If you have ever been to Prague, you certainly stopped for a while on Charles Bridge. The holy statues on both sides silently gaze over the Vltava River, which flows calmly and slowly, as if it were time itself. And far in the east, black wupeng boats glide under the stone arches of bridges in Shaoxing, where the sounds of oars mix with the chatter of washerwomen—that is a different rhythm of time. These two cities, separated by the entire Eurasian continent, each gave birth to one writer who wrote most profoundly about "imprisonment." One was Franz Kafka; the other was Lu Xun. They never met, and perhaps they didn't even know of each other's existence. And yet their texts created some kind of symmetrical clouds in the twentieth century—one in the east, the other in the west—and the rain that fell from them had equal weight.
Both were "outsiders"
Kafka was a Prague Jew who wrote in German. For Czechs he was a German; for Germans, a Jew; and for Jews, not pious enough. He lived in linguistic cracks, in fissures of identity. This "triple marginal position" instilled from the outset that one can never truly belong anywhere. Lu Xun's story is no less dramatic but equally contradictory. He came from an official family in Shaoxing but witnessed its decline with his own eyes—his grandfather ended up in prison due to a corruption scandal during imperial examinations, and his father died after a long illness. He left to study medicine in Japan but switched to literature on the way, becoming "a man who cannot return": his foundations of old learning were too deep; new schools considered him conservative; he criticized tradition most sharply yet was soaked through with its tragedy at his core. Both were "internal aliens" of their own cultures. Precisely because they stood on the margins, they could see the absurdity of the center.
Two ways to write about "imprisonment"
Kafka's characters are always somehow mysteriously stuck. Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis wakes up one morning as an insect, but his first reaction is not horror—it's "I'll miss the train," a familiar work-related anxiety. Is that beetle shell not a metaphor for responsibility, expectation, and self-overburdening that modern people daily put on themselves? Castle is even more suffocating: surveyor K arrives in the village, clearly sees the castle on the nearby hill, but no matter what he does, he cannot get there. The phone doesn't work; one document is missing; officials are never available. He's like a ghost trapped in a glass bottle—light is outside, yet it finds no exit.
Lu Xun wrote about another kind of imprisonment. Chong I-ti stands in a tattered long robe at the counter of Sien-cheng restaurant, wants to drink but has no money; seeks dignity but lacks it. All he knows how to do is wretched scraps of knowledge that cannot fill his stomach or save his life. And Qiao's "spiritual victory method" is another beetle shell: when someone beats him up, he tells himself "the son hits the father," wrapping real humiliation in an illusory victory. While Kafka's imprisonment is "imprisonment of being itself"—with invisible walls set by the world from the start—Lu Xun's imprisonment is "imprisonment of history": thousands-of-years-old morals, customs, and numbness cover everyone's feet like a thick layer of moss.
Fundamental difference
When we look at it all around, the greatest difference between Kafka and Lu Xun lies in their attitude toward hopelessness. Kafka's hopelessness is calm, resigned. The castle is there; you won't get there—the world was simply designed this way. His texts are like winter fog: so damp, cold, omnipresent—without anger, only with a certain weariness that says, "If it must be so, let it be."
Lü Shun's despair is scorching. In his preface to the collection *The Scream*, he wrote that once, in an iron room, he called out with hope of awakening a few people, even if only a few, perhaps together overturning it. He knew well enough that darkness was infinite, and yet wished to light up a lamp, even if its glow would illuminate but one step along the path. One tells you: The world is simply a cage; there's no need to resist. Another says: Even if it were a cage, try at least opening it slightly. Thus can a Jewish writer from a small Central European country and a literati from an ancient Eastern empire stand across time and space as shared wealth for readers worldwide. They wrote about the same things—human loneliness and struggle in the world—but in different languages and with varying temperatures.
Next time you go to Prague, stop briefly at Charles Bridge. Remember that thin Jewish man in a round hat who passed this way countless times, his head filled with K., which would never reach the castle. Next time you travel to Shaoxing, sit down on a wupeng boat and gaze upon the white walls and black sacks lining both sides. Recall that literati with a mustache and piercing eyes, grown up in this watery landscape who spent their entire life trying by sheer willpower to break through an invisible iron wall.
They never met. Yet each reflected the same moon in its own river.
In 1893, Zhou Fuqing (Jin-shi of the Tung-chu era) was in Shaoxing grieving at home. He saw that his son—Lü Sun's father—repeatedly failed provincial exams and so raised ten thousand silver taels to hire a servant who went to the Suichou embankment with a letter for Jin Ruchang, chief examiner of provincial examinations in Chekiang Province—and asked him to arrange protection on Lü Sun's exam papers. But outside, the impatient servant shouted at an official boat: "The letter contains ten thousand taels; why won't you issue confirmation!" The vice-chairman of the examination commission heard this, opened the letter right there, and both banknotes and secret code were exposed. Zhou Fuqing filed a lawsuit, was sentenced to "delayed execution" (death with reprieve after eight years in prison granted clemency). From then on each year the Zhou family sold property for bribes; their prosperity declined; Lü Sun's father lost his title of Siou-cchai, fell into opium addiction and died young.
Marie Liu