Author: CHUNG Yoon-Ngan
Date: 09-25-03 11:11
Lin Yutang by Pearl S. Buck
This is the Introduction of Lin Yutang's book "With Love And Irony"
by Pearl S. Buck, 1942
"When I was living in Nanking (Nanjing «n¨Ê), China, I followed with sharp interest several new and struggling little magazines, because of my concern with what was taking place around me in a revolutionary China. There was one in English called "The China Critic".I read it from cover to cover every week, since in it young Chinese intellectuals were expressing their thoughts and hopes. Their language was English, partly because they wanted English-speaking readers, partly because they wrote, some of them, more easily in English than Chinese. Then there began to appear in its pages a column entitled "The Little Critic", signed by one Lin Yutang, of whom until then I had never heard. The column was unvarying a fresh, keen, accurate comment on some aspect or occurrence of daily life, political or social. What won my first admiration was its fearlessness. At a time when it was
really dangerous to criticize those in power. The Little Critic criticized boldly and freely, saving himself, I am sure, only by the humour and wit with which his opinions were expressed. This wit, clothing fearlessness where others were timid, mercilessness where no mercy was due, and sympathy for and appreciation of the common people of China, bourgeisie as well as proletariat, soon drew the attention of many readers besides myself, and people began to ask, "Who is this Lin Yutang?"
Many readers in many countries have asked that since, and have found out who he is. His books explain him. But this book explains him in an pecular way. It contains the kind of writing which is perhaps above all others most native to Lin Yutang's genius, and genius unquestionably he is. These wrtitngs represent the sparkling, thrusting quality of his thought. They are the instinctive expression of the working of his mind, glancing, darting, penetrating, laughing.
Over a period of years Lin Yutang has written down these short pungent pieces, and from them, past, present, this book has been made. They are not all here, by any means, for many of them were timely and are no longer in point. But enough are here to show variety, and variety is Lin Yutang's delights, although his interest can hold a subject long and deeply, too, when it is profound.
There is another thing I might tell. One night in 1933 I was dining in Lin Yutang's house, then in Shanghai (¤W®ü). We had been speaking of foreign writers about China, when he said suddenly, "I should like to write a book telling exactly how I feel about China."
"You are the one who could do it," I replied with utmost enthusiasm. I had longed for just such a book from a Chinese. Lin Yutang wrote it, and it was called "My Country and My People". The basic sources of that book, and indeed many passges in it and in "The Importance of Living" which followed it, were first in the columns of "The Little Critic." Before either was written, I gathered together some of those columns and sent them to America, to Asia Magazine, One of them was published in that magazine, and was the first work of Lin yutang to appear in that country. It was "The Lost Mandarin", which is included in the present volume (article No. 35 on page 173).
Lin Yutang has spent the last months in the heart of China. He has shared with millions of others the cruel experience of war. But whatever those experiences have been he will remain what he is in this book, the little critic, humorous, wise, and unaffected in hissincerely.
Pearl S. Buck
Yoon-Ngan
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