Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.2, 2022

 

The Significance and Limitation of the Experience of Reality: On Li Tie’s Novels

(Abstract)

 

Zhou Rong

 

Li Tie’s emotion and experience during factory life have shaped the narrative perspective of his novels. It enables him to examine the necessity of state-owned enterprise reform as well as the resulting drawbacks from a historical, linear and internal perspective. Through the diverse descriptions of industrial “technologies,” Li constitutes the professional ethics and intellectual core of industrial novels. On the other hand, when faced with the plight of real life and the new problems raised from the reform, Li chooses to retreat to the “starting point” of the narrative—back to the era of planned economy due to the “limitations” of own experience and perspective.