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Toming Jun Liu (Compiler)
Description: The Art of Mu Xin: Landscape Paintings and Prison Notes
Mu Xin: An Annotated Bibliography
Author
Toming Jun Liu (Compiler)
PublisherYale University Art Gallery
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00127.013
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Mu Xin: An Annotated Bibliography
Compiled by Toming Jun Liu
Published Literary Works
Sanwen yiji (Collected Sanwen: Volume I). Taipei: Hongfan Books, 1984.
When this collection of sanwen prose—the author’s literary debut—was published in 1983, Mu Xin immediately became famous among overseas Chinese readers. One critic said that Mu Xin caused “a sudden literary storm.” Sanwen, a genre between fiction and prose poem, is popular in China. With fictionality, philosophical reflections, and poetry as his stylistic elements, Mu Xin develops a style of sanwen relatively free from the conventional constraints of plot and characterization.
Qiongmeika suixianglu (Reflections in Jamaica). Taipei: Hongfan Books, 1986.
Jamaica, or as Mu Xin transliterates it, Qiongmeika, refers to the area in Queens, New York, where the author resided for some time in the 1980s. The sketches, haiku, and aphorisms collected here combine reasoning with lyricism, so that Mu Xin’s ideas speak the language of impressions. One might say that Mu Xin’s reflections are the leisurely product of a profound thinker. Reflections is especially popular among younger Chinese writers.
Xibanya sankeshu (Tres cepas). Taipei: Yuanshen Press, 1988.
This poetic collection adopts the brand of a Spanish wine as its title. Mu Xin’s poetic style results from his childhood training in classical Chinese poetry and from his poetic practice for half a century. His style shows a multidimensional flexibility and an originality that defies copying. Mu Xin once said: “Fiction is my kin, sanwen is my friend, and poetry is my lover.”
Jixing panduan (Sudden Thoughts). Taipei: Yuanshen Press, 1988.
Mu Xin, in the essays, correspondence, and dialogues collected here, offers penetrating analyses of wide-ranging historical and contemporary issues. He surprises in moments when one least expects surprises; and he uses self-irony to reveal the irony of history. The distancing effect of his style is best described in the words of one critic: Mu Xin’s style is “the subject + (the subject + object),” meaning that the subject examines the subject examining the object.
Wensha muyuan (The Windsor Cemetery). Taipei: Yuanshen Press, 1988.
This collection showcases eighteen short stories that are various in subject matter and in style. Many of the stories are set in modern China during periods of political campaigns. Penetrating expositions of China’s politicized culture are sometimes presented as dramas and at other time as enigmas. One of the stories is a man’s meditation on the mysteries of his personal affair; the real mystery has to do with the Cultural Revolution that serves as the setting for the story. In rewriting historical events, reminiscing about private experiences, or simply plunging into the ordinary, Mu Xin shows the adventurous in the everyday and demonstrates the surprising in the seemingly trivial. The title story, The Windsor Cemetery, is a poetic and playful exploration of the question of “the other.”
Suli zhi wang (Traveling in Simple Shoes). Taipei: Hsiung Shih Books, 1994.
This is philosophy in the form of prose poems. With the I Ching as his fuse, Mu Xin sets off an explosion of ideas. But the shocks of this explosion are meant for our contemporary world. Mu Xin, resistant to any system building, engages in a serious play of thoughts.
Balong (Parron). Taipei: Yuanzun Culture, 1998.
Collected here are some of the medium-length and long poems Mu Xin has written in the fifteen years of his stay in the United States. With subject matter ranging across various regions of the world as well as the ancient past and medieval ages, the poet gains a reflexive momentum with which he examines the problems of postmodernity. The collection shows the rhetorical sophistication and power of the later Mu Xin.
Wo fenfen de qingyu (The Ever Snowing Flakes of My Desire). Taipei: Yuanzun Culture, 1998.
Another collection of poems. If Parron impresses with its solemnity and elegance, Desire seems effortlessly graceful. The poet celebrates the body and the earth as his poetry delights us with its imagery, sound, and rhythm.
Hui wu zhong (The Correspondence). Taipei: Yuanzun Culture, 1998.
This collection of 300 poems is written in the diction and style of the Chinese that was in use 2,500 years ago. Mu Xin’s “correspondence” —to borrow a word from Plato and Baudelaire for our rendition of Mu Xin’s Chinese title — is with poetry and poets of ancient times. More specifically, the poems are Mu Xin’s re-writing, re-vision, and re-invention of Shih Ching (The Book of Poetry) and of pre-Qin Dynasty philosophers of various schools. Mu Xin’s attempt goes beyond mere stylistic emulation. Not only does he bring out the best in ancient texts to create 300 new poems, he also re-visions them from modern perspectives and introduces new values. Because Mu Xin’s form is primarily ancient and classical, his poetic delight in the sensual, although a Dionysian abandon, maintains perfect elegance.
Malage jihua (The Málaga Project). Taipei: Hanyin Culture, 1999.
There are two sections in this collection of sanwen. Section I includes several shorter pieces that are warm and intimate in tone. Section II includes more elaborate and grander sanwen narratives. Mu Xin, in this collection, approaches issues of global significance with sharp critical perceptiveness and profound insights. He reveals and critiques how Chinese culture has anthropomorphized the natural world. He delves into modern French literature. He reflects on the Tiananmen Massacre of June 4, 1989. With these and other explorations, Mu Xin ponders the decline of both Eastern and Western cultures since the end of the nineteenth century. He wonders aloud why Russia could be lost in Russia, and France in France.
Tongqing zhongduanlu (Sympathy Interrupted). Taipei: Hanyin Culture, 1999.
The dedication of this book reads: “All ten pieces in this collection are eulogies; those lives I witnessed merely went through the motions of living; none of them accomplished anything.” The inclusions are fictionalized memoirs; all are set in China. What the author mourns is not so much simply the loss of teachers and friends, or the disappearance of towns and cities. Rather, he laments the lack of creative accomplishment during a historical period when absurdity and human corruption reigned.
Yuli zhi yan (The Most Splendid Symposium). Taipei: Hanyin Culture, 1999.
The word “symposium” in the title should be understood as a convivial meeting for drinking, eating, and discourse, as was the case in ancient Greece and Rome. Included in this collection are dialogues and interviews that Chinese scholars, editors, and reporters had with Mu Xin between 1981 and 1996. The issues covered are wide ranging. In his responses, Mu Xin always shows his capacity for paradox and poetic possibility.
Also available in English
“The Windsor Cemetery Diary,” translated by Toming Jun Liu in North Dakota Quarterly 64, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 5–14.
“An Empty Room,” translated by Toming Jun Liu in North Dakota Quarterly 64, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp.14–18.
Literary Works Forthcoming (2003) by Changchunteng Books, Shanghai
Daoying zhi daoying (Mirror Reflections of Mirror Reflections).
A collection of sanwen based on Sanwen yiji, with deletions, additions, and revisions.
Qiongmeika suixianglu (Reflections in Jamaica).
A revised edition of the 1985 work.
Jixing panduan (Sudden Thoughts).
A revised edition of the 1988 work.
Wensha muyuan reji (The Windsor Cemetery Diary).
A revised edition of the 1988 work.
Suli zhi wang (Traveling in Simple Shoes).
A revised edition of the 1994 work.
Bal on g (Parron).
A revised edition of the 1998 work.
Wo fenfen de qingyu (The Ever Snowing Flakes of My Desire).
A revised edition of the 1998 work.
Wei Solomen shu (Book of Solomon, the Fake Version).
This fifth collection of poetry represents a new level of Mu Xin’s poetic creation. Mu Xin achieves strong and surprising poetic effects using unusual contemporary and historical materials. In the preface, Mu Xin writes: “Those aphorisms and poems bequeathed to us in the name of Solomon are most likely fake. He is an even more mysterious figure when we consider how Chaucer, Dante, Bacon, Yeats, Melville, Mark Twain have all invoked him in their works. What is admirable about Solomon is that he sat on a magic carpet and flew around as he pleased. Thus, in comparison, the magic carpet is certainly much better than aphorisms and poems. If one could both sit on a magic carpet and write aphorisms and poems, that would be even better, even more incredible.”
Selected Commentaries on Mu Xin
“Mu Xin,” a special issue of Lianhe wenxue (UNITAS: A Literary Monthly) 1 (November 1984), pp. 47–87, and Chen Yingde, “Ye shi huajia Mu Xin” (Mu Xin, Who is Also a Painter), ibid., pp. 60–68.
“Mu Xin de sanwen” (The Literary Prose of Mu Xin), Central Daily News (New York Edition) (June 20, 1986). Symposium proceedings on commentaries made by such writers and critics as Guo Songfen, Li Yu, Ling Leng, Fang Wu, Liang Heng, and Zhang Fu.
Yingde Cheng, “Kan Mu Xin de chaoziran fengjinghua” (A Perspective on Mu Xin’s Supernatural Landscape Paintings), Haiwai kan Dalu yishu (Art in Mainland China Seen from Overseas) (Taipei: Yishujia Press, 1987), pp. 351–60.
“Sun Mu Xin,” Who’s Who of Overseas Chinese (Beijing: Who’s Who of Overseas Chinese Editorial Committee, 1993), p. 81.
Margaret Tao, “Exhibition Preview,” Orientations 25, no. 6 (June 1994).
Alexandra Munroe, “Mu Xin, Briefly,” Mu Xin: Landscapes of the Mind (New York: Elizabeth Wang Gallery, 1994).
Toming Jun Liu, “An Interview with Mu Xin,” North Dakota Quarterly 64, no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 19–28.
Portrait of a Collector—Robert Rosenkranz,” Orientations 28, no. 7 (July-August 1997)r pp. 66–69.
“You peng zi Xifang lai: Mu Xin zhengui de wenyoumen” (Friends Come from the West: Mu Xin’s Cherished Literary Companions), Yuli zhi yan (Taipei: Hanyin Culture, 1999), pp. 180–84.
Mu Xin: An Annotated Bibliography
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