Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2022 

Fate Is Like Smoke and Poetry Is Like a Song: A Reading of Ge Fei’s Novels

(Abstract)

Fan Xing

Ge Fei’s novels are based on revealing some little-known mysteries of history and fate. His early works have the hazy and mysterious feeling of “avant-garde fiction” as well as thrilling stories, but they are also filled with the vicissitudes of folk history. The later Jiangnan Trilogy, through a poetic elaboration of the pursuit and disillusionment of the three generations of a family, interweaves the ups and downs of an era of great changes and the secret life of civil society. It also portrays the mind of traditional literati in a fashion that draws upon classical Chinese poetry: open-minded, unworldly, rich in feelings, subtle and profound.