The fantastical, magical and bizarre

Bob Rickard finds a new and wholly fresh mother lode of ‘true weird tales’ in this classic 18th-century collection of Chinese stories which Charles Fort would have loved

The Shadow Book of Ji Yun

The Chinese Classic of Weird True Tales, Horror Stories, and Occult Knowledge

Yi Izzy Yu & John Yu Branscum, eds & trans

Empress Wu Books 2021

Pb, 307pp, £14.99, ISBN 9781953124012

The Chinese genre of fantasy in fiction and drama has been widely embraced in the West where it has had a celebrated influence on the creative imagination behind some excellent films and games, despite its rather lowkey reception by a generally uncaring public. For the aficionados then – who will definitely enjoy it – here is a new and wholly fresh mother lode of the genuine article.

The only real comparisons to Shadow Book’s treasure trove of bizarre stories, full of humour, horror, suspense, magic and mystery, are Japan’s Kwaidan,

the Thousand and One Nights,

and most certainly Pu Sungling’s Liao Chai Chih I ( Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, first translated for western appreciation by Herbert Giles in 1908).

Ji Yun (17241805) was an influential Qing dynasty scholar and philosopher. Unlike Pu Sungling, of whom too little is known, Ji Yun was wellknown and described by many of his contemporaries.

Emerging from a humble childhood in Hebei province, he showed great promise; the editors describe how, by the age of four, he was known for his erudition, adult conversation skills and improvised rhymes, a sardonic wit and “an uncanny ability to see in the dark as if it were day”.

His early life was a succession of accolades for literary achievements, and he became one of the leading figures in the scholarly resistance to “the Qing dynasty’s antisupernaturalism”.

At the peak of his career, in 1768, a political indiscretion led to his banishment to a distant province to work as a rural clerk among farmers, merchants, soldiers and frontiersmen. There, Ji Yun was profoundly affected by the suffering and poverty of ordinary folk and developed “a growing disgust at the moral and intellectual hypocrisy of the Confucian scholars”. More significantly, he became fascinated by the daily tales of “supernatural” and unusual experiences, told to him by those countryfolk, many of which, he was personally assured, had actually happened.

Three years later Ji Yun was called back by his emperor and appointed Imperial Librarian. He had editorial oversight of the unification of the vast imperial collection – a task that took over 4,000 scholars almost two decades. As the editors explain, this gave him much intellectual joy, because it gave him unique access to “China’s entire literary history”.

On the downside, he was ordered “to savagely edit or destroy” books that were “politically problematic or intellectually heretical”. Ji Yun’s clever solution to this dilemma was to comply, but preserve references and details of the “lost” works in his private writings.

Ji Yun’s secret rebellion began in 1789 with the first volume of Personal Accounts and Records of Others. Four more followed featuring over 1,200 stories from which Yu and Branscum have selected 70 “Strange Nonfictions” and 13 supernaturally flavoured “Fables and Philosophies”.

Laid before us is a truly fortean feast in which Ji Yun is credited with “revolutionising Chinese horror and creative nonfiction [and] revitalising Chinese occult philosophy”. Many ingredients, such as lustful fox spirits, roofwalking vampires and sinister occult societies, are still popular today. There is much more: haunted cities jostle with cannibalistic villages; vengeful animals (including a yeti), animistic spirits and deceased souls wreak havoc; objects magically transform or take on a life not their own; an exploding aphrodisiac and a sentient fog; prophetic dreams and tragic fates; the ubiquity of Tibetan black magicians and mystical Taoist sages; and even “a vibrant sex trade of the reanimated dead”.

Our editors, with some justification, describe Ji Yun as a charismatic blend of HP Lovecraft, Benjamin Franklin, Kafka and the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang Tsu), presenting as a Confucian rationalist by day and a Daoist “paranormal investigator” by night.

The stories fall into a venerable genre called zhiguai –a contraction of the characters for “true weird tales” or “shadow histories” – that evolved over 2,000 years from Daoist and Buddhist “parables” used to illustrate metaphysical concepts.

Both editors are professors at US universities and had grown up reading Ji Yun in classical Chinese and they decided that the world deserved a translation. They have taken great care to preserve Ji Yun’s unique and elegant prose style. In addition to essential biographical and chronological information, they supply short explanations to some stories to expand their cultural context.

The zhiguai genre included personal accounts of paranormal phenomena, fables and urban legends alongside “debunking” stories and thinkpieces on related topics. Typically they are short, and being light on “evidence” and heavy on “exaggeration” were collectively regarded as supporting the popular mythology and superstition, thus earning the scorn of the Confucian elite.

What makes this collection extraordinary is the way Ji Yun sets his narratives into a thoughtful context without any mockery, gently personalising them without detracting from the tales’ intrinsic value. This anthology is an intellectual treasure and simply a delight to read. I am sure Fort would have enthusiastically appreciated it.

★★★★★

The genre included personal accounts of paranormal phenomena, fables and urban legends