a lot to offer in terms of understanding the workings of a system of literary critical production under the early Mao-regime, and it is perhaps an intriguing task to set the scene back then against the field of today, which, to Perry Link's knowledge (The Uses of Literature) apparently still has much in common with its past.

Among Sun Yuming's other works is a brief history of Japanese redology (Riben hongxue shi gao 日本紅學史稿), published in 2006.