Zhang Chengzhi personally painted the cover of "Black Horse"
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"Black Horse" is a novella by the famous contemporary writer Zhang Chengzhi, published in October magazine in 1982. As soon as the novel was published, it caused a shock in the literary world. Its exquisite artistic structure and shocking love tragedy, especially its profound cultural meaning and highly poetic pen and ink charm, have won the favor of the majority of readers. The following year, "Black Horse" won the National Award for Outstanding Novella without suspense.
However, looking at all the black horse review articles, it is not difficult to find that the deep cultural meaning of this work is far from being accurately excavated. Perhaps, this is something that even the author is not yet aware of. But the work does contain this profound cultural implication. This is what the words "spirituality" and "state of mind" are repeatedly implied in the work. The whole work is permeated by these two words and the deep cultural implications they imply. It is this deep cultural implication that gives Black Horse a divine color and a magical and mysterious charm.
Zhang Chengzhi, author of "Black Horse"
The story of "Black Horse" is simple: a young Mongolian boy named Baiyin Baolig is sent to the home of a white-haired old Eji in his hometown by his father, who is a cadre in the interior. There he grew up with somia, the only young granddaughter of the white-haired Eji, and developed a love affair with a green plum bamboo horse. However, this pure love is desecrated - Soumia is impregnated by the savannah villain Yellow Haired Sheila. Eighteen-year-old Baiyin Baolige was in pain and furious, and pulled out his shiny Mongolian sword to slaughter huangmao Sheila. The white-haired Erji said, "What, child, is it worth killing for this?" Her tone was full of resentment, and then she said, "It is also reassuring to know that Soumia can have children." "Soumia is worthy of being the granddaughter of the white-haired Eji, and she guards the seeds of sin in her belly like an angel, for fear that the fetus will be harmed in any way." Baiyin Baolige then ran away in anger. Nine years later, Baiyin Baolige, who had graduated from college and became a state cadre, finally couldn't resist the bitter love for his hometown and the girl he first loved, and rode back to the grassland on the black horse he and Somia had raised together. Only then did he learn that the white-haired Eji had died and that Soumia had married away. Baiyin Baolige went to great lengths to find somia in his dreams. After finding it, I found that she was no longer a beautiful and bright girl like a flower, nor a melancholy young woman who secretly drank and wept in his imagination, but a robust Mongolian woman, a mature and cheerful mother, and the mother of a group of children.
Stills from the movie "Black Horse"
The storyline is not complicated, neither to talk about the twists and turns to introduce the victory, nor to talk about crying like a touching heart. Most of the previous commentaries have identified the cultural implications of the works as follows: the author has feelings for the women on the grassland at that time (such as Lao Ergu and Soumya) who are "mourning their misfortunes and angering them", and affectionately calls on modern civilization to quickly enter the remote grasslands to clean up the primitive and ignorant barbaric vices on the grasslands, so that the tragedy of women's love being arbitrarily trampled on and women's fate being arbitrarily arranged will not be repeated in the new era.
It should be said that this layer of cultural implications does exist in the work. But it is only the superficial cultural meaning of the work, while the deep cultural meaning of the work is much more hidden. We may find a hint in the poetic and beautiful introduction that has not yet begun.
In the introduction, the vast earth, the boundless grassland, the humane horse, the horseman on the horse, and the lost love of the rider are interspersed by the melody of an ancient pastoral song that wraps around the grass, is infiltrated by the desolate mood of a lonely shepherd, and is dressed by a spiritual cave filled with tranquility and resounding through the clouds, becoming an irresistible stream of imagery. There is a short passage at the end of the introduction:
"As I lifted my head buried deep in the grass, gazed into the blue sky, listened to the low-pitched songs that swept through the clouds and the grasstops, and searched for the invisible spirituality in the silence, I gradually felt that those overly passionate and distant endings, the sentimentalities of this world, the quaint tragic stories; and the deep and heartfelt love, were nothing more than some support or framework. Or rather, it's just the musical colors and tones on which spirituality rests. But the true soul within the ancient song is much more hidden and much more complex. It is it that has given our ancestors and us unforgettable feelings for generations, but never allows us to fully appreciate it. I stared in amazement at the long sky into which the song had passed... I asked myself, and I wanted to ask people, to my friends who had never met but who had a crush on me: What kind of song is "Black Horse" singing? Why can this ancient song be sung from ancient times to today? ”
In the introduction, the words "spirituality" and "mind" appear again and again, with a magical, mysterious and sacred color. What is the relationship between this poetic and aesthetic introduction and that simple and simple story? What is the relationship between the mysterious words "spirituality" and "mood" and the characters in the work? Although there are many analytical and critical articles in this novel, unfortunately, the relationship has not yet been cleared. The meaning of these two words is precisely the key to understanding the deep meaning of the work.
That "spirituality" I call primordial motherhood, that "state of mind" I call it the unconscious instinct of the Oedipal return. That spirit exists in the white-haired Egido and Soumia, but also in the earth, the steppes, the rivers, and the mare. That mood exists in the adult White Voice Borg, and also in all the lonely Wranglers.
The white tone of the novel is the moral sentiment of modern civilization. In the view of this modern civilization and morality, the sacredness of love cannot be desecrated, and the holiness of lovers cannot be defiled: if someone dares to desecrate the sacred and defile the holy with violence, he will not be ashamed, but will rather die! However, Lao Eji adhered to the primitive maternal moral law. In the view of this primitive maternal morality, a woman is a fertile land, and should be like Mother Earth, who does not choose the best or inferior, and nurtures everything; like the mother of the prairie, bears every seed blown by the wind of fate and nurtures them into herbs and flowers; and like a horse, even if she dies, she must give birth to the black foal, regardless of where the seed comes from.
In this primitive maternal morality, women are a fertile land, not choosing the best or inferior, and nurturing everything.
In the moral consciousness of modern civilization, love and lovers are sacred and holy; life is divided into so-called "crystallization of love" and "product of sin". In the eyes of Baiyin Baolige, the fetus in Soumya's womb is purely evil and has no right to live at all. In the moral consciousness of primitive motherhood, love has no place, and life and motherhood are sacred and holy. So when Soumea is harmed in the fetus, she will fight to protect her stomach and instinctively cry out, "My child!" So when Baiyin Baolige jumped violently, the white-haired Erji would look at him coldly and awe-inspiringly.
Women are fertile land. The white-haired Eji himself is such a fertile land. In her eyes, all living beings are her children. She had used her own milk to live an unknown number of lambs and foals that had lost their mothers, and how many children of the steppe had grown up in her arms. In her opinion, it is fertile soil, and naturally there will be a wind of fate that will blow the seed off it; and the sower may not have any sin. Soumia is worthy of being the granddaughter of the white-haired Egi, the daughter of Mother Earth, the daughter of The Prairie Mother, the daughter of the Burlegan River, and the daughter of the Mother of the Horse. Like a fertile land, she embraced the seeds that had been blown down by the wind of fate, and bravely conceived her own daughter Qiqige; later, she naturally married the rugged and simple coachman and gave birth to her three other children. If she hadn't been tied, she would have had a child every year; like a mother of a horse who gave birth to a colt every year, like the spring and autumn fruits of the prairie every year. Her milk would flow like the Bolegen Mother River, flowing from her own children to the children of the white-sounded Bolig, to all living beings.
In the face of such a generous and noble primitive motherhood, which man can not shed tears and worship?
Motherhood is something that lasts forever. It is always with not only mankind, but also with all life, fundamentally, with our life-bearing planet, with the earth and the heavens, with the universe, and deeply embedded in all living and inanimate things in the universe. It is a kind of pristine naturalness. Our distant ancestors instinctively knew this. Therefore, in primitive thinking, in primitive mythology, the earth is mother earth, the grassland is the mother of the grassland, the river is the mother river, and the birds and beasts are the mother totem. And all this has also been symbolically expressed in the novel.
I think that's what that mysterious spirituality is all about. What shakes the reader's heart is the original motherhood that flows from the white-haired Eji and Solaia, the maternal instinct that has not been distorted by civilized reason, the simple and unbridled maternal instinct hidden in the mother earth, the steppe mother, the mother river and all the animal mothers. In the face of this eternal maternal instinct, how narrow, how selfish, how shallow, and arrogant our moral sentiments cultivated by civilized reason seem!
The original motherhood that flows from the white-haired Erji and Solaia shakes the reader's heart.
Man is originally a child of nature, but civilization rationality arbitrarily negates primitive intuition, and the deformed modern civilization crudely cuts off the blood relationship between man and nature. Modern man has become the prodigal son of the world who has never lost his homeland. Human civilization has developed for an unknown number of centuries after it deviated from nature. Our consciousness has become accustomed to taking the laws of civilization for granted. But after all, we are fundamentally children of nature! Our instincts, our unconscious, naturally have the desire and tendency to return to nature. We come from the mother's womb and naturally have the desire and tendency to return to the mother's womb; we come from animals, which naturally have the desire and tendency to return to animals; we come from rivers, grasslands, and the earth, and naturally have the desire and tendency to return to rivers, grasslands, and the earth. That is where each of our lives comes from, and it is the ultimate destination of our individual lives. Civilized reason teaches us the values of survivalism. In this way, we have embarked on a road of no return that deviates from nature along the one-way road of life. The prodigal son is always homesick, and the wanderer will always cherish the homeland. As the prodigal son of self-exile, we all have a social collective unconscious; as a child of nature, we all have an instinctive collective unconscious: the instinctive tendency of the Oedipus to return.
Oedipus is not only attached to her own birth mother, not only to a woman with maternal generosity; but also to the mother of animals, to the mother of the river and the earth and the grassland, and to everything rich in motherhood. Don't mistakenly think that it is just a kind of life interest, it is also a kind of life trend that is hidden in the deepest part of every creature's body - "return to simplicity, return to nature". To exist like the earth and grasslands, like the great oceans and rivers, to exist like all living beings; to be born as vigorously as they are, to die as calmly as they are; that is the most beautiful life that conforms to the nature of heaven!
If you are a human being, you cannot get rid of the wisp of Oedipus that comes from the deepest part of the soul and return to your mind; if you are a human being, you cannot help but be moved by the primordial motherhood that has lasted forever. I think this is the inner spirituality of the ancient pastoral song "Black Horse", which is why this ancient song can be sung from ancient times to today, and can always shock our hearts. Of course, this is also the deep cultural implication of Zhang Chengzhi's novel "Black Horse".
Unfortunately, "Black Horse" has always been superficially interpreted as "a novel that shows the contradiction and conflict between advanced modern social civilization and ignorant and backward grassland culture, and a novel that calls for modern civilization to save grassland women from ignorant and backward cultural concepts." "This is really a complete failure to live up to the author's artistic creation, and it also seriously distorts the profound cultural meaning of the work."
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