Literary creation is always inseparable from the observation and grasp of the weather of the times, as well as the gaze and reflection on individual experience, and prose is no exception. As a style that is more flexible and inclusive, prose has higher requirements for the author's individual life, and because of this, prose writing especially has the possibility of broadening the perspective of the world, providing us with more differentiated observations and creations. Looking back on the prose creation in 2021, my biggest reading experience is that the writing territory of prose is broader and the aesthetic exploration is richer. Among them, there are many fresh texts beyond our inherent imagination, which imitates for us the moving expressions of the times, their imagination of history and the thinking of the current life, which are connected with the beautiful and vivid spiritual leap, and become the literary light that illuminates our times.
The beauty of the times
It is the great responsibility of writers in the new era to find themes and themes from the people's magnificent struggles and to draw poetry from the fiery life. Li Huancai's "Song Hai Danzhou" and Li Fang's "Neon - Jilin and Her Seven Colors" put the magnificent mountains and seas, the thick culture and vigorous vitality on the vast wilderness to the pen, and wrote a moving story of struggle and brilliant brilliance of the times in a neat and leaping language. Liu Xinglong's "Finding The Blue Flowers through the South China Sea" and Zhi Zhanpeng's "Xisha Handbook" recognize the feelings of the Chinese nation in the careful engraving and rich presentation of cultural relics, customs, things, and characters.
Su Cangsang's "On Paper" integrates the distinctive traditional cultural forms and labor methods in Jiangnan such as silkworm farming, papermaking, singing, beekeeping, tea picking, winemaking, and rocking boats, one by one, with the real life scene and ideological feelings, in her mud-stained and warm text, the beauty of the landscape, the beauty of the wind and things, the beauty of labor and the beauty of the people in the excellent traditional Chinese culture, pointing directly to the people's hearts from the paper. She describes it this way in "The Boat Lady": "Her life form, ancient, flexible, arbitrary, stoic, beautiful as a fern creeping in the rain." This sentence can also be said to be a good annotation for everyone in the book. As the author said: "I found that everyone I met never skimped on their own efforts, and in every most primitive labor, there were unimaginable hardships and helplessness, and also hidden in the ancient virtues of endless life, such as the bitterness and fragrance of a leaf of tea, standing on the tip of the tongue for a long time and trembling on the heart. ”
Lai Saifei's "Wutang Chronicle" will focus on the people who do time business on the island, from the treasure hunters selling silver dollars, shipbuilding to the acquisition of large trees, and finally building a museum to collect the old time, the true value of time in the island people's life changes to get a full, affectionate look back, look back is full of warm feelings for the hometown island, while the author's observation of life is keen and profound, the text is full of realism and expression, so it has a unique sense of intimacy and richness. Fan Xiaobo's "Thousands of Springs" feels the spring in the cycle of four seasons in the look back of life: with climate change, the spring of habit will not be the same every year, and with the change of the fashion of the times, the feelings brought by spring will be different from year to year. This is also a major theme of prose creation, that is, behind the colorful experiences and encounters, in addition to a variety of experiences and experiences, the most important thing is the people in the times.
Ecological beauty
Ecology is a buzzword in prose writing in 2021. In this year when the shadow of the new crown pneumonia epidemic is still shrouded, the enthusiasm for the creation of ecological prose has especially highlighted our strong sense of mission for the natural ecological environment. Taking nature as the object of writing, especially focusing on the parts that we usually can't see or don't pay attention to, advocating a single human perspective, and equality between man and nature, is a more open style and pattern that re-examines our civilization and culture. Not only that, but such perspectives and ideas always remind us how to understand nature, how to get along with nature, and then how to understand human beings themselves and even the world. More importantly, this is not only emphasizing the importance of mutual understanding and communication between man and nature, but even consciously or unconsciously seeking a creative way out of civilization and spirit. This is also the most exciting part of ecological prose.
Chen Yingsong's "Shennong Yezha" series writes about his unique observations and life feelings during his 20 years in Shennongjia, Jimmy Pingjie's "Three Chapters of Northern Tibet" revolves around the protection, archaeology and development of no man's land on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, "Wanchuan Yingyue" in the seventh year closely follows the idea of "Shanshui Nature Conservation Center", especially in the specific practice of Guanba in Mupi Tibetan Township, Pingwu County, Sichuan, Du Li's "You Don't Know Where It Flies" writes about the rescue and release of a Beijing Swift, Li Yuansheng's "Looking for Butterfly Brown Mountain" Focus on the surprises brought by butterflies in xishuangbanna nature reserve... The ecological prose writing represented by them is both a fulfilling fieldwork and a dialogue with the hearts of a variety of beings. These dialogues, whether spontaneous, or contemplative, or contemplative, all respond to the grace of the earth with their own brushstrokes, and occasionally shine with the brilliance of intellect in the difficult moral experience.
Ecological literature pursues the deep exchange between man and nature, which requires the perception, and Ouyang Ting's "There is a Tree in the North" makes a good example. Following the author's careful observation and delicate writing, we see that outside the space where we live every day, even in a small square world around us, as long as we pay attention, we can hear the sound of the wilderness, be nourished by nature, and feel the richness and preciousness of nature, so that all things are amiable and the soul is rich.
Zhou Xiaofeng's "Kiss of the Esper" writes about wild cats, groundhogs, swamp frogs, ants, lions, gibbons, seals, rabbits, etc., from swimming fish in the water, birds in the air to wild beasts on land, the various states of life and the rhythm of life have gained a deeper and richer meaning in her dense and pure language. At the same time, because it is closer to his daily life, the author pours out his own fuller enthusiasm and more painful sadness. Regarding the relationship between man and animal, there is beauty and fear, dependence and cruelty, and the author reflects on the relationship between pride and humility, greatness and smallness, coexisting and transforming. I think this kind of reflection is precisely to meet yourself in writing.
The beauty of walking
Walking is another buzzword in prose aesthetics in 2021. Going deep into life, investigating the geography of mountains and rivers, exploring cultural relics, and thus obtaining creative materials and writing resources, this is not a completely new method, but has a long history, but relying on walking into the history and culture of the homeland or scene, in the dialogue with the deceased, the old paper in the dialogue with the deceased, close exploration, trace the traces of history and the changes of the world, but also can make the prose creation have a real sense of substitution and immersive artistic appeal, the beauty of walking has thus become the 2021 prose creation to capture the spirit of the times, An important starting point for improving the ability to respond to reality.
Yang Xiao's "Re-Walking: Searching for the Southwest United University on Highways, Rivers and Post Roads" intertwines the historical facts of the 1938 Southwest United Masters and Students "Xiangqian dian Tour Group" trekking across three provinces and through the hinterland of the southwest with his own feeling of retaking this road in 2018, and substituting his current confusion and entanglement into the magnificent history of 80 years ago. For example, with regard to creation, the author wrote when he was also walking to Nanyue: "In Nanyue, Zhu Ziqing sometimes soaked in the Nanyue City Library at the foot of the mountain all day to collect materials for his "Contemplative Hanzao Theory"; Liu Wuji compiled a lecture notes on British drama; Qian Mu excerpted notes for the later writing of the Outline of National History; Jin Yuelin completed one of his most satisfactory works, "On the Tao"; Chen Mengjia lived in the picturesque 'Tanglu', reading books that he could not read before, in addition to writing philological lecture notes, he also completed the "On the Tao"; Chen Mengjia lived in the picturesque 'Tanglu', reading books that he could not read before, in addition to writing philological lecture notes, he also completed the "On the Tao" Later, he wrote to Hu Shi in Kunming: "These five years of hard reading have saved me from my former emptiness and lack of learning... It is also because I know the ancients and know our ancestors that although the country is in crisis, I will not be pessimistic, not wavering, and in the midst of the sighs and fantasies of others, I will earnestly engage in learning. Such a sense of continuity and grinding, if there is no walking, relying only on written information, it is difficult to make people feel so empathetic. In addition to the walk itself, the author pays attention to collecting existing local historical clues while walking, combined with the dialogue with predecessors about the past, the present and the future, making the record of re-walking rich and textured.
Chen Fumin's "Forty Degrees North Latitude" uses realistic walking, trying to explore the touching and moving places of civilization and human nature in history. In the author's pen, of course, forty degrees north latitude is not only a geographical concept, but more of a historical and cultural connotation. Forty degrees north latitude and beyond, what is shown to us is a grand panorama of the conflict and integration of nomadic and sedentary peoples spanning more than 2,000 years, of which the author pays special attention to "national competition and integration", lies in "the common civilization understanding and noble pursuit between different nationalities and different cultures" - whether it is the cultivation of national character or the flow of cultural history, it is closely related to this. If it is said that learning and shaping between different ethnic groups is the historical value we all look forward to, then the mutual integration of historical knowledge and humanistic care is the highest pursuit of walking beauty.
Nanfan's "Village Notes" focuses on Yuezhou, Linpu, Zhaojiabao, Wufuli, Shijing, Min'an, Shanggan, Qinjiang, Luozhou and other villages, paying special attention to the image evolution, historical inheritance and cultural psychology of the village, which is a vivid observation note of contemporary rural life. Liang Hong's "Ten Years of Liangzhuang" focuses on the daily scenery, human customs and the fate of the characters in Liangzhuang, and observes the rapidly changing times and lives through the changes within the countryside. Together, their walking and writing create a village as a spiritual homeland.
The walk in Yi Jianfeng and Yang Ying's "Dr. Zhang and Dr. Wang" was completed in an interview. The whole book takes the life stories of two middle school students who are doctors as the main line, and when recording their working and living conditions, knowledge and cultural interests and social existence ecology in a panoramic manner, it focuses on finding the tension and different influences from the family, generations and individuals, explores the social roots of the spiritual dilemma of contemporary people, and restores the outline of the fate of ordinary people in the times to a certain extent. Its meticulous interview design, precise material work and ability to grasp the times make the whole book produce a touching spiritual realm under the observation of humanistic feelings.
The beauty of reading
Prose writing based on personal reading is not only the most distinctive part of personal interest, but also the most reflective of contemporary life and life conditions as a whole- the experience of the times and the aesthetic pursuits are among them. Starting from personal reading, what arrives is the review and reflection of spiritual memory and life state, which is the concentrated embodiment of the beauty of reading in prose writing. Ge Fei's "The Borders of Civilization", Liu Qiong's "Words Outside the Flowers", Sun Ganlu's "I Heard the Voice of the Suburbs Again", Ma Yan's "Reading and Ups and Downs and Self-Satisfaction", Li Weichang's "Unspoiled Life", Wen He's "Moonlight in the Old Times", etc. all open up various complex and subtle places between aesthetics and daily life for us from different angles, combined with their respective reading and horizons.
Li Xiuwen's "Poetry Comes to See Me" compares his life experience with ancient poetry, and the emotions in ancient poetry can often give people great comfort and strength. "As long as you 'have to get off the horse every time you bridge, and don't fight for the boat in the transition,' as long as you 'stay in the rain and stay at night, and the chicken chirps more in the sky,' you just listen well and you have replied to the letter well." Those poems that have been familiar to the heart since childhood but gradually forgotten are like another self in parallel time and space, and the thin words in the poems not only soothe the sadness and loneliness common in life, but also become a way for us to return to the classics and pay tribute to the literary tradition.
These are the most impressive parts of my limited reading horizons in 2021. Regarding prose theory, Wang Zhaosheng's article "National Body Prose and Conceptual Change" proposed that Chinese prose in the past hundred years is inseparable from the "national system" statute as the main body, and should examine the itinerary, characteristics, laws, values and significance of Chinese-style modernization in prose from the perspective of national prose; it should be viewed and understood from the perspective of Chinese cultural self-confidence and socialism with Chinese characteristics to show its broad, broad, continuous and enduring value significance. I think that the national style prose contains the genetic code of traditional culture, and the development of prose, as always, requires the integrated development of China's excellent traditional culture, revolutionary culture, red culture, and advanced socialist culture. We also lack more of this kind of historical study of prose and research on the norms of prose style. As for creation, I believe that I also expect that the writing territory and aesthetic exploration of prose will continue to move forward on a broader and richer road.