Feng Deying
The bitter cauliflower, blooming on the barren cliffshore, who discovered its golden light? It was Feng Deying. The old man died quietly in Qingdao on the morning of January 17 at the age of 86, which is the season when bitter cauliflower has not yet bloomed. I mourn him because of him, the "bitter cauliflower" in my heart never withers.
I first watched the comic strip of Bitter Cauliflower, then watched the movie of the same name (watched it several times), and finally watched the novel of the same name. As a teenager, I was infected by the dashing and magnificent posture of the heroes, and the smell of the mountain flowers has been permeated to this day, affecting my creation.
At the beginning of 2005, in order to commemorate the centenary of Chinese cinema, The Public Daily opened a literary column, and the editor arranged for me to write the story of Feng Deying and the movie "Bitter Cauliflower". Mr. Feng received me at his home in Qingdao. With silver hair, he recalled with deep affection: "'Bitter Cauliflower' can be lucky to come out, and it is also related to the Public Daily! Along with this topic, the process of "bitter cauliflower" taking root, sprouting, and blossoming flowed into my heart like a babbling stream in Feng Lao's living room.
In 1955, the first draft of Bitter Cauliflower was completed, and Feng Deying sent it to the Ministry of Culture of the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army in Beijing, and he also wrote a letter to Minister Chen Yi, hoping to receive guidance. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Comrade Chen Yi served as the director of the Dazhong Daily newspaper, and his cultural attainment was very high. Chen Yi read the first draft and felt that the novel had a strong breath of life, so he approved the draft to the editorial department of the People's Liberation Army Literature and Art Series. Feng Deying soon received a response from the editorial department, the responsible editor Yang Fang asked him to go to Beijing to revise the manuscript, in Feng Deying's impression, Yang Fang is a very dedicated literary and artistic editor, aesthetic taste is not ordinary. At that time, the General Political Creation Office concentrated a group of outstanding military writers, such as Xu Huaizhong, Bai Hua, Gong Liu, Peng Jingfeng, etc., and Feng Deying learned a lot from them.
The first draft of the novel was called "Mother", and the publisher hoped that Feng Deying would change the name, because there was already Gorky's "Mother". Feng Deying thought about it for a few days, thinking that there was a description of bitter cauliflower in the novel, and the meaning was also deep and relatively fresh, so it was changed to "Bitter Cauliflower". Since then, the golden "bitter cauliflower" has shone in the literary world. After the novel was published, it caused a huge sensation, and Feng Deying was cordially received by Premier Zhou Enlai. The first thing a young writer who became famous in a dreamy way did was to donate all the 8,000 yuan of writing fees he had just received to the families of military martyrs.
Feng Deying said: "When I was not 20 years old when I wrote "Bitter Cauliflower", I just wanted to pour out, I wanted to talk, and sometimes I wrote and wrote with tears in my eyes. A mind to tell the old stories of the war of resistance in his hometown. At first, writing was just a hobby, but then it gradually became a pursuit, and writing was regarded as a way of life. If there is a theme, just one, tell people how our lives come about. In fact, in terms of complexity, the novel is always smaller than life; but from an aesthetic point of view, the novel is higher than life. The publication of "Bitter Cauliflower" has enhanced Feng Deying's confidence in writing. The following year, his second novel, "Spring Flowers," took just over three months, and then he wrote "Mountain Chrysanthemum." Among the "Three Flowers", he himself is more satisfied with "Mountain Chrysanthemum", because compared with the previous works, all aspects of preparation and understanding are more sufficient. "Mountain Chrysanthemum" won the first Outstanding Novel Award of the People's Liberation Army Literature and Art Publishing House, but the publication of this novel has a bad fate, and it has gone through 18 years.
Feng Deying admitted that he did not expect that he could be associated with "bitter cauliflower" in his lifetime. It took 3 years to shoot the film of the same name, and the exterior scenes in spring, summer, autumn and winter were all real, and the actors only experienced life for more than a year. Juanzi's mother Feng Da Niang (Qu Yun) in the movie is an old lady image. In fact, Feng Deying's novel Feng Da Niang is 39 years old, he said, in the eyes of children, 39 years old is an old man. Women around 40 in that era were also very different from people of this age in modern times.
I remember that in the interview, Feng Deying was somewhat dissatisfied with the war-themed film and television drama, saying that there were too many elements of nonsense, and the false plot was a blasphemy against the hero. If there is no patience in filming film and television dramas, the radish is fast and does not wash the mud, and the shoddy things will not be passed on for a long time.
In the spring of 2021, I went to Rushan in Shandong Province for an interview, visited the Feng De English Academy, and visited Feng Deying's former residence in his hometown. Born into a red family, Feng Deying was baptized by the revolution from an early age and joined the revolutionary army at the age of 14. His ability to write Bitter Cauliflower had a lot to do with his childhood experience of red. Touching the mud window sill and staring at the mottled earthen wall of the box, I savored the earthy smell between the lines of the word "Bitter Cauliflower", Feng Deying's face slowly became clear in my mind, and the beginning of the novel had a vivid three-dimensional sense: "In the area of Kuncheng Mountain in Shandong, there are rolling mountains everywhere, and at a glance, like jagged teeth, and like the undulating waves in the ocean." The mountain is covered with all kinds of lush and dense grass, and when people walk in, they can't even see the shadows. ”
Feng Deying once said: "I have witnessed my father wandering in the courtyard with a death notice in his hand; I snuggled up next to my mother's leg and watched her under the small oil lamp, tearfully patching the wounded with bloody military uniforms." "Feng Deying's writing is based on countless heroic stories, and he writes down what he sees, hears, thinks, and realizes. Each character is engraved with the sounds, smiles, speeches and demeanors of his familiar characters. "Bitter Cauliflower" is a bloody text, not a fictional "beacon smoke" in the bookstore, no "trench" growing in the ivory tower, and no absurd game ink like "hand tearing devil". Feng Deying did not moan without illness and write for the sake of writing, but like a fish in the throat, he had to write. At that time, the writing was free of impurities, transparent, had a temperature, and if it was a heart socket, the heart of the fist could be learned.
What surprised me was that Feng Deying, who was not yet 20 years old, was so well-placed and so expressive in his complex situation and psychological description of the characters. The fifteenth chapter of the novel writes about Hanako and the old love: "One night, in a remote and desolate ravine, two people sat next to each other on a rock... Hanako looked at his muscular chest, which was wearing only a vest, and did not speak. Her gentle eyes made him understand her intentions. The old heart beat against her, and she draped her jacket over the two of them. He felt her soft, plump body heat up like a hot kang tou... This strong poor man was loved by a woman for the first time. He discovered that there was still happiness and warmth among human beings. Next, another lyrical passage begins: "A wild flower of suffering, blooming!" The sentence at the end of this sentence made my eyes light up.
Writer Mo Yan once commented on "Bitter Cauliflower" in "Unforgettable Love with a Mask and Kissing": "I think that in the novels of the seventeen years before the 'Cultural Revolution', the most successful and least pedantic depiction of love was "Bitter Cauliflower". "Feng Deying" really poked a hole in the disguised gauze curtain. Thanks to these extraordinary depictions of love, "Bitter Cauliflower" became the best novel to reflect the War of Resistance Against Japan. He boldly confronted the description of the love between the sexes, and the brilliance of humanity that swayed on the pages of the book had a breakthrough significance at the time, showing the unconcealed courage of the young Feng Deying.
"Bitter cauliflower blossoms, full of yellow / Dark clouds cover the sun / Devils are traitorous like tigers and wolves / When will the suffering people be liberated..." The theme song of the movie "Bitter Cauliflower Blossoms And Shining Golden Light" is sung by singer Wang Yinxuan, her singing voice is sweet and transparent, like a natural sound, I also like to listen to it. Teacher Wang Yinxuan is also a professor at the Shandong Academy of Arts and a vocal educator, which can be described as a peach and plum all over the world, and when she died, I also wrote a commemorative article. The lyrics of the theme song are from Feng Deying, who said that the theme song is the main theme of the novel.
Feng Deying once served as the chairman of the Shandong Provincial Writers Association, the secretary of the party leading group, the editor-in-chief of Times Literature, and the vice chairman of the Qingdao Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. No matter what the position, the writer is an identity that he cannot erase. His novels such as "Bitter Cauliflower", "Yingchun Flower", "Mountain Chrysanthemum", "Blood-Stained Land", and "Clear Sky" have laid his position in the Chinese literary scene, and the great mother Feng Daniang, who was willing to sacrifice for national liberation, still shines in the character image gallery of Chinese literature. If nothing else, just one "Bitter Cauliflower", which has been translated into more than a dozen languages and published more than 10 million copies in the past 60 years, is enough to illustrate Feng Deying's charm. "Bitter Cauliflower" is known as the Chinese version of Gorky's "Mother", and Feng Deying is a representative writer of contemporary Chinese red classics and has an important influence on the history of contemporary Chinese literature. Feng Deying is one of the "100 heroic and exemplary figures in Shandong Province who have made outstanding contributions to the founding and construction of New China", and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Culture and Art by the Shandong Provincial Government. He blooms like a "bitter cauliflower".
Mr. Feng Deying gave me a signed copy of "Bitter Cauliflower" and his recommended Soviet writer Lavrenyov's masterpiece "Forty-first", both on my bookshelf. But I haven't looked through it in a long time, and I'm ashamed. Good things should not stop at collecting, but also appreciate.
After the death of Mr. Feng Deying, it caused me to think. A writer should constantly pay attention to the beautiful, discover the beautiful, describe the beautiful, and record the process of discovering the beautiful; he must have his own masterpieces, have his own "bitter cauliflower", and write the unique beauty of the "bitter cauliflower". As General Secretary Xi Jinping said at the opening ceremony of the Eleventh National Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Literary Circles and the Tenth National Congress of the China Writers Association, we must have confidence and ambition, inherit the flow of hundreds of generations, and create more excellent works that highlight China's aesthetic interests, disseminate contemporary Chinese values, and reflect the common value pursuit of all mankind.
Discovering the beauty of life is a great pleasure, Feng Deying discovered the beauty of bitter cauliflower, restoring the beauty of human nature in the background of the smoke of war, which is remarkable and worthy of respect. I respect him. May he rest in peace.