The Letters of Eileen Chang - Part 3
The Chinese writer Eileen Chang (張愛玲, also known as Zhang Ai-ling) passed away in September, 1995. In 2004, Crown Press published a previously unknown novel of hers.
The title of the novel in Chinese is: 《同學少年都不賤》. There is presently no English translation even for the title. It is not easy to come up with a translation because the title is based upon a variation on a poem by Du Fu (杜甫):
《秋興》其三
千家山郭靜朝暉，日日江樓坐翠微。
信宿漁人還泛泛，清秋燕子故飛飛。
匡衡抗疏功名薄，劉向傳經心事違。
同學少年多不賤，五陵衣馬自輕肥。
The story plot revolved around the lives of two women who first knew each other in a secondary school run by missionaries in Shanghai, where they got along fantastically. After they got married, one of them went to Washington DC to become an interpreter while another took her daughter to live in France. They met again and they recalled the fun things in their past and they gossiped about whatever to their classmates. Then they parted ways again. That is the basic plot. Perhaps the novel could be simply titled <The Classmates> for simplicity.
When this previously unknown novel was published nine years after her death, there might been more discussions about the circumstances around the publication than about the literary merits of the novel itself.
According to the foreword written by the Crown Press editor, when professor Stephen C. Soong (宋淇) (who was the father of the blogger writing this essay) was alive, he had forwarded certain manuscripts and possessions of Eileen Chang to Crown Press for safekeeping. However, he did not mention to Crown Press that such a novel existed. In Eileen Chang's private will to Stephen C. Soong and his wife Mae Fong Soong, there was no mention of this novel either. After Stephen C. Soong passed away in 1996, Mae Fong Soong found the novel and forwarded it to the Crown Press office in Hong Kong. When the Crown Press office in Hong Kong mailed the original manuscript to the Crown Press headquarters in Taipei, the post office lost it! Fortunately, a photocopy had been made before the original manuscript was mailed as a precaution and that was how this novel came to be published eventually. The twisted history was enough to arouse suspicion among some people whether this was a forgery.
The history of the writing of this novel is unknown given the Eileen Chang and Stephen C. Soong are both deceased and Mae Fong Soong has no knowledge. But United Daily News Supplement editor Su Weizhen (蘇偉貞) pointed out that in Professor C.T. Hsia's collection of letters from Eileen Chang (see the monthly magazine United Literature, Volume 14, Issue 9), the letter from Eileen Chang dated August 20, 1978 mentioned this manuscript thus:
《同學少年都不賤》這部小說除了外界的阻力，我一寄出就發現它本身毛病很大，已經擱開了。
(in translation) Apart from the outside pressures on the novel <The Classmates 同學少年都不賤>, I also realized that it is seriously flawed right after I mailed it out. Therefore, it has been put aside.
This had been the sole primary reference so far on this matter.
The Eileen Chang specialist Chen Zishan (陳子善) wrote about the story around the publication of the novel (Wen Wei Po via Xinhua Net). The novel began with a mention of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, so Chen believed that it must have been written somewhere after 1973 (when Henry Kissinger became Secretary of State) and before 1978 (because the August 1978 letter to C.T. Hsia referred to the mailed manuscript).
Chen Zishan pointed out that there are two mysteries in the aforementioned quotation from the letter.
Mystery #1: What were those outside pressures?
Mystery #2: To whom was the manuscript mailed?
On mystery #1, there have been all sorts of speculations about the 'outside pressures.' But those are speculations and nothing more, because there is no primary evidence to support any of them. There is no point for me to repeat those speculations.
On mystery #2, Chen Zishan believed that it was obviously sent to Stephen C. Soong for his opinion. Chen wrote: "It is well known that since the 1950's, many of Eileen Chang's works were sent to Stephen C. Soong, who acted as the gatekeeper and arranged for them to be published. Perhaps Stephen C. Soong had a different view of this novel and believed that 'it is seriously flawed'? This may explain why the manuscript of this novel stayed in the hands of Stephen C. Soong. But this is just my bold hypothesis, and the revelant documentary evidence remains to be discovered."
Where in the world is that relevant documentary evidence going to come from? How about the archive of the correspondence between Eileen Chang and Stephen C. Soong/Mae Fong Soong? I happen to be in charge presently. The following information was discovered by me from a cursory scan of the archive.
In a letter from Stephen C. Soong to Eileen Chang dated July 19, 1978 (or about one month before the aforementioned letter from Eileen Chang to C.T. Hsia):
[in translation]
Please do not publish <The Classmates 同學少年都不賤>. There are many intellectuals in Taiwan nowadays who adulate mainland China. They may not dare to express their positions openly, but they will do everything to attack anti-Communist writers by every possible means. You are the number one anti-Communist writer in Free China and you will naturally be the target. The good thing is that you have other excellent works and there are academic scholars such as C.T. Hsia as well as many writers (the most active one is Zhu Xining 朱西寧) who support you. Recently, someone went through all the sentences that have erotic overtones (and they are being taken out of context) from more than twenty years of Yu Guangzhong (余光中)'s poetry and connected them together for a piece entitled "A poet like this" in order to humiliate Yu as a "pornographic" writer. You are actually very innocent, but if people use the same methods against you, it will be very bad for you. At the same time, this novel is not much better than the previous two. After this gets published, it will be tough on your supporters. Recently, a magazine publicly criticized (Dick) McCarthy and said that the Iowa Writers Training Workshop students such as Yu Guangzhong (余光中), Bai Xianyong (白先勇), Wang Wenxing (王文興) and others were all CIA agents. Therefore, you should not mention McCarthy and the saga related to your novel Naked Earth.
Dick McCarthy was the United States Information Service boss of Eileen Chang when she was doing translation in Hong Kong. He was also quite helpful to her over the years with recommendations and leads. Each Christmas, Eileen Chang wrote a letter to Dick McCarthy. The following was dated December 27 (either 1977 or 1978 -- Eileen Chang wrote down the month and day of each letter, but never the year!), and it was copied to Stephen C. Soong. This was typewritten by Eileen Chang herself.
The short story mentioned here is <Lust, Caution 《色,戒》>, currently being made into a movie by director Ang Lee of <Brokeback Mountain> fame and scheduled to be the opening film at the Venice Film Festival later this year. When that movie gets exhibited, there is bound to be yet another round of Internet condemnation about "glorifying traitors."
Did Eileen Chang and Stephen C. Soong sound paranoid about the 'outside pressures" coming from the Chinese Communists and their fellow travelers? In that context, you have to also remember that the novel <The Classmates 同學少年都不賤> contained references to Agnes Smedley, the first atomic bomb test in China, etc. That means nothing nowadays, but it meant a lot under martial law in Taiwan back then. Furthermore, it was also a different atmosphere and relationship among the writers of that era. One of the key figures at the time was Chen Jo-Hsi (also Chen Roxi) who grew up in Taiwan, studied in the United States, went to Nanjing (China) in 1966 and stayed seven years before leaving to write The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to great critical acclaim (see review in TIME) as well as denunciation for betrayal to the cause of socialism. Chen Jo-shi managed to gain moral superiority because she spent seven years in China during the worst of times while her most vitriolic critics were armchair critics living comfortably in Taiwan, Hong Kong or the United States. In today's climate, <The Classmates 同學少年都不賤> actually seems quaint and outdated. But it is hard to say what the reaction would have been in 1978 given the prevailing atmosphere at the time. It is not fair for us to second-guess the judgments of Eileen Chang and Stephen C. Soong decades later.
As I said at the beginning, I only conducted a cursory search. The case could be made more solid if I can locate Eileen Chang's response to that letter from Stephen C. Soong. That may take some time to accomplish, but a good start has been made towards solving the mysteries listed by Chen Zishan.
Here is another (undated) letter from Eileen Chang about an earlier experience in Hong Kong. It explains why some intellectuals may prefer to stay away from politics altogether.
[in translation]
This reminds me of the time when I just came back from mainland China and I went back to Hong Kong University. There was a female dormitory supervisor who was Chinese and who chatted with me often. I thought that it was because we were about the same age. She looked at least prettier than me and she obviously spoke better English. She kept probing me about my relation with the old professor who was my guarantor to come to Hong Kong. When she was certain that there was no connection, she dropped me.
Then I went for a trip to Japan and came back. The Hong Kong police ran an investigation on me and they went to ask questions about me at the Hong Kong University female student dormitory. The dormitory supervisor said that I was a suspected Communist spy. Although I did not get along with people and I have taken a bumpy road over the years, I have never met anyone like that.
