Document Type
Review Essay
Abstract
[First paragraph]
Under Mo Yan's Pen, as Chan says repeatedly (2011: chaps. 1, 3), "torture has become simply a profession and cruelty is juxtaposed with and even transformed into an art of the aesthetic domain-a completely new reading experience for contemporary Chinese readers" (chap. 3). She acknowledges that this aestheticization of violence and torture came under fire in China following the publication of Sandalwood Death. Xie Youshun, for example, criticized Mo for glamorizing "'eccentric behavior,'" a "'gloomy psyche,'" and for indulging in ultraviolent descriptions to serve as "'mere enjoyment for the writer'" (ibid., qtg. Xie). Now, however, instead of "problematizing" the Moist aesthetic of violence, Chan immediately changes the subject to point out the marketability (commodification) of the novel, as if this in any way addresses the critical intellectual issues raised by Xie's direct engagement with Mo's writing.
Repository Citation
Leonard, Jerry. "Hard Core: A Review of Shelley Chan's 'Not Uncritical' Mo Yan Thought (Part Two of Three)." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 16, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1–10. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol16/iss2/39