On the Two Transformations of Bei Cun's Writing on Faith

Bei Cun is one of the leading contemporary Christian writers in China. His creative oeuvre spans from the 1980s to the present, with his latest offering being a new full-length novel in 2016, Anwei shu (A Consolation Letter). His fiction encompasses Christian doctrine and explores in depth the growth of a Christian spiritual life. His writing strikes a fine balance between ideology and literariness that is rare among contemporary Chinese writers. Probing the evolution of Bei Cun’s fiction can offer us insight into the mental worlds and spiritual pilgrimages of contemporary Chinese Christian writers, artists, and intellectuals.

Bei Cun once described his testimony in the following terms:

One night in March 1992, I was brought to a clean loft by two Christian friends, and there was an elderly man with a serene face waiting for us. He told us by analogy that the light bulb would not brighten up if there were no electricity, and likewise, the human body would be immersed in complete darkness if there were no light in the heart. Overwhelmed by these simple yet powerful words, I decided on the spot to accept Jesus as my savior. Their prayers filled my heart with a kind of reassurance, and in the depths of my heart, I sensed that the Almighty whom I had been searching for all the time approached me in my spirit. When I came down from the loft, I felt as if the whole world had been regenerated. I shouted and jumped for joy in the street, celebrating the rebirth of my life. I have bid farewell to my old life, along with all its entanglements, and my soul has found its home at last.

Bei Cun’s twenty-minute leap of faith undoubtedly reflects the divine grace of God. Yet in his novels, Bei Cun vividly reveals traces of the struggles and obstacles, as well as the repentances and hopes, of his spiritual pilgrimage. Many scholars have drawn a clear line between his early avant-garde novels, such as the Zheshuo (Who Speaks) series, and the writing after his conversion to Christianity. From the perspective of faith, his conversion was certainly a qualitative leap to rebirth, yet closer investigation of the internal structures, origins, and evolution of his writing suggests that his earlier avant-garde novels are by no means accidental or unrelated to faith, a fact of which even Bei Cun himself may not be aware. In the preface to his essay collection “The Feigned Death” and “Resurrection” of Literature, for example, Bei Cun remarked that Guozao zheshuo (The Noisy), the representative work of the Zheshuo (Who Speaks) series, “describes the secret process of how the ambiguity of language leads to the fall of truth.” Similarly, a number of researchers maintain a strong divide between the early work and the post-conversion work. They describe the transformation of Bei Cun as one from experimental form to realistic creation, from avant-garde writer to a Christian identity.

However, we see a different sort of transformation taking place. This essay scrutinizes the twists and turns and the ebb and flow of Bei Cun’s faith, with a focus on the relationship between his spiritual growth and writing. Do these infuse, complement, and fulfill each other? Do they undermine each other? Or do they form some more sophisticated type of relationship?

The language maze of Bei Cun’s early novels seems to reinforce his identity as an avant-garde novelist. Yet on second reading, it is easy to see that his faith writing is already brewing during the experimental period, a fact that has gone almost unnoticed. Take the example of his Guozao zheshuo (The Noisy). This short story begins with the death of a retired deaf-mute school principal, and the narrative portrays how “I,” a detective, investigates the case (a mode repeated frequently in his later writings). Lin Zhanxin, the deceased, was holding a sign-language manual when he died. The leader of a special investigation team, Lin had dropped dead while investigating the history of theology professor Zhu Maoxin, who was involved in an arson case at the deaf-mute school; Zhu then drowns himself in a river after the death of principal Lin. Quite different from the mute Lin and his sign-language manual, Professor Zhu had crammed all sorts of words, sentences, and sentence clusters into his lectures and writings, and carried around a religious dictionary. What on earth led to the professor’s death, which ended the noisiness of language? “I” was confused. Thus, the investigative triangle comprising “I,” Lin Zhanxin, and Zhu Maoxin turned into “my” retrospective of memories based on clues from the archives.

There are two key joints in the story: first, Lin had asked Professor Zhu to write the words “I want to speak” on a banner for deaf children. And when the professor put down the words “God said let there be light and there was light” (quoted verbatim in the story) and was about to write the word “I,” fire broke out at the deaf-mute school. The professor saw Lin, struggling in the flames, open his mouth and seem to say “ah.” It can be said that the noisy Zhu witnessed the process of how the aphasiac Lin acquired language. Second, amid the noisiness of the archives, “I” witnessed the death of the professor in a second fire. Seeing the two lines of words left behind by the professor—one saying “God said, let there be light and there was light,” and the other “I said, let there be God and there was God,” “I” regained language via the death of the noisy professor.

Contrary to readers’ expectations, an apparent detective story guides the revelation of the truth around to the confrontation, contradiction, and transformations between language, aphasia, and noisiness, instead of revealing the arsonist and the cause of arson as in most detective stories. The wordplay, however, cannot be regarded as the core structure of the story, which is rather the two phrases associated with the two fires, that is, the professor’s twofold writing of “God said, let there be light and there was light.” It is via the revelation of the first writing of God’s words that the aphasic Lin lost his aphasia at the time of death; and then via the revelation of the second writing of God’s words, the death of the noisy professor symbolizes the death of language that goes against God’s will; the death of an arrogant self that transcends God in saying, “I said, let there be God and there was God.” This novel shows that only through the death of the language of the noisy can truth be finally achieved. In view of the theological context, death here should not be understood as an existential philosophical problem, as held by some scholars, but as death on the cross, and the truth as leading towards the cross.

This story sheds new light on the transformation of Bei Cun’s writing in relation to his conversion but also shows that he was experiencing changes and difficulties with language as he experienced the growth and struggles of spiritual life. For Bei Cun, composing literary works is largely a matter of re-understanding and writing about love. But when it seems to him that secular love can no longer bear the power of salvation with such ease and convenience as in the writings of other secular writers like Shi Tiesheng, he has to come before God and grill himself with these questions once more: What is literature? What is love and affection? How to speak? After his farewell to the language dilemma of avant-garde novels, these questions provide exactly the motivation for him to create numerous novels about love and affection in a straightforward realistic manner, from which the twists and turns of his spiritual life can be observed. This is seen in the state of incomplete enlightenment in Zhou Yu de hanjiao (Zhou Yu’s Shouts); the exile or repentance in Shixi de he (The River of Baptism) and Boli (Glass); and the retrospect and revival in Wang zhe ni (Looking at You), Wo yu Shangdi you ge yue (I Have a Covenant with God), or Fennu (Anger), to name a few.

If we take the novel I Have a Covenant with God as an example (Yangtze Literature and Art House, 2006): when Bei Cun assumes that a court’s verdict on the criminal also establishes the repentance of conscience, in a manner resembling Dostoevsky’s writing, the author has in fact shown that there remains only one possibility for the “resurrection” of literature. Christian writers, having adopted a human-centered avant-garde writing which aimed to reveal the ugliness, absurdity, and darkness of modern society, now have an obligation to write in order to approach divine truth. Bei Cun writes, in the words of a novel character, “Repentance is not confession as generally understood by Chinese, but a change of mind. What matters is not how much you have done for Leng Wei, but the change of your mind—from a person with no truth in your heart to a conscientious person”; “Repentance is not how much you correct your behavior, but that you have turned around to face the truth. It is the change of mind” (142). The transformation of Bei Cun’s writing is precisely the complete change of “mind” in literature. This change does not mean that there is no more struggle or depression in the spiritual life but rather refers to a comprehensive shift and renewal in theological thinking, feeling, behavior, language, and lifestyle. Love and affection, the focus of his literary work, also underwent significant changes. Bei Cun gradually overcame the secular love of his early novels like Zhou Yu de hanjiao (Zhou Yu’s Shouts) and finally came to depict the sweet love which bears divine revelation:

My beloved is barely visible. She lies at the bottom of the sea. I believe in this, for finally I catch sight of my beloved, in the depths of the sea, her gorgeous countenance looming amidst the vibrant corals. There is said to be mere darkness at the bottom, yet I spot my beloved in the depths of the sea. This is the most tranquil place, and only in here have I realized why the lover is called the beloved.

(Wang zhe ni, SinaBlog)

Bei Cun regained his ability to speak of literature and love, as he wrote in Yi shou shi (One Poem), “When His divine image is shattered, the face of God will emerge from behind.” Only when the poet shatters his secular and illusory halo can his poems recover the sweet taste and bright vision, and only then will he be able to observe “the sky of a different nature” and catch sight of his faith and the “snow-white countenance” (One Poem, Sina Blog).

Both Christian and non-Christian critics have expended much effort in interpreting Bei Cun’s novels. However, the divine connotations of the Zheshuo (Who Speaks) experimental series have been rarely touched upon. Zhu Dake is an exception in his comments on Guozao zheshuo (The Noisy), but his remarks, while laying the foundation for future studies, were of a very general nature. Zhang Fenglin has analyzed in detail Bei Cun’s novels in light of his faith, a reading which has been approved by Bei Cun himself (Sina Blog). It is unfortunate, however, that Zhang’s paper defines Bei Cun’s identity from the outset as that of a Christian writer, ignoring the innate qualities of his avant-garde novels. Zhang concludes that the acceptance barrier to Bei Cun’s works can be attributed to “readers’ sense of the strangeness of the Christian proposition” and “readers’ lack of faith,” which lead to “an estrangement and misunderstanding of the images of characters” and produce “a sense of alienation towards Bei Cun’s works” (Sina Blog), and yet this analysis is also inadequate. The main reason for readers’ sense of distance should rather lie in Bei Cun’s writing on love and affection itself.

After undergoing emotional and spiritual crises in his early years, Bei Cun resorted to faith-writing to walk out of the shadows, for which readers will have sympathy. But what should one do after gaining redemption through writing of love? Wang zhe ni (Looking at You) opened up, if indistinctly, a new path for writing to “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” in which the male and female protagonists, after experiencing the vicissitudes of life—young love, separation, falling, and searching—reunite in the light of God’s grace. But once they embrace love, how should they continue? The novel describes how the couple find enjoyment in doing volunteer and charity work and helping the disadvantaged, yet the writing fails and lacks depth. Although the author also touches upon some social problems in discussing their charity work, this occurs in a rather vague manner, and after the protagonists acquire love, the public concern of “love-for-neighbor” is not articulated clearly or forcefully enough.

Similarly, since Bei Cun’s focus rests on the interrogation and defense of the inner soul, even his best novels like I Have a Covenant with God fail to present a more magnificent love (such as that found in the writing of Tolstoy), despite the fact that they dip into a multitude of problems related to politics and society, such as the evils of the times and of humanity. It can, of course, be argued that the reason lies in Christianity’s own “Anti-Welt” nature, especially when stress is laid on the retrospection of the sins of the self. But as theologian Richard Baxter once remarked, “The whole world is a book of God’s, each creature being a letter, a syllable, a word or a sentence …, which declares the name of God and his will.” Since the world is a gift of God, God loans each creature, each place, each moment of discovery in everyday life, and as God’s household managers and priests, Christians need to get actively involved in life and exert influence on social justice with the dignity, freedom, and responsibility endowed by God: that is, to live the life of Jerusalem in Babylon. So we might argue that it is the lack of social concern and neighborly love that creates a barrier for readers.

Happily, from Fennu (Anger) (2010) to his latest book Anwei shu (A Consolation Letter) in 2016 (Guangdong Huacheng Press), Bei Cun has gradually stepped off of his own isolated island, beginning to speak on behalf of the community and justice. These two novels are related, each beginning with a murder case. From the detention and petition in Fennu (Anger), to the corruption and forced demolition in Anwei shu (A Consolation Letter), the issue of faith no longer serves merely as background or perspective but is boldly confronted. Fennu starts with a sensational incestuous scandal between deputy magistrate Li Baiyi and his adopted daughter Li Hao, and the mysterious disappearance of the former. It unfolds as a murder case and story of revenge by Li Baiyi, revealing various social aspects along the way. At the end of the novel, the hero examines his conscience before God, finding that decade-long feelings of anger did not bring him happiness but shackles. Anwei shu also begins with a murder case which shocks the whole city and provokes public outrage. Here the murder was committed tragically by Chen Tong, son of the mayor, who refuses the defense constructed by a famous lawyer commissioned by his mother. The novel begins with the evil of society and ends with the confession of a soul, which not only shows Bei Cun’s reflection on the justice of Christ’s love but also probes the possibilities of writing on such public themes as Christ’s love and neighborly love.

A second transformation in Bei Cun’s faith-writing thus emerges, the transformation from an individual confession to a confession made by individuals and society, the confession of all humankind. The first transformation is that from nonbelieving to believing writing. The second transformation is the expansion of his theological ideas and feelings, behavior, and speech, founded on a more holistic world outlook, from loving God to loving God more profoundly. The theologian Richard Rogers once said, “I serve a precise God.” This precise God, present in every nook and cranny of our love and marriage, our family and work, the social and public sphere, and our daily emotional experience, calls on us to glorify Him through all aspects of theology, piety, and ethics. Reading about the transformations of Bei Cun can enrich our various experiences in the pilgrimage of faith. When his writing finally fixed upon Christ and the love yielded by the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Bei Cun remarked, in the afterword of Fennu, “Love is truth,” “Love is faith,” “Love is resurrection,” “Love is eternal life.” This love is not the earthly love given to excessive consideration of physical desire, as in the writings of numerous contemporary Chinese writers; nor is it the erratic collection of love symbols produced by Shi Tiesheng, or the limited warmth that is opposed to the haze-shrouded earth in Yu Hua’s Di qi tian (The Seventh Day, 2013); it is the divine love that provides faith, hope, and forgiveness.