The heavy lifting-that is, the detailed discussion of Jungian psychoanalysis-begins in Chapter 2, but the introduction also contains a section titled “Therapeutic process, the metaphor of healing, and the definition of cure,” which helps to contextualize the study’s analysis of Lu Xun’s fiction in its relationship to his biography and Chinese history.
Included as well is the intriguing suggestion that, as China changes over time, Lu Xun’s stature may diminish but his “importance among those taking inspiration from his spirit of truth-telling” remain highly relevant (15). As such, we also find a brief explication of studies of Lu Xun, which is helpful in differentiating Brown’s particular approach and orienting readers to the idea that something is unique about Reading Lu Xun. The autobiographical approach complements the application of Jungian psychoanalysis, as will be demonstrated, and Brown treats the twenty-five works in Lu Xun’s two collections of short stories as “reminiscences” while using appropriate qualifiers to keep literary critics at bay. Readers are introduced to how he came to submit his first short story (“A Madman’s Diary”) for publication, as well as his activities in literary circles, his political critique, and his various moves from Beijing to Guangzhou and, finally, out of concern for his safety, to Shanghai. Herein are sketched the early twentieth century conditions faced by young intellectuals in China, against which Lu Xun’s specific experience as a student in Japan (a direct cultural comparison) are set. This succinct summation describes the historical milieu and Lu Xun’s biographical background, thus setting the first stage for application of the author’s distinctive methodology. Occasional in-text simplified Chinese characters are used for story titles and critical terminology. It is composed of a detailed introduction, four main chapters, a conclusion, and an epilogue. Reading Lu Xun is dense (especially for novitiates to psychological analysis) but rewarding. Brown’s Jungian model, which includes a bifurcated ego/shadow inner tension, yields intriguing explanations concerning the process of therapy and identification of a cure-both for self and society-primarily grounded in challenging the individual’s resistance to change.
Brown is concerned with what makes Lu Xun tick, not the authorial intention of his creative works, but his own inner workings as he grapples with issues of the Chinese people’s psyche, issues he himself faces and works out through his writing. The author shows familiarity with the main trends in Western Lu Xun studies, from the earlier works of Leo Ou-fan Lee, Theodore Huters, and Marston Anderson, to more recent critiques by Lydia Liu and Ming Dong Gu, just to name a few. This book is also a refreshing demonstration of how psychoanalysis can provide a new dimension of access to Lu Xun’s critical insight into the problems of the Chinese psyche vis-à-vis the social discourse of his age. Reading Lu Xun through Carl Jung is an amply annotated, firmly grounded, and compelling close reading of Lu Xun’s short stories from the perspective of Jungian psychoanalysis. Brown, Reading Lu Xun through Carl Jung Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2018.
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