Wang Meng is like a literary magician, always bringing you unexpected surprises.
After reading "The Monkey and the Boy", the melody of Barbara Streisand's "The Way We Were" echoed in my ears for no reason: "Memory lights up a corner of the soul, and the hazy memories of the watercolor remind me of the feelings of the past." Unprovoked or justifiable?
Novels are a philosophy of image in a certain sense, in fact, through novels to explore the mystery of existence, the mystery of fate, and the mystery of life, it constitutes the unique charm of Wang Meng's novel creation in recent years. Years, youth, times, gains and losses, communication and trampling, right and wrong, fate and cause and effect, luck and regret, who can say clearly? I can't say it clearly, so it is interesting and interesting, so there is a novel "Monkey and Youth".
In fact, for Wang Meng, all the "past days" have not gone far, just as repeatedly emphasized in "Monkeys and Teenagers", "1958" is a "love complex" of Wang Meng, is a "key plot" of his fate, this year, Wang Meng was sent to the Mentougou Sangyu Brigade on the outskirts of Beijing to "labor reform", this experience objectively greatly expanded Wang Meng's literary vision and literary imagination. After the mountains and rivers of life, in the face of "1958", the elderly Wang Meng is still thinking about it, thinking of dreams, and still has new passions and imaginations, new thinking and discoveries.
People familiar with Wang Meng's creation know that the protagonist Shi Bingyan's labor experiences such as building roads, carrying baskets, digging canals, and afforestation in Da walnut Shuyu Village have all been involved in "The Season of Gaffe" and "Half a Life is Troublesome", but after the washing and precipitation of time, "Monkeys and Teenagers" has fermented into "the fragrance of old Maotai", and the sense of unfairness of "gaffe", the tragedy and determination of "putting death to the ground and being born later" have disappeared, and Wang Meng has reached a new reconciliation with fate and memory. Reconciliation is transcendence, and it is also the achievement of a new view of history and life, just as the protagonist Shi Bingyan, in the later years of his life, regarded the "decentralization" of the countryside as the "opportunity" of life, and described the "transformation" of labor as a "carnival carnival". Therefore, "Monkey and Boy" shines with a kind of romance and poetry after stepping out of the heaviness of history.
Romance and poetry are not simply the gifts of time, but also the wisdom, self-confidence and calmness precipitated by life experience. Standing on the heights of life cast by time and experience, Wang Meng looks back at history and looks back at "1958", on the one hand, he is still full of emotions, in his own words, "like the waves of the river passing away, like a dream full of mimosa"; on the other hand, "Monkeys and Teenagers" has greatly broken through the confines of the world of sensibility and experience, and is a reconstruction and reactivation of experience and memory. Obviously, from the internal logic of Wang Meng's creation, "Monkey and Youth" can be called a new transcendence of his novel creation, which not only surpasses the excitement of "Long Live Youth", but also transcends the determination of "Activity Transforms Into Human Form", and the narrative reveals Wang Meng's love and closeness, humor and calmness.
I believe that it was the "Three Young Masters" who ignited Wang Meng's literary inspiration and detonated the lightning of ideas in the depths of his emotions. There is no doubt that the monkey "Three Young Masters" is a unique artistic creation of Wang Meng, a divine enlightenment, and even more apocalypse. Needless to say, there is a certain "monkey qi" in Wang Meng's personality, he is wise and agility, he has a wide range of interests, likes all new things and experiences, and dislikes all clumsiness, stupidity and "dead phase", which may be the psychological basis for the literary image of the monkey "Three Young Masters". The liveliness and agility, shrewdness and happiness of the "Third Young Master" are actually a symbol of a certain ideal personality in the author's mind. As for its mischief, as well as the death of "hanging himself" after being extremely angry, all of them all convey Wang Meng's deep love and pity, bitterness and regret. It can be said that Wang Meng, Shi Bingyan, the young Hou Changyou and the monkey "Three Young Masters" are each other's "mirror image" and mutual "self". The monkey "Three Young Masters" is the warmth and comfort of a special era, and it is also the light of life and spirituality in that special era. Perhaps it is in this sense that the real protagonist of the novel may not be Shi Bingyan, but the young Hou Changyou and the monkey "Three Young Masters".
Whether it is a teenager or a monkey, in fact, what Wang Meng really thinks about in this novel is still the big proposition of the times and society, which is the "fate" of Wang Meng's novel. Wang Meng has aspired to revolution since he was a teenager, and "revolution" is not only Wang Meng's "child skill", but also the background of his creation. "Monkeys and Teenagers" returns to the solemnity of the novel in the caressing and chanting of history. Whether it is the young Hou Changyou or the monkey "Three Young Masters", the migration and circulation of their fate is actually just a historical microcosm of Chinese society in the 20th century.
The reflection on the modernity of Chinese society over the past hundred years constitutes an important theme in Wang Meng's novel creation in recent years, and the same is true of "Monkeys and Teenagers". From the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression to the reform and opening up of the past few decades, almost all major events in this novel have been shown in this novel, either real or virtual, or hidden or explicit, which not only reveals Wang Meng's desire and cheering, nostalgia and cherishing for the social development and changes in China in the past hundred years, but also shows the inevitable payment, price and even sacrifice, perhaps this is the fate of this novel. That flower-like intelligent, kind, and sincere walnut teenager finally had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and those eyes that were once clear and shining disappeared into the smoke and dust of history forever. The accidental death of Brother Monkey, the unjust death of Hou Dongping, and the "self-hanging" of Monkey Er's "Third Young Master" all make people feel heavy and sad, helpless and sighing.
However, Wang Meng did not stay in the sadness and sigh of history. Hou Shoutang, another important but easily overlooked character in "The Monkey and the Teenager", is reminiscent of Lan Peiyu in Wang Meng's other novel "When We Meet" 40 years ago. In the special era, Hou Shoutang, as the young master of the landlord, fled overnight with the false accusations of military command agents, and finally had to hide his name and go to the N country. After the reform and opening up, Quan Dacheng (i.e. Hou Shoutang) became a friendly emissary between China and N countries, returning to his hometown and returning to his hometown. In Hou Shoutang,the fate and history, the times and vicissitudes, have all reached a reconciliation. In this novel, Wang Meng nostalgically and sighs, transcending the one-dimensional dimension of history and embodying a new view of history.
This new sense of history is also manifested in the "subtractive" writing of the novel. The characters, stories, and structures of "Monkeys and Teenagers" are very simple, and in terms of length alone, they do not match the historical vision and ideological meaning it shows, and the novel presents a kind of simplicity that has faded and faded, which is not only a matter of artistic skills or artistic accomplishment, but also the essence of understanding and dealing with the concept and paradigm of historical experience. The Monkey and the Boy completes the novel's homage to philosophy and abstraction.