Проблемы литератур Дальнего Востока. Часть 2

Секция 5 • Panel 5 Проблемы литератур Дальнего Востока. Т. 1. 2018 278 identity being scattered, disseminated, and this is not the only instance of this: the same holds with the blood of the decapitated boy in the short story Medicine.” 7 Lu Xun’s non-realist forms in story like Forging the swords or The flight to the moon resemble, in some way Latin American magic realism. Read this passage of Forging the swords : Twenty years ago, the king’s concubine gave birth to a piece of iron which they said she conceived after embracing an iron pillar. It was pure, transparent iron. The king, realizing that this was a rare treasure, decided to have it made into a sword with which to defend his kingdom, kill his enemies and ensure his own safety, As ill luck would have it, your father was chosen for the task, and in both hands he brought the iron home. He tempered it day and night for three whole years, until he had forged two swords 8 . How this inexplicable event in the story can be understood especially when writer depicts it in very matter of factly fashion. Guatemalan author William Spindler's article, “ Magic realism: a typology,” suggests that there are three kinds of magic realism, which however are by no means incompatible: European ‘metaphysical’ magic realism, with its sense of estrangement and the uncanny, exemplified by Kafka’s fiction; ‘ontological’ magical realism, characterized by ‘matter-of- factness’ in relating ‘inexplicable’ events; and ‘anthropological’ magical realism, where a Native worldview is set side by side with theWestern rational worldview 9 . It can be safely argued that while Forging the sword can be categorized ‘ontological’; The flight to the moon or Medicine may be called ‘anthropological’. In both these stories a kind of medicine — that was traditionally believed in the society was made cornerstone of the plot and Lu Xun concludes its after-effect without being harsh or sounding anti-traditional. In Medicine son dies even after giving him bread with fresh blood of a decapitated boy 10 and in The flight to the moon protagonist, believing that her wife must have taken the flight to the moon after consuming elixir; informs coolly in the last paragraph: “Tomorrow I am going to ask that priest for another elixir, so that I can follow her.” 11 Fiction writer Lu Xun deconstructs here, a particular world-view by not demolishing it realistically rather putting it as construct of a belief system and its trappings and its fatal consequences. Noted Hindi writer Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, reviewing a collection of Lu Xun’s short stories in 1954 comments about the story Medicine in following words : “The theatricality in the story Medicine is splendid----- this is the reason why the deep melancholy of the story does not hurt so much. It is full of symbolism and psychology. This is a story of execution of a revolutionary leader in the midst of bewildered masses, where depiction of masses is of prime importance. And the end of the story is really grand.