Comment 丨Yizhou: A Successful Practice of Sinicization of Novel Art

A successful practice of sinicization of the art of fiction

——Comments on "Chang'an"

Wen 丨 弋舟

In 1918, marked by Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman, the strong genre of "modern novel" officially embarked on her journey to China. For more than a hundred years, with the same pace as China's march towards modernity, the Chinese modern novel also began with a comprehensive study of the world. At one time, I also held the concept that "modern fiction is essentially a Western art", and recognized that it was deeply imprinted on Western concepts in many aspects such as evaluation system, aesthetic paradigm, and even meaning interpretation. Needless to say, in this century-long sincere study, Chinese literature has benefited a lot, and the impact and transformation of human excellent culture on our local experience has made us regain our spiritual glow; it is also unquestionable that in this century-long sincere study (imitation), Chinese literature has increasingly felt that it is in conflict with our collective experience and life feelings to a certain extent.

This situation, with the progress of time, with the continuous awakening and strength of the "Chinese experience", has increasingly constituted a value split in our cognition and appreciation of Chinese literature today. This split in values has become one of the dilemmas we find in our evaluation of Chinese literature today. In modern times, "The Ordinary World" is probably the most significant example. To this day, the evaluation of this novel is still full of disagreements. On the one hand, some "experts" have undisguised reservations about it, and on the other hand, the extensive reading base of the masses irrefutably gives it a classic crown. There are many similar examples, such as the reappraisal of "seventeen years of literature", the re-understanding of "scar literature", "root-seeking literature" and even "avant-garde literature", all of which have a deep or shallow connection with this split, in which, in addition to the participation of the national will in the ideological sense, the most critical thing may be that compared with our civilization of such an ancient and long history, the "modern novel", the art that we "take", ultimately needs to complete her "sinicization" integration. In order to more accurately respond to Chinese their own reality, in line with Chinese their own inner aesthetic qualities.

This judgment, I think there are many similar views today, but the formation and support of views especially need to be confirmed and stimulated by specific practice. Back to the scene of literary creation, that is to say: we need specific works to achieve cognitive resonance. The novel "Chang'an" is exactly the work we need.

To sum up, commentators have keenly seen the uniqueness of this work - military themes, the history of the republic, the will of the state, etc.; of course, there are also literary indicators such as its successful character development and gripping storyline. In my opinion, the importance of this work is precisely in response to my own thinking on the proposition of "sinicizing the art of novels".

Theory depends on reason, while the theory of literature also depends on the participation of sensibility. This novel, where 500,000 words, I read through twice. For me, this cannot but be said to be a "miracle", and for a "professional reader" like me, it is a matter of surprise to me to be able to read a novel so patiently today. So, what drives my reading? Of course, this is a "work", for important works, I need to read; and this reading is indeed "problematic", I intend to read in the work of certain factors that are not in the scene of literary creation; but the most fundamental thing is that I am attracted to the work itself, it is the reading feeling that we call "pleasure", which becomes the motivation for me to read. This feeling, more or less, is governed by sensibility, and this "sensibility", for me, can also be replaced by "literary". That is to say, when I am confronted with a novel, I rarely return to the most direct and fundamental reading needs of a simple reader.

For me, it was a correction. When I hooked the "sensibility" and "literaryness" of this reading experience, I knew that I was already faced with a certain literary conception. What is "literary"? You know, "Ordinary World" still has to endure the beating of this problem. The "literaryness" that seems to be ingrained in our textbooks, in our aesthetic codes, and in the iron law, has long dictated our basic judgments, so that we can disregard the wide circulation of a work, and even our own "sensual" reactions when reading—no, this work is not at all like hemingway's writing; oh, this work is a bit of a sholokhov shadow. Obviously, whether it is Hemingway or Sholokhov, what we rely on is actually a certain standard of "other". I am not trying to deny what the "other" means to us, but what I want to say is that what bothers me today may be where "I" is.

This time, I saw "I" in "Chang'an". This "me," of course, is first and foremost about my own experience. The large military factory depicted in the work directly coincides with my life experience, it is in the real world, it is located in the living environment of my childhood, so that I can read how accurate Ah Ying's pen and ink, what a standard of "realism" brushwork, restores a physical world for us; secondly, this "I" is also related to "our" common experience, and this "we" corresponds to the memory of the people of the republic. In this sense, "Chang'an" is a history of the republic completing its own industrialization, and the grandeur and ups and downs of this history have extraordinary writing value in the historical process of the entire nation; again, it is also the most important literary work, and this "I" magically corresponds to the inner aesthetic code of a Chinese reader. Reading "Chang'an", I read the "Chinese" style of "Water Margin". If the shaping of characters in the novel follows some of the laws of "modern novels", it is better to say that it is more of a "embroidery-style" Chinese brushwork depicting many characters. Ku Danian, Ku Xiaoyue, Black Lady, Yellow Tiger, Lian Fu..., the successful shaping of this series of characters, almost no paradigm of Western works, they are more like the traditional literature that relies on the means of painting "page" to create general characters: do not make excessive artificial evaluation, there is little lengthy psychological analysis, everyone is in action, and the action itself expresses themselves, thus constituting the attraction that only "storytelling" has, and, in the story of action, it naturally has the beauty of human personality.

At this point, I thought of the "Embroidery Novel", which was founded in the twenty-ninth year of Guangxu (1903). This journal of modern Chinese novels edited by Li Boyuan has a clear purpose: to give play to the function of "transforming the people" of novels, to facilitate the reading and comprehension of the masses, to strive to popularize the novel, and to add embroidery images before each text of the novel contained in it to match the content of the novel story. The contents of his novels extensively reflect the darkness and decay of Chinese society at that time. The intention is to enable the masses of the people to break away from ignorance and move toward a sober state, understand and hate reality, and help reform the status quo and strive for their own survival.

Are these indicators of "making it easier for the masses to read and understand" and "popularizing the novel" contrary to a certain concept of fiction that we hold? When Li Boyuan, who was determined to "transform the people" in this way more than a hundred years ago, did he also have to endure the beating of "literature"? The reading of "Chang'an" has made me unable to rethink some of the existing positions. When we more or less reject "mass reading comprehension" and "popularization of novels" in the name of "literature", have we secretly placed ourselves outside the "people" of "people"? Isn't this "people" "me" or "Chinese"?

All such major propositions were fully discussed in the "Speech at the Yan'an Literary and Art Forum" exactly eighty years ago. Historical experience is not simply repeated, and today, the world that Chinese is facing is not twenty-nine years before Guangxu, but such a proposition as "Chineseness" should never be separated from our vision. "Easy for the masses to read and understand" and "popularize the novel", such questions, "Chang'an" has given enlightening answers. Reading this work, you will never have difficulty in understanding, if the pleasure of reading is a representation of "popularization", then "popularization" should not be rudely denied. It is precisely with such a kind of "literaryness" that is different from the "modern novel" that this novel has achieved a certain sinicized literary nature.

For a long time, our literature has been given the heavy responsibility of "carrying the Tao", but in practice, it always feels stretched, so is it that there is some kind of "grammar" that we uphold, and the "Tao" that we want, there is a direction that is naturally difficult to match? To solve this literary dilemma of ours, we may be able to gain inspiration from the experience of the sinification of Marxism. The Chinese-style, embroidered, and easy-to-understand "Chang'an" gives a successful plan: originally, the difficulty of historical changes, the grand theme of the times, and the complex imagination of human nature can be expressed in such a way that it conforms to the Chinese's inner cultural outlook and aesthetic habits, and while fully expressing "people", it can also fully express the subject will of the times, and in the form of "popularization", it can also exalt the heroic spirit of sacrifice and idealistic moral appeals.

Chang'an, which is a cultural symbol full of "Chineseness", is named "Chang'an", and this twenty-first-century Chinese novel gives us a rich sample that can make us distinguish ourselves today and consider what "Chinese literature" is.

(Source: Shaanxi Writers Network)

Yi Zhou contemporary novelist. He is currently the deputy editor-in-chief of Yanhe Magazine. He is a member of the Plenary Committee of the China Writers Association and a member of the Youth Work Committee, and has been selected as a national cultural master and "four batches" of talents in the Propaganda Department. He has won many important awards such as the Lu Xun Literature Award.