In the TV series adaptation of "The World of Man", there are many incredible phenomena of unauthorized tampering. However, only the portrayal of Bingyi's wife Dongmei and mother-in-law Jin Yueji is very faithful to Liang Xiaosheng's original work and his ideas.
The most unsuccessful adaptation of "The World" is a extraction of the motivation for Bingkun to injure and kill Luo Shibin. In the original novel, Luo Shibin aggressively uses both soft and hard means to try to retake Nannan and make Bingkun a great enemy. Bingkun's action was to maintain the integrity of the family, and made a Jedi counterattack.
However, the TV series changed the conflict between Bingkun and Luo Shibin to after the death of Nan nan, Bingkun and Luo Shibin both faced the pain of different motives brought about by Nannan's death, there was no conflict of interest between them, and the two people should no longer have any chance of meeting, but it was because of Luo Shibin's insulting words from his mouth that Bingkun was furious and intensified into an escalation of violence, resulting in the occurrence of hurtful incidents. In the original novel, the tightly wounded scramble for Nan Nan's sword-rattling motives became a conflict caused by inferior words in the TV series, avoiding the heavy and light, making a big fuss, so the purpose of the adaptation is not to see what the purpose of the TV series is.
This is arguably the most failed adaptation of a TV series.
However, the portrayal of Dongmei's mother, Jin Yueji, in the TV series, can be said to be quite successful, and it can also be said that it vividly interprets the theme of Liang Xiaosheng's strong expression in the novel.
In the original novel, Liang Xiaosheng put forward the severe opposition of the phenomenon of "class", which is embodied in the Hao family, which is a high-level cadre family, and the Zhou family, which is a low-level workers' home, although the children of the two families are related because of marriage, but the previous generation did not have any intersection. The Hao family and the Zhou family have never met.
This is a regret that is always mentioned in the novel.
In episode 54 of the TV series, Dongmei broke out of dissatisfaction because she followed Bingyi everywhere and lost her original post, blurted out a divorce, and Bingyi's unintentional and Dongmei theory, which is obviously a verbal threat, once again put forward the pain in his heart, that is, in the past in the prominent Hao family, he was always "small and incompetent", in a word, Bingyi, who came from the bottom, deeply felt the strong pressure he was under in front of the high class.
Prior to this, the TV series made a full preparation, isolating the very conspicuous class in the original novel, and adapting it into a play in 1981 in which Governor Hao was alive and preparing to visit the Zhou family for a New Year's visit, and in this scene, a wave and entanglement caused by "two barrels of tea" was also added, transforming the theme of the concept expounded in the novel into a visible and perceptible dramatic conflict, highlighting the objectively existing "class" differences.
This "class difference" is also the reason why Dongmei quickly remarried after The death of Bingyi in the novel, and the object of Dongmei's remarriage is a "red second generation", which actually means that Dongmei returns to the "class" to which she belongs. As Zhou Rong analyzed in the novel, the love between Dongmei and Bingyi is completely a chance, otherwise, the two classes would not be horizontally related.
Therefore, the love between Dongmei and Bingyi is just a "dream of the Red Chamber" created by Liang Xiaosheng in "The World of Man", and when the dream wakes up, Dongmei still has to return to the class to which she belongs.
This idea is written in black and white in the original novel of "Human World", and in Liang Xiaosheng's interview with "Human World", it is also stated unabashedly.
When Liang Xiaosheng talked about the gap between Bingkun's family and Dongmei's family, he said: Bingkun himself did not step into the home of his brother and sister-in-law, he only saw his brother outside the courtyard. That environment was too sad for him. After his brother's death, his sister-in-law returned to her original class. When they met on the street, he could no longer call her "sister-in-law", only "sister", and after a few faint words from each other, he passed, and there was no contact.
In fact, this is the problem of "class solidification" that Liang Xiaosheng often mentions. He made no secret of this strong feeling: "In the novel I certainly have the consciousness to touch on this. That is, the kind of marriage that can produce the eldest brother of the Zhou family and the daughter of the vice governor of the Zhou family in that era - maybe today can also be produced, but that is unless it is 'small fresh meat' in film and television. The special 'Cultural Revolution' period offered that possibility. ”
On Bingyi's body, there is the shadow of Liang Xiaosheng himself. From the perspective of personality trends, Bingyi does not want to become an official, but wants to engage in academic research, which is the ideal positioning of a writer like Liang Xiaosheng, but Liang Xiaosheng, as a speaker of discourse, has a huge right to speak in speech, and at this point, he has a kind of power franchise similar to Bingyi's body. Therefore, what Bingyi did had a kind of transfer and expectation of Liang Xiaosheng's personal wishes.
In real life, Liang Xiaosheng has a commoner's wife, and there is no high-ranking cadre like Dongmei who has a green eye for him, and in fact, although Liang Xiaosheng writes in the novel that all kinds of women throw hugs and hugs the image of his self-incarnation, the cruel reality in reality is that not many women are willing to accept the original poor Liang Xiaosheng.
Therefore, Dongmei's kind of love for Bingyi without discrimination, complaints, and regrets can only be Liang Xiaosheng's "Nanke a dream" when constructing his love plot, and many romantic plots can only exist in novels and films, while in reality, they can be imagined and cannot be met.
This is why Liang Xiaosheng's novels are intertwined with Balzac's realism and Hugo-style romanticism.
In the TV series, it avoids the setting of "class dream awakening" that Dongmei immediately remarried after Bingyi's death, but adds a period of Dongmei's complaint about Bingyi, casually saying the deterrent of "divorce", which actually implies that there is no indestructible foundation for love between Bingyi and Dongmei, and in fact, Liang Xiaosheng's original intention in the novel is also to try to strengthen the unreliable and dreamlike nature of this love scene that transcends the reality of "class".
The TV series presents the unromantic and cruel nature of the class solidification revealed by Liang Xiaosheng in the novel in a soft fluctuation scene.
To this end, the TV series also designed a number of plots that are not mentioned in the novel to show the role of this "class" conflict.
In the TV series, Governor Hao tries to break down this class barrier, and from this point of view, Governor Hao is closer to a positive and unambiguous image in line with the mainstream ideology than Jin Yueji, but Jin Yueji's contradictory thinking is more emboldened, closer to the key point, and more in line with the real trend of thought in society.
Therefore, literary and artistic works often create a positive character that may not exist, but through this object, the negative social trend can be refracted.
In the TV series, Governor Hao changed the long-dead setting in the original novel, which is intended to reshape a new interpersonal relationship in society through his image of trying to break down class barriers.
However, a figure like Governor Hao can only be "This song should only be heard in heaven, and it must be heard several times in the world." The adaptor had to return to the track of Liang Xiaosheng's original work, and after hastily performing two episodes of Governor Hao, he treated the character as "the end of the song of human death".
On the eve of her deathbed, Jin Yueji once again mentioned the issue of Bingkun's sentence to one of the most important wills.
It seems that why did Jin Yueji, a provincial-level cadre who had been cut off from the Zhou family, suddenly, before dying, care so strangely about Bingkun, whom she had never met before?
The novel explains it like this: "Now that she is dying, she suddenly wants to do her best to be a little relative and prove that she is still humane." ”
This "human touch" has always been the driving force used by the Zhou family's class to support and hug the group for warmth.
Relatively speaking, the high-ranking cadre level to which Jin Yueji belongs has always been heavily guarded against this "human touch", such as facing a great enemy, and the novel also writes that when Jin Yueji was dying, she said that the reason why she did not have close contact with the low-level people like the Zhou family was: "I am afraid that my relatives often ask for herself because of such and such troubles, and she has never boarded the door of her relatives." ”
In fact, this reflects the huge contradiction and conflict between the "impartiality" of power and the "interest output" of family affection.
The selfless demand for power emphasizes ruling for the people, rather than seeking personal gain.
The requirement of family affection is mutual mutual assistance, and once difficulties are encountered, it is to find acquaintances and pull relationships.
Let's pay attention to the fact that in "The World of Man", the only person involved in Chunyan's case who asked for help was Director Gong, but Director Gong politely refused.
It cannot but be said that Director Gong has made mistakes, and from the perspective of his public office, he should not be selfish.
However, Director Gong secretly communicates with those individuals who have exchanged interests in the dark box, there is interest transmission, and Gong Bureau sends government news, such as when to send the police, so that the people involved in the case can avoid it as soon as possible, and correspondingly, Gong Bureau has become a member of the bribery roster of profiteers.
Chun Yan seized on this point and counterattacked, using bribe accounts to blackmail Director Gong, who looked like a dog and did not show favoritism on the surface.
Bingyi, whether in novels or TV series, did not use his power to bring benefits to the family.
In the novel, it is written that when Bingkun wanted to ask Bingyi to arrange a job for his sister who overtook the catch-up, that is, Sun Xiaoning in the TV series, Bingyi categorically refused.
After that, when Bingyi encountered Bingkun's request for help, he refused.
This is the result of Bingyi's strict demands on himself, who sacrificed family affection and upheld the principle of impartiality and selflessness of power.
It can be said that Bingyi is an ideal embodiment in "The World of Man", Liang Xiaosheng can only write like this, from the perspective of power, Bingyi is impeccable, but from the perspective of family affection, he is obviously unkind and his face is hateful.
However, what Liang Xiaosheng used to illustrate in the original work is that such a fair and selfless act as Bingyi is a kind of "big love" that transcends the "small love" of family affection.
If Bingyi is seeking "profit transmission" for his own family all day long, then how is this character different from the corrupt and degenerate people that everyone hates to the bone?
Bingyi adhered to his ideal of "great love", but in the dimension of family affection, he did not do a good job, and was reprimanded and angrily scolded by Bingkun, and even almost turned against his brothers, fists and feet.
However, in the end, Bingyi still used his "great love" to improve the social and people's livelihood, and Bingkun, as a member of the society, also responded to the tide of the times and obtained the dividend of reform and opening up.
In the TV series, we can see that Bingyi and Bingkun walk in the dilapidated and muddy alleys, inspecting the corners and corners of this slum, and this plot is also an important paragraph of Liang Xiaosheng's original contrasting description.
The TV series obviously faithfully restores Liang Xiaosheng's idealized situation, that is, Bingkun's "small love" and Bingyi's "big love" finally go hand in hand, with a common direction and path forward.
And this "great love" of Bingyi inherits the inspiration and spiritual inheritance of Jin Yueji.
Therefore, the character of Jin Yueji is a character who carries on from top to bottom.
Without this character, it is difficult to understand where the source of the "great love" of righteousness lies.
In the novel "In the World", Jin Yueji has a confusion, that is, it is not clear whether the breakdown of the class is pro or con.
Because it is an obvious fact that this "class" gap will cause a side effect, that is, the use of power for personal gain.
As an old cadre, Jin Yueji obviously dislikes this kind of "inter-class" transfer of interests.
In the TV series, we see that Bingyi once turned to Jin Yueji for the matter of his sister's classmate Cai Xiaoguang, and was hit by Jin Yueji's several falls, and then Bingyi realized that he should not open his mouth, because he opened his mouth, but he wanted to use the high-dimensional energy of power to convey benefits to his low-dimensional relatives.
It can be said that the set of authentic, orthodox, and personal concepts that Jin Yueji accepts must require her to refuse to use her power for personal gain and block the "transmission of benefits".
This is also the reason why Jin Yueji opposes Dongmei's marriage. It was the incident that Cai Xiaoguang asked for help that made her see that the "gap between the classes" provided the possibility for the "interest transmission" of different classes, so she began to oppose Dongmei's close contact with different classes of Bingyi, that is, she rethinked the problem of ties between the upper and lower levels.
Until her death, she was still obsessed with the great contradiction between the selflessness of this power and the profit-seeking nature of kinship.
In order to resolve this contradiction, Jin Yueji leaned towards the side of human feelings, in fact, she abandoned the impartiality of power and made a small transmission to the interests of family affection.
That is to let Bingkun reduce his sentence.
According to the novel, Bingkun thus reduced his sentence by three years, and the TV series may have considered that this intervention of power would have a bad reaction, and only changed it to post-holiday release to pre-holiday release. Moreover, the secretary played by Lu Yi also stressed the need to follow procedures.
It can be seen that theoretically, the impartiality of power cannot be challenged or changed in the slightest. The TV series is cautious in such performance, such as walking on thin ice, it can indeed be seen that Liang Xiaosheng's proposal in "The World of Man" is incompatible with the water and fire of power and family affection, which hits the ken of society and describes the acute problems of real China, but Liang Xiaosheng presents it in a gentle and elegant way of suggesting or calling it a contrarian way.
It is these parts that Liang Xiaosheng deeply explores in "The World of Man" that are transformed into the character image of Jin Yueji, that is, with Jin Yueji before her death, the net is open, and finally challenges the inviolable dignity of the impartiality of power, and a little water is released to moisten the plate of family affection, which is the motivation and motivation background behind the plot of Jin Yueji's intercession for Bingkun.
The image of Dongmei is a source and source that inspires Jin Yueji's thinking. During Jin Yueji's lifetime, she had been standing in the Zhou family, but when her mother died, the difference between her and Bingyi due to the class gap made her "lose herself" as the TV series said, resulting in annoying remarks about Bingyi.
Such an adaptation of the TV series is just to transform the concept in the original novel of Liang Xiaosheng into a clearer character psychological trajectory.
In fact, in the novel, there is no mention of Dongmei threatening divorce, but the fact that Dongmei remarried set by Liang Xiaosheng in the novel still shows that Dongmei's love is based on a foundation that is not solid and solid, in fact, this "foundation" is Liang Xiaosheng's wishful thinking, a romantic dream created by a writer with words, but the reality is severe and cruel, so Liang Xiaosheng must return to the category of realism and re-evaluate Dongmei's emotional positioning.
After Bingyi leaves, Dongmei must be sent back to her class, just like the characters in "Dream of the Red Chamber" must return to the "away from the hateful sky" in another time and space after completing their mission in the human world.
The deep-rooted motive behind this is the phenomenon of class solidification and class isolation that Liang Xiaosheng has been advocating. Dongmei's divorce is just a warning for her.