Quick Answer: What Is The King of Trees About?
The King of Trees (树王, Shù Wáng) is a novella by Ah Cheng (阿城, Ā Chéng) about young workers sent to clear a mountain forest during the Cultural Revolution. One old tree becomes the focus of a dispute between people who have different ideas about the purpose of the work.
- The tree worker: Knotty Xiao (肖疙瘩, Xiāo Gēda) is skilled at working with trees and wants the old one left standing.
- The advocate for clearing: Li Li (李立, Lǐ Lì), one of the young people, wants the tree cut down.
- The English edition: Bonnie S. McDougall’s translation is the title novella in the New Directions collection The King of Trees.
The conflict asks how people decide that a living thing is useful. The answer matters to the workers, the village and the person who has spent years learning what trees require.
At first, clearing a slope can look like a task that is complete when the assigned area has been cleared. Ah Cheng slows that work down around a single tree. Its size, age and place among the other trees make it harder for the workers to agree about what completing the assignment would mean.
Why the Young Workers Come to the Forest
The novella brings educated young people into a mountain community during the Cultural Revolution. They have been sent to work, and the clearing project measures the forest partly by what can replace it. A scholarly account identifies rubber planting as the proposed use for the cleared ground. The project gives the group a reason to sort the forest into what should stay and what should go. [2]
The narrator comes with the young workers. He has to learn what the villagers know while taking part in the clearing. Follow what the forest looks like to a newcomer with an assignment and what it looks like to a person whose work has long depended on it. That difference in viewpoint becomes important when the argument reaches the old tree.
The story appeared in the first 1985 issue of Chinese Writers. Its place in modern Chinese literature has to do with the later effort to write about earlier experiences, including the lives of young people sent into rural work. The publication date and the setting belong to different moments. [1]
What Knotty Xiao and Li Li Disagree About
Knotty Xiao knows how to cut and split wood. His objection to felling one tree therefore comes from someone with practical experience of the work. In the Chinese text, he draws attention to the difficulty of a tree reaching such a size. Time is part of his case even when the people hearing him are ready to measure success by a completed clearing. [2][4]
Li Li argues for removal. He gives practical reasons, including the tree’s effect on light and what can grow nearby. His reasoning also fits a project in which usefulness is defined in advance by a plan to change the land. To understand the dispute, ask what outcome each person values and who has the authority to use that value as the rule for everyone. [3]
The two judgments meet in a concrete decision. Xiao’s knowledge of how a tree grows does not automatically give him power over the work. Li Li’s confidence in the project gives him a reason to press ahead, even where the forest presents facts the plan does not account for.
Why One Tree Becomes a Test of Judgment
A single tree can matter to the story in several ways. It is part of the forest as a living place, an obstacle to a person who wants to clear the slope and the object of local stories. Some villagers regard the ancient tree as a spirit. This belief belongs to the story’s social world. It gives one reason the prospect of cutting it means more to them than a change in how light falls. [3]
The point becomes sharper when you notice how the people speak to each other. One person can offer a reason that fits a general plan. Another can ask the group to consider how long it took to reach the condition they are about to change. A schedule can count the area cleared. It has no obvious way to count the years the tree needed to reach its present size.
This is also why the two uses of the title matter. Calling the tree a king draws attention to what stands above the surrounding growth. Calling Xiao the King of Trees links his standing to practical knowledge of the forest. The double use of the title puts the living tree and the person who knows how to work with trees on the same side of the dispute. [2][4]
How to Read the Novella in English
The 2010 New Directions book The King of Trees contains three novellas by Ah Cheng in Bonnie S. McDougall’s translation. Its title names both the book and the individual story about the forest. If you want the dispute between Xiao and Li Li, choose the title story in the contents. [5][6]
You can read the other two independently. The King of Chess considers skill and attention at a chessboard. The King of Children considers what a teacher and pupil can learn when books are scarce. Together the three stories move between the different judgments people make at a chessboard, in a classroom and in a forest. [1][5]
FAQs About The King of Trees
Who is the King of Trees?
Knotty Xiao is known for his skill with trees and is associated with the title. The old tree he defends is also called a king within the story.
Is The King of Trees one novella or a collection?
It is both the name of the forest novella and the title of a New Directions collection. Check the contents for the individual work.
Do I need to read The King of Chess first?
No. Each novella has its own characters and conflict. Start with the forest story if you want to read about the clearing project and Xiao’s defense of the tree.
資料來源
[1] China Writers Association. Ah Cheng’s Three Kings and Their Literary Significance
[2] Laifong Leung, Routledge. Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers: Biography, Bibliography, and Critical Assessment
[3] University of Helsinki Research Repository. Comparative Discussion of Deforestation in The King of Trees
[4] Ah Cheng, online Chinese text. The King of Trees: Chapter Seven
[5] New Directions Publishing. The King of Trees: Three Novellas by Ah Cheng
[6] OCLC WorldCat. The King of Trees: New Directions Edition