Commodification and Crime: a Comparison of Literary
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
1006825606 1111111111111111 111111111111111111 COMMODIFICATION AND CRIME: A COMPARISON OF LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS OF NEW YORK AND SHANGHAI SINCE THE 1980s JIAYING CAl Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy AUGUST 2011 Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Introduction: Urbanization and the Urban Fiction of New York and Shanghai 1 Part I Chapter One: The Exploration of Urban Experience in Contemporary New York Writing 41 Chapter Two: "A Place Like Shanghai" -Fictional Representations of Shanghai in a Time of Change 98 Part II Chapter Three: Urban Crime in Space and Time--Qiu Xiaolong's Representation of Shanghai in When Red Is Black and Red Mandarin Dress ... 171 Chapter Four: Linda Fairstein's Gendered Representation of New York City in Cold Hit and Likely to Die 240 Conclusion 298 Appendix 1 308 Appendix 2 309 Glossary 312 Works Cited 315 Abstract This dissertation provides a close textual analysis of a selective number of New York and Shanghai novels published since the 1980s. It focuses on the formal and thematic features of these novels through comparative analyses of the themes of commodification and crime. Part I draws on the work of Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Candace Bushnell, Wei Hui and Wang Anyi. It examines how commodification has become not just a feature of global fiction but how writers are drawn to a narrative of excess in their representations of it. Wei Hui's "body writing" shares the same materialistic emphasis as New York "Brat Pack" writing but in their criticism of material excess, their approaches are different. The markets in which these writers and their novels circulate also show how commodification can take control of their reception and lead to different interpretations and misinterpretations. Part II of the dissertation draws on the work of Qiu Xiaolong and Linda Fairstein. Through a close analysis of the representation of time and space, this part argues that both authors' deployment of time and space serves as a strategy to reveal the different social contexts that form the latent causes of individual crimes. By introducing a comparative analysis, this dissertation demonstrates that the shared themes of commodification and crime need to be contextualized within the two cities in order to understand the varied manifestations of the ongoing process of urbanization and its consequences for the literatures and cultures of New York and Shanghai. Acknowledgements I still remember the first "supervision" I had with Professor Douglas Tallack in the Trent Cafe, University of Nottingham. It was a sunny September afternoon. He opened a copy of Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney and began to show me how to read a novel properly and professionally. I remember how he masterfully conducted a detailed textual analysis of the opening section of the novel in such an eloquent manner that for a while I believed reading and interpreting texts would not be as difficult as it had at first seemed. Looking back, I have to confess that I vastly underestimated the challenges entailed in reading and writing for a PhD student at that time. Over the next four years, I overcame linguistic and cultural barriers to complete my PhD study away from home in the United Kingdom. I know that I could have never finished my dissertation without the help of many people. First, I want to thank Professor Douglas Tallack who supervised me for more than one year before he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester. His help was tremendous and long-lasting for me. Just months ago, I was still receiving newspaper clips from him which are relevant to my research. I am eternally grateful to him for all the help he has given to me. Without him, I could not have come to Nottingham in the first place and could not possibly have reached the point where I find myself now. I am also deeply grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Ruth Maxey, whose strict academic training and high academic standards have transformed me from a careless writer into one who is conscientious in writing. I will never 11 forget the meticulous comments she has given me with respect to my writing and the many helpful questions she has asked while annotating my chapters. I also want to thank my supervisor, Associate Professor Graham Thompson who, as Head of School, managed to give me extra help and feedback despite his busy schedule and kept me on track. His pragmatic methods and exceptional time management have saved me from unnecessary delay and helped me to finish my dissertation on time. I would also like to thank Professor Judith Newman who supervised me for almost a year. She enlightened me on more than one occasion with her brilliant ideas on the novels covered in this dissertation. She made me believe that having additional supervisors is truly a blessing. Also on the list of thanks is Dr. Ian Brookes who read my chapters, corrected my language, gave me precious suggestions and repeatedly boosted my confidence. He has been truly helpful to me. Apart from benefiting from an extended team of supervisors, I also received great help from former Head of School, Professor Peter Messent, who gave me generous feedback on the last two chapters of my dissertation, and encouraged me greatly. I was also very lucky to be able to interview some distinguished Chinese scholars and writers when I was on my research trip in Shanghai in 2008. I was particularly grateful to Professor Chen Sihe, who received me in Fudan University and helped me to get in contact with the renowned writer, Wang Anyi, who kindly received a telephone interview from me. I also want to thank the writer, Chen Danyan with whom I have had a face-to-face interview. She shared her experiences in New York with me and offered me helpful III suggestions for improving my writing. I am also greatly indebted to Cao Zhengwen, who received my telephone interview and generously sent me a copy of his novel, which cannot be found elsewhere. His comments on the historical development of Shanghai detective fiction were particularly helpful to this dissertation. I also want to thank many of my dear friends who have been great companions and offered genuine help to me during my stay in the U.K .. They are Hannah Durkin, Rebecca Cobby, Francisca Fuentes, Rachel Walls, Caroline Edwards and Feng Lin. Last but not least, I want to thank my family who have given me unconditional love and support during the last four years. Without their sacrifice and patience, I could not have been able to keep going and finish my dissertation. IV Introduction: Urbanization and the Urban Fiction of New York and Shanghai The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the representation of urbanization in novels about New York and Shanghai published since the 1980s. The dissertation aims to examine whether the influences of urbanization on the contemporary literature of these two cities can be understood in order to offer an alternative means, other than sociological or historical studies, with which to explain this global trend. By comparing the themes, forms, characters, and styles in novels about the two cities, this dissertation attempts to reveal the similarities and differences between them while positioning these interpretations within the disparate social, cultural, political and historical contexts of the two cities. The texts to be investigated in this dissertation include a select number of novels published since 1984 which use New York or Shanghai as an essential setting, or a main character. I They include Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City (1984) and Story of My Life (1988), Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho (1991) and Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City (1996), Linda Fairstein's Likely to Die (1997) and Cold Hit (1999), Wei Hui's Shanghai Baby (1999) and Marrying Buddha (2005), Wang Anyi's The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (1996), Qiu Xiaolong's When Red is Black (2004) and Red Mandarin Dress (2008). 2 I I am borrowing this term from Linda fairstein's description of the role of New York in her video on Hell Gale (20 I0) to indicate that one important criterion for the urban texts selected in this dissertation is that New York or Shanghai must have an explicit presence in the novels. Instead of using them merely as a backdrop or referring to them in passing, these novels must associate their stories or characters closely with the cities. See Fairstein, video on Hell Gale. 2 Unlike English names, the Chinese name is formed by placing the surname first, followed by 1 The idea of making such a comparative analysis of recent literary representations of New York and Shanghai arises at a time when China's development has begun to eclipse the hegemony of the developed world, in which the United States of America has held a leading role for roughly a century. Since its inception in 1978, China's Reform and Opening-up Policy has initiated a far-reaching process of urbanization, the speed and scale of which is unprecedented.' With over 400 million people moving to cities from rural areas since 1980, China had more than 166 cities with populations of over a million in 2008, while the US only had nine such cities in the same year (Liauw 10). Within the last thirty years, China has arguably achieved a scale of urbanization that has taken most developed countries more than a century to accomplish. The changes happening In developing countries such as China are making our world increasingly urbanized. We are living in what David Thoms believes to be "an urban millennium" (l).