uncanny parallels, revisited

[Daniel F. Vukovich]

Yes in thunder, to all counts.   But *Shenfan* is perhaps equally 
important-- the "sequel" of sorts, published in 83, via Vintage P -- as it 
deals with post-rev. PRC (specifically Long Bow village).   Writing under a 
different, more polemical, if not also romantic temperment, there is Jan 
Myrdal's stuff on China -- esp *Report from a Chinese Village* and *Return 
to...*.  I would say he is somewhere b/w Snow and Hinton-- which is no 
slight to Snow, I hope. I believe there is a recent bio. on Snow.  Anna 
Louise Strong and Agnes Smedley are also great reads on or "from" 
revolutionary China.  One wishes that Hinton shall live for another hundred 
years, and that a hundred more would bloom.   Reading "leftist" stuff 
(incl. reportage) on contemporary China, you might  think that there is no 
"countryside" there at all, and that this, still some 70+% of China, were a 
less important place than the cities and "the" urban working class.

De Long is, of course, wrong.  See Bramall or, for that matter, Hinton in 
Great Reversal; "income disparity," poverty and surplus labor, 
deracination, environmental disaster,  and other problems have been 
addressed by several ppl. in collections of essays on rural China.  But the 
right and liberals have, of course, figured out that there is still a 
countryside in China.  Needless to say they arent from a Maoist, but by and 
large from a still pro-reform -- free marketeer-- agenda.   I dont have the 
time to dig up the cites, but they exist, at least in libraries.  Not that 
he himself is sincerely interested.     If I am not mistaken there is even 
an IMF apparatchik with last name of Taylor who makes it pretty clear the 
rural reform has been v. bad on labor; i.e., aside from the bourgeoning 
middle-classes.  (I am assuming they still burgeon, and that that was the 
correct way to put it in the first place; Hinton might disagree here).

A collection by either P Nolan and/or (?) Ash has mainstream stuff to the 
point here.  (I claim no expertise here, just more than  de long 
view)  Pace de long, such crap generalizations, in re reform, aren't made 
so easily in the field itself.   Most still love the market of course (and 
it is always _the_ market as such, which they love, as the specific ones 
are either a mess or still controlled by the baddies), but the Real pops up 
enough in their heads and essays, to make them give a nuanced picture of 
harsh realities.  Of course, I must be a post-modernist who has the cheek 
to think "standard of living" is not a scientific, or even a transparent 
concept.

PS to Michael P in re Agnes Heller.  Ive only read _Everyday Life_  & that 
some three-4 years ago, but it struck me as the best book on the subject, 
by which I mean the most ponderous and scholarly and weighty.    This is in 
contrast to Henri Lefebvre, whose book (the first vol, the only one of 3 in 
English trans I think) on the Critique of Everydaylife, was also great, if 
a bit of a ramble.  Heller is exceedingly smart, and I would love to sit 
down and read more of her work-- esp on the philosophy of 
history.   Someone needs to write a theory of culture,  i.e., someone 
coming out of the everyday life "tradition."  Though I think Lefebvre or 
Heller might well already have done so, between their pages.

--dfv

At 11:47 PM 1/24/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Fanshen is a  wonderful book and William Hinton is a great man too.  I
>believe his daughter made a fine film about the dismantling of a very
>successful commune.  Actually a lot of inspiring books were written
>about China before and after the revolution of 1949 such as Red Star
>over China by Edgar Snow and many others.

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Daniel F. Vukovich
Dept. of English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
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