Read on Twitter
Why Qian Zhongshu should win the Nobel Prize for Literature (despite being dead), by @bokane. https://twitter.com/nadmussen/status/1305570921978171395
In addition to Qian's novel Fortress Beseiged (圍城), his criticism, especially the magnificent Limited Views (管錐編) written in Classical Chinese, is some of the best comparative literary work I've ever read.
Ostensibly about his reading of early Chinese classics, he actually touches on the entire literary tradition and draws it into dialogue with texts in English, French, Italian, Latin, German, and more (all quoted in original languages).
Here, for example, is part of a page on "Using Sound to Emphasize Silence," which covers Du Fu, Su Shi, Xie Zhen, William James, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Shijing, Wang Ji, Bao Zhao, Wang Wei, Giacomo Leopardi, and Vincenzo Cardarelli.
Here's roughly the same passage in the original text. Again, note his quotations and original translations of a range of western literary texts.
Qian's technique is paratactic, piling up quotations and examples with minimal commentary so that you, the reader, are forced to make sense of it for yourself. This was a technique that Qian called "striking a connection" (打通), according to his translator Ronald Egan.
Personally, whenever I feel stuck on a research topic, I flip through Qian's critical works in classical Chinese (談藝錄 and 管錐編) and see if he's touched on the topic somewhere. He usually has, always in a brief and refreshing way.
I then go back to my own work & pursue whatever Qian said in a more systematic way. For example, this article I wrote was partially inspired by Qian's comment that Tang and Song poets understood the poetry-meditation relationship differently. https://www2.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/file/3657BbLwAuR.pdf
So yes, give Qian Zhongshu the Nobel!
For more on him in English, check out Christopher Rea's book, China’s Literary Cosmopolitans: Qian Zhongshu, Yang Jiang, and the World of Letters. https://brill.com/view/title/27207
For more on him in English, check out Christopher Rea's book, China’s Literary Cosmopolitans: Qian Zhongshu, Yang Jiang, and the World of Letters. https://brill.com/view/title/27207
The above tweet should read "For more in English on him..."
Qian also wrote charmingly in English on a diverse array of topics. Here's the opening of an essay on "Pragmatism and Potterism."
Qian also wrote charmingly in English on a diverse array of topics. Here's the opening of an essay on "Pragmatism and Potterism."
