A Game Of Intelligence

The dichotomy between elegance and vulgarity in literature is a theme which has always carried with it a sense of ambiguity and the attentions of scholars. In the past, there had been a distinguishable separation between elegant and vulgar literature. However, the elegant and vulgar may also be harmonized at times, in combination or series with one another, as contributed by major writers such as Zhang Ailing. After the 1980s, some writers felt confined by the limiting standardizations of literature, a freedom enjoyed by a minority group of authors with their "Internal Works". China's socioeconomic changes—the Chinese reformation, an opening of its borders to the world, construction of cultural markets—did not justify the antipathy toward vulgar literature, within the context of "salvation" , as the movement was seen as the beginnings of an artistic movement invoking equality in the transition from elegant to vulgar literature.Facing such a situation, the writers of vulgar literature not only insisted upon the amusement of their literature, but also assimilated various artistic methods from elegant literature in order to match their works to the expectations of the mainstream audience thereby broadening their efforts in the literature market. Meeting these demands, readers' tastes became more palatable to the change from elegance to vulgarity.The works of Mai Jia act as a special narrative for his following of a "fixed mode" which, beginning from the original inheritance of his fictions, focused on the publicizing of topics ranging from patriotism and heroism to narrative skills, which are similar to Jorge Luis Borges. Mai reversed the writing posture of vulgar fictions at the present age. Mai's compositions wandered between vulgarity and absolute literature and the development of a brand new field in literature, often being related to a game, day by day.This thesis has chosen Mai's "Fictions of New Intelligence" as the object of study, and focuses on analyzing how his fictions expressed a core of "a game of intelligence" from the angles of contents, exploration of themes and strategies of narrative. The Chapter 1 defines the concept of "Fictions of New Intelligence" and its properties of "Game and Literature", "Fiction and History" and "Tradition and Vanguard". The Chapter 2 which is based on fictions interprets the topic notion of Mai's fictions: cipher and decipher, the manifestation and its relationship with fatalism of "New Heroism" in Mai's fictions. The Chapter 3 summarizes the features of Mai's fictions and three narrative structures which are in common use with proceeding from the narrator, narrative point of view, and narrative time.