A literary "archive" of the northern countryside
Text/Zhao Yiqin
The Chronicle of the Southern Taihang is a newly published collection of essays by Yang Xianping, which includes most of the author's works written in the countryside of the Southern Taihang in recent years. In the midst of reading, I saw a writer with compassion and his literary practice. Needless to say, a good writer needs stronger and more accurate insight and observation about real life and the world. Whether it is prose or fiction, if it is to have lasting vitality, in addition to the necessary readability and interest, it should also have a strong emotional depth and humanistic care.
This is almost the lifeblood of the article. Literature and art are to give people hope in life, sympathy and love for everyone; it is to write about the conflicts and dilemmas of different groups and individuals in different situations. What is valuable is that in the book "Chronicle of the Southern Taihang", Yang Xianping also paid warm attention to those who were mentally handicapped in the village, they were all insignificant people in the village, but they still had human nature. Yang Xianping presented their real lives and personal behavior in a profound and meticulous manner.
For his hometown, Yang Xianping is deep in love and hate. This kind of love of his can be called compassion, that is, no matter what kind of person he is, he tells their stories in a calm tone, and in the fate of many rural people, let people see the difficulties of life, especially the importance of civilization and culture to awaken the vitality of the countryside. It can be said that Yang Xianping has given his love for his hometown to every person, every flower, every grass, every mountain, and every road. In what he writes, he will always find the part that belongs to him, even if there are some subtle differences, but the intimacy when reading cannot be erased in any way. I am a person who has lived in the countryside for more than twenty years, and in my brain groove, more can form words, which is also the history of rural life.
This collection of essays consists of four parts, the first part being the Southern Taihang as the hometown. The opening chapter begins with the death of a man named Conglin, who is no one else, but the same brother of his hometown, but this person accidentally died in his familiar hometown. In this way, Yang Xianping thought of the fragility of life, the deep-rooted blood relationship, the humility of human nature, the hidden pain of leaving home, and so on. The second part is the folk secret history of the Southern Taihang. The story is also true and false, but whether it is true or false, let us see an extraordinary Yang Xianping, whether it is the foundation of ancient literature or the ability to tell stories. The third part is the wind and snow moon of the Southern Taihang. Here is more concerned about the relationship between man and nature, there are also stories of his youth lost here, and there are stories of his villages, plants, animals, still lifes and relatives. Especially when there was heavy snow, he fell alone next to the snow grave, and at that moment his father suddenly appeared, crawling in the snow with his young man on his back, and his father's warmth was like the sun. The fourth part writes that after the birth of another son, he followed the ancient precepts and brought his clothes back to his hometown. In fact, this is a deep reflection on where we come from and where we are going, and a manifestation of our responsibility for life.
Yang Xianping has a broad vision, no matter what things, what things and who in his eyes, has its own brilliance. Therefore, I feel that this collection of essays is more like a collection of novels, which contains all kinds of vivid characters, their living conditions, their way of life, their language, their dreams, their hopes and hardships, etc., all of which are deeply discovered and revealed. Reading his highly documentary collection of essays, people will suddenly feel that there are really some people in the world who are still using traditional methods to insist on judging and recognizing life and the world, and also make people confirm once again that in places we usually can't see, there are still a group of people thriving and branching in remote countryside.
Literature is speaking for the nameless, standing for every tree of life. Yang Xianping's prose has always focused on ordinary working people, adopting a short style like a worldly stranger, authentic narration, objective presentation, you can't see that behind the text he is blushing and swollen, or beating his chest, but you are "plucked" by his words to grit your teeth, and you can't help but be funny. Yang Xianping's characters and their stories naturally embody the subtleties of human nature and the vicissitudes of the world. The author has been away from the South Taihang countryside for nearly thirty years, but he feels that although he is in another province, he is still a member of the South Taihang countryside from the heart and bones. This way of writing that wants to look up and down from a distance allows Yang Xianping to more clearly and accurately understand the core and even the soul of his hometown. As a result, his personal attitude has changed, and he has truly expressed his former preoccupied and immature in order to warn those who are walking on this road.
It is safe to say that the book "Chronicle of the Southern Taihang" presents a panoramic presentation of the past and present of contemporary Chinese rural areas, involving natural humanities, the state of groups and the situation of individuals, and the confusion and multiplicity of them reflect a state of Chinese rural areas and peasants since ancient times. From this, I think that the real value and significance of this book lies in providing us with a real "archive" of the northern countryside, which includes the influence of the times on people's hearts, the relief and aggravation of material and spiritual difficulties, and the evolution and demise of rural civilization and social order in a certain period of time, etc. On the one hand, it is a record and retention of those cultures that are disappearing in the countryside, on the other hand, it also provides detailed and highly artistic "common cases" and "individual cases" for the implementation of rural revitalization.
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