1931

Lu Xun's son Haiying had found a copy of Mark Twain's Eve's diary, illustrated by Lester Ralph. Lu Xun immediately arranged for its translation : Xiawa ri ji translated by Li Lan [ID D29490]. In the preface Lu tries to tackle the incongruity in Mark Twain – a popular, humorous story teller, who yet proved to be an inveterate pessimist. To his own question : 'Laughing and joking while full of sorrow and sadness, how come ? ' Lu Xun explained that after the Civil War, America became an industrialized society where it was hard for writers to freely express their true thoughts and feelings because people's minds and personalities were now cast in the same mould. According to Lu Xun's observation of what American writers had become, 'Anyone who dared to assert his self would be persecuted'. Mark Twain chose instead to tell jokes in order to survive as a writer, hence this contradictions : sorrow on the one hand, and satire on the other.