The alienation and intermingling of life and affection
——The Short Story about Yi Zhou , "The Gatekeeper of the Falls"
Wen 丨 Wang Chunlin
My close friend, an excellent post-70s novelist, was once called "Western Poison" by me, and has been committed to the meticulous forging of the short story genre over the years, with remarkable achievements. According to his own account, his writing of "Waterfall Gatekeeper" (published in Harvest Magazine, No. 1, 2022) is closely related to Tian Er, another post-70s novelist. It was in May 2021, when Yi Zhou, Tian Er, and Huang Dehai met in the distant haikou, and Huang Dehai suggested that the three of them write a new novel under the title of each other's old works. Specifically, Yi Zhou wrote Tian Er, Tian Er wrote Dehai, and Dehai wrote Yi Zhou. At that time, Yi Zhou took the initiative to claim it, which was Tian Er's "Waterfall Gatekeeper". Tian Er's short story of the same name was not only published in the influential Writer magazine, but also appeared on the 2020 Harvest Literature Rankings. This time, the reason why Yi Zhou wanted to add a subtitle to his short story "This article pays tribute to Lao Tian", this Old Tian is no one else, it is Tian Er.
Yi Zhou's short story "Waterfall Gatekeeper" published in 2022-1 "Harvest"
In addition, the writing of the short story of Yi Zhou is also related to the writing plan of a "Lijiang Story Collection" organized by Novel Monthly Magazine. The reason why the story must take place in Lijiang is because the writing plan requires that the works written must contain "Lijiang elements". It can be seen from the above that the writing of Yizhou's "Waterfall Gatekeeper" actually has the nature of a certain "propositional composition", although such a "proposition" cannot limit the exertion of Yizhou's talent in any case. In any case, this "Waterfall Gatekeeper" is also an inevitable result of Yi Zhou's careful and meticulous consideration of real life and understanding of life and affection.
What should also attract our attention is the beginning of the novel, which seems to fully reflect the randomness of Yizhou's writing: "When I wrote the beginning of 'In the inn in the ancient city of Lijiang that is slightly deserted- in fact, it is Hanbei-,' I met Teacher Guo,' I did not determine the gender of 'Teacher Guo'; until I wrote 'Teacher Guo said that the man of the inn was from the Yumen Oilfield, and I had a hometown friendship with her',' She only appeared, making Teacher Guo a woman; I want to admit that after writing fifteen hundred words like this, I finally decided to let the 'I' in the novel and 'Teacher Guo' become a mother and daughter. ”
If we believe in the authenticity of Yi Zhou's statement (he actually has no need to play with us in the creation of any tricks), then the writing of "Waterfall Gatekeeper" does have a rather prominent randomness. However, as Tong Yizhou himself clearly realized, when he finished writing the fifteen hundred words at the beginning of the novel, his freedom of writing, the randomness of his writing, was also much reduced. At this point, what begins to work unexpectedly is the opposite of randomness, that is, the prescriptiveness of writing. In any case, novel writing has a prescriptive nature of writing that conforms only to the logic of human nature and art, and does not depend on the personal will of the author.
In fact, the first thing worth noting is the rather strange mother-daughter relationship between the first-person narrator "I" and Teacher Guo. Let's look at the situation when the two of them met at the Lijiang Inn: "Yesterday's dusk was a different story. When I appeared at the door of the inn, she was rushing down the third floor. She was looking out over the railing, waiting for my arrival. Just before we hugged, she restrained herself, but as if reluctantly, she hugged me. Not only that, it wasn't until "I" and Teacher Guo appeared for a long time that we figured it out, but it turned out that "I" and Teacher Guo were actually mother-daughter relationships. Obviously, she is her own mother, but "I" have always called her "Teacher Guo". Such a title itself, coupled with the scene where the two of them could not show any intimacy when they met, fully highlighted the indifference and alienation of a kind of life affection between them.
According to the description in the novel, the root cause of their mother-daughter alienation from each other may be because of the relatively chaotic relationship between men and women after their mother's divorce: "I told my friends that my mother's concept was very open, but it was limited to explaining her attitude towards my choice of mate. She barely cut off a heterosexual partner and looked at physical needs separately from spiritual needs early on. To a large extent, it is precisely because there is always a heterosexual existence around Teacher Guo after the divorce, so "I" will do such a kind of reflection afterwards: "I can't help but snicker, thinking that this is Teacher Guo taking the opportunity to denounce me for hindering her happiness." Yes, at least three men were driven away from her by me, and a girl's determination to kill the men who surrounded her mother would be demonically destructive. ”
Only because of the indifference of the affection between mother and daughter, even "I" flew from Xi'an to Lijiang this time, which was very reluctant: "My mood is not high." I was on the move, flying from Xi'an to Lijiang, not an easy task; and the news I received while waiting for the plane was also unpleasant—an undercover colleague told me that I had failed in an important examination of the company, and the reason for the superior department was that I had won the same honor three times. ”
Roughly similar to Yi Zhou's previous novels, the family and marriage that appear in his pen are often in a state of fragmentation and mutilation. The situation between "I" and Teacher Guo's mother and daughter in this "Waterfall Gatekeeper" is the same. Born in the hinterland of the Gobi under the Qilian Mountains, Teacher Guo, who has a strong "Yumen oil field complex", is divorced in middle age, needless to say. The daughter "I", who also functions as a first-person narrator, is also single after divorce. It is precisely because "I" live alone with my son, so when "I" must fly from Xi'an to Lijiang, I must first settle my son to my ex-husband, and I must also worry about whether my son can get along well with the little girl named Amber who was born after her ex-husband remarried. By the way, the "Waterfall Gatekeeper", which is the title of the novel, is actually related to "my" son. When "I" called my son before boarding the plane and asked what they were doing, the son replied that he was playing a game called "Waterfall Gatekeeper". Although the writer does not tell us what the game called "Waterfall Gatekeeper" is all about until the end of the text, this detail undoubtedly points to the innkeeper who is temporarily named "Waterfall Gatekeeper" at the end of the novel.
Although on the surface, the reason why Teacher Guo urgently "recruited" "me" to the ancient city of Lijiang regardless of his disregard was because his mobile phone was lost and fell into a difficult situation, but the actual situation was not the case. Only after "I" hurried to Lijiang did I find out that my mother's real idea was to go to Lugu Lake with "me" to watch a meteor shower that was "as spectacular as a waterfall in the sky", and then there was a complete showdown. But it turned out that Teacher Guo had been diagnosed with uterine cancer. Only at this time, Teacher Guo's real intention to urgently recruit "me" to Lijiang was actually because he felt that his life was short. In this way, "I" seemed to be a little nonsensical and a little reluctant lijiang trip this time, but in fact it became a family journey with prominent and reconciliation colors.
It was during this journey that "I" gained a new understanding and understanding of my family and myself: "I also constantly pondered the possibility of the two people reuniting, and of course, I kept denying it until I finally stopped thinking about it." After the divorce, my father also changed women in a big way, and the youngest girlfriend was probably younger than me. My father and mother, both of whom had relentless passion, challenged the established order of life for the irrepressible impulse to save themselves. "I am their daughter, a human being of facts and iron laws, which proclaim responsibilities and obligations, or even human ethics and morality. So, in the long process of growing up, their passion was the enemy I had to fight fiercely. But I don't resent, at least not now. Because I have also faced my own passion, I know that this passion is indeed a fierce battle between myself and my own haggardness. "There is no doubt that only by experiencing it yourself can you truly understand the fundamental state of mind of your father and mother. From this point of view, the so-called putting oneself in the shoes of "I" can be seen as a basic premise for "me" to reconcile with my mother, Teacher Guo, or Yizhou and real life.
Needless to say, it is precisely because of this understanding and understanding of life, with reconciliation with real life, that there is further a life fusion between "I" and the owner of the inn, that is, the "waterfall gatekeeper". Because "I" forgot to turn off the tap, Bi artificially created an artificial waterfall in the inn, and the owner of the inn became the "waterfall gatekeeper": "From where I am, he is a full-fledged 'waterfall gatekeeper'." What follows is the intermingling of each other's lives after the two of them play with each other: "Everything ends so fast that we are consciously competing with something urgent." No, not entirely because of time, not entirely because of circumstances, but deeper, ups and downs that make us feel that time is running out. I had never been so completely free, and big tie-dye-stained man-made white clouds were raging in my head. The sky is hanging upside down, and everything is parallel. It's a simple and extreme game, and the name might as well be called 'Waterfall Gatekeeper'. In any case, we should be aware of the symbolic existence of this "waterfall gatekeeper" detail at the end of the novel. While showing the life blending of "I" and "Waterfall Gatekeeper", it is also in a symbolic sense, a metaphor that shows the life fusion between Teacher Guo and "I" mother and daughter, or a reconciliation between Yizhou and real life. From this point of view, the image of the father that appears at the end of the novel is indeed full of expectations for the future or for the family of life.
Harvest novel 2021 winter volume
In any case, from the short story "Suiyuan", which once aroused strong repercussions a few years ago, to the "Waterfall Gatekeeper" that we are focusing on now, Yi Zhou's novel writing has indeed undergone a lot of changes. Among them, an important aspect that cannot be ignored is the tension between the writer and real life in "Suiyuan" to a certain extent between the real life and the real life in "The Waterfall Gatekeeper". Even so, an unavoidable question is what we should think of this tendency of reconciliation in Yizhou. In my personal understanding, from the starting point of reconciliation, there may be two possibilities for yizhou's future writing. One is to move towards the whitewashing of real life, and the other is to move toward a more open and profound excavation and understanding of the existence of life. Of course, the one I hope for my best friend, the Yizhou brothers, can only be the latter in any case.
【About the Author】
Wang Chunlin, born in 1966, is a native of Wenshui, Shanxi. Editor-in-chief of Novel Review. Professor of the College of Literature of Shanxi University, doctoral supervisor. Distinguished Professor of School of Chinese Chinese Literature, Xi'an University of Foreign Chinese. Vice President of the Chinese Novel Society, Vice Chairman of the Shanxi Writers Association, Judge of the 8th and 9th Mao Dun Literature Award, Judge of the 5th, 6th and 7th Lu Xun Literature Awards, Judge of the Chinese Novel Rankings, And Standing Director of the Chinese Contemporary Literature Research Association. Mainly engaged in the study of modern and contemporary Chinese literature. He has published more than 4 million words of academic papers in journals such as Literary and Art Studies, Literary Criticism, Modern Chinese Literature Research Series, Contemporary Writers Review, Novel Review, Southern Literature Circle, Literary and Art Controversy, Contemporary Literature Circle, and Yangtze River Review. He has published a personal monograph and critical essay collection "Discourse, History and Ideology", "Thought on the Edge of Life", "Research on Novels in the New Century", "Literary Symphony of Multiple Voices", "Landscape of Novels in the New Century", "Map of Novels in the New Century", "Jia Pingwa's "Ancient Furnace", "Rural Writing and Regional Literary Experience", "Unknown Heavens", "Scene of Contemporary Chinese Literature (2013-2014)", "Observation of Novels in the New Century", "Scene of Contemporary Chinese Literature (2015-2016)", "Scene of Contemporary Chinese Literature (2015-2016)", "Miscellaneous Works in China", "Ancient Furnaces" Cultural Personality and Contemporary Literary Character Images", "Wang Meng's Theory", "Literary Dialogue", "Contemporary Chinese Literature Scene (2017-2018)", "Jia Pingwa's Novel Theory", "Research on the Narrative Experience of Novels in the New Century", etc. He has won the 9th and 15th Outstanding Achievement Awards for Contemporary Chinese Literature Research, the Shanxi New Century Literature Award, the Zhao Shuli Literature Award, and the Shanxi Provincial Humanities and Social Sciences Award.