《故事新編》堪稱新文學史上一曲孤獨的絕響,其卓越的創造性是以非小說的面目出現的,富有形象感的現代話語恣意地侵入,與古代話語交鋒碰撞,形成眾聲喧嘩的語言形象世界,由此促成了文學話語的陌生化、審美經驗上的間離感,并造就了戲仿與反諷的修辭方式。從而打破了虛實界域,消弭了歷史書寫的真實性,拆除了小說與非小說、文學與非文學的障礙,解構了小說固有的內在規定性。正是在魯迅天馬行空式的游戲精神支配下,這部開放式的、難以命名的天才作品才得以誕生。

Lu Xun’s Old Tales Retold can be regarded as an absolutely unique voice in the history of China’s "New Literature." It demonstrates an originality as non-fictionality of the stories, with imagistic modernist discourse interacting with with the ancient discourse. This resulted in a multi-voiced image-full textual world which contributes to the alienation of literary discourse, the estrangement of aesthetic experience, and the rhetoric effect of parody and irony. It hence broke the boundaries of reality and fiction, undermined the authenticity of historical writing, removed the barriers between fiction and non-fiction as well as those between literature and non-literature, and deconstructed the inherent requirements of fiction. It is Lu Xun’s free spirit of game that impregnated such a masterpiece sui generis.