The Question of Hu by Jonathan Spence Review Paper Example

Jonathan Spence is a professor of history at Yale University. He has written several critically acclaimed books on Chinese history, and in the process, has developed a new genre of historical writing. Mr. Spence's examination emphases on an apparently negligible activity and gives sufficient detail about it regarding the people's way of life. Mr. Spence's pieces of work have been both praised and criticized for their novelistic tendencies. Spence's studentship is so inconspicuous as to go ignored even though he has scrupulously documented his pieces of work. Spence's books are like works of fiction.

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The Question of Hu is an entertaining work of fiction compiled artistically by Mr. Spence. The book is of great importance to students, instructors, and even enthusiastic historians. While reviewing this book which Mr. Spence has written with a large mastery of a historian, the primary criteria I used included content, organization and referencing different sources. This book proposes so many replications and profound sentiments in the reader that it is all one can do not to bunk off the story line altogether and lower themselves right down to its consequences.

This book shows all the strengths and limitations of Mr. Spence's method. The event under study has no historical significance. The work involves what an eighteenth-century labor disagreement between a Jesuit missionary, Jean-Francois Fouquet, and his Chinese assistant, John Hu was. The latter, who accompanied Fouquet to France as a scrivener, refused to do any work at all. Foucquet reacted by not paying him the agreed-upon wages. The weak, jobless Hu, who was unable to speak French, wandered aimlessly about the rural area, creating conflicts wherever he went until he was finally committed to the great outrageous refuge at Charenton. Ha terrible conditions, a Chinese-speaking Jesuit subsequently interrogated him. Hu's first asked the reason he had been locked up. Typically, Mr. Spence does not answer this question directly.

Fouquet's extended stay in China was clearly undoubtedly more to scholarly activities than to what one often imagines to be missionary work. After his advent in the East, Fouquet had made such precipitous progress in his study of the Chinese language that the Jesuit community honored him as a skilled interpreter of Chinese classics, particularly the "unclear" Book of Changes, or the I Ching. Fouquet became ever more obsessed, however, with an intuition that he had been granted regarding these texts, because he was persuaded that they were divinely inspired. In fact, when the Chinese sages spoke of the Tao, they were referring to the God of the Christian Bible. Fouquet had found provision for this theory scattered throughout the I Ching, and he was persuaded that many hexagrams applied to the same occurrences that are described in the book of Genesis of the Christian Bible.

Through the simple framework of the theory in mind, Fouquet started neglecting research but instead, dedicated himself to coming up with his research library. He had been beseeching for some time for approval of returning to France, which he considered essential to go back to the primary source material, most of which would be unavailable in Paris. Therefore, he began purchasing Chinese literature in bulk, giving all bills to the Jesuit dwelling in Canton. When Fouquet's request to get back home was approved, he had amassed sufficient volumes.

Jesuit authorities were shocked upon realizing that Fouquet anticipated to go back to France with this vast library, rather than leave it at the Jesuit residence. They held that since he had taken a vow of poverty, Fouquet could not be considered the authentic owner of these books, which he never paid for himself. A fiery argument over the disposition of the library was still on as Fouquet's ship prepared to sail. Finally, Fouquet could get tentative consent to leave with those volumes crucial to his research project. When he had packed what he deemed to be the most important titles, Fouquet filled eleven crates with close to four thousand volumes.

To help him interpret and record these obscure books, Fouquet made up his mind that he had to get back his Chinese research assistant since it was most improbable that an intelligent one could be found in France. Hu's work was to translate the vast libraries that Fouquet had come with, to prove his theory. After that, however, Hu could no longer speak the language, also, he could not assimilate the culture and act appropriately and thus to the Europeans, he appeared mad. Consistently, Mr. Hu was beaten and locked up severally, but he continually escaped and never stopped acting as he did before. Finally, Fouquet requested that Mr. Hu is admitted to hospital for the insane at Charenton, which was outside Paris. Hu's release is obtained for Fouquet, who eventually becomes a bishop. Fouquet justifies his treatment for his counterpart and makes sure that Hu gets back to China. The story ends well where Hu is sitting under a tree and telling tales of the West.

From the above inferences, the title of Spence's book refers to the first question Mr. Hu asked when he finally got a chance to speak to someone in his language. The question was "Why have I been locked up?" However, The Question of Hu similarly discourses the greater question about the way we describe madness and the extent to which the mental institution was a tool of social control. Furthermore, The Question of Hu should be read as the question of ''who?'' - An indirect and elaborate recreation of the way in which identity is bound up in culture. Feasibly the most vital issue the book asks, though, is: what does it imply by understanding another culture? Like the way that Spence used the memory palace of Ricci in form of a metaphor to ensure the writing history, Spence utilizes Hu's story to scrutinize the art of ''translation.''Mr. Spence's choice of a narrative style like that of fiction permits him to draw these questions from his work, without giving answers. That way, Mr. Spence offers readers the understanding unswervingly opposite to that Hu's employer, Foucquet, applied in studying trying to prove his theory. Mr. Spence's subtle but nonetheless determined method makes him one of the most original and exciting historian writers.

References

Jonathan Spence (1989) "The Question of Hu" Vintage Publishers, Print.

The Wall Street Journal 1988 November 29. Publishers weekly, 1988.