On a Chinese Screen · Chapter
LV: The Sinologue explained
The chapter introduces a sinologue, a European scholar living in a temple outside the city gate, who is deeply immersed in Chinese language and literature.
What happens
The chapter introduces a sinologue, a European scholar living in a temple outside the city gate, who is deeply immersed in Chinese language and literature. He is physically stout and nervous, living in sparse conditions with only books for comfort. He has spent ten years on a dictionary to surpass a rival scholar. Despite his vast knowledge, he leads a purely intellectual life, disconnected from sensory experiences and beauty, which the narrator questions as a limitation.
Themes in this chapter
Colonial Ennui and Isolation
The sinologue's life in a cold, comfortless temple, cut off from both Chinese society and European social circles, exemplifies the isolation of the colonial intellectual.
Search for Meaning and Identity
The sinologue's dedication to his dictionary and Chinese poetry reflects a search for meaning through scholarship, yet the narrator questions if he has missed the essence of life.
Beauty and Art as Escape or Illusion
The sinologue engages with beauty only through printed texts, not direct experience, suggesting art as an intellectual escape rather than a lived reality.
Characters to notice
- The Stranger
The narrator and observer of the sinologue, reflecting on his life and character.
Key passages
“He knows more Chinese than any man in China. He has been working for ten years on a dictionary which will supersede that of a noted scholar whom for a quarter of a century he has personally disliked.”
He is the foremost expert on Chinese language in China, and his decade-long dictionary project is motivated partly by a personal grudge against a rival scholar.
Highlights the sinologue's expertise and the personal rivalry driving his work.
“Because he has immersed himself in his particular pursuits and has cared nothing for racing and shooting the Europeans think him queer.”
His total devotion to Chinese studies, ignoring typical European pastimes like racing and shooting, leads other Europeans to consider him eccentric.
Illustrates the cultural divide between the sinologue and the colonial community.
“Here is a man who has touched reality only through the printed page. The tragic splendour of the lotus moves him only when its loveliness is enshrined in the verse of Li Po and the laughter of demure Chinese girls stirs his blood but in the perfection of an exquisitely chiselled quatrain.”
This man experiences life solely through books; the beauty of a lotus or the laughter of Chinese girls affects him only when captured in classical poetry.
Critiques the sinologue's detachment from direct sensory experience, emphasizing his purely intellectual engagement with the world.