Yuan Jiaosu: Huxiang Rural Landscape and Literary Narrative in the New Era: Reading Gong Pengfei's Novel "Swallow Flower"

Wen 丨 Yuan Jiaosu

In the current era of new media, the modern context of electronic elements, artificial intelligence, and digital storms is all over all corners of society, people keep up with the pace of the times in the "roar" of modernization, the ever-changing technology and rapidly expanding information allow people to use a mobile phone and computer to play around the world, even reading habits have become "fast food" and "splash screen", and our "native China" has gradually been covered by urban-rural integration. In a trance, the hometown became blurred in time and again. After reading Gong Pengfei's novel "Swallow Flower", the increasingly unfamiliar hometown returns to the river of time in the fragmented mirror image, giving people the calmness and tranquility of their hometown. The landscape of the hometown, the memory of the times, in "Swallow Flower" one by one restored to the home, looking at the hometown, month by month, seeing things and thinking about people, the old rural stories and scenes surface in the dream, warm the atrium, touch the soul, resurrect our fading past.

Gong Pengfei's "Swallow Flower" starts from the perspective of the return of the character Lü Huaiyuan in the book, recalling the life scene of the farmers in the lower reaches of the Zijiang River in the 1960s and 1970s; with the tentacles present to perceive the changes of the times, he imitates the group portraits of small rural people and expresses his infinite affection for this land. The author tries to reshape the rural territory and show the new image of rural China, and his realistic expression methods and literary narratives are sincere and touching, evoking people's vision and pursuit of the new countryside. As we all know, in the era of writing in the presence of the countryside, Zhou Libo's "Great Changes in Mountains and Countryside" and "Storm" represent the memory of an era. The rural characters and dialect slang in northern Hunan in "Swallow Flower", as well as the distinctive regional culture and customs and customs, construct the folk and legendary stories of the landscape and water downstream of the Zishui River, giving people a sense of scene reproduction of "Great Changes in Mountains and Countryside". Coincidentally, Zhou Libo is a native of Yiyang, Hunan Province, and was the editor of Weekly Literature. The author Gong Pengfei is also a descendant of the downstream of the Yiyang Zishui River in Hunan Province, and is also an editor. With the same affection, they focus on the countryside and the tragic fate of the people at the bottom of society. The difference is that the Huxiang rural landscape atlas integrated by Gong Pengfei's Swallow Flower has a transformative style of the new era, reshaping the spirit of the new countryside with a traditional literary narrative, and has the meaning of glittering and finishing touches - playing grass, man belly, eating a bucket, and a toilet. Whenever the children who cut the cattle grass sang this song with a sharp children's voice, everyone seemed to see a group of people coming down the streets of Silver City, shirtless, the muscles on the poles of their hands bulging, and a blue cloth bag on their shoulders, which was their change of clothes. They were made down and called "Fighting Grass Guys"... In the cultural development of rural poetics in the new countryside, literary narratives have their own unique artistic charm.

It is true that whether it is fiction creation or non-fiction lyricism, vernacular themes have always been the treasure mine that writers love and excavate. As the saying goes, "The earth can produce all things, and the land can produce gold." The land is the foundation of our roots; the hometown is always our starting point. The earth is speechless, only to see the moon in its hometown. The local books are born in the pen of the literati and inkers, with a variety of styles. In different degrees of lyricism, we will encounter a high degree of homogenization of empirical writing, which is also a major writing dilemma that writers urgently need to break through. "Swallow Flower" has a different path in homogenization, and its layout construction highlights the spiritual outlook of the current new countryside in the retrospective of the past and the pace of the times. Under the simple and unpretentious main theme of the land, it not only maintains the subtlety of traditional culture, but also updates the memory of the times present. From the "old house" to the construction of water conservancy and the establishment of the people's commune, to the emergence of the threshing machine replaced the human labor of inviting people to beat rice, and the tractor replaced the era of cattle farming; from the development of film and television shooting and radio broadcasting to reflect the "great changes in farming" that reflected the changes in the countryside, to the painful memories brought to the local land by the natural disaster "Great Flood" around 1996; from the various sand dredging and transformation events of the "river soil of Baisha Village", to "SARS" and "African swine fever", to the "toilet improvement storm" and "human settlement environment"... The former rural landscapes written by the author reproduce the new "native China" in the process of the times, and the traces of the changes of the times and the changes of the times are engraved in the hearts of the people, which is touching and profound.

Whether a novel is good or bad, whether the spirit and the overall shaping of the characters are appropriate is extremely critical, and it plays a pivotal role in the novel. The structural narrative of Gong Pengfei's novels is easy to control and well versed. By integrating the changes of the times in the rural construction of the new era, "Swallow Flower" shapes a series of vivid and perceptible small characters such as Chun Blind Zi, Yang Haoguang, Yang Lisheng, Xie Danxin, Zhao Huibao, Chen Tiezhu, Liu Ying and so on with the characteristics and symbols of regional culture. Its dialect slang has distinct characteristics, showing the rural style of Huxiang culture, and increasing the sense of presence and authenticity of the novel. The details in the novel are also skillful and well-formed. For example, in the section "Yang Haoguang" - "I took this Xinhua Dictionary to school." After class, I checked the names of my classmates, and if I had a word, if I checked the names, either, I would squeeze three points of ink, or I would tear up a piece of paper to make a paper cannon. "The re-enactment of familiar scenes in school life makes people nostalgic for the innocence and carefree of their youth, and I believe that people in that era had a déjà vu experience." When the author Zhao Huibao returned to the West Railway Station, he wanted to pee, so he ran to the toilet, but when he went to the toilet to collect a dime, he went to the toilet to collect a dime, so he debated with the old man wearing the red armband, saying that from ancient times to the present, there was anyone who wanted to collect money, and the old man said, You don't pay money, you go out..." The description of this scene shows the contrast between human feelings, civilization, and morality between the city and the countryside while making people familiar. In the countryside, it is believed that no one will be rejected if they go to anyone's house to untie their hands. People are smiling and honest. The image of Liu Ying's single-minded and diligent rural female cadres who perform their duties also left a deep mark on people. They have different personalities, are thick and simple, witness the times, come to life, and are representatives of the characters in the new countryside.

Gong Pengfei's new book "Swallow Flower", published by Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House, is a big book that sings the earth, records the farming culture of an era, and reproduces the "native China" in the new era. Swallow flowers, also known as Ziyunying in the countryside of Huxiang, are the messengers of spring in the fields and the "fertilizer nourishment" in the eyes of farmers. As soon as the spring ploughing turned over, it buried the overwhelming beauty into the ground, and began the brewing of a story, the fermentation of a piece of land...

Author Affilications:Hunan Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature