Comment 丨Wang Yahui: Finding the spiritual habitat of the oil people

Rise on Fire: The Search for the Spiritual Habitat of the Oil Man

Wen 丨 Wang Yahui

Reading "The Earth Fire Rises", I can always feel that the earth fire surging in He Xidong's heart is flowing, like a warm current that sweeps away the heart from time to time. The unique charm of this petroleum industry novel lies in this. The author is good at expressing grand themes with delicate brushstrokes, he writes close to life, and his distance from life is always self-consistent. This kind of writing concept, projected into the novel work, makes him show the selfless dedication and sorrow of the oil man in a very life-like way, and then find a spiritual habitat for the oil man.

He Xidong's writing has always been directional, he has read a series of petroleum literature masterpieces, and his writing strokes have always pointed to the life of oil and the bits and pieces of oil people. The nine short stories in "Rising Fire" revolve around the "rich mine" of oil, which is "a flower that blooms on the oil production tree". In addition to the content of the writing of oil life, he also uses the spirit of oil as a banner in his creative concept, and when talking about the relationship between oil and literature, he said: "Oil and literature are integrated, oil can burn, it is like a good work, with the transparency of fire and the scorching temperature." Oil can gush, just as literature requires passion. His writing is this "burning" nature of writing. His blood is rooted in the oil field, and he writes with all his heart. He is an oil man, and naturally he must write a story about oil, and this purest love for oil and the most sincere adherence to literature have become the geographical coordinates and spiritual beliefs of his writing.

He Xidong is a writer who faces life directly, "The Fire Rises" is full of true records about the life of oil, in this collection of novels, he uses a sensitive writing method to break the life open for the reader to see, he is not too cruel in the narrative, too cruel will be too straightforward, too difficult to accept; at the same time, there is no excessive warmth, excessive warmth will be suspected of beautification, and his scale is just right. "Black Gold" is written about the contest between stealing oil and protecting oil, although there are contradictions and conflicts, but the selfless dedication of the oil mine oil guard, so that it finally achieved the reconciliation between the small self and the big self, that is, the conflict was skillfully resolved; "The last slope and the next beam" wrote about the spirit of the oil people, as a village cadre, he did not panic, but climbed the "steep slope", charging in the front line of poverty alleviation; "Our Love" is writing the love story of the oil people, although their love ends with failure, but the warmth still runs through; "Rising Fire on the Ground" narrates the past events related to oil development, the life and dedication of oil people, and the future in changqing people's dreams is the future in the hearts of writers. Xidong and real life are next to each other, and he always writes for oil. We know that writing is expressing the external world in which we live, and of course this world contains both the objective world and the inner world. How to deal with the relationship between oneself and the world is the first question for the author to consider. The author has always been writing about life, paying attention to life, and he writes about life in a down-to-earth manner. For him, there is very little problem of how to "go deep into life", he is naturally in life, in the oil life. This naturalness and naturalness have led his creations to the "birthplace of life", as Rilke put it, to the depths of his own heart.

In addition to The Remaining Strength, he has actually been exploring other issues, such as the discussion of family relations, the hidden pain of the relationship between husband and wife, the diaphragm of the mother-child relationship, etc. He can always break the word of the dragonfly, there is not much ink, but there is a lot of thinking left. In "Warm Time Knife", he writes about the countryside in a calm and affectionate way, his countryside has unknown pain, and the "warm light" that is revealed everywhere, as a geographically moving oil drifter, how should he position the relationship with his hometown? At this time, although the connection with the geographical location of the countryside has been broken, the various inextricable connections have always existed, and the coincidence with the earth is the coincidence with the self. "The White Dove Leaps over the Camel Mountain" is not so much about the silent Camel Mountain as it is about finding a quiet place for its soul, a kind of writing about the "heart and soul". "Wherever we are needed, stay wherever we are." Tent after tent is our mobile home. The term home is no longer narrow, but a sign of inner peace.

He Xidong also often inadvertently writes about love, and his love is cruel and intense, leaving behind a warm and everyday part. Love is no longer vigorous, the liver and intestines are broken, but whether it is separated or kept together, it becomes the softest warmth in the soul. For example, in "Our Love", although Feng Weiwei and An Xiaoyang are separated by distance, they still guard this lost love in their own way. At this time, what the author is thinking about is not only the daily life of oil people's love, hate and sorrow, but also trying to think about the ultimate problem of how love will exist. At this point, this book "Rising fire on the ground" not only extracts the bits and pieces of "oil life", writes about the mineral deposits of the life and spirit of "oil people", but also points to the uncertainty and ambiguity of the other side of life with the "earth fire" that is always surging in the heart.

After reading "The Fire Rises on earth", I found more and more that his book was extremely commensurate with his people. Xu Ke commented on the author in the preface, "There are not many words, but he is humble, simple, sincere, warm, and polite. These words are common, but not all of them can do it. These are also suitable for the evaluation of his novels, all his words exude a simple atmosphere, which grows naturally from life, not pretentious, not pretentious, and exudes the original texture of the most authentic life. He is rooted in real life, but he will never indulge in cruel and blunt reality, but with his love of oil and literature, he makes these cold realities have a precious romance and warmth. This can't help but remind me that when I attended the Hantang Book City New Book Sharing Conference in Xidong, he talked about many thanks to the people around him, his wife and children, and his words of thanks were so few and simple, but he couldn't help but move the listener. I think this is his unique temperature, which should also belong to the oil man's burning without burning.

(Source: Art Newspaper)

Wang Yahui holds a Ph.D. in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature from Northwest University and a lecturer at Xi'an College of Arts and Sciences. His works have been published in Guangming Daily, Southern Literature, Modern Chinese Culture and Literature, etc. He is the author of Creative Writing from Scratch.