Abstract
In late 2011, in a public lecture in the midst of the Occupy Wall Street protests, Slavoj Žižek (2011) alluded to Chinese Internet literature: ‘In mid-April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV, films, and novels all stories that contain alternative reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. These people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dreaming.’ As these types of stories originated from and exist mostly in Internet literature, Žižek’s comments can be seen as a call for a more careful analysis of Internet literature in China.
Chu Huijuan’s new volume is one of the latest investigations in this field. While Žižek’s comments above were mentioned in the book (pp. 183–184), this book is much more the result of Chu’s long-time interest and participation in Internet literature. Storytellers and the Dream Industry consists of eight chapters, which can be divided into three parts. Beginning with a description of an influential case of plagiarism in China, the first two chapters identify the main elements of the modern system of literary production, while tracing the historical origins of the relevant legal system, particularly from 1710 when the Statute of Anne was enacted to the case of Donaldson v. Beckett in the 1770s. According to Chu, this system is characterized by authorship and unbending protection of literary copyright. The next four chapters deal with commercial literary production represented by Grab Street, and discuss the theoretical reflections on the traditional regime of literary production by Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, and Michel Foucault. Taking Chinese Internet literature from 1990 to 2010 as an example and comparing it with the development of swordsman fiction in the first half of the 20th century, Chu argues that Internet literature’s unique creativity has bred a new regime of literary production, which can be summarized by three features: (1) completely skipping the parts of printing and selling; (2) participation of authorship from multiple actors; (3) if necessary, readers and authors share the same set of settings, which can be developed. The last two chapters discuss the two directions of Internet literature with the entry of capital. The ‘Star System’ upholds the traditional regime of literary production whereas the other stresses typed literary production. As a representative of Internet literature production, Qidian.com showcases the interconnection between the two directions.
Based on solid empirical observations, Storytellers and the Dream Industry sketches and analyzes the history of Chinese Internet literature from 1990 to 2010, with a focus on its challenges to the traditional regime of literary production and the modern system of copyrights. Chu maintains that the modern legal system of literary copyright is a historical product. Under this framework, literary imagination and production are restricted greatly. The new mode of production, if not submerged by the traditional regime of literary production totally, has to confront this legal system and the latter deals with some irregular actions in its own ways. Although a new regime of literary production is beneficial to the economy and society, there is no way to evade traditional legal restraints and ideological accusations. Critics have noticed the aforementioned facts for a few years (Sherman and Bently, 2008).
The concluding parts demonstrate that Chu’s ultimate intention is not merely Internet literature per se, but rather a contradiction in modern society. In this sense, we can say this book uses the case of Internet literature to illustrate the problem of ‘alternative modernity.’ Its title, Storytellers and the Dream Industry, suggests a binary opposition between a kind of emancipatory power represented by technological developments and solidary human beings and the restrictions of capital and law. Modern society is highly uncertain and full of tensions.
Chu acknowledges, however, that capital and law are not totally devastating forces in modern society. New technologies and the unity of human beings are still possible even with the domination of capital and law. With the aid of bolder institutional innovations – such as the reconstructing of the modern system of intellectual property – capitalism is not necessarily the end of history. In this regard, it is fair to say that Žižek’s comments do not hold factually, while Chu’s statements is not fundamentally different from Žižek’s. ‘[Internet] fictions are rarely understood as individual reflections, or genius creations. They are more often seen as efforts to construct new worlds. . . . Michel Foucault and Internet literature production both remind us that history as we have witnessed is not the only logical possibility’ (pp. 172, 199).
It is the vision of the future that raises an eyebrow. We can see that modern intellectual property law judges Internet literature in its own ways, and capital uses it for its own benefits. But Internet literature can still survive. As for the future, Chu claims that history is open and uncertain, but the future appears gloomy. In a long footnote, Chu comments that ‘[although] the importance of the government for contemporary Chinese society is undisputed, with respect to Internet literature, neither the government nor actors appears to have a strong desire for ideological control or rebellion’ (p. 10, n. 1).
In fact, at least since the adoption of ‘Some Decisions on the Security of the Internet’ at the 19th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress in 2000, the Chinese government has not overlooked the Internet. While aiming at economic crime initially, Internet fictions, audios, videos, posts and comments, and games have all been included in its security efforts subsequently. In 2004, Guo Jijun, a manager and producer of an Internet fiction website, was arrested by local police because a popular novel on his website was judged pornographic fiction. He was sentenced to six months in prison. Ye Qiantong was arrested for narrating a few dirty novels in 2009, and she was the first person punished in the name of ‘producing and spreading pornographic audios on the Internet’ in China. Since 2010, it has been increasingly difficult to ignore the role of the government. In recent years, the government has regularly censored popular games and online forums, hence the official phrase, ‘The Internet is not lawless territory.’ In consideration of these developments, it is puzzling that the book leaves aside the question of the relations among the state, society, and the individual. People can never evade the real Leviathan when they imagine a new world, be it an end or a process.
In brief, Storytellers and the Dream Industry is a fine book with an interesting theoretical perspective and informative empirical details. The shortcomings lie in its narrative and analysis. The story of the Donaldson v. Beckett case is over-simplified and confusing. In addition, Chu appears to assume that the law is reflective to the extent that it can provide at once a modern legal system of copyrights and protection from the former’s harm. This book never clarifies analytically why the law can enjoy such an autonomy, which in turn reduces its theoretical cogency. Nevertheless, rich in content and skillful in techniques, this book will be a required text in Internet literature studies.