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Robert E. Bedeski: The transformation of South Korea: reform and reconstruction in the Sixth Republic under Roh Tae Woo, 1987–1992 . 197 pp. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. £45 (paper £12.99).

It takes a long time for some of the traditional orthodoxies of literary history and prevalent literary criticism to be truly reassessed as to the veracity of their pronouncements, but we are fortunate enough to be entering a period in the study of Chinese literature when such challenges are much more frequent, and much more penetrating. In the late Ming, which stick-in-the-mud historians and bee-in-thebonnet ideologies have insisted on painting as primarily a period of chaos and decay, it is increasingly possible to perceive and proclaim an age that had a decidedly Renaissance spirit about it in many respects, and was the glory of Chinese fiction long and short, a most exciting time of unprecedentedly enthusiastic editing and creative activities. It has long been widely accepted, although without sufficient joy and clamour, that Feng Menglong (1574-1646) and Ling Mengchu (1580-1644) took written short-story telling to peaks of achievement, not only by Chinese but indeed by world standards. Yet the creative brilliance of the late Ming did not die with the demise of the dynasty, and during the early decades of the Qing there emerged a writer who gained a great deal from them in the way of inspiration and even material, but capped them both in some respects for some kinds of suppleness and certain originalities of treatment. It has always been well known that Li Yu (1610-c. 1680) ranked among the highest in various realms of dramatic, literary and aesthetic activity, but less attention has been paid to his prose fiction. Patrick Hanan has in recent years made great strides in remedying this neglect, and the book under review takes the rehabilitation a step further. This book is about Li Yu's collection of 18 short-stories by himself, originally published under the collective title Silent dramas (Wusheng xi) A general survey of the huaben genre is followed by detailed discussions of Li's life and works, the texts of the stories, the background to their creation, analyses of various of the stories in groupings of themes, and an assessment of the stories' position in the Chinese vernacular short-story tradition as a whole. The central and largest single part of the book is made up of translations of five of the stories, and the final one-sixth or more of it with studies of the remaining stories not translated here. The translations are of lucid quality, and the comprehensive summaries and introduction make this an accessible reference work. The author's assessments of Li Yu's stories give valuable insights and moot stimulating theories, providing comparisons between Li and some other writers, and covering a range of highly sophisticated and complicated attitudes towards creative writing. He reaffirms the view of Li Yu's puckish waywardness, pointing out Li's rejection of the notions of karma and retribution so much favoured by earlier writers as key structural elements in their plots, and describing how Li also steps outside the prevalent love-tale conventions of the de rigueur matches between 'genius scholar and beautiful lady' (cai-zijia-ren). At the same time the more conventional aspects of the stories are also given prominence, such as Li's upholding of Confucian hero-models and preference for Confucian virtues over materialistic motivations. Li's theme is seen as 'How can the individual best come to terms with a social system that is functioning badly?', this purpose chiming with a quote from Du Juan's preface to the stories that sees them hopefully as serving as ' a drink that quenches the thirst of throats in our world that stands in flames and affords them a blessed coolth.' Of the five translations of whole stories given in this book, three are translated for the first time in any European language, a proud and notable first in itself. They are typical of Li Yu's short-story output in theme and treatment, each ending with a subtle philosophical disquisition, sometimes a quite extensive one. The disquisition on pages 116-65 is of particular interest concerning Li's attitudes to the writing of fiction, revealing a creative mind very conscious of his lofty literary and ethical aspirations, as seen in the following extract: