Patrick Hanan, trans..Quelling the Demons' Revolt: A Novel from Ming China

WANG Ke

In the field of Chinese studies, the late Professor Patrick Hanan (1927-2014) was undoubtedly a fine specimen of the rare species of “scholartranslator.” Unlike a “scholarly translator” whose translations are often painfully and pedantically literal, and loaded with a daunting wealth of exegetical and critical apparatuses, a scholar-translator strives to synthesize prohibitively contradictory sets of conditions, often achieving an ingenious balance between scholarly precision and endearing readability.Even among this select group, he was an eccentric.Instead of dedicating his lifelong efforts to tackling one of the major masterpieces, as did his colleagues David Hawkes, Anthony C.Yu and David Tod Roy, he paid more attention to lesser known works that had long been eclipsed by the handful of magna opera.Through arduous research and translation, not only did he save many literary gems from oblivion and put them permanently on the map of Chinese literature, but he also enriched modern English prose with his graceful and often humorous style.Quelling the Demons' Revolt, now posthumously published in a neat edition, is the grand finale of Hanan's illustrious career as a translator and is remarkable in many ways.Yet by far it has suffered a paucity of critical attention.In this short review, I shall try to elucidate some of its merits.

In late 1047, during the reign of Emperor Renzong (r.1022-1063) of the Northern Song Dynasty, a corporal by the name of Wang Ze 王则 started a rebellion in the border town of Beizhou 贝州 and managed to defeat the first detachment of government troops sent to reclaim to city.But early next year, reinforcements led by General Wen Yanbo 文彦博 (1006-1097) soon seized the city and put down the revolt.Wang Ze was captured and escorted to Kaifeng 开封, then the capital, where he was executed by dismemberment.This event, which lasted for barely two months, is by no means significant if set against China's long history of provincial rebellions and their suppression, and naturally the official histories refrain from more than mentioning it.

However, as the rebellion was inspired by an eschatological belief in the coming of Maitreya, it fascinated the popular imagination, and professional storytellers were quick to spin yarns about it.Towards the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, “Wang Ze of Beizhou” was already part of the storyteller's repertoire, falling into the subgenre of “Stories of Sorcery.”By the latter half of the sixteenth century, the tale had developed into a full-fledged novel of 20 chapters, entitled San Sui pingyao zhuan《三遂平妖传》(The Three Sui Quell the Demons' Revolt).A reprinted editiondating from the final years of that century is extant, though the novel is already listed in a mid-century catalogue.The title page of this edition gives as its composer the famous fourteenth-century writer Luo Guanzhong 罗贯中 (1330-1400), to whom is also habitually attributed the authorship of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the co-authorship of Water Margin.But it may well have been false advertising.With a structure similar to that of Water Margin, the first and better half of the novel recounts the respective adventures of several characters who later join forces in the rebellion.The several picaresque stories are only loosely linked, and the ending is rather hasty and haphazard, but each of the stories has a coherent plot.Despite its somewhat coarse texture and many non sequiturs, this novel stands out of numerous contemporary works with its fresh simplicity, hearty humor and juicy plot.Besides, its many imperfections are very likely indicative of a transitional stage from oral traditions to written works in the development of the Chinese novel.

For all its merits, the original 20-chapter version was quickly squeezed out of the market by a new 40-chapter version produced by the celebrated connoisseur and editor of popular fiction Feng Menglong 冯梦龙 (1574-1646).Credit must go to Feng for preserving a considerable amount of folk literature, but in this case his meddling and arbitrary hand did more to obscure the novel's artistic qualities than enhance them.In addition, as a devout Confucian himself, he simply cannot help moralizing whenever possible, much to the detriment of the gaiety and liveliness of the original.Feng's version is, nonetheless, more coherent and readable, and the additional twenty chapters provide a solid mythological backstory for the rebellion.These qualities, together with Feng's formidable fame, ensured its sustained popularity in later centuries, and the 20-chapter version was effectively supplanted.Until a facsimile editionof a Japanese copy was published in 1981, the older version had been out of print for almost four centuries.

As Hanan writes in a 1971 article, the 20-chapter version, though “the best evidence we have for the first stages of the Chinese novel, as well as a prime specimen of the early vernacular language,” “is the most neglected of the early Chinese novels.”Lu Xun's pioneering classic, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (1923), only makes a passing mention of it at the beginning of its chapter on “Ming Dynasty Novels about Gods and Devils,”and it failed to attract more critical attention during the first three decades of the People's Republic.The first detailed treatment of it in any language is a study by Ōta Tatsuo 太田辰夫 (1916-1999), published in 1967 as an appendix to his Japanese translation.Hanan attributes this paucity of scholarship to the limited accessibility of the 20-chapter version, but I fear political ideology was also at work since the story is rife with folk superstitions, dark magic and gory scenes, and the rebellion, “a righteous and revolutionary act of the angered masses” (in Marxist terms), is finally nipped in the bud by “reactionary rulers.” Since the publication of the first typeset editionin 1983, the novel has been made the subject of many articles and theses, but most of them focus on dating, manner of composition, and authorship.

Interestingly, despite the cold shoulder it has been given in mainland China, the novel certainly has been popular with English translators.There exist at least four English “versions” of the work.The first one, a simplified retelling of the 40-chapter version by the distinguished sinologist Cyril Birch, appeared in 1961.In 2008, a complete translation of Feng's version was published.Then, after a brief interval of two years, Lois Fusek's translation of the original 20-chapter version followed.Hanan's translation is the latest to tackle the 20-chapter version.

For decades, the Western reader has appreciated the work largely for its hearty (and occasionally dark) humor.(Hanan himself praised it as “a genuine comic novel in its own right.”) In this regard, the account of the adventures of the heroine Hu Yong'er 胡永儿 (or Eterna, as Hanan gives us), roughly spanning the first six chapters, is without doubt the most representative.Eterna's story is told with compassion and briskness.Conceived after her mother swallowed the ashes of an enchanted painting, Eterna proves to have magical powers herself.Chanting spells from the “wish-fulfillment manual,” a reward for her kindness toward a priestess disguised as a beggar, she is able to conjure up cash and rice, and even armies and horses.While benefiting substantially from her magic, her parents dread to think what calamities would befall the family if her illicit powers get exposed.Her father first gives her a sound beating, then tries to kill her, and eventually marries her off to a retard in the hope of avoiding imminent disasters.When her powers finally come to light, she runs away to join the rebellion.While Eterna's story certainly invites a feminist reading in view of her constant struggles with the patriarchal order, many of its episodes evoke hearty laughter.An example of this is when Eterna's father, Master Hu, beseeches her to make more cash and rice, and Eterna, having not quite forgotten about the beating, decides to teach the old man a lesson:

员外走进房内，陪着笑道：“我儿！爹爹问你则个，册儿上变钱米的法你记得也不记得？”永儿道：“告爹爹，不记得。”妈妈道：“死汉走开！”娘的向前道：“我儿，看娘面，记得便救娘的性命则个。”员外道：“我这番不打你了！”永儿道：“前番因爹爹打了，都忘记了；暗暗也记得些儿，不知用得也不？爹爹，你去棹子上坐定，我交你看。”员外依着女儿口，棹子上坐了。只见女儿念念有词，喝声道：“疾！”那棹子从空便起，吓得妈妈呆了。员外头顶着屋樑叫：“救人！”下又下不来，若没这屋，直起在半天里去了。那时员外好荒，看着女儿道：“这个是甚么法，且交我下来！”永儿道：“交爹爹知道，变钱米法都忘了，只记得这个法，救不得饥，又救不得急。”员外道：“且放我下来！”永儿口中念念有词，喝声道：“疾！”棹子便下来了。员外道：“好险！几乎儿跌下来！”永儿道：“去寻两条索子来，且变一两贯钱来使用。”只见那员外双手抱着三条索子，看着永儿道：“我儿做你着，一客不烦两主人；多变得三四伯贯钱，交我快活则个。事发到官，却又理会。”娘和女儿忍不住笑。(17—18)

Hanan gives us:

He went into the bedroom and said to his daughter with a smile, “My dear, your daddy would like to ask you something.Do you remember how to make cash and rice from that manual?”

“No, Daddy, I don't.”

“Useless creature! Out of my way!” shouted his wife to Master Hu as she stepped forward.“My dear,” she said to her daughter, “do try to remember, for my sake.You'd be saving your mother's life.”

“And I won't beat you this time, either,” added her father.

“Because Daddy beat me that last time I've forgotten all of it, but I do have a faint memory of something ...I don't know if it would be any use.Daddy, sit yourself on the table, and I'll show you.”

The master did as she said and sat on the table.The girl recited something, shouted, “Presto!” and the table rose up into the air, scaring her mother speechless.“Help!” cried the master, as his head bumped against the rafters.He couldn't get down, no matter how hard he tried.If it were not for the ceiling, he would have soared up into the sky.

How terrified he was! “What sort of magic is this?” he cried to his daughter.“Let me down!”

“Daddy, I've forgotten how to make cash and rice,” said Eterna.“This is the only magic I remember, and it won't save us from going hungry or help us out in a crisis.”

“Let me down!”

Eterna recited some words and shouted, “Presto!” and the table sank down to earth.

“That was terribly dangerous,” said the master.“I nearly fell.”

“Daddy, get me two pieces of string and I'll make a couple of strings of cash for us.”

The master came back with three pieces of string and said to Eterna, “You go ahead, my dear.One guest shouldn't trouble two hosts.If you can do three or four hundred more strings of cash, you'll make me a very happy man.If it should ever come to the ear of the authorities, we'll deal with it then.” His wife and daughter could not contain their amusement.(27-28)

Like a professional storyteller, Hanan manages to bring to life the occasionally staccato and slightly obscure mid-Ming vernacular.The three characters each stand out in stark relief: the hypocritical and henpecked master, his bossy overbearing wife and the witty and naughty Eterna.This lively scene is not without a feeling of domestic bliss, but also present is a strong irony considering that Master Hu later readily gives up Eterna as soon as he has regained his riches.All these factors are masterfully conveyed in Hanan's rendering.

Good comedy is by no means the only outstanding feature of the novel； equally noteworthy is the checkered texture of the narrative.“There was once a time in China as well as Europe, ［...］ when to make a poem was to manipulate a professional stock of formulaic phrases,”writes C.H.Wang in The Bell and the Drum.Essentially the same claim can be made about early Chinese novels: there was once a time in China when to make a novel was to manipulate a professional stock of prototypical plots and formulaic expressions.(It was only much later that individual novelists began to tailor-make poems for their narratives.) Pingyao zhuan is no exception； it contains a large number of formulaic “descriptive set pieces” (as Fusek calls them), poems, couplets, and sayings, many of which it shares with Water Margin.Even more significant is “the use it makes, not of history, but of other fiction.”A remarkable number of other stories can be identified in its narrative, and Hanan alone manages to discern a dozen of its possible sources or “inspirations.” This checkered texture is in my opinion a manifestation of heteroglossia, and the different components are intended to function dialogically, in the senses of those terms as expounded by the Russian critic M.M.Bakhtin.Therefore an up-to-standard translation should to some degree preserve this linguistic plurality, which is an essential part of the author's rhetorical strategy.In this respect Hanan has done a reasonably good job.Most of the stock sayings and couplets are correctly identified and put in quotation marks, and the poems (rendered into rhymed verse) and set pieces are indented and set apart from the main narrative.An example of the former can be found in Chapter 1:

［...］ Among them was one man so rich that “his stack of money rose higher than the stars, and his rice was so abundant that it rotted in his granaries.” ［...］This merchant was named Hu Hao, style Dahong, and he had a wife, Mistress Zhang, but no children.“Of eyes he had a pair, but of children not a one.”(1-2)

The two expressions, “钱过壁斗，米烂陈仓” and “眼睛有一对，儿女无一人,” are commonly used in similar occasions, and Hanan's treatment indicates just that.A fine example of his translation of set pieces can be found in the same chapter.The Chinese original reads:

十分俄然黑雾，九霄云里星移。

八方商旅，回店解卸行装；七星北斗，现天关高垂半侧。

绿杨□里，缆扁舟在红蓼滩头；五运光里，竞赶牛羊入圈。

四方明亮，耀千里乾坤；三市夜横凉气。

两两夫妻归宝帐，一轮皎洁照军州。(4)

This piece has two distinct features: first, it is made up of five couplets； second, the numbers ten to one are inserted respectively into the ten clauses.Hanan's translation reads:

Over the ten parts of the earth there falls a sudden pitch-black pall；

In the nine margins of the sky stars move amid the clouds；

From all eight directions merchants head for inns to lay down their loads；

The seven stars of the Dipper appear above and beside Heaven's Gate；

In the green willows' shade small boats tie up on weed-covered shores；

By the five planets' light animals are driven into their pens；

In all four quarters brightness illuminates the world for a hundred miles；

The three marketplaces fill with cold night air；

Two by two husbands and wives retire to their chambers；

And one circle of vivid whiteness shines all over the land.(6)

By italicizing the numerals the procession is made clear, and the parallelisms are preserved to the greatest extent.In addition, a note is provided explaining that “‘［g］reen' (lü) is a near homonym of ‘six' (liu or lu).” (209) Overall, the linguistic plurality of the original is to a considerable degree conveyed in Hanan's translation.

Compared with Fusek's earlier translation, Hanan's version is superior in many ways.While Fusek's interpretation of the novel is based on shaky (if not entirely misguided) scholarship,Hanan's essay on the novel has long been accepted as a piece of exemplary research.Hanan annotates only when absolutely necessary； in contrast, Fusek devotes 125 pages, almost half the length of the book, to a cumbersome investigation, two appendices, copious notes and a bibliography.Although these additional materials are not without merit, Hanan's translation is nonetheless far more accessible.

Quelling the Demons' Revolt has many more virtues, not the least of which is its overall clarity and readability, but I can hardly delve into them in a brief review such as this.Suffice it to say that this publication is a major contribution to the study of Chinese vernacular fiction and will soon receive the critical attention it is due.

Patrick Hanan did not enter the field of Chinese Studies as a translator.It was only after many years of teaching and research that he made his first attempt at a translation, of Li Yu's Carnal Prayer Mat in 1990, which won him instant fame.Over a span of a quarter century, he produced nine volumes of quality translation, and his translational practices always went hand in glove with his research.Quelling the Demons' Revolt, his swansong as a translator, once again leaves us in awe in front of this prolific and talented scholar.

May his soul rest in peace.