Balzac’s panoramic views of China and the Chinese: a virtual space between reality and fantasy

Honoré de Balzac’s 1842 review of Auguste Borget’s album of sketches on China and the Chinese has attracted attention from critics for the ambiguous manner in which it presents his disparaging views on the nature and essence of Chinese culture. Previous researchers have thus engaged in surveying the panorama of Balzacian references to China and the Chinese in the larger corpus of his works, registering the writer’s genuine interest in China, but also his inclination to seize the topic as a pretext for an attack on French society’s mores. Others have hurriedly classed Balzac’s insertion of China and the Chinese in his works as haphazard, uncritical or aimless chatter. My study builds on existing scholarship in order to argue that there is a solid ground to be explored behind the writer’s playful remarks and satire of Chinese and French vision. New and unexpected interpretations of his seemingly superficial engagement with stereotypes on Chinese artificiality and lack of perspective are reached through the study of visual and material culture scholarship. This will clarify that the writer’s association of China with European modes of virtual travel or hoax theories of clairvoyance simultaneously bridge the gap between French and Chinese thought and distort reality. The overall conclusion of the study is that Balzac’s introduction of Chinese motifs in his works does not merely perpetuate French or European myths of China’s backwardness or cultural inferiority, but opens a meaningful dialogue on the elements of critical thinking that need to be applied in order to see things from the perspectives of both Western and Eastern sides.