Look at the dazzling rise of fireworks in the world - Xu Zechen's short story creation is | Ah Tan

"Running Through Zhongguancun"

《Qingcheng》

"If the Snow Closes the Door"

Author: Xu Zechen

New Classics produced

Publisher: Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House

Publication date: October 2021

Synopsis

"Qingcheng" includes two novellas created by the writer Xu Zechen, "Western Xia" and "Juyan", and the short story of the same name, "Qingcheng". The three works are concise and profound, and the author uses ancient place names full of historical significance as the spiritual symbols of the characters, and explores the emotional and spiritual self-consistency of modern women. Three sad and clear love stories tell the emotional encounters of three women, telling their hardships, bitterness, confusion and perseverance, and also writing about their integrity, tenacity, kindness and love.

"Running Through Zhongguancun" selects three novellas with the theme of "Beijing" in Xu Zechen's works, namely "Ah, Beijing", "Running Through Zhongguancun" and "Heaven on Earth". All three works tell the story of the living conditions of small people who are wandering in Beijing and are at the bottom of society. Under the bustling scene of Beijing, the author shows the dark, turbulent, embarrassing and not without comedy of the low-level life of the special group of "North Drift". "Running", running for survival, has a goal, has speed, and has strength; with the exuberant and upward vitality of the little people, it reflects the reality that they are struggling and unwilling to sink.

"If the Snow Closes the Door" selects seventeen short stories by Xu Zechen, and the content also covers the two major veins of the author's creation- "Beijing" and "Flower Street". With strong literary and ideological nature, the work expresses the theme of young people's struggle that the author has always explored. Most of the protagonists are well-intentioned and have the wisdom to make fun of suffering, and the author writes about the uneasiness in their lives and the turmoil of their souls. The text of the whole book is solid, sweet and warm, and the still water is deep, and there is a sense of close artistry and a sense of depth in thinking about the world, from which you can get a glimpse of Xu Zechen's growth trajectory for more than ten years.

Look at the dazzling rise of fireworks in the world

——Xu Zechen's short story creation

Adjancer

Storytelling has almost always been the core driving force behind the narrative of Chinese novels, while modern Western novels have sublimated creation into an adventure that the mind enjoys tirelessly. Therefore, the former is slightly stagnant in the macroscopic, and the latter is more colorful in the microscopic, even to the point of defeating ordinary readers. In the camp of post-70s writers, Xu Zechen is undoubtedly well versed in the essence of Chinese novels, and he expands the new with appropriate and courageous efforts, not only adhering to the national roots of the novel, but also attaching a unique new era label to the realist text in the way of "making something out of nothing", which can be called the realist text of the new era. This is not only a difficult choice for sudden progress, but also a great progress and sharp prominence of realistic creation, which can be considered as an epochal continuation of the inherent temperament of Lu Xun's novels. His short and medium stories often replace the story with the breath of human fireworks in still water and deep currents, and activate and stir the thinking that focuses on narrative unfolding, so that the realist text towers above the clouds and soars into a broader and more dazzling new space. More than ten years of literary solo exploration and repeated practice of years of precipitation, the flower street teenager in the early years has already fully possessed the near-infinite breadth and depth of Chinese literature facing the future in the displacement of time and space.

The text of Xu Zechen's short story secretly surges with abundant human fireworks, and the cold and unexpectedly constructs a strong sense of temperament between the original strangers.

Whether it is Ma Po and "I" grandmother in "Flower Street", as well as between her and Lao Mo, and Lan Mazi, whether it is Baoding, Xia Xiaorong and Qibao in "Running Through Zhongguancun", Meridian and Beijing girl Wen Jing in "Heaven on Earth", or Xixia and Wang Yiding in "Xixia", Juyan and Tang Tuo in "Juyan", they meet and know each other as strangers and even complete interaction and integration, which is undoubtedly a deep excavation of the permeability of the solid reality under the normal state of general human indifference and high defense psychology. These men and women, their nature is simple and unpretentious, and their humble hearts have no shortage of spiritual dreams and pursuits of the living, and even burst out the burning emotions and arrogance of life under infinite pressure. Xu Zechen gives great respect and life tolerance to the souls of the characters in the novel, no matter how heavy life gives them, they are still dreamers and tenacity of life who do not give up easily: even if they bear their own guilt, even if they dream in heaven, they are at the bottom of the world, even if they dream of being constrained by social laws, they still take risks. Even we can't deny the strength and texture of Dunhuang's life, we can't identify the pale and empty meaning of Xia Xiaorong's waiting, and even sincerely praise the love persistence of meridians, the full possession of ideal love, the courage of love to take risks, and even ignore the greed dominated by love, and will sincerely affirm the inner spirit of these lives, and all of Xu Zechen's texts are spiritual construction beyond storytelling. In the vast sea of people, their encounter is tantamount to the warm embrace and warmth temporarily obtained in the lonely journey in the dark night, and it is these little people who build a rare spiritual equality and mutual harmony in the world with their own body temperature in the bitter and difficult city.

The implicit attachment of historical and cultural character and consciousness is the transformation of Xu Zechen's text into nothing.

Xu Zechen's short stories have a strong sense of geography and are also a kind of historical and cultural significance. History and culture, in terms of the text of the novel, are the invisible existence of the detached elephant. For example, "Flower Street" and "Beijing" constitute the comparison and confrontation between the old concept tradition and the modern urban civilization; for example, the title of the novel or the name of the character, "Dunhuang", "Meridian", "Western Xia", "Juyan", "Qingcheng", etc. are the bearers of historical and cultural geography, the condensation and delay of the allegorical meaning of the character symbols, and the sustenance of the writer's divine will. For Xu Zechen, it is the only topic that belongs to the connotation of the novel, which belongs to the unique naming of the novel characters. "Dunhuang" symbolizes the ultimate loss of inner glory; "Meridian" is the fierce life of ice and fire in the heavens and on earth in the north and south corresponding to the midnight and midday; "Western Xia" is the vanishing dynastic civilization, specific to the novel text is the perfect crystallization of the ideal personality of the "world outside the world" that exists away from the heavy life of reality; "Juyan" is the edge plug of the pass that is difficult for human nature to penetrate, and in the novel it means the heroine's successful process of crossing the pass to obtain complete independence of personality; "Qingcheng" Refining the process of the heroine of the novel from attachment to independence through the Taoist holy land... The attachment of these historical and cultural meanings, and even the strong human pyrotechnic atmosphere of the novel, for the construction of the text, is only a shallow level of invisibility, and the real reclusive existence is the choice of the life and life inertia of the novel characters, the way of persistence, the gradual change of concepts and the integration into modern life. For example, those who are friendly, righteous, and courageous as others in Beijing City; such as the conflict between the traditional spiritual roots of Ma Po stationed in Huajie and the modernity concept of his son Liangsheng's good face, Ju Yan's love attachment to independent personality and Beijing search, the divine power that bursts out of dependence in desperate circumstances to complete the economic and spiritual independence before and after comparison, Hu Fangyu's inertial thinking life suddenly found the disappearance of the missing, the old iron rules and regulations of the life without risk, the Qingcheng art attached to the awakening of life between chance encounters and the emergence of artistic independence, and so on. The humanity of historical and cultural factors is the cloak of human nature, although it is invisible and traceless, it is deeply shaped by the spirit of the text characters, and at the same time, the spiritual gradient of these novel characters fits and cuts into the rhythm of the wheel of the times, completing the arrival of a new height of modern urban civilization, and then achieving harmony with the big times.

Xu Zechen does not care about storytelling, but pays great attention to the way of storytelling, which is not a technical problem, but the stirring and grinding of the text's inherent breakthrough thinking, which can also be seen as the training of his realist text in the new era.

The short story "Flower Street" brings up a complete story with a large time and space span with multiple characters, and occasionally from the perspective of children's confusion, and finally hands over to the reader to complete the active splicing. Considering the effect of text construction, it is said to be "intentional to qi", and Lao Mo's decades of watchful repentance stimulate and awaken Ma Po's sense of sin that has been forgotten and unforgivable. Although she, with unshirkable firmness, let her son Liangsheng hold a grand and amazing funeral for the old man who had been watching alone for decades, she could not face or answer her son's bitter questioning of the origin of life. She chose to commit suicide, and she was rescued, but she still could not express her own life, so abandoning the world became the most beautiful and poetic choice. The strength and resilience derived from the authenticity of life are the intensity of the sense of life and the pyrotechnic atmosphere of the world, and it is also the highlight of the root nature of national culture that runs through thousands of years. At this point in the text, Xu Zechen seems to subvert the logic, incoherent and horizontal, and all the words of the spirit are scattered, and in an instant, the naturalization of the art of the novel is completed, from the outside to the inner.

The short story "The Snow Closes the Door" sublimates the narrative strategy into a more exquisite internal construction, the text takes Lin Huicong's desire for heavy snow from the south as the starting point of imagery, with its surreal and heavy light imagination, holding up the spiritual movement of the characters, and at the same time, with the unbearable load-bearing seen in the eyes, intertwining and working together, and finally constructing the texture of the resonance of the rational sexiness of the "world outside the world" belonging to Xu Zechen's text: the cruelty of survival still cannot hinder the freedom of spiritual purity It is a desire to penetrate the frozen noble soul. Beijing, as a temporary place for the metropolis to be as fierce as iron, still cannot give the other a safe position, and even as the city of the other, it is confused by its own desire for life. On the one hand, Xu Zechen is striving to create a pure and innocent spiritual realm, and at the same time, with the protagonist and the surrounding characters in the original daily beat and chaos, he sketches a nearly real state of life in the anti-logical reality, and uses this to dissolve, deconstruct, squeeze, and even try to destroy the pure state of the spirit. Xingjian, Mi Zhen, Lin Huicong, the shadow characters of The novel, Baolai and the nameless woman, and even the stripping of the consciousness and perspective of the narrator and the protagonist, together break the monotony of the inertial narrative and present a colorful style. The force from the limited spatial normality of daily life and the sudden change of life is undoubtedly strong and unbearable, but through the fierce confrontation and tearing of the two poles of life, the snow sealing door is no longer an imagination, but an unexpected arrival, but also the warm and pessimistic intersection of the spiritual ascension of the mountain flowing water, the opposition between the weight of life and the lightness of life, interaction and cruising, which is undoubtedly the excavation and prominence of the deep and hidden spirit of the characters, and it is a work that realizes lingfei. As a Lu Prize work, it is a certain masterpiece, and the artistic power that is full of flowing can be seen in the novel.

The refinement of Xu Zechen's realist texts in the new era is a process of creative art refinement, a process of breaking the realist text form and the withdrawal of inertial patterns, and the opening up and artistic maturity of the third creative thinking space.

The series of novellas "Xixia", "Juyan" and "Qingcheng" are the fusion process of Chinese and Western philosophies, especially in terms of narrative motivation, Xu Zechen abandons the old cliché of constantly setting up contradictions and obstacles, and strengthens the random movement of the narrative flow with the expansion of thinking activity. The maturity of the art of fiction is a process of accumulation that has gone through a long period of time, from "Western Xia" to "Qingcheng", which has gone through more than ten years of time.

"Xixia" is undoubtedly a sudden arrival, a decisive and perfect capture of the creative thinking, and it is still the construction of the "world beyond the world". The "heavenly descending" mute woman, whose origin is unknown, is itself an illogical and blunt existence, but until the end of the text, Xu Zechen did not give any explanation or implication. As a narrative strategy, this kind of text exists beyond reproach, and it serves as a powerful and continuous guide to reading as suspense. The work is a controversial text, and a different perspective is a useful breakthrough in the exploration of realist texts, although there are still traces of experimental texts. Reading the text intensively, we can see that this is a typical example of the real and imaginary, a reproduction of the real existence of art, a man-made scene of imagination against the wind, and finally completes the reflection of the "world beyond the world" on the present world. Perhaps it is easier to understand as an allegorical text, "Xixia" is a mirror of the true reproduction of human beings themselves, from the perspective of Wang Yiding's life and life, the identity of others and the road ahead of loneliness are vague, and he is undoubtedly very eager for the spiritual warmth given by girls like "Xixia", the tranquility of life, and the vanity that is indispensable for meeting the world, but due to the inertia from the level of the city, the male protagonist has to leave the Western Xia again and again. The shackles of solid real life, always walking on the road contrary to spiritual imagination and self-soothing, the emergence of Western Xia, giving Wang Yiding a sense of physical and mental happiness, is actually a dream of spiritual exile. Finally ushering in the hope of the mute woman opening her mouth, Wang Yiding, as a partner, cut off further contact due to endless fear. The various contradictions about the philosophical level of life in the world are concentrated in the text implanted by Xu Zechen's naturalness, and are truly interpreted by the hero and heroine, which is also the perspective above the text. If it implies the path of literature, it is a portrayal of Xu Zechen's own ambition and cognition as a young writer.

From "Running Through Zhongguancun" and "Heaven on Earth" to "Juyan", the selection of materials is the progression of the writing class of the city and others, and it is also the acceleration towards a high degree of urban civilization; the entry of literature is the arrival of the other shore, a kind of adaptation suitable for film and television texts. Ju Yan set out from looking for love to Beijing, waiting in difficult circumstances, awakening his own potential for survival, achieving success and forgetting his original intention, falling in love with Tang Tuo, the general situation is turbulent, the former helper has become unemployed, and the former helper in turn gives Tang Tuo spiritual encouragement. When the hero and heroine are finally about to go to the full moon after ups and downs, the seeker appears, and the novel comes to an abrupt end. Departure, searching, waiting, rebirth, forgetting the original intention, regaining love, reversal, accident and abandonment, etc., almost all the possibilities of life are concentrated in the way of natural flow, which is both parody and reality. Pure narrative becomes the novel itself, almost all the details are carried by philosophical word accuracy, and traditional realism is withdrawn as an allegory unfolding and deduction of color. Compared with "Western Xia", the modernity of juyan text is more prominent.

From "Xixia", "Juyan" to "Qingcheng", the text narrative becomes more and more bone-like, awakening and driving the energy of art itself, and the allegorical meaning it carries is indeed becoming richer and richer, realizing a high degree of lightness and heterogeneity, and strongly embodying the superiority of thinking storm creation. "Qingcheng" abandons the narrative strategy and realizes the capture of smart imagery, such as the eagle in the sky, the eagle's cough corresponds to the cough of the old iron, and even "I" only exists as a narrative perspective and narrative depth of the source of action, in order to support the heroine Qingcheng's spiritual fission. "I", as an outsider, opened a new habitat for the tasteless life of Qingcheng, and then went to see the eagle together. Seeing the eagle is undoubtedly the sudden rise of the spiritual space, the ignition of the artistic soul, and the skin kiss of the man and woman in the tent, which is the completion of the behavioral language of this process. The text simplifies the dialogue of the characters, and with the rich historical and cultural background information, completes the rapid progress from mortals to artistic ethereal, and the reader can feel the coldness of it.

Editor: Liu Ya

Second instance: Wang Yang

Third instance: Chen Tao