Literary critics | Writing Rivers in the Plateau: The Ideal of Enlightenment and Salvation

Author: Bai Xiaoxia

Gansu Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has many diligent and talented writers, who have been writing in the quiet plateau landscape for many years, just like those kind and thoughtful and accomplished literary friends in my hometown Tianzhu, we often have sincere exchanges on the plateau in the name of literature, inspired by the secret happiness of reading and writing that is exclusive to regional feelings. "The magical feeling. In this way, I did not feel the passage of time, but I was shocked to realize that the literary environment outside the plateau had already undergone tremendous changes. Fortunately, those unchanging literary original intentions still give us a great sense of dependence in some moments of inconsistency. Thanks to the persistence of writers, Wang Xiaozhong is one of the excellent writers who has always adhered to literary ideals and is worth studying.

Recently, Wang Xiaozhong published his collection of essays, Notes on Tao heyuan (Guangxi Normal University Press, September 2021). It should be said that Wang Xiaozhong is a highly prolific writer who has the courage to try various genres, and before the "Notes on Taoheyuan", he had already written the poetry collection "Gannan Grassland", the novel collection "Five Sheep", the prose collection "Nine Notes of Fusheng", "Notes on the Yellow River Source", etc., and also won many literary awards. In such a solid effort, we gradually see a walker who "writes rivers on the plateau", the three rivers of the Yellow River, the Tao River, the Cheba River, and the Tribute Touhu... These river images, which carry rich meanings, appear repeatedly under the writer's pen, interlacing back and forth, expressing a certain cultural attitude of the writer, and also bringing us many enlightenments about regional writing.

Wang Xiaozhong was once an educator and a poverty alleviation worker, and the two identities determined the dual vision, as a teacher, he looked forward to the growth of the next generation, and looked forward to the river of knowledge to take them to the world beyond the plateau; as a poverty alleviation worker, he must think about the complex life of those who can only watch a river and make a living all their lives. Thus, between the city and the countryside, between the modern and the traditional, between the departed and the watchful, the writer often has endless anxiety and painful thinking, but there is always a red line - that is, his firm identification with his role as an intellectual. He often wandered outside the vernacular world characterized by oral culture, always looking down on everything on the ground from a position of enlightenment and salvation, and using the theoretical thinking of intellectuals to consider the new problems in front of him and the old history of the past.

First of all, how can people living in the countryside get rid of poverty and become rich in the midst of change? Writers have their own opinions.

In recent years, gansu province has made great achievements in poverty alleviation, and the multi-ethnic people living on both sides of the Tao River described in the essay collection are the direct beneficiaries, living and working in peace and contentment, and living happily. Writer Wang Xiaozhong undertook the work of going to the countryside to actively help households, naturally, in the works, you can see "new rural construction, rural drinking water problems, homestead problems" and other related work vocabulary everywhere, from this point of view, the writer seriously thinks about how people living in the countryside can achieve poverty alleviation and prosperity in the change. For example, writers think that taking root in the countryside and being diligent in labor is the best policy, of course, the concept of "labor" in the eyes of writers is "labor" in the broad sense after the change of people's concept of production, such as engaging in farm business. In this regard, the writer made a personal explanation in the prose, such as in the "Three Rivers" sentence: "Tashi said, it is difficult to finish college, you should go outside to explore." In fact, they don't know that a suitable job for them is difficult to find... If you want to eat a bite of food, it is convenient at the doorstep. For example, the writer also thought about the problem of "blood transfusion and hematopoiesis" in poverty alleviation: "In the face of many people who do not think about change, or hope to wait, rely on, and want, even the best help is in vain."

All in all, the writer has a lot of rational thinking about poverty alleviation and does not simplify it. In the face of the changed local world, the writer carries the position of intellectual enlightenment and salvation, and between the lines, he expresses the desire to enlighten the spiritual life and save the economic life. It is precisely based on this position that the people, things, and environments in the work have become the objects of rational research by the writer from a downward perspective, and even when writing about some deformed and strange life phenomena, they are extremely calm. Therefore, from the perspective of the overall language characteristics of "Notes on Taoheyuan", the subjective consciousness of the writer is often carried by rational and steady analytical or even analytical language, without too much emotional color, which also makes the text have the color of cultural reflection in a sense, both loving the length of local culture and reflecting on the shortness of local culture. The above characteristics of the collection of essays are derived from the writer's conscious sense of responsibility for the development of the economy and culture of his hometown, and are the literary expression of the dual social identity of educators and poverty alleviation workers.

Second, how do people living in the countryside hold the spiritual high ground in the midst of change? The writer has no answers, often caught up in a kind of self-talk in pursuit of intellectual thinking, but still has a firm position of enlightenment and salvation. Sensitive writers find that changing lives challenge many traditional ideas, such as kinship and filial piety.

In the article "Under the Shadow of Time", the chen father and daughter who broke into the plateau from a distant field brought exquisite craftsmanship and also interpreted the taste of family relationship. The daughter is a student of the writer, and the father is the writer's associate based on a certain interest. The cunning of the father and the failure of the business, the lack of love and the painful departure of the daughter, the unusual coldness between the father and daughter, the cold break for their own interests. Cold and hard as a winter wind.

In "Windmill River", the indifferent adopted son will even say, "You know what? When she thinks about raising children to prevent old age, the greatness of maternal love has become a transaction... She took me in, I gave her pension, the water mill was left to me as an inheritance, this is not a transaction what? ”

The writer, who is powerless to argue but deeply worried, remains silent for a long time, but he is not willing to let the filial piety slip away. The writer's pen, which wanders between the breaks, still expresses the position of intellectual enlightenment and salvation. Conceptual questions are complex and doomed to have no answers in the short term, so the thoughtful writer says, "I can't find the right people, nor can I fit into the big family of Zagulu, and I am once again in misery and loneliness." ”

Objectively speaking, the writer's objective account of the changed and changing local life itself has formed a certain literary contribution, and it is not simplistic to regard the countryside as a pure land, but to mirror its rebuttals and changes, and even to be able to bravely face its ugly and strange parts, which is invaluable. The plateau is changing, and the value of writers as recorders and thinkers may become more and more obvious with the passage of time. The true words written by the writer who dare to face the false evil and ugliness may slowly converge into a stream of culture that is worth carefully draining, as he said: "The river is like the human family, intersecting, dividing and merging, and finally merging into one place to form a greater river." In an almost monolingual state, Wang Xiaozhong, a person who writes about the river in the plateau, is also striving to become a person who is immersed in the river of culture to find answers to many social problems.

Finally, it is worth noting that in the essay collection "Notes on Taoheyuan", there are many valuable cultural materials that suddenly come to us, which is very surprising, such as the "Notes on Taoheyuan" that points out many colorful folk matters including the culture of Taoheyuan craftsmen, which is the harvest of Wang Xiaozhong's years of fieldwork, which is commendable. It should be said that in today's plateau, those folk cultures that are gradually disappearing are still the natural arsenal of literary writing, waiting for the writer's magic pen to light the beacon. Take Gansu's Tao Yan culture as an example, it has a long history: "Tao Yan is one of the three famous Yan in China,...... Zhuoni Tao Yan has a long history, according to local records, the mining and carving of Tao Yan stone began in the Tang Dynasty, prevailing in the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, with a history of more than 1300 years, and the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty listed Tao Yan as a national treasure in the "Four Libraries Complete Book". (See Yang Linhai et al. edited "Gannan Colorful Intangible Cultural Heritage") Literature is hidden in the museum, writers walk on the earth, perhaps, Gansu's rich folk cultural resources in the dark also indicate that there will be a greater green growth point on the road of local writers' creation: these precious regional cultural materials like pearls in the clams are enough to support the core of a long novel, but they need to slow down, sink in and grind carefully, and wait for the pearl to appear, just as the beautiful prophecy in Dai Wangshu's poem "Dream Seeker": "You go to climb the iceberg for nine years, / Go sail the dry sea for nine years, / and then you meet the golden shell. "In any case, the person who insists on writing is the person who is willing to light the lamp, and this altruism is worthy of recognition."

(Author: Bai Xiaoxia, Professor of Lanzhou City College, 2020 China Writers Association Ethnic Minority Literature Signing Theory Critic)

Source: China Youth Daily client