Questioning China. (Mis)understanding strategies in László Krasznahorkai’s “Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens”
Questioning China. (Mis)understanding strategies in László Krasznahorkai’s “Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens”

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses László Krasznahorkai’s Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens in the context of travel literature, focusing on the author's representation of China.The text presents two Chinas: an ancient one, whose beauty can be perceived as a form of aesthetic experience,and a dystopian, modernized New China. The criticism of tourism and globalization evokes the memory of the cultural anxieties articulated by high modernist travelogues. My reading of the novel reveals that its textual complexity surpasses the protagonist’s statements,demonstrating the blind spots of the self-representational strategies epitomized by his figure.

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