The Official Path

Officialdom is a realistic novella by the writer Shi Zhongshan, set in the veteran cadres’ office of a government agency. The story unfolds around the impending retirement of Vice Director Wang: even before his position is vacated, those in the agency who covet it have already begun maneuvering—several division chiefs harbor their own calculations and are eager to act, and the head of the veteran cadres’ office is especially attentive, familiar with the birthdays and preferences of the director and the deputy directors. While Vice Director Wang is still in office, people constantly surround him: his driver Xiao Yi looks after him with meticulous care, and his old flame Liu Qin keeps in warm contact. But once the decision to retire is settled, the warmth of human relations quietly shifts: Xiao Yi is no longer so punctual with the car, and Liu Qin gradually drifts away. The novel does not settle for the usual exposure of corruption; instead it trains its focus on the subtle shifts in human feeling and social manners, portraying the psychology, calculations, and inner trajectories of figures within the system as they contend for position, and revealing the aura and illusion that power brings—people fight half their lives over a post, yet sooner or later everyone must step down; all the bustle seems like a dream, and the power once so eagerly sought suddenly becomes unreal. Compact in length, twelve chapters in all, the book is restrained in style and vivid in characterization.