'An architect exiled from China meets an Australian woman writer who is terminally ill. He tells her traditional Chinese stories as a way of overcoming time/mortality, and of coming to terms with his own difficult past.
'For a book which takes loneliness and death for its themes, After China has unexpected reserves of warmth, affection and humour. Insisting on the erotic, it is surprisingly delicate, restrained and chaste. And for a work of such diverse and eclectic reference it is rewardingly resonant and interconnected. The whole novel is thus a brilliant feat of balance.' (Publication summary)
'Brian Castro dramatises and even valorises forms of literary and artistic failure throughout his fiction, but his body of work is a raging success by mortal standards. None of his novels disappoint on close inspection. Double-Wolf and Shanghai Dancing are endlessly rewarding; The Swan Book is gorgeously written and deeply moving; After China is conceptually neat, seductive and stylish. Others, such as Drift and The Bath Fugues, appeal to select readers but are dazzlingly rich and structurally brilliant. Even Stepper—which Castro sees as a relatively conventional spy novel—is a satisfying and affecting Nabokovian game. Every novel is stamped by a talent that induces envy as much as gratitude. You want to know what it feels like to write that way.' (Publication abstract)
'Influential Australian author Brian Castro has a mixed ethnic background that often identifies him as a multicultural writer. To Castro, however, this label imposes upon him a static identity he has long tried to break away from. His agenda is to unshackle himself from both the Australian and Chinese cultures he straddles. This effort is evidenced by his attempts to redefine Chinese masculinity in his novel After China. In Chinese masculinity studies, Chinese masculinity can be best understood in terms of the wen–wu paradigm—the wen ideal being conditioned by Confucianism. The male protagonist in After China, however, You Bok Mun, is influenced by Taoism and Western postmodernism in his expression of masculinity. Furthermore, while in traditional gender discourse masculinity is equated with sexual potency, in this novel, Castro eliminates sexual prowess from You Bok Mun's masculinity and replaces it with his ability to narrate stories. Although You Bok Mun experiences displacement and alienation in Australia, he does not intend to elevate his manhood for the purpose of being admitted into the Australian mainstream. Instead, he chooses to remain an outsider and uses this status to unsettle and challenge stereotypes of Chinese masculinity.' (Publication abstract)
Brian Castro's 'After China' : A Translation into Mandarin and a Study of the Novel's Linguistic and Social Contexts in Australia and China
Nedlands
:
1997
Z1221640
1997
single work
thesis
'中国之后>是澳大利亚作家布来恩·卡斯特有关中国的系列小说之一.在这部小说中, 卡斯特运用了后现代的多层叙述、故事重叠法,解构了传统的东方和西方、男性和女性形象.这里,中国人不再是被东方化了的"他者",而是被赋予新的性别身份,从而成为创造力的源泉,传承和联结两性文化以及东西方文化的载体.中国乃至亚洲文化,最终成为一个活生生地产生新的"混杂性"的发源地.'
Source: CAOD.
