The truths and problems of life

Author: Feng Zhiai

With his precise brushstrokes, Zhao Yanfei depicts the current situation of people's lives, and also touches the survival dilemma of modern people with true feelings. In the collection of short stories "Waiting for Alpha", in her narration, she not only writes about the universal human spiritual dilemma, but also vividly shows the material problems that everyone faces when they survive.

In the novel, Zhao Yanfei can always choose the most life-like realistic fragments and the most unique perspectives for depiction. In terms of narrative sound and narrative perspective, in "Like a Lightning", the writer chose the Doberman "Black Wind" as the narrator, borrowing the perspective of pet dogs to show human life, human nature and "dog nature". This novel reminds me of classic literary masterpieces, such as Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" and Lu Yao's "Life", which talks about a lot of people's thoughts in a dog's tone. Black Wind, a pet dog who grew up in the city with his owner, became a watchdog after having to return to the country dog, and his playmate was reduced from a ladylike chick among the dogs to a little black that he despised. Black Wind broke away from the rich aristocratic life in the city, and changed from eating high-grade dog food to eating natural meat such as ribs. About the choice of the city and the countryside, about the choice of partners, about the pursuit of personal life value, are all shown through the "dog life" of the black wind, such as the black wind once loved the girl, but in the countryside, the black wind found the good of the little black and had a long-term relationship, in the final life decision, the black wind chose to bravely take up the burden of life and go to find the kidnapped little black. Such a choice is familiar, the Gao Garin who hovers at the intersection of life, oscillating between the city and the countryside, Liu Qiaozhen and Huang Yaping. And "dog sex" is much simpler than human nature, he is not responsible for ethical and moral problems, nor does he have to worry too much about the future. In the end, Black Wind is just a pet dog that obeys the master's orders, the owner lets him live in the city, he can live with dignity, the master puts him in the countryside, and he can only slowly face such a life reality. Perhaps the dog does not need to be bound by morality, and the black wind is more determined than humans in the face of fate, "Only by rescuing little black can I forgive myself and have the face to return to the master's side." "The difference between dog sex and human nature also shows a special conflict. In addition, the selection of novels can always depict the specific life problems faced by generations in particular, and in the entire novel collection, "Socla No Bottom" should be the author's most representative novel. The novel mainly selects the life fragments of Lin Zhi, Hourglass, and Lin Hao's family before and after the college entrance examination as the main description content, and the previous literary narrative labeling "adolescence" and "menopause" are different, "Socla No Bottom" is more real and more deeply immersed in the different fates of the two generations. Lin Zhi's favorite music, games, and his dreams are completely inconsistent with his parents' expectations, and his parents' hopes for Lin's key universities, civil servant examinations, etc., Lin Zhi cannot comply. This is not a simple "rebellion" can be summarized, Lin Zhi is also trying to obey and consider the requirements of the hourglass, and the hourglass and Lin Zhi also show the patience and understanding of the mother when they fight in the lol game. But the spiritual divide between the two generations has not been eliminated by the subjective efforts of individuals, and this gap is like a chasm that still exists clearly there. This novel most truly shows the current spiritual dilemma of the two generations, especially a discussion about Lin Zhi's classmate Xiao Fat, showing the verbal situation that mother and son cannot communicate at all. This is actually a true description of the state of mind of young people very closely.

After receiving higher education and seeing the colorful world, for many young people, they often can't find the meaning of life. In the eyes of the "post-50s", "post-60s", "post-70s" and other generations who have experienced suffering, it is not easy to eat warm clothes and material abundance, so what is the pursuit of what "meaning of life"? As revealed in the novel, the hourglass believes that Xiao Fat's parents have a good job, good family conditions, and material abundance and do not have to go to a desperate situation, but Lin Zhi can understand Xiao Fat very well, not because he is afraid that his parents are sad and sad, people may go to the end of life. Behind such contradictions is actually the difference in the fate experience given to individuals by the times, the older generation is troubled by survival and material things, while the young people are more likely to be troubled by spirit and existence. What is the meaning of human life, this problem that has plagued people for thousands of years, has always hung high above people's heads like a sword of Damocles, and people often find the impermanence and aimlessness of life when searching for the answer to this question, and then go to extremes. Li Qingxi once proposed in "The Contemporary Nature of Literature": If philosophers are theoretically exploring the meaning of life and trying to find answers. And the writer is more like the one who asks the question, and the good writer can often show the phenomenon and essence of life to the public together, so that human beings can think about the taste of existence in it. Thus, precisely because they are the fullest representatives of the highest stage of mankind in a given epoch, and from this high place they observe the life of man and nature, and describe this life to us, they can rise above the service role of literature and join the ranks of historical activists who promote a thorough understanding of man's active forces and natural tendencies.

The same is also "Group to Heaven", several people with different roles, on Christmas Eve together in a farce, there are adolescent couples, there are people who have lost love, there are unemployed, gambling in the capital market, there are people who choose to jump off the building to end their lives. The writer's character description is always in the form of borrowing, using individual characteristics to refer to the characters themselves, each facing their own survival dilemma and can not be relieved, but these strangers happen to comfort each other. The ending of the novel is very romantic, in the face of countless dangers and unknowns in the road ahead, Su Yan and Sword Mei hug and kiss each other tightly. Such an ending is undoubtedly the romantic answer that literature gives to life: only true feelings and the hand-in-hand of people can answer the question of the fate of the individual and of mankind as a whole.

In the novel "Red Moon" and "She Wants to Listen to the Sea Sing" with Ye Zi as the heroine, it is more about the confrontation between the individual and the external environment and fate. In the story of Ye Zi, dreams, moons, and distant places are several recurring images, and the hope of the future and the entanglement of reality are always intertwined. In the novel "Waiting for Alpha", due to her mother's illness, the heroine Leaf accompanies her day and night, and when she falls asleep, she has a big dream. The leaves in the dream are like Sisyphus, constantly climbing up a high ladder and falling, never being able to escape this tragic fate. In the dispute between father and mother, we can also see the essential difference between men and women on issues such as fertility, and for each specific person, others are incomprehensible beings and powerless beings. As the writer wrote in the novel: "She didn't want to make her mother too sad." The world is impermanent, as small as they are, what can they do except silently endure their own sorrows and sorrows? "Waiting for Alpha" is a story in which the little girl is seriously ill and hopes that an artificial intelligence "alpha dog" will come to save the fate of mankind, but on the other hand, waiting for the alpha dog is like waiting for Godot, looking full of hope, but in fact there is almost no hope. Alpha dogs are a sustenance of hope, a spiritual placebo in the painful life of human beings.

Virginia Woolf expressed her literary views in her work Orlando: every secret of a writer's soul, every experience in his life, every quality of his spirit, is written in his writings. "I wonder," she asked herself, "am I writing an autobiography and calling it a novel?"? What a writer has to do is to closely fit into life and write about people's real life experiences with their own unique pen. At the end of the novel "Spring Festival Gala", Ye Zi temporarily broke away from the state of mental uneasiness. As an adult, Ye Zi chose to temporarily put aside the disputes in life, try not to compete with Anping's ex-wife and daughter for jealousy, and watch the Spring Festival Gala happily, and after the ending, the fate of the characters will return to the ordinary and trivial life.

The richness and height of the spiritual world are far from solving the problems of real life. Chernyshevsky once said, "Psychoanalysis is almost the most essential element that gives strength to creative talent." Then, through the psychological analysis of the double contradiction between people's minds and reality, coupled with the creation of red moon imagery, the characters really have the power of reality to touch people's hearts. When people face complex real life such as money, feelings, and life problems, that kind of struggle truly shows the great brilliance of mankind, and literary description should be like this, depicting both the authenticity of life and the greatness of small people in the face of fate, as Roman Rolland said: There is only one true heroism in the world, that is, to love it after knowing the truth of life. (Feng Zhi'ai)

Source: Literature and Art Daily