The "Secret Garden" in the Fireworks of the World

Writer Chen Xi is a veteran Peking Opera fan and has rich experience in stage performances. He integrates this profound artistic accumulation and unique life experience into his new novel "Male Dan" (Xinlei Publishing House, April 2021 edition), and strives to achieve the perfect combination of art and life experience. Literary creation pays attention to good themes, and only by finding the best creators can it become a classic and circulate in the world. Good writers often need to go through many attempts to discover their own material. From this point of view, the publication of "Men's Dan" is a karmic meeting, marking that the writer has finally found his "secret garden" after a long period of exploration. In his works, he mobilizes all individual experience memories, interprets the interplay between traditional Peking Opera art and contemporary individual life, interprets the eternal entanglement of life, art, faith and choice, and completes a dance of life in the form of words.

　　The fate of Peking Opera echoes with individual growth

　　"Male Dan" intends to closely follow the hot topics of the times, and the narrative perspective is clever. The writer uses the experience of the young Su Zixuan entering the drama school to study male Dan, and reproduces the skills and essence of traditional Chinese Peking Opera art from the perspective of children's growth, so as to highlight the broad realm and endless vitality of China's excellent traditional culture.

　　Perhaps, everyone has a transcendental "national essence" impression in their hearts: it is a beautiful singing voice, gorgeous costumes or brilliant swaying pearls that are inseparable from the stage effect. However, from the perspective of Su Zixuan's growth, guozhi is another true picture: it is a daily scene of practicing blanket skills under the sun to faint, it is the embarrassing helplessness of being excluded from finding a partner because of playing a male Dan, it is the study and contemplation of practicing tai chi at night with the canteen master, it is the sadistic memory of buying a pair of favorite color shoes, it is like Grandpa, Uncle Li, and Teacher Yu Qing, it is impossible to enjoy the stage light, but the persistent pursuit of the drama as fate. Yes, the daily life, simplicity, frustration, grinding, regardless of gains and losses, and unchanging original intentions are the eternal inner soul of Peking Opera art. The graceful beauty on stage and the grinding of blood and tears offstage constitute a strong dramatic contrast, and the historical fate of Peking Opera art echoes the setbacks and difficulties of individual growth. The obsession of Su Zixuan, Gao Feng, Xiao Yu and others with Peking Opera truly reflects the precious life nourishment that traditional culture gives to contemporary teenagers.

　　From the perspective of children's literature, the work is full of ideological appeal and positive guidance of values; from the perspective of expressing the taste of life and philosophical perception, it goes beyond specific age groups and opera performance objects, and gives physical and mental encouragement and ideological enlightenment to adults and all lovers of traditional culture and art. In the face of thousands of years of Chinese civilization history and brilliant treasures of opera art, which of us is not a weak, humble and stubborn teenager? Without the hardships and dedication on the road of life, how can we talk about coming to the world? The author closely links children's growth with the spirit of traditional culture, so that in addition to the spiritual value orientation such as the truth, goodness and beauty of children's literature, the author shows valuable ideological ambiguity, emotional inclusiveness and artistic heaviness, and promotes the text to achieve a gorgeous turn from an ordinary growth narrative to a comprehensive philosophical narrative.

　　Demonstrate strong vitality in reality

　　Peking opera art is a key to open this work, and it is the core element of the narrative that goes deep into the essence of the text and enters the psychological world of the characters. Judging from the previously published works such as "Drunken Wind" and "Deep Night", opera, as a carrier of traditional culture, continues to attract the attention of writers. This time, the writer mobilized the artistic accumulation and emotional savings of the previous years, and concentrated on the systematic and conscious writing of the art of Peking Opera in the form of a long story. Peking Opera genres, representative figures and singing styles are all presented in the book with historical genealogy. With the help of Su Zixuan's process of learning male Dan, the writer performs a professional aesthetic display of appearance, body, lines, singing voice, technique, kung fu, etc., and performs vivid and vivid demonstrations of one move and one style, one board and one glance. The combination of the overall cultural atmosphere and the presentation of detailed scenes together create the unique charm of this work.

　　Of course, it is not enough to label the text as peking opera art, but also to see its unique understanding and expression of peking opera art, and to how extent it affects the energy of theory and reality. The aesthetic of the work on the art of Peking Opera is not static, but with the breath of human fireworks permeates the growth of individual life, and in the collision with reality again and again, it highlights its strong vitality. Su Zixuan's participation in commercial performances violates school rules, but this has become an opportunity for the realization of artistic value; Su Zixuan left the drama school and chose to make drama films, is art going astray towards commercialization, or is it opening a new window for art? In the narrow and humble reality, how do we place the glory of traditional culture? Is it closed or open, to remain pure or to allow its life tentacles to extend into reality? These problems, which are wrapped up in the confusion and thinking of the times, have been uprooted by the artistic writing of Peking Opera, and at the same time have touched multiple topics such as complex human nature, modernity, and life choices. It can be seen that opera is like walking into the map of the secret garden, following its markings, the reader can see the scenery he yearns for, touching the spiritual habitat that people desire.

　　In this novel, the author maintains sufficient restraint, neither using complex narrative techniques nor cool and exaggerated rhetoric, and the language style is clean and natural. This can't help but remind people of the prose culture novels such as "Border City", "Long River", and "Ordination" created by modern literary writers such as Shen Congwen and Wang Zengqi in the history of literature. As the Qing poet Zhang Wentao said: "Dare to talk about what is easy for the common language, and the hundred refining work is pure and natural." "Without the thousands of hammers and hammers of creation, it is difficult to reach the artistic realm of natural firmness. In terms of specific creative details, we can still see the irrepressible release of "literature" in the book, and the writers sometimes express the amazement of Peking Opera art in gorgeous language, or use a variety of rhetoric to describe the magic of Peking Opera singing, or empathize with Su Zixuan's inner sensitivity, luck and loneliness. The delicacy, ingenuity and linguistic elasticity of literature are hidden in these details, which give people endless memories and beautiful enjoyment.

　　(Author Affilications:Institute of Literature, Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences)

Source: China Social Science Network - China Social Science Daily Author: Ding Qi