In his article , “Author’s Preface to Without Isms”(1995) Gao Xingjian notes that speaking without isms means speaking freely and spontaneously eve despite the act being futile. It is “simply speech without outcomes.” (25)
It is an attitude and better than Nihilism. It admits no
blind obedience to religion or power or an ideology. It is not empiricism but
respects experience but as experience of one’s or of others has a limitation or
uniqueness, there is no need to treat an experience as a gospel. What matters
is an individual’s judgement with out any need for moral verification as it is not possible to go on
living in the face of verifying everything . It is an individual’s choice but
not an imposition. It sees judgement of an individual as relative. It is more
human being free form judgements bade on different criteria of different
people.it allows neither domination by oneself nor senseless butchery of oneself by the world. It is against
totalitarianism, extreme individualism, foisting of politics, utopia,
recruiting oneself or others into a group, political messages , anarchy and
also against dictatorship in the name of any ideology be it fascism, communism,
nationalism or religious fundamentalism. It is about human freedom and opposes
profiteering or indoctrination . it risks public condemnation as people shift
from one ism to another ism but not allowed to without isms. It is a great
liberation and being without trauma of others’ isms.
It is best to search
for truth oneself. It does not bother about the existence or nonexistence of
truth. “Moreover, truth could well be a captive bird that once held in the hand
will die.” (30) It is not pragmatism and
the self outside market is not worthless.
It does not construct self-validating system . it isa form of resistance
and reverence for the mystery of life. It is his individual choice , says Gao
Xingjian . it is not pessimism . “It is stopping before the brink of
despair to look silently around.” (31)
Without Isms(1993):
Gao Xingjian rejects
all labels and thinks that futile debates among isms are not conducive for creative
work . he write how he has been labelled differently after writing different
works. The disastrous thing is, ‘ by failing to conform, one is consigned to
the ranks of those to be criticized, banned, exterminated , purged, killed or
destroyed.” (66)
He thinks that in
the present era of collapse of isms, the writer can safeguard his spiritual
independence by only adopting scepticism or questioning. The abstract
collectives such as nation , the Party, race or people with authority “can only strangle literature.” (67)
He thinks that ‘’literature
requires the need to affirm the existence of oneself before the art can arise
out of it.” (670. He also distinguishes Chinese from Western languages and in
the process “discovered that syntax in
Chinese is not fixed, that the subject and object can be freely transposed,
that verbs have neither declension nor tense , that the subject can be
dispensed with and that sentences
without a pronoun are very common.”
He wants Chinese grammar book need to be rewritten. he also thinks
that infusion of spoken language and dialect into the language of literature
enlivens it and a creative act.
Gao has not wanted to make literature an appendage of language,
focused on internal or psychological reality . He has tried to chalk out an
independent path. He has tries to find new avenues in both playwriting and performance
methods.
He observes that debates following the May Fourth period
subsided and cross-cultural communication has become no problem. Referring to Gombrowicz and Joyce who preserved
Poland and Ireland respectively in their selves and who didn’t revisit their
homeland, Gao Xingjian says that life in exile has given him more points of reference.
Gao thinks that a writer is not the spokes person of a culture
or its representatives and creativity goes if one has the misfortune of becoming
so. He thinks that the individual voice of the writer facing the world alone is
closest to truth. He is against the Nietzschean concept of
inflated self which may end in madness and becomes judgmental . He adopts the tranquil contemplative attitude towards
society but not for nonaction of Daoism and renunciation of Buddhism. He wants
to write for himself but not to please others. To him life is above ethics and
value lies in one’s existence. He does not want to change the world as he finds
that changing himself is not manageable for him. He says that literature can transcend
ideology and beyond moral judgements as Baudelaire and Dostoyevsky have shown. What literature
is inextricable is from aesthetic judgements. He also says some modern writers
have expunged ethical judgments from their writings . the last fort of the
writer’s authority is an inevitable
subjectivity in their aesthetic judgements. He describes is position as that of middle
between the East and the West and as an individual
level living at the margins of society.
In Cold Literature
“ (1990), the writer writes about literature writing free from compulsive
reading by the reader or commodification or following a creed. “Its existence depends on the writer’s willingness to endure
loneliness.” (79)Cold literature exists as a spiritual activity and Kafka
and Cao Xueqin whose works remained
unpublished during their life time wrote out of joy. He thinks that fleeing from a group or
political movement gives a writer
complete freedom. He can have political
attitudes and ethical viewpoints . he says Chinese literature has impacted by
wars, revolutions and political movements leading to writers to fight and die
for livelihood. They have not been able to save either nation or people due to
intolerance towards dissent. Cold literature exists only in the absence of
societal and political pressures and a race that does not allow this non-utilitarian kind of literature shows its spiritual poverty.
Gao, in his “The voice
of the Individual”(1993) writes that Chinese intellectual class , in contrast
with old age scholars became more influenced by The Western political thinking
and after 1930’s got entangled with politics whether they were aware or not or
due to external conditions. He calls it
a ‘nightmarish predicament’ (127) he questions if it is a historical necessity
or possibility to assert their independence without trying to be saviour or a
sacrifice. In the name of people or nation or patriotism they found it
difficult to affirm their individual
worth. Owing to traditional culture, they have never separated the notion
of nation from the
individual and found the moral
pressure unendurable than physical pressure. Hence, they risked their lives and
also confessed crimes when labelled
reactionaries. They have abrogated the right to freedom of thought in slavery
to the myth of nation or ‘dictatorship of the people’. Gao notes that “if the
self of the intellectual is dissolved in the collective big self or
what is known as “we “, the individual self no longer exists. “ (133) He says that it is the choice of the
intellectuals to go into politics or not. After 1949, the CCP control over intellectuals
increased and totalitarian politics reached a high point during cultural
revolution. After the rise of Deng there was relaxation in controls on
intellectuals but Nietzschean concept of
superman again made the intellectuals to inflate their role as
spokesman of race or nation. He opposes Nietzsche’s notion of superman
embraced by intellectuals and observes the lower status of intellectuals under communism .He opposes futile debates of
tradition-modernity, Eastern- western, authentic-unauthentic, form or content,
realism or modernism, modernism r postmodernism
and sees them as traps to be avoided. He observes the decline of socialism and the crisis of liberalism and the rise of racism after the
Second Big War. He denies the idea of
pure racial culture in the era of cultural fusion and ends saying “ The awareness that an individual is
able to attain is what I call rationality and it is not an ism.”(139)
In the article “Literature as Testimony” (2001), Gao Xingjian
states Literature serves only truth, literary revolution and revolutionary
literature resorted to linguistic violence and turned the field of spiritual
freedom into a battle field. A writer is labelled and it is in face better for
him to be an ordinary person without privileges . the inflation of ego distorts
the individual’s perception. It is better for him to be a dispassionate observer, self-scrutinizer
and gives up the mission of recreating the world. There is no pandering to the
readers. Literature that seeks truth refuses to be subordinate to market or to
politics. Truth has many layers and all witnesses are not reliable. Literature
as testimony overcomes the problems of a
witness’s cowardice or personal viewpoint leading to omissions intentional or otherwise
, psychological inhibitions. A writer who creates literature as testimony base
on experience has limitations. He digs
out truth from history that is changed according to the convenience of the
rulers . it is better for him to maintain distance and His testimony based on experience of himself
or his family is autobiographical to an
extent . it supplements history by
preserving memories though of one man. Literature
that is testimony does not avoid politics, takes up taboos in every field such
as politics, society ,religion or
custom by being independent without
compromise, does not impose political view point on others .
He says that a writer can participate
in politics but supports the
fine tradition of Hugo, Camus and Zola
in whose works political engagement is dissociated from their literature.
Writers fused their personal experiences with their inner perceptions removing
barriers between fabrication and real events. Truth is not exhaustive and literature that probes life can be written as long as humankind is not
possessed by madness. A writer searches for a unique method of
narration but stylistic exploration need not be for the sake of controversy.
The process of writing helps a writer’s self- transcendence
make and a distant observer who appreciates beauty. Gao
thinks that literature does not need semantic analysis or linguistic
theories . To him , truth is direct and people are human in their weaknesses ,
globalization and It have increasingly
affected critical thinking of people. He
wants to end the search for new isms and
prefers return to “the truth of being human-that is , return to the true perceptions of the
individual, return to the instant and stop manufacturing lies about tomorrow.”
(61) Observation is superior to judgement, evil persists due to human
weaknesses, return to the reality of life saves at literature if not the
writer. He concludes that literature
cannot solve all problems, wars ,
fanaticism and terrorism continue and it is futile to mention
compassion in the absence of minimum understanding.
For people who are locked into their own
experiences, mutual understanding is difficult. Yet through literature ,
there can be a certain degree of
communication, so the writing of literature that essentially has no goal does
leave people a testimony of survival. And if literature still has some
significance , it is this.(63)
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