Jia Pingwa
The Castle
Trans. from the Chinese by Shao-pin Luo
Toronto: York Press, 1997. Pp. 79+. $12.95
Reviewed by Lawrence N. Shyu

As a novelist, Jia Pingwa’s name only became known in China in the 1980s. He belongs therefore to the second generation of China’s post-Cultural Revolution novelists. His works do not directly focus on the wrongs inflicted on the people during the Cultural Revolution. He is not a member of the generation of writers who produced “the wounded literature.” The Castle is one of Jia’s earlier works, one with the least amount of controversy. His 1993 publication, The Abandoned Capital, generated a good deal of controversy and was partially banned in China due to the book’s explicit sexual depictions.

Unlike most Chinese novelists, whose works have an urban setting, Jia joins the ranks of the minority in writing on country people living in remote rural villages. Being a “northerner” born in Shanxi, Jia’s novels reflect the rural back­ground of the peasantry of northern China. What comes to the immediate attention of readers of The Castle are the deep-rooted traits and the long traditions of the village people, particularly the superstition, the patriarchal family system, and the strict sexual segregation in the village society.

Another characteristic of the novel is the strong sense of history contained in the narration. The old Taoist priest is the only “man of wisdom” in this remote region. People go to him for the highest advice. The old man never answers in layman’s language. He recites passages from the monumental Record of History or tells in his own words the stories of Shang Yang, the great reformer who helped make the Kingdom of Qin so powerful that it eventually conquered all other feudal states in China. If this repeatedly told historical story in the novel alludes to anything at all, it would have to be the personal fate of Shang Yang, who became the victim of the success of his own reform. Could the author have in mind the fate of Hu Yaobang, the recently deposed but highly popular secretary-general of the Communist party in China at the time of Jia’s writing?

The narrative centers mainly around the human dichotomy of making efforts to improve life while maintaining the resignation of fatalism. Take the story of hardworking Laoda, a man determined to develop the mine which would benefit his own family as well as everybody else in the village. While he has the help of the film crew from the city, which symbolizes modernity, all his efforts are frustrated by one misfortune after the other. The villagers he intended to help all turn against him. Writing in 1988, the author probably had in mind the conflict of ideas prevalent during the time of China’s early stage of reform and the steadfast rejection of reformist ideas by the rural population based on an ingrained conservatism which borders on “the cult of poverty.”

The frequent references to the musk-deer in the mountains surrounding the village give no clear indication as to their symbolism aside from the villagers’ superstition. The sighting of a musk-deer is widely believed to be a bad omen by the villagers. It seems to have a corresponding ill-effect on the lives of the Zhang brothers. Perhaps it reflects the competition between the shrinking natural environment and man’s encroachment on it. Although humor is intended in the depiction of the local officials, the exercise of power and the practice of corruption and nepotism convey a sense of realism in the contemporary society of China.