Book Review 丨Jiang Siqing: Reading Hu Yu's "Huangtang Bay"

Rural picture in the purr

——Reading Hu Yu's "Huangtang Bay"

Wen 丨 Jiang Siqing

What should the countryside look like?

In my memories and imagination, the countryside is quiet, rustic, and with a touch of sadness.

I once read Mo Yan's book, the countryside in his book has too much love and hatred, too many contradictions, read through, I deeply feel that it is not the countryside I remember, such a village is far away from the countryside where I live.

I have also read Shen Congwen's book, those individuals in the border city, Cuicui under the White Tower, the old man, and the dog, all seem to come from heaven, the countryside in his book, beautiful, elegant, and a little strange, that is not the countryside I remember.

And when I saw "Huangtang Bay", I couldn't help but be dazzled, the fragments of memory slowly faded the dust of time, a little bit, gradually became clear, the characters in the book are so kind, as if my uncle, my sister and brother, my parents, fresh, real, bitter, but also happy, wise, but also ignorant, as the reading deepened, I really felt that they were coming to me, with the sleepiness that did not wake up, in a trance... I heard footsteps and I heard purrs.

The characters, events, and scenes in "Huangtang Bay" are all frozen in the eighties and nineties of the last century, which is some years away from now, but we miss that era and remember that era, because that era is full of warmth, like a childhood epitome of the current era. Today's life has been so developed and advanced that it has even reached a point that could not have been dreamed of in that era, for example, in that era it took ten days and a half months or even longer to carry a letter, and now it is only a blink of an eye. Or maybe, in that era, I went out for three or five hundred miles, walking, taking a car, stopping and resting and shaking for several days, and today, a high-speed high-speed train, a matter of a few hours. But even so, we are still recalling that era, why is this so? Today we seem to be alienated, our hearts are filled with too many plans, too many calculations, and we are too tired to live. When we rest, when we are silent, our souls are looking for a place to live, "Huangtang Bay" is such a habitat that can make us quiet, the author is using unique words and pulse warmth to tell us about the old things here, the wind and things, the deceased.

In "Huangtang Bay", children walk in groups of three or five, sometimes kicking stones, sometimes playing darts, sometimes picking a handful of purple clouds and flowers to make a bracelet, necklace, hanging on the neck and wrist, sometimes folding a wheat pole, making a whistle, blowing all the way. (The Wild)

The children in the story, in addition to being happy, are still happy.

And today's children, happiness and play is already a luxury, they are tired of all kinds of tuition into a little old man.

On a spring night, the thunder rumbled over the roof and crackled. Lei Gong, tomorrow, the children will scatter around, looking for Lei Gong all over the mountains. (The Wild)

It had been raining and thundering that night, and the thunder was so fast that I had a hunch that the thunder was coming towards my room. I was tightly covered with the quilt, and my heart was restless..., it turned out that Lei Gong did not necessarily come to the real thing every time, so lucky. A little girl, because of dishonesty, is always worried that Lei Gong will find trouble for her, and her heart is worried. (The Wild)

These three paragraphs are the records in "Wild Things", in which the children are naughty and active. As if coming out of a beautiful fairy tale, and in their mouths, there must be endless children's songs:

A sister married, mahogany box.

The second sister married, black wooden box.

The third sister married, zero big light.

For the early summer Of huangtang bay, Hu Yu described it like this: a hill and a hill of paddy fields stretched out in a white expanse, but all the paddy fields that were inserted immediately became a shallow green, and in a few days, all the paddy fields in Huangtang Bay would be covered with a layer of light green, and these light greens swayed in the breeze, day by day, slowly growing into a strong green. The passages in which the author writes the scene are quiet and silent, and when they read into the depths, they think about it carefully, which is beautiful.

When I opened "Huangtang Bay", I was immediately grasped by a person in the book, one thing, one scene after another, and I couldn't help it, so that the reader could do so, "Huangtang Bay" was undoubtedly successful, the reason why she had such a charm was first of all that the author was born in such a land, her parents, her relatives, her neighbors, is living in this way, they weave such an aura with simple ideas and family affection. As an adult, the author walked out of that land, living in a complicated city, tired, annoyed, and her soul could not find a foothold, so her thoughts and feelings had to return to that land, back to those who were old, back to that aura. At night or in a dazed time, she would go there for a walk, feel the silence, feel the affection, and listen to the string of snoring songs.

Hu Yu's text is simple and natural, clear with a little humor, self-styled rhyme, she wrote a simple and gentle story in "Huangtang Bay", wrote down a simple person, she is quiet, simple, relaxed, and a little elegant and playful.

Reading and reading, she will quietly take you to a wonderful dream.

There, there is a bright moon.

There, there is an intoxicating aroma of wine.

(Huangtang Bay, published by Hunan Normal University Press in December 2021.) The author Hu Yu, female, a native of Ningxiang, Hunan, has previously published the essay collection "Brewing Snow Boiled Wine" and the note-taking parent-child book "Being a Mother is an Art Life")