Title: Introduction to Chinese Cultural History / The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature / 15 The Madman That Was Ah Q: Tradition and Modernity in Lu Xun's Fiction

Front: What was Lu Xun's first collection of short fiction, and what are the two most famous works in it?
Back: The collection is called Call to Arms or 吶喊 Nàhǎn (1923) and the best known stories in it are:
- Diary of a Madman or 狂人日記 Kuángrén Rìjì (1918),
- The True Story of Ah Q or 阿Q正傳 Ā Q Zhèngzhuàn (1921).

Front: Name some works of Lu Xun other than Diary of a Madman and The True Story of Ah Q.
Back: - Kong Yiji (1919)
- Medicine (1919)
- In the Wine Shop (1924)
- Old Tales Retold (1936)

Front: What's special about the language of the very beginning of Diary of a Madman as opposed to the diary proper?
Back: The preface is written in classical Chinese, and the diary proper in the vernacular.

Front: What does the madman start to see between the lines?
Back: In ancient times, as I recollect, people often ate human beings, but I am rather hazy about it. I tried to look this up, but my history has no chronol- ogy, and scrawled all over each page are the words: “Virtue and Morality.” Since I could not sleep anyway, I read intently half the night, until I began to see words between the lines, the whole book being filled with the two words—“Eat people.” (Lu Xun 1977: 10)

Front: Whose demise does Kong Yiji represent?
Back: That of the Confucian literati class.

Front: What's Lu Xun's home town?
Back: Shaoxing.