Simon Leys (1935-2014)

August 11, 2014

Pierre Ryckmans, better known by his nom de plume Simon Leys, has died. He was a formidable presence in my university years – among the jargon-ridden and theory-bound, he stood out as a scholarly Sinologist with a vast and shaming hinterland of knowledge. 

He was a Renaissance Man who wrote brilliantly about the convolutions of the Maoist Left and the way they tried to present a merciless coup d’etat known as the Cultural Revolution as a profound and revolutionary act instead of a power grab by a bitter, sidelined old tyrant.

He also wrote beautifully about the way the Chinese authorities co-opted the brilliant and mercurial author Lu Xun, retroactively turned into a Maoist by the propagandists of Beijing decades after his death.  

He also wrote the following: 

Ignorance is not simply the absence of knowledge, obscurantism does not result from a death of light, bad taste is not merely a lack of good taste, stupidity is not a simple want of intelligence: all these are fiercely active forces, that angrily assert themselves on every occasion; they tolerate no challenge to their omnipresent rule. In every department of human endeavour, inspired talent is an intolerable insult to mediocrity. If this is true in the realm of aesthetics, it is even more true in the world of ethics. More than artistic beauty, moral beauty seems to exasperate our sorry species. They need to bring down to our own wretched level, to deface, to deride and debunk any splendour that is towering above us, is probably the saddest urge in human nature.