Shen Congwen believed in the vitality of nature. Most of the characters in his novels are people who blend in with nature. The vitality and vitality of nature, and the nature that has nothing to do with civilization and ideas. "Calmly do their part there for their lives"—that is, the natural vitality that sustains Chinese in war, killing, and death.
Nature can also become a force of destruction. Shen Congwen also writes in some works about people who are contrary to nature—people who are vigorously suppressed by war, modern civilization, machines, and unfortunate fates (as if there is something wrong with them, irrational kind of misfortune). In those characters, "nature" is devastating.
Chinese is a nation that conforms to nature. Chinese personality has the peace of the mountains and rivers, and the wild nature of the storm. Shen Congwen's characters are like that. The love, hatred, desire, death, youth, and cruelty of those countrymen are all naked nature, nature that civilized people do not recognize, and all the norms of modern civilized society have nothing to do with them. Therefore, they are absurd in the eyes of civilized people. The countrymen confess their fate, are content with their fate, and are content with death. They have no future, no hope, no illusions, and they will never retreat. They all have to live, because it's good to be alive. They're all ridiculous.
For example, what Shen Congwen wrote in the novel "Couple" is nature destroyed by civilization, customs, and laws. The story is told from the point of view of a city man named "Juan" who did not dare to eat fried chickens with blood. He went to the countryside to treat neurasthenia. He heard someone call "caught a pair of things", and he thought it was "caught two live wild boars". Villagers gathered around to watch the bustle.
It turned out that it was a young man and woman who were bound. Men and women are all countrymen, very young. The woman did not make a sound under the unmerciful eyes of the crowd, and quietly shed tears. I don't know who also planted a very ridiculous wild flower on the woman's head, this flower is almost tied to the head of the spirit of the vine, and the crown of flowers sways in the air when the woman's head moves slightly, as if at another time it seems to have a very beautiful impression.
This passage is the most important passage in the novel "Couple". That wildflower is the tone of the novel, and it appears again and again in the novel. Wildflowers and live wild boars are all "things" in nature, and the young man and woman are also called "things". The two of them are "natural" beings like wildflowers and wild boars. The nature embodied by the two of them is hinted at by the author without a trace.
The young couple was in the wilderness of the mountain pass in the middle of the day, and was caught by a group of men to show the public. Why it must be caught, neither the person who is caught nor the person who is caught seems to understand.
Juan looked at the woman again. The woman was very young, less than twenty years old. Wear a very clean moon blue linen cloth. The pulp was washed extremely hard, the face was slightly red, the body was long, and the style was not evil. Physically, she didn't look like an ordinary country woman. At this time, although he was in tears, it seemed that it was all for trepidation, not for shame.
The woman's dress reminds people of the blue of the moon, the smell of the sun through the extremely hard washed clothes, and the roughness of the sackcloth clothes. Those feelings are all reminiscent of nature. Nature is shameless.
There was a man with a pimple on his face and a big lees nose, like he had just drunk shochu... Squeezed out of the crowd, he touched the woman's face with his large, hairy hand... It advocates stripping off the clothes of men and women, beating them with thorn strips on the one hand, and then sending them to the township chief when they have had enough. Someone pulled the man's pants and said that there were people from the city here, so he stopped.
Desires that belong to nature are beautiful, just as the wildflowers planted on a woman's head contrast with the stimulated carnal desires of the man who drank shochu.
A soldier-like man appeared. Everyone called him a training leader, a local powerful figure. He shouted at the people to stand up, showed off his majesty to the people in the city, and interrogated the young man and woman in the tone of the people in the tax customs, and interrogated the young man and woman.
The woman did not answer, but looked up at the face of the person who interrogated her, and looked at Huang, shyly drooping her head, looking at her feet, the shoes on her feet were embroidered with a pair of phoenixes, which were good shoes that only rich people in the countryside would wear. At this time someone praised the woman's feet, the tone of a rogue man. The training commander asked in the same slight tone, "Where did you come from, not to mention that I will send someone to send you to the county!" ”
Various penalties were proposed. Feed the man urine, feed the cow dung to the woman — the kind of almost childish words. The man and woman were silent.
At this point, the theme of the novel is fully developed: the contrast between nature and civilization, law, and custom in human nature.
At that time, the magistrate who was the chief trainer finally learned: The young countrymen turned out to be a couple! Soon after the new marriage, they returned to their mother's house together, walking on the road, the weather was too good, and the two sat next to the new straw pile to watch the flowers on the mountain. The wind blows, the birds chirp. They thought of what some young people were doing, and they were caught.
Commentary on Shen Congwen
Excerpt from Shen Congwen, a Countryman, 1984
[United States] by Nie Hualing
Translated by Liu Yujie
Beijing United Publishing Company Phoenix One Force
Shen Congwen celebrated the 120th anniversary of his birth
The English edition was first published 50 years later
Chinese edition was first published
Phoenix One Force exclusive release
Shen Congwen: A writer who transcends human suffering and moves towards basic humanity
Nie Hualing: Founder of the International Writing Project/Nobel Peace Prize Candidate/Works Listed in the "Top 100 Novels of the twentieth century Chinese"
★ An introduction to Shen Congwen's life and his time
★ Comment on Shen Congwen's writing style
★ Interpret the noble feelings of "countrymen"
★ Discusses Shen Congwen's unique contribution to Chinese literature
About the Author
Nie Hualing, born in Wuhan in 1925, is a Chinese-American writer. He graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages of National Central University (the predecessor of Nanjing University) in 1948 and went to Taiwan with his family in 1949. In 1964, he went to the United States to teach at the University of Iowa, engaged in writing and painting at the same time, and received an honorary doctorate from three institutions, including the University of Colorado. In 1967, Nie Hualing and his wife co-founded the "International Writing Project", in which more than 1,000 writers and poets from more than 100 countries and regions participated. In 1976, Nie Hualing and his wife were nominated as candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Nie Hualing's works include novels, essays, reviews and biographies, some of which have been published in China, the United States and Italy, among which the novel "Mulberry Green and Peach Red" is listed as one of the "Top 100 Novels of the twentieth century Chinese".
Translator Profile
Liu Yujie was born in 1989 in Hui County, Henan Province. Doctor of Literature from Wuhan University, he is currently working at the College of Literature of Minnan Normal University. Mainly engaged in overseas Chinese literature, Chinese and foreign comparative literature research, his academic papers, translations published in Chinese Literature, Drama Literature and other journals, among which, the paper "Local and Non-local in Globalization" won the first prize of the "Second Master's and Doctoral Forum of the Chinese Literary Geography Society" organized by the Chinese Literary Geography Society.
Synopsis
The first edition of the English edition of Shen Congwen's Commentary was published in 1972 by the New York Biography Publishing House. The author, Nie Hualing, is a well-known female writer of Chinese descent who has an influence in the world of Chinese literature that cannot be ignored. In "Shen Congwen Commentary", the author not only introduces shen Congwen's life and the era in which he lived, tells the life course of Shen Congwen from a soldier to a writer and art historian, but also discusses the unique contribution of Shen Congwen and his works to Chinese literature from the perspective of aesthetics and artistry, and comments and analyzes the modern themes, styles and imagery of Shen Congwen's works, aiming to help readers understand this literary master who has a far-reaching influence in the history of modern Chinese literature and is still highly respected to this day.
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