respect
wen
east
One
What is a fool?
Maiqi Toast is a hereditary toast set by the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, like the Iron Hat King, which is directly related to the political strategy of the Qing Dynasty at that time. Between Sichuan and Tibet, Maiqi Toast owns hundreds of miles of land and tens of thousands of heads, slaves and freedmen. The toast drunkenly shared a passionate room with his Han wife and concocted a foolish son for himself. This somewhat unfortunate and somewhat dramatic son is the first protagonist and narrator of Alai's first novel, Dust Settles.[1] This person was in the territory of Toast and was called "The Second Young Master of the Fool" by everyone. The eldest young master was born to Mai Qitusi and his late Tibetan wife. Contrary to the situation of the Second Young Master, the Eldest Young Master was handsome, intelligent, bold, astute and capable, and naturally loved women, and was also loved by the unrestrained Tibetan women. Except for the Han mother of the foolish Second Young Master, the fact that the Great Young Master became the successor of Mai Qi Toast was taken for granted by everyone. Among these people, there was the fool Second Young Master. Compared with the normal fools in the world with big IQ problems, the fools in "Dust Settled" have a lot of peculiarities. And listen to him at some point and can't help but say to himself:
Oh my God, in an instant, I actually had the idea of usurping power. But the thought of being nothing more than a fool burst silently like a bubble on a spring. You think, how can a fool be the toast above all people and the king of mankind? [2]
Look, not only did everyone think that the Second Young Master was a fool, but even the Second Young Master himself held an affirmative and peaceful attitude towards it. Just as the buttocks have an expressionless face because they are indifferent to everything and everything,[3] the Second Young Master has a mentality of indifference to the fact that he is a fool. He confessed very frankly that before the age of thirteen he had lived in utter ignorance, utter ignorance, without the slightest consciousness or memory; that snowy morning at the age of thirteen he had been awakened by a cry of wild thrushes, and in an instant he suddenly had a memory, and immediately bumped head-on into the world in front of him, which had not left him any impression for thirteen years. At the same time, what awakened was his intense, sober, and lifelong sense of self: I was a real fool. The next question is both logical and logical: You see, how can I make toast? In general, the IQ of normal fools has been pitiful to the point where they make fools unaware that they are fools. The narrator and first protagonist of "Dust Settled" clearly knows that he is a fool, which is indeed an extraordinary, even unimaginable thing. [4] If a fool knows that he is indeed a fool, it is equivalent to the existence of a square circle in the world. As the finished novel, Dust Settles—not its creator Alai—will tell you definitively that the circle does exist.
In addition, what is more important and more interesting is that after waking up every day, the second young master of the fool "always has to lose himself." Always ask: Where am I? Who am I? (p. 277) It is well known that Paul Gauguin had a famous painting titled: "Where did we come from?" Who are we? Where are we going? ”（Where Do We Come From？ What Are We？ Where Are We Going？ [6] There is a great difference between the fool's question and Gauguin's question: the former is concerned only with himself, he has no interest in "us" as the plural; he is completely unconscious about all things about humanity or even about his people. The half-Tibetan-blooded fool, half-Han Chinese-blooded fool cares only about who he is and where he is at this moment; he has no consciousness of where he came from, where he is prepared, and where he must go—though he may have seen a faint shadow of his destination in the haze. Gauguin's question embodies the anxiety of a modern man: in an era without the care of the gods, how should a lonely monad individual be responsible for himself, especially before being responsible for himself, and must figure out what the connotation of the self is, as the poet Yang Zheng wrote in his poem: "From which self do you start?" Which one will you go back to? Which one is pushing you in the back? Which one is pulling you ahead? In which one do you sleep? In which one is the noise? (Yang Zheng: "The Revolving Wooden Horse") But the Second Young Master of the Mai Qi family never had such anxiety. He doesn't know the self and doesn't know what the self is, just as a pet dog doesn't know the one-shadowed pet dog in the mirror; he doesn't need the ego at all. In fact, he only asked such questions because he was a fool,[7] or because he asked such questions that he confirmed his status as a fool in front of everyone.
Unlike all normal fools, in "The Dust Settles", the Second Young Master can see things that many people can't see,[8] and even see what is coming. For example, when the second young master's father and brother were still hoping to make the family business bigger and stronger, he had already seen that the toast system was about to collapse in a few years, and his father was the last toast and his father was completely unaware of it; the Maiqi family no longer had anyone who could succeed to the king of this land, because the "red Han people" did not allow toast to exist. A French thinker once said somewhere that it is enough for a man to have twenty-four hours of foresight. [9] The second young master of the fool saw the future years in advance, but he could not be called prescient, foresight was the result of logic, experience, and calculus; the ability he possessed to see the future was both mysterious and an important part of what constituted a fool, and one of the reasons why a fool is a fool. Therefore, the crippled butler, who had a high status in the Mai Qi Tusi family, had long questioned whether the Second Young Master was really stupid, and there was a sufficient reason to question. The housekeeper with inconvenient legs and feet "sighed" and then said to the second young master in front of him: "I want to tell the truth, you may be a fool, maybe you are the smartest person in the world." (p. 213) Mackitoshi has always regarded his second son as a fool: "How do you fools know what others think?" (p. 356) But in the face of the facts, he had to admit to his retinue that his second son was probably "the wisest fool in the world"! (p. 259) But what is the "wisest fool"? This distinction is again a square circle. And the reason for this was broken by the words of the clerk of the Mai Qi Tusi family, the devout Tibetan Buddhist believer Weng Bo Yisi. This person sighed and said to the second young master of the Mai Qi family, "Everyone says that the young master is a fool, but I want to say that you are a wise man." Because stupid is smart. (p. 168) – Cleverness and mystery have become an important component of stupidity. Victor Hugo seems to have given a description (rather than an explanation) in advance:
Stupid fools also have insights
There was also a heavenly flash on the lowly eyes
Gentle and fierce at times.
Therefore, no matter from what angle and level of observation, the Second Young Master was a strange and shocking fool. But he is not like Ah Q, who is recognized by the villagers of Weizhuang as the world's first untouchable species because he believes in the spiritual victory method; not like the C-cub, because he can only say the words "daddy" and "× mother", and is regarded as an absolute fool by everyone in the chicken head village; unlike Mo Yan's black baby, who does not say a word from beginning to end, and is finally stripped naked; unlike Gimpel the fool, who is bullied for his kindness and is regarded as a fool by his surroundings[12]; nor like the sacred fool of Russia. Regarded as an oracle by Orthodox believers for his madness,[13] he was regarded as a fool for his madness,[13] much less like The Good Soldier vejk of the Czech people, who was repeatedly ridiculed for his mastery of "the art of losing those who sent him to war".[iii] In short, just as the famous fools mentioned above have done many impressive things, the Second Young Master of the Mai Qi family is doomed to do many things in ignorance that are unimaginable to everyone because of his stupidity," as if his foolish fate has been predestined the moment He was drunk; unlike the above fools, he will also narrate everything he has caused because of his stupidity.
He is indeed a rare fool in the history of new Chinese literature.
Alai "The Dust Settles"
Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House| 2020
Two
Silly narrative
Zhao Yiheng believes that the reason why the "first-person novel" got its name is because the narrator calls himself "I". He counters that the narrator in a third-person novel must also call himself "I" if he must address himself; a third-person novel certainly calls the character "he" to the fictional character, but the first-person novel also refers to other characters other than the narrator as well as "he." Zhao therefore believes that it is inappropriate to divide the novel into "first person" and "third person". [15] Henry David Thoreau's observation is accurate, and his reminder should be heedent: "Whatever book is speaking in the first person, we often forget about it. [16] Thus, the mode of thinking that narrativeism, which is extremely complex and intractable in structuralism, is supposed to follow is quite simple; it gives the impression that Tzvetan Todorov, Gérard Genette, Julia Kristeva, and others are pretending to be ghostly and mysterious. This simple mode of thinking is nothing more than this: I tell you (or you) his (or their) story; or I tell you (or your) story; or you (or you) listen to me tell his story. This "I" can act as the narrator of both a third-person novel and a narrator of a first-person novel. If it is the latter, it is only possible to prove that the narrator is the deep participant in the narrated story, or at least the first witness; in most cases, the narrator and the deep participant in the story are united. Although Zhao Yiheng is very reasonable, there should be no problem with third-person narratives being called all-knowing perspectives and first-person narratives being called limited-knowledge perspectives.
Looking at Alai's fiction writing for about forty years to date, it is generally evident that he laid out an important fact that had been hidden for a long time: in the age of linguistic discovery pioneered by the likes of Friedrich Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ferdinand de Saussure, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Austin ( J.L. Austin) and others Language is considered not only a tool that human beings use to take advantage of, it has its own subjectivity like modern people; as a famous genre that has been fully updated in the era of language discovery, modern novels with language as a weaving fabric also have a distinct self like modern people. That is to say, the novel wants to have its ideal appearance; the modern novel should not be the to be as it is imposed upon it by the novelist, but the look and the waist that it thinks it should be and the waist that it thinks it should be. Roland Barthes's decomposition of this leads to the Alain Gods: "The writer cannot draw anything from language: for the writer, language is more like a straight line, and beyond it may indicate the supernatural properties of speech activity: it is a field of action, a determination and anticipation of a possibility." [18] Barthes went on elsewhere: "The function of the narrative is not to reproduce, but to construct a landscape." ...... The narrative does not show, it does not imitate. ...... The idea that "what happens" in the narrative refers to nothing, and that what "happens" is only language, the adventure of language, the constant praise of its coming. [19] Having laid out the basic fact that the modern novel has subjectivity or self, Alai, as a novelist, next laid out another fact: the narrator who has experienced the baptism of the age of discovery of language can no longer be the one-sided product of the novelist; the narrator's appearance, appearance and its hot or cold heart cannot be decided by the novelist alone. Only by arguing, negotiating, compromising, and convincing each other with the modern novel as a genre can the novelist shape a narrator who is satisfied or relatively satisfied with both. [20]
It was at this extremely important moment that the narrative method caused by the fact that the Second Young Master concocted by Alaihe as a genre of modern novels with his idiotic characteristics played a great role in compiling and forming "Dust Settled", and also made great contributions to the success of "Dust Settled" at the level of the novel itself. Adhering to the dual will of the writer Alai and the modern novel, the Second Young Master of the Mai Qi family first told all the stories formed around him in the first person, that is, as an eyewitness. Here, as the basic mode of the narrative of the novel, I tell you (or you) his (or their) story means that the person I tell is my own story and the story of other people I see; what's more, when I tell myself, the person I am told, in front of the person who tells me, solidly has the identity of the other. Thus, my story becomes his story to the reader (i.e., you or you), and is heard by you or you as the reader. In the eyes of sophisticated narratology, everything in the reader's eyes belongs to the other. Obviously, the story narrated by the second young master of the fool is thick and sticky, but it is soothing, with a lazy face like a fool, a lazy expression, and a yawning look. The fool sees that everything is happening; but all that is happening has nothing to do with him and nothing to do with him. It is said to be relevant because things are happening around him after all; it is said that it is irrelevant because he is, in the final analysis, a fool, a dispensable attitude towards what is happening, a mentality of indifference, unlike the foolish and hesitant Danish prince who thinks he has the responsibility to turn things around. It is conceivable that if the Second Young Master was not a fool of the Toast family, no one in the territory of the Toast would care about him, and this fool could therefore not care about anything other than him. H. Shaftesbury seems to put it lightly: "The advantage of an author writing in the first person is that he can write himself as a person, or he can write himself as he wants." he...... He allowed himself to cater to the reader's imagination on every occasion; as is fashionable today, he continually pampered and cajoled his readers. [21] Unfortunately, this man got the problem completely wrong and reversed it all. In Shafsbury's view, it seems that the idiot's narrative is that of the novelist Alai flattering the reader. Shaftesbury seems to understand what modern fiction is, what the narrative of modern fiction is, and what the you (or you) who is listening to "me" tell his or their story is, what it means—that you (or you) don't need to be pampered or cajoled. It is from here that it can be seen that Alai's understanding of the genre of the modern novel is indeed different from that of most novelists who claim to write novels.
The modern novel of Alaihe as a genre does not allow the narrator to be selfish and narcissistic to the point of only caring about the stories that have been formed around the narrator himself. Such narcissism and selfishness have always been recognized by Todorov and others as the privilege of limited knowledge. But the modern novel as a genre and Alai as a writer believe that their narrators must provide a complete picture of both flesh and blood: what kind of waist and face the toast system has, how the toast system works and operates itself, why and how the toast system collapses until the dust finally settles. This means that if there is only a first-person or limited-knowledge perspective, only a story formed around the narrator, Dust Settles will never settle the dust. [22] At this critical juncture, the unique stupidity of the Second Young Master of fools played a unique narrative effect. [23] And this happens to be the narrative strategy tailored for "Dust Settled" by the writer Alai and the modern novel as a genre in consultation with each other. Look at the following sentence in "The Dust Settles":
Helplessly, Mai Qitusi took out the five official seals issued by the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty and a map from a chest with silver inlays, and went to the military government of Sichuan Province of the Republic of China to file a complaint... (page 11)
Got a positive answer, Mrs. Toast said... (page 15)
Toshi's son's eyes were red and swollen... (page 15)
So, the Second Young Master of the Mai Qi family laughed... (page 224)
I heard myself say... (page 399)
Such sentences or paragraphs are like striking patches, embedded in every corner of Dust Settled. It clearly shows that the Second Young Master, as the narrator, is standing in the position of a bystander, leisurely telling the story of the Maiqi Toast Family and telling many things within the jurisdiction of the Toast. [24] Bystander means the third person, the all-knowing perspective, and the "cold-eyed strabismus trait". Marshall Mcluhan praised the bystander and his lazy eyes: "Nothing escapes the cold eyes of the onlooker." [25] Here, as the basic mode of modern fiction narrative, I tell you (or you) his (or their) story means that what I am telling is their story; their stories may be related to me, or they may be distant from me, and may even have little to do with me. Being able to foresee the future and see things that others can't see was originally the main component of the Second Young Master's stupidity, not to mention that there were strange and mysterious reasons such as "because of stupidity to be smart" to bless them from the side. It is precisely because the modern novel as a genre and Ah Lai as a writer give the narrator such a stupidity that the narrator has the spare power to tell the story of others in addition to telling his own story to the reader himself. There is no need to doubt that a brilliant narrator is the greatest or even fundamental guarantee of the success of the novel. Relying on his own stupidity, the second young master of the fool gained a third eye like Yang Jian, which allowed him to see what was happening far away. In the case of the second young master of the Fool of the Mai Qi family, the word "far away" is both a concept of time and a concept of space. The concept of time means that he can narrate future events, such as when he sees the toast system about to collapse; and that future events are pulled in his narrative for you or you as readers to hear or see. The concept of space means that he can narrate things that are distant and inaccessible to ordinary people's eyes; distant things are also pulled in front of his narrative for the reader to see or hear. Contrary to the good soldier Shuai Ke, the Second Young Master mastered a whole set of arts that would make the people who sent him narrate and the style victorious. This whole set of art is embodied in a seemingly inconspicuous little corner of Dust Settled:
Where did Macchi Toast go?
hush! It's a secret. I'm holding my finger at you, but I can't help but tell you that Mackitoshi is taking his new joy in the field in search of a place to join the wild. (page 73)
No one could see what Macchi Toast was doing; with Toast's supremacy in his jurisdiction, no one dared to inquire without malice about where he had gone and what he was doing. "It's a secret" doesn't refer to where McChie Toast went, although on the surface it seems like that's the way things are. It actually refers to the fact that although "I" is first-person, it has both the ability of a bystander and the identity of a third person. The first and third persons are called real secrets, the only secrets, because the stupidity of "me" is mixed with "me". This secret is the narrative of the fool and the perspective of the fool, which combines omniscience and limited knowledge. And the soft "boo" implies a narrative meaning that is likely to be: don't reveal to others that I have the ability of a bystander and a third party, please keep this secret for me. In Germany, Georg Simmel says, "the gate shows in a more obvious way that separation and unification are just two aspects of the same act." [26] Similar in nature to the German Gate, this "boo" for blocking, isolating, and closing also means opening up and spreading the secret. "Shhh" means both concealment and openness, and it is like Hegel's proud "Aufheben", which means both carrying forward and giving up. [27] "Boo" is immediately about to involve "you"; "boo" is like a pocket bridge made of sounds, implying that "you" is somewhere dark near and close to the narrator. Otherwise, "you" would not have been able to hear the "boo" at all. From the context, it can be inferred that this seemingly mysterious "you" should not be a role that the narrator, the fool Second Young Master, is narrating. The "shhh" was more likely to be virtual, occurring only deep within him; although the raised finger could be seen as a tangible response to the "shhh" in the depths of his heart, the Second Young Master would prefer to see that the "you" of this finger was the "you" as the reader, and the "you" who listened to "I" tell their story to "you". The mix of first-person and third-person narrators not only leads to a holographic picture of the stylistic aspirations of the writer Alai and the modern novel, but also incidentally allows the novel as a work— not a genre— to be born at the same time as the reader. The narrative significance of this ending is even greater; to a large extent, it is one of the important indicators of the true modern novel. Alai's understanding of this also exceeds that of most fiction practitioners.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Three
Idiot tone
Even in the Chinese reading world, the opening part of the Hehe Bible is familiar to many readers: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth is empty and chaotic, and the abyss is dark. The Spirit of God is at work on the surface of the water. God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light. God saw that the light was good, so he separated the light from the dark. God calls light day and darkness night. There were evenings, there were mornings, and it was the first day. God said, 'There shall be air between the waters, and divide the waters up and down.' God created the air, and opened the water above the water below the air. That's it. [29] In the theological semantic view, God is not only directly equated with language, but also uses language to create the world. But perhaps the more accurate truth is this: God said, in His peculiar tone, rather than God made the whole world, because in the final analysis, what is said determines what is said,[31] just as the shape of an artifact ultimately determines the appearance of water. God says something in an imperative tone (e.g., God said, "Let there be light.") Immediately something happens (e.g., and there was light), and "things become 'this way' instead of 'that way'. The world is between God's lips and teeth. But what Fernando Pessoa says in reverse should also be fact and truth: "God is purely an effect of style." [32] The modern novel as a genre implies a fundamental premise that any narrator must be the creator, and the tone of prayer is the background tone of the narrator; the novel text (not the novel style) as a finished product must also be between the lips and teeth of the narrator. Like the tone of many other narrators, the manner of speaking (speaking voice) characteristic of the second young master of the Mai family must have the ability to "create meaning, accept meaning, express meaning, and 'collect' meaning", because it also has "an essentially direct relationship with the mind" in its roots and bones. Since the Second Young Master was awakened by the cry of the wild thrush, he knew very clearly the real situation that he could not change: "It is because I am a fool that I know what others think." (p. 356) To tell a legendary story such as "What Others Think" to the reader until the dust has settled in the whole of the book with a languid and leisurely face, one must rely on the tone of a fool.
Or silver... (page 107)
Now it's time to talk about silver... (page 109)
Yes, not yet speaking of silver... (page 111)
But I thought it had already been said... (page 111)
This is almost the basic shape of a fool's tone. It is easy to observe that it has a lazy look, and it seems to be insignificant or even has a pair of expressions, and it has an attitude of total indifference. In short, it was a careless or unhurried mouth, like a door that could be freely accessed without locks and latches, unlike a tightly guarded checkpoint, demanding passports and directions. The tone of the fool seemed to make the second young master of the fool say whatever he wanted, without thinking about the consequences. The texture of this tone is too special and rare in the history of New Chinese literature so far. And its basic shape is undoubtedly very consistent with the sillyness of the narrator Second Young Master; it has already dissolved the stupidity well in the story when it is shaped ( to form ) story, condensed story and even told to you (or you) the story, just like salt dissolved in water, you can't see salt but you can taste salty. Needless to say, a person who uses this tone can see too many things that others can't see, and can also witness what happens far and far away (note that "far away" is both spatial and temporal), and he has a lot to say. For example, in telling the stories that have been formed around himself, his languid tone shows that he seems to be looking at himself through the eyes of a bystander; but he can also tell the stories of those formed around others in the same laid-back and seemingly indifferent tone. Here, the so-called laziness means that it does not matter who comes first and who comes after, but it is not unorganized; stupidity leads to the laziness and carelessness of the foolish tone, but the stupidity is based on the unconscious intelligence.
Therefore, it is particularly important that when the Second Young Master combines the first and third persons, he has double what he wants to say and wants to say, and thus is repeatedly interrupted by other things when he is talking about silver. And the stories that are condensed by the tone of the fool between the previous interruption and the last interruption are just converged or formed into the narrative of the fool, at least one of the truths and forms of the narrative of the fool. That is to say: this narrative fact, which is repeatedly interrupted, is both the result of the creation of the foolish tone and thus the foolish tone—a relationship of two and one or a mother and son. Here, to paraphrase gaston Bachelard, the wise words are used: "The corner is a negation of the universe." In the corner, we don't talk to ourselves. Whenever we recall the time in the corner, we recall a silence, a silence of thinking. [34] When it was supposed to speak of silver, it was repeatedly interrupted by other stories, corresponding to the negative corner that Bashira referred to; it negated the continuous narrative of silver, just as the corner was a negation of the universe. What the idiot's tone tells in the process of interrupting the narrative happens to be something that only he can see in the silence. For others, everything he sees is silent because it is too far away, like the silent film of the early days in the history of cinema. It is this tone of having a match, urging and driving the idiot narrative to tell a rather legendary story carelessly. It is very interesting that the silly tone seems to be careless, and you can say whatever you want, but because of the stupidity that drives this tone, the story seems even more staggered. There is a pair of tones that seem to have a miraculous effect inadvertently.
This kind of foolish tone is, of course, the result of careful negotiations between Alai as a novelist and modern novels as a genre, both the precision of the vernier caliper and the poetic obscurity and ambiguity. In the view of many commentators, the poetry of "Dust Settled" is related to the Tibetan identity of Alai, as if Tibetans are inherently more poetic than Han Chinese. There may be some truth to this, but it is difficult to prove. It may be more convincing if it is reduced to the deep insight, tasting and aftertaste of Chinese words in a fool's tone. Because in doing so, we take care of both Alai as a writer and his personal identity, as well as the self-dignified style of modern fiction. The silly tone, in the midst of a ride, in laziness or calmness, the leisurely and deep tasting of Chinese words is worthy of Bashira's poetic praise for the same situation: "Words are tiny homes, and they have cellars and attics." The common meaning is to live on the ground floor, always ready for 'foreign trade', and exchange with others at the same price, this passerby will never be a dreamer. Climbing the stairs of the word house is to go up to abstraction step by step. Descending into the cellar is a dream, getting lost in distant corridors of uncertain etymology, searching for treasures that cannot be found in words. Rising and falling in the words themselves, this is the life of the poet. It was possible for the poet to rise too high, to fall too low, to connect the earth and the sky. [36] This passage can even be placed word for word in the tone of a fool, where the tone of the fool not only voices the narrative of the fool, but also highly poetic. The inside and essence of the idiot narrative should be such a fool's tone. Of course, this is also in the careful calculation and planning of Alai and modern novels.
It's another spring.
Wait, let me think about it, this may not be a spring, but many springs... (page 162)
The time span of "The Dust Has Settled" should be from the era of the Sichuan military government to the occupation of the official village of Maiqitusi by the Communist army, which is at least thirty years before and after. According to the second young master of the fool, he did not begin to have memories until he was thirteen years old. Soon after the "Red Han" took over the MaiQi Toast family, the Second Young Master was killed by his family's enemies. Calculated in this way, the second young master's birth year should be around forty-five years old—this is almost the general origin of the phrase "This may not be a spring, but many springs." After the Second Young Master said very gently in a foolish tone, "This is another spring," followed by "Wait, let me think, this seems a little anxious but is actually more gentle six words. These six words could not be clearer: the tone of the fool has a strong trance. In general, it is true that the isolated evidence does not stand; but for the narrative of the novel, the situation may be different. Roland Barthes said that even though "a word may appear only once in the whole work, by virtue of a certain number of transformations, it can be determined as a fact of structural function, which can be ubiquitous and ever-present". If what Roland Barthes said is true, the trance of the idiot's tone is not only pervasive in the entire "Dust Settled", but also the fundamental dafa of the Second Young Master's shaping of the entire story. The so-called lazy, lazy, laid-back, one-on-one ride, carelessness, etc., must either be based on trance, or it is just a variety of variations of the tone of a fool with trance performance. They vary in appearance, so there are more possibilities and choices in shaping and condensing the story, so that the whole narrative becomes staggered. As the result of the negotiation and struggle between the novelist and the novel as a genre, the narrator subconsciously knows what the purpose of using this narrative tone full of trance performance is: he wants to identify and assign a theme to "The Dust Has Settled", and this theme is to disappear. Oh, everything that once looked solid was gone, and it took no more than forty-five years at most.
Generally speaking, "to retain what has passed away is not to let time sit in a chair or crouch on the ground and stand still, so that its wings can rest; the so-called retention is only the use of memory to awaken the good things that have disappeared for a long time." They are all imprisoned in the floodgates of memory. To awaken them is to liberate them." [39] But is the toast system, as a vanishing thing, really worth preserving? This is precisely the questionable situation created by the trance of the fool's tone: what has disappeared is not worth preserving, but it is indeed fading sadly; it is indeed disappearing sadly, but it is ultimately not worth preserving. In the whole context of the whole sex created by the tone of the fool, the disappearance itself means a poetic meaning that makes people want to say goodbye, a lazy, one-and-done and cruel poetry. The tone of the fool is the tone of the elegy, and the elegy is the essence of the disappearance.
Jing Wendong's Exclamation Poetics
Writers Press | 2017
Four
Let's compare the following two paragraphs. The first is the last natural passage of Dust Settled:
The blood dripped on the floor, it was so big, and when I got cold on the bed, the blood slowly changed to the color of the night on the floor. (page 461)
This is followed by the last few words of One Hundred Years of Solitude: a small town called Macondo, in its last inhabitant:
The moment Aureliano Babilonia translates the entire parchment book will be swept away by the hurricane and will disappear completely from people's memories. What is written in this manuscript has never been, and will never be repeated, because the family destined to be alone for a hundred years will never have a second chance to appear in the world.
One Hundred Years of Solitude uses an omniscient perspective. The discerning reader may be able to perceive that it is deliberately imitating the narrative of the Old Testament Genesis. It is really coincidental that one of the themes of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is also the disappearance. The lonely and sinful Aureliano family perished in the hurricane without a trace, making it extremely reminiscent of God destroying two sinful and important cities in the ancient Middle East: Sodom and Gomorrah. Because One Hundred Years of Solitude uses a God perspective, it's easy for the reader to accept its elegy-like ending. The reader will think that this is a real end of the novel; or that such an ending is the natural end of the novel, and does not raise any decent doubts. "Dust Settled" uses a limited-knowledge perspective (that is, first-person), and its ending will definitely cause readers to ask: the narrator is already dead, how can there be such a long "Dust Settled"? It is here that the silly narrative and the silly tone bring good inspiration at the level of the novel itself.
The vast majority of ancient Chinese novels are third-person narratives, using basically storyteller kisses. This tone means that the narrator is severely subject to the author, and the author can even be directly equated with the narrator; or that the author is attached to the narrator, and the narrator is nothing more than the author's microphone or tool. Chen Pingyuan believes that "the weakening and even gradual disappearance of the storyteller's tone is the premise of the Chinese novel across the omniscient narrative." [40] But this was also one of the necessary conditions for the birth of the modern novel in China: the novel as a genre began to have subjectivity due to the disappearance of the storyteller's kiss. But even Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman" must have an opening preface to explain where the "I" as a narrator comes from; after reading the small preface, the reader will immediately understand that the narrator is just speaking on behalf of the generation, and the madman who is the narrator has already returned to mainstream society in real life, so the reader does not have to ask where the person represented by the narrator is. In the history of modern Chinese novels for more than a hundred years so far, it is very rare for narrators to die directly in novels. One of the possible answers, after excluding all other factors, may be that this is the result of the subjectivity or self-consciousness of the novel as a genre. It may be an exaggeration to say that in China, this is only a few writers like Alai who understand the truth.[41] The point here is that the author and the novel as a genre form a narrator in consultation, negotiation, quarrel, and mutual persuasion, and the narrator goes his own way and narrative tone, and the author is only the narrator's clerk: the author is responsible for recording what the narrator tells. Thus, the narrator dies, but it does not affect the publication of the novel text as a finished product. It is on this basis that Dust Settles makes the narrative of a legendary story itself legendary. If vanishing is the obvious theme of "Dust Settled", narrative becoming legend is the hidden theme of "Dust Settled". These two themes intersect in a silly tone, making "Dust Settled" seem even more swaying. This is the reason why "Dust Settled" is still worth rereading today, nearly thirty years later, and it is also the great inspiration it provides for the genre of fiction.
August 5, 2021, Weigong Village, Beijing.
Notes
[1] The Dust Settled was completed in late 1994 and published four years later by the People's Literature Publishing House.
[2] Alai: The Dust Has Settled, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 2020, p. 79. All of the following quotations from The Dust Settle are of this edition, with only the page numbers attached to the text.
[3] See Jean-Luc Hennig, Shy Ass: A History of the Buttocks, translated by Guan Xiaoming, Nova Press, 2011, pp. 93-95.
[4] On this subject, there is no need to dwell on the subject matter here, but see The detailed discussion by Lev Semenovich Vygotsky ([Russian] Vygotsky: Thinking and Language, translated by Li Wei, Zhejiang Education Publishing House, 1997 edition, pp. 2-8).
[5] The "square circle" conforms to the rules of grammar, but does not conform to the original fact, and the "square circle" can become a fact in linguistic experience (see Notebooks 1914-1916, ed. By G.H.Von Wright and G.E.M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell, 1979, PP8; see A.J. Ayer: Philosophy of the Twentieth Century, translated by Li Bulou et al., Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1987, p. 31).
[6] William Somerset Maugham's famous novel The Moon and Sixpence (translated by Fu Weici, Shanghai Translation Press, 2006) takes Gauguin as the prototype but beyond Gauguin's life, but takes the topic to a good look.
[7] Paul Tillich argues that even in the West, the ancient self existed only as a part. In this case, "the self is the self only because it has a world, a constructed world, which both belongs to and is separated from it." (Paul Tillich: The Selected Works of Tillich (Part 1), selected by He Guanghu, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 1999, p. 213) Not to mention imagining that the original Tibetan land would have a concept of self, from this point of view, "Where am I?" Who am I? The question can be seen as the question of a fool.
[8] For example, he can see without his eyes: "When I take the medicine, I close my eyes and see the medicine from the mouth down to the stomach, and then it slides into the intestines." (p. 93) For example, he can see the minds of others: "When we are together, I am always alone. Solang Zelang didn't have much to say, so he didn't speak. Xiao Eryi had a lot of words in his heart, and he didn't know how to start and start. (p. 94) When his father, Mai QiTusi, sent someone to kill The Toast's most loyal leader, Cha Cha Tou, and robbed the latter's beautiful wife, Yangzong, the Second Young Master felt his father enter Yangzong's room, "The hot woman's flesh calmed Toshi's mood." He talked about what a grand wedding he was going to have, but in his heart he couldn't help but think that all the belongings of the head of the cha cha were in his own warehouse." (p. 67) For example, he can see what no one else can see: "The mother high-fives, the crippled housekeeper came in, and took the guests into the guest room." Everyone was about to disperse and I said, 'There's one more guest.' He didn't come with a donkey. He was holding a mule. Sure enough, the dog at the door bit open again madly. My father, mother, and brother all looked at me with a very special look. But I couldn't bear the needle-like feeling they were looking at me and just said, 'Look, the guest has arrived.' (p. 100)
[9] See Gao Xuanxuan, Fifty Years of Contemporary French Thought (Part I), Chinese University Press, 2005, p. 138.
[10] The Nominalist Wilfrid Sellars argues that experience, mood, logic, and calculus are originally typical, dense language events, and that language is always rational and not mysterious. And reason is the natural enemy of stupidity (see Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Harvard University Press, 1997, p63.)
[11] Reprinted from Julia Kristeva, The Power of Terror: On The Lowliness, translated by Zhang Xinmu, The Commercial Press, 2018, p. 1.
[12] See Isaac Bashevis Singer: "Fool Jimpel," translated by Wan Zi et al., People's Literature Publishing House, 2006, pp. 3-25.
[13] See Wang Zhigeng, The Dimension of Sacred Foolishness: A Cultural Interpretation of Russian Literary Classics, Peking University Press, 2013, pp. 13-30.
[14] Julius Fucik, paraphrased from Sun Fali: "Reinterpretation of 'Good Soldier Shuaike'", Journal of the College of Literature, Nanjing Normal University, No. 2, 2007.
[15] See Zhao Yiheng, When the Speaker Is Said, Chinese University Press, 1998, p. 6.
[16] [U.S.] Thoreau: Walden Lake, translated by Xu Chi, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2009, p. 1.
[17] Here, to borrow Zhao Tingyang's statement on the concept of man, see Zhao Tingyang: The Politics of Everyone, Social Science Literature Publishing House, 2010, p. 176.
[18] [French] Roland Barthes: Selected Essays of Roland Barthes, translated by Huai Yu, Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Publishing House, 2005, p. 3.
[19] 参阅Roland Barthes：Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives ,in Image,Music ,Text,pp124.
[20] For a detailed discussion of this issue, see Jing Wendong, "The Problem of Li Er's Poetics (Middle)", Literary and Art Controversy, No. 8, 2019.
[21] See Jonathan Dancy et al., Philosophical Dialogues: Plato, Hume, and Wittgenstein, translated by Zhang Zhiping, Lijiang Publishing House, 2013, p. 69.
[22] See Zhou Zhengbao, "The 'Falling Dust' Settles For the Time Being," Contemporary Writers Review, No. 4, 1998.
[23] For this question, see Zhang Suying, "The Perspective of a Fool: God's Third Eye," Journal of the Tibet Institute for Nationalities (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 6, 2005. The discussion in this article deliberately bypasses Zhang Wen's thinking, but this does not affect Zhang Wen's incisiveness.
[24] Jing Wendong, "The Sacrifice of the World", Guangxi Normal University Press, 2011, p. 65.
[25] [Canada] Marshall McLuhan, Understanding the Medium, translated by He Daokuan, Translation Forest Press, 2011, p. 20.
[26] [de] Zimel: Bridges and Doors, translated by Yahong and Yusheng, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 1991, p. 4.
[27] See Qian Zhongshu: Pipe Cone Compilation (Vol. 1), Life, Reading, and Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore, 2007, p. 4.
[28] Not all novels written in the modern vernacular can be called modern novels, and the genre of novels is not all self-and subjectivity in many modern Chinese writers, nor can all modern novels invent readers, create readers, and allow works and readers to be born at the same time. For example, the "oracle" novels of Liu Qing and others think that they have the ability to tell readers where to go, because in Liu Qing and others, readers are backward and are asked to sit at their desks and accept the teachings given by Liu Qing's novels. For a detailed discussion of this important issue, see Jing Wendong: "The Problem of Li Er's Poetics (Middle)", Literary and Art Controversy, No. 8, 2019. I will not repeat it here.
[29] Genesis 1:1-1:7.
[30] See The Bible John 1:1.
[31] See Liu Ning, Stylistic Forms of Chinese Thought, East China Normal University Press, 2012, pp. 6-12.
[32] [Portugal] Pessoa: The Record of Trepidation, translated by Han Shaogong, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2017, p. 274.
[33] [f] Jacques Derrida, The Anthology of Essays, translated by Wang Jiatang, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1999, pp. 13-14. However, the point quoted here is exactly what Derrida is trying to refute, but Derrida also has to admit that it is a long-standing dominant view. There is little strong evidence that Derrida triumphed in abolishing the supremacy of the voice.
[34] For the importance of tone or tone for narrative and lyricism, see Jing Wendong: On Tone, Poetry Construction, Spring 2021, Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 2021 edition, pp. 162-169
[35] [f] Gaston Bashra: The Poetics of Space, translated by Zhang Yijing, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2013, p. 174.
[36] See Huang Shuquan, "On the Poetic Qualities of 'The Dust Settled'", Literary Review, No. 2, 2002; see Yang Yumei, "On the Aesthetic Value of the Image of a Fool: Reading Ah Lai's 'The Dust Settled'", Ethnic Literature Studies, No. 1, 1999.
[37] Gaston Bashra: The Poetics of Space, translated by Zhang Yijing, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2013, p. 188.
[38] Roland Bart, Criticism and Truth, translated by Wen Jinyi, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1999, p. 66
[39] Jing Wendong, "There is a forgotten form of time that still calls us", Contemporary Literature, No. 6, 2008.
[40] Chen Pingyuan, The Transformation of the Narrative Mode of Chinese Novels, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1988, p. 71.
[41] Bakhtin's theory of dialogue is incisive, and he discusses the dialogue relationship between the author and the protagonist, and the dialogue relationship between the protagonist and the protagonist, which shows that he is well aware that the protagonist has a distinct subjectivity (see [Su] Bakhtin: The Problem of Dostoevsky's Poetics, translated by Bai Chunren et al., Life, Reading, and Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore, 1988 edition), but he does not touch on the subjectivity of the novel itself as a genre.
[42] See Zhao Yiheng, When the Speaker Is Said, Chinese Min University Press, 1998, p. 9.
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