Pattern and meteorology - how "Jiangsu Great Prose" became possible

Prose is an inclusive and resilient style. The reference we give here of "Jiangsu great prose" is naturally not a simple echo of Mr. Jia Pingwa's first proposal of the "great prose" concept, but an observation based on the generation mechanism of Jiangsu prose and its pattern and meteorology.

Jiangsu great prose is a kind of rooted literary creation, and its "big" composition, from the root system of culture, is related to the richness of Jiangsu cultural composition. "Jiangsu culture" is a general regional cultural concept, composed of Wu culture, Jinling culture (Ningzhen culture), Xuhuai culture (Chuhan culture), Weiyang culture and Sudong marine culture, etc., these blended and complementary "cultural individuals" affect the writer's personal experience, writing mentality, cultural attitude, etc., and promote the diversity and multiplicity of Jiangsu's prose. From the main body of creation, it is related to the change of the identity of the writer. Jiangsu prose writer identity is mostly multi-faceted, we say scholar prose, critic prose, novelist prose, poet prose, official prose, newspaperman prose, etc., basically the author's professional identity and prose superposition or chemical reaction, different identities bring value appeals, internalized experience, emotional carriers, aesthetic forms of diversification, such as scholar prose more intellectual, critic prose bias criticism, novelist prose more fictional narrative, poet prose biased poetic, newspaper prose more news, etc. From the stylistic point of view, it is related to the aesthetic trend of having "general" and no "fixed body". Jiangsu University's prose cross-genre writing is prominent, it is linked to non-fiction and documentary literature, cross-border convergence with novels, poetry, drama and other genres, and integrated with literary criticism and academic research. Jiangsu prose crossed the boundary to open up, overflowing into a river jungle. The "prose Soviet army" also became the "army".

Of course, from a broader theme, the "big" of Jiangsu's great prose is related to the degree of colonization of the writing object and the connotation of writing. In the textual sense, although "Jiangsu Great Prose" includes essays that embody the cultural genes of Jiangsu, in fact, it should also include essays written by Jiangsu writers and "new Jiangsu people" that are not limited to regional elements, these essays are not sacrifices of "local illusions", and more exist, which are related to Chinese prose culture. Generally speaking, Chinese prose follows two cultural paths: one is "Literature to carry the Tao", which is the mainstream of classical Chinese prose, which confirms the spiritual value of social function in Chinese prose; the other is the "lyrical tradition" of pursuing individual speech, pointing to the aesthetic perception inherent in prose. The writing and production of Jiangsu's great prose, the intention of the sect, the sense of distress, the feelings of home and country, etc. constitute the cultural essence of "literature to carry the tao", and the multi-dimensionality of personal speech and aspirations has promoted the multi-form of prose "lyrical" style. The former advocates the rational value of prose, with historical prose as the main sample; the latter tends to be emotional in prose, dominated by personalized prose.

Historical writing is a highlight of Jiangsu's great essays. Writers of historical essays, first of all, do not "think about empty texts to see themselves", more often, they want to clarify some problems in Chinese history and the projection of reality, including the exploration of the meaning of human nature in the dark place of history. There are two main postures: one is to face history head-on, that is, to enter history through some important literati or events and humanistic landscapes, to restore history to the "presence" of historical figures and events, and to reproduce the objectivity of cultural relics, thereby asking about various aspects of history; the other is the "non-historical way", that is, to discover the place of folk values in the "back of history" that is ignored or obscured. The prose "Facing History Head-on" is represented by Ding Fan, Wang Yao, and Wang Binbin, whose prose highlights the spirit of truth-seeking prudence, free will, and independent spirit. Ding Fan's prose is a kind of ideological writing, he believes that the positioning of value orientation is the soul and the core of prose, and the focus of human nature is the ultimate pursuit of prose. The prose collections "Lamentations of Jiangnan", "Pillow Stone Guanyun", "Searching for the Conscience of Intellectuals", "The Ghost of Intellectuals", etc. are all searching for and torturing the fate of intellectuals and their personality, and are the cheerful words of an intellectual, an eternal speaker and critic. Wang Binbin opened a column "Old Things in the Literary World" in "Zhongshan" in 2002, and wrote all the way to the old political events of "shooting all over the railings", which stretched for 20 years, and wrote for 20 years, with the "post-academic" outside of academic articles, this kind of historical restoration and examination writing, which integrated the author's various feelings and inquiries outside of academics, and was later collected into "How Sad the Past Is", "The Back Shadow That Has Not Gone Away", "The Avenue and the Wrong Way", "The History of Gu Left and Right", and "The Bells of Philadelphia". Wang Yao's writing is permeated with the poetic tradition of "gentleness and thickness". His historical essays began in the "Oriental Culture Weekly", and then successively opened columns in "Southern Weekend", "Harvest", "Zhong Shan", "Yuhua", etc., conveying his traceability of historical truths, worries about the times, concern for intellectuals, showing the cultural conscience and reflective spirit held by intellectuals, etc., and later collected into "Taking Off the Coat of Culture", "Intellectuals on Paper", "Canghai Wenxin: Literati in Chongqing during Wartime", "Daily String Songs: Echoes of Southwest United University", "Times and Portraits", etc. Of course, there are also essays that rely on historical knowledge as texts to "return" to historical scenes, such as Jia Mengwei recalling the humanistic history of the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties in "Nandu", Xia Jianyong visiting the social life and political situation of the Southern Song Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty in "Twenty Years of Shaoxing" and "Celebrating the Four Autumns of the Calendar", etc. The atmosphere is relatively peaceful, in their pen, "History is no longer those tense year numbers and events, and the characters are no longer some symbols and types, everything is routine, detailed, and psychological."

The "non-historical way" of Jiangsu's essay points to folk and cultural poetry, which does not pursue the grand narrative of history, but focuses on showing the "real world" in daily trivialities, directly expanding the new connotation of "poetic" Jiangnan since ancient times. Writers either wander on the ruins of civilization or wander through the ancient gardens of Jiangnan, mainly supported by cultural prose and Jiangnan prose. Xu Feng used "A Pot of Qiankun" to open the history of Chinese purple sand art, and used "Wind and Waterbank" and "Jiangnan Complicated and Desolate Record" to record the cultural form of Jiangnan; the valley "Looking Back at Jiangnan" in the wind and rain of the ancient capital; Fei Zhenzhong repeatedly wrote about the scenes of Jiangnan's fine fragments and great life in "Black and White Jiangnan"; Psyllium Lingering in the Suzhou Garden to record "Pin Garden", his "China Back Garden" and "Jiangnan Dialect Book" lala miscellaneously remembered customs and soil objects; black pottery carved "fatherly" Jiangnan in "Burning at Night", "Lacquer Blue Book", "Mud and Flames" ... These essays of "folk history" enrich "Jiangnan" in the "impurities" of folk culture.

In a way, prose is a more personal way of writing. This means that the value judgment and language of the work should have the author's "I" in it, and it also means that the author's personal experience has become the basic resource of prose writing. Such writing, from the perspective of the individual, is "small", but the collection of "small" into "large" has become an important component of Jiangsu's large prose. This kind of writing about personal experience and its associated content is basically unfolded in two ways: non-fictional narrative and lyrical expression.

The so-called non-fiction narrative tends to "narrate what has happened" as Aristotle called it, and the writer mainly writes in a "presence" manner, which can also evolve into a kind of "creative non-fiction", using moderate imagination and other vague memories and experiences of details when committed to narrating the truth. There are roughly the following situations: First, the narration of individuals and times, such as Wang Yao's "One Man's Eighties", Bi Feiyu's "Northern Jiangsu Teenager "Don Quixote", the former takes the author's rural life as a clue to write about people and events in the transformation of the times; the latter looks back at the childhood life on the streets of Xinghua and records "the childhood 'old photos' of an era". The second is the narrative of individuals and others, such as Ding Fan's book "Mr. Sketch", Wang Yao's "Remembering Mo Yan" and other articles, the former recounting each other and having the significance of intellectual spiritual history, and the latter painting faces of contemporary writers. The third is the narration of the individual and the homeland, which includes many miscellaneous talks about returning to the hometown, the fall of the countryside, folk beliefs, and the development of the new countryside, which are permeated with a strong local atmosphere, such as Hu Xian's "The Man Who Can Never Return home", Zhou Rongchi's "One Man's Plain", Han Liqing's "Meaning", Liu Xudong's "My Hometown Customs", Liu Renqian's "Chushui Wind Objects", Yan Su's "All Things on the Earth", and so on. The fourth is the narrative of individuals and families, such as Liu Jianbo's "Grandmother", Pang Yuliang's "Half a Father in Pain", Xiang Xun's "Book with Father", etc., and a mixed family narrative of documentaries, poems, streams of consciousness, letters, diaries and so on.

Lyrical prose in the form of whispers includes Hu Menghua's "fragmentary impression essays" and psychic nature that expands according to the different lyrical roles. The first is the instant lyricism, mainly based on travelogue prose, such as Huang Beijia's "Walker on the Map", Zhao Benfu's "Wandering in the West", Ge Fang's "South of Antarctica, Far Away" and so on. The second is to narrate the perception of life, including daily experience and the perception of text reading, such as Ding Fan's "Human Landscape" and "World Cuisine", Wang Zheng's "Compassion and Pity", Ye Zhaoyan's "Useless Beauty", Bi Feiyu's "Novel Lesson" and so on. The third is to write about women's experience, such as Fan Xiaoqing's "One Man's Station", Zhu Wenying's "Must Forgive the South", Lu Min's "Drinking on Peanuts and Rice", "And Now People Are Crowded And Standing In Your Study" and other single essays, escaping the meaning of survival in trivial places.

In the "Jiangsu Great Essay", the creation of reportage is also worthy of attention. In the Chinese reportage industry in the 1980s and 1990s, the creation of Jiangsu writers was quite well known, among which Yang Shousong and his "Kunshan Road" and others had a greater influence. Although the current status cannot be compared with that year, the steady and active overall situation of Jiangsu reportage creation in recent years is obvious to all, which is gratifying. In the past two years, the collective theme writing of realistic themes has emerged, such as "Report to the Times - China's Well-off Jiangsu Sample", "Report to the People - The Style of Jiangsu's Outstanding Communist Party Members", "Heroes Everywhere - Jiangsu Anti-epidemic Stories", "Jasmine Blossoms - Jiangsu Stories of Poverty Alleviation" and other masterpieces. Zhang Jianhua's "Yangtze River Bridge Construction Trilogy" and "Xiaokang Trilogy", Ding Jie's "Pursuit", Zhou Tonggan's "Wisdom To Create Changzhou", Fu Ningjun's "College Student "Village Official", "Yangtze River Star", Pang Ruiyao's "Avenue without a Boundless", "One Man and a City", Wang Chengzhang's "State Responsibility", Zhang Wenbao's "Interconnection of All Nations", Yao Zheng'an's "Indomitable Backbone", Chen Hengli's "Northern Jiangsu Flowers Blossom", Jiang Lian's "Volunteer Teaching: 28 Years in Xiaoliangshan", Wang Xiangming's "Police Office That Never Closes", etc. It is basically a reportage writing method in the traditional sense.

Another non-fiction way of writing includes fieldwork in the lower-level countryside, such as Qian Zhaonan's "Kneeling to the Land", Du Huaichao's "The Land Without Borders", "The Album of the Earth", Fei Zhenzhong's "Xinghua Eight Towns", Cheng Qingchang's "Village Craftsmen", "Young Craftsmen" and Han Xiucun's "Dadi Trilogy", as well as Hei Tao's "Erquan Yingyue: Sixteen Witnesses Remember Ah Bing", Gao Baoguo's "Looking for Zhang Side: An Interview Handbook of a Writer" and other memoirs and oral transcripts, as well as Xu Feng's "Cloth Pot Sect". Biographies or documentaries such as Yang Shousong's "The Road of Kunqu Opera" and "Damei Kunqu Opera", Zhang Songshan's "Deciphering Shangganling", Zhang Xiaohui's "North Shanghai, Love and Hate in this Enclave" and other biographies or documentaries, the themes of rural areas, cities, wars, public security, culture and other themes are expanded in many directions, and reality and history, national narratives and small and micro narratives coexist.

Of course, I do not want to put Jiangsu prose on hold in the "place" of Jiangsu to discuss, but prefer to use "Jiangsu" as a systematic concept of "humanistic geography" and discuss the writer's aesthetic reaction to the existence of geography from "human-land relations". In this way, the organic degree of "unity" between people and his culture, and people and the land together constitute an important parameter of "Jiangsu Great Prose".