SOURCE: Nienhauser, Jr., William H. “Tales of the Chancellor(s): The Grand Scribe's Unfinished Business.” Chinese Literature 25 (December 2003): 99-117.

In the following essay, Nienhauser examines some structural problems in chapter 96 of the Shih chi.

The Problems

Be kind to your reader.¹ This was one of the basic rules on writing we learned in school. Since the primary reader for this offering is my former coeditor, Robert Earl Hegel, I should have been kinder had I chosen a more purely literary topic. I can envision Bob's reaction when he sees this piece: “the Shih chi again?” Bob (and perhaps other readers of this issue) can take some encouragement in the fact that this ninety-sixth chapter of the Shih chi, “Chang Ch'eng-hsiang [Ts'ang] lieh-chuan” (The Memoir on Chancellor Chang [Ts'ang]), is filled with anecdotes that are as literary as any found in the various collections of such material in the...