Imagine that in the vast grassland, there is no need to speak all day, even those who shout at the cattle and sheep are scattered by the wind on the grassland. Especially in the winter, the words and sentences are frozen in the mouth, can not be dissolved for a long time, and occasionally have to grit their teeth when they speak, as if they have to crush the ice cubes to release every word.
- Tang Cheng is difficult
A "Hymn" dedicated to Little People: Commenting on Soup Into Difficult Novels
Text/Zhang Ming
In the process of reading literary works in recent years, I feel that there is a certain tendency to "escape" in literary creation: in time, escape from the present; spatially, escape from the earth. But there are also some young writers who obsessively stare at the reality around them and the land beneath their feet. The creation of the young and talented Tang Chengnan belongs to this category.
Tang Cheng is difficult to point his pen tone to ordinary people and their daily lives.
In her novels, she portrays a large number of low-level characters, such as the shoemaker and his missing son, the father who runs away from home in search of land and rice fields, the scavenger, the unidentified person, the monkey trickster, the small boss, the sick, the troubled couple, and some of the characters who are in a state of semi-unemployment. The theme of focusing on the fate of the little people at the bottom is an important symbol of literary modernity, and an important literary theme since the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, such as Karamzin's novel "Lisa of Bitter Life", Pushkin's novel "Stationmaster", Charlotte Brontë's novel "Jane Eyre" and so on.
Tang Chengnan is the inheritor of this "tradition of writing small people" among the younger generation of writers. This is one aspect of its characteristics. Another aspect of this feature is to write about the "daily life" of ordinary people, rather than writing about the extraordinary and legendary nature of people.
Those ordinary people can neither go to heaven and earth, nor can they move mountains and reclaim the sea, and they are very fragile, and a stone, a little illness and a small disaster are enough to kill them. Writing small stories of small people, writing about their helplessness, perseverance, commitment, and care in the real danger, is moving.
The above is from the content point of view. Formally, Tang Chengnan's short stories also have her obvious identity.
The first feature is that lyricism and narrative complement each other, and in the end, poetry overwhelms the story. I think that the legitimacy of the modern novel comes from the "poetry" of the narrative, there is no "poetry", only the plot and the story, the legitimacy of the short story style is questionable, it can be replaced by other literary and artistic genres.
Short stories are not the same as long stories, long stories are closer to "history", short stories are closer to "poetry". How to present poetry in the problem of short narrative is a serious challenge facing the writing of short stories as a genre.
The "poetry" of Tang Chengnan's novels is presented through many rich and special details, and he is unique in the selection of details of daily life experience. For example, "Running Rice Field" is particularly representative of the poetic characteristics of Tang Chengnan's novels.
The story is about a father who runs away from home, both physically and mentally. My father left the village and wandered around, looking for land and rice fields, but also to pursue the dying agricultural life, constantly writing letters home, constantly sending rice home.
This novel is not long, it is full of exodus, wandering, far away, letters, thoughts, land, rice fragrance, these core images, all of which are relatively distant from the town life at this moment, so it becomes a memory, becomes a dream, and at the same time becomes a defamiliarization detail in the process of thinking about the father, so that after we read this novel, we have a special sense of empathy for the image of the father. This is her first feature, dealing with everyday life experiences and everyday characters in a poetic way.
The second feature is that in the process of storytelling, the abnormal method of dealing with daily experience, or the method of defamiliarization, makes daily life have both an experienced realistic basis, and at the same time obtains a striking and prominent artistic effect, with an artistic foundation. For example, in the short story "The Wooden Gun of the Old Horse", there are two old horses in the story, one is the old horse narrated by the narrator, that is, the old horse in the narrator's vision; the other is the old horse told by the characters in the story. The story of the two "old horses" is packed into the structure of the "Oriental Box", the old horse in experience and the old horse in the story, the old horse in the narrative and the old horse in the second-degree narrative, the boundaries of identity and experience are blurred, and in the limited space, semantic diversity and richness are generated. This is the first example.
The second example is "Old Hu Ji", which is also a very special novel. The two characters in "Old Hu Ji" are Wang Xiuying, a noodle shop worker, and the other is both a migrant worker and a literary lover, and the narrator of the novel, "I". In order to help the novel author "I" write, Wang Xiuying tells "I" a story every day, telling the story of a person named Wang Caihong, who is a low-level person like herself.
Wang Xiuying constantly told the story of Wang Caihong to "I", which eventually led to the identity dislocation and blurring of the boundary between Wang Xiuying and Wang Caihong in the story, that is to say, the boundary between the characters in the story and the characters in reality was blurred, and the boundaries of the character image in the real life and the narrative memory of the character image were interrupted.
These are two ways for Tang Cheng to maximize the poetry of her novels. The previous techniques may be used by many writers, and the latter techniques may be used by others, but not many. Personally, I think that Tang Chengnan handles it better in "Old Hu Ji", and the treatment in "Old Horse's Wooden Gun" is slightly jerky.
In the process of reading, I also have a very direct feeling, that is, the "temperament" embodied in Tang Chengnan's novel, or "qi rhyme style" and "meteorological pattern", each article is slightly different. The techniques may be similar, but the overall impression and overall poetic effect of the novel are not the same.
"Running Rice Field" and "Old Hu Ji" all reflect a very full "temperament", and the overall reading effect is very good. "The Wooden Gun of the Old Horse" will be weaker, this is a technical problem, the author's idea is good, implemented into the technology, not handled well, the "temperament" of the novel will decline.
Creating novels with realistic themes and writing stories of the present moment is no small challenge for any author, especially for young writers. So, even if Tang Chengnan's novel is not perfect, it has been done very well. I would like to call her novel a "hymn" dedicated to the little people.
(This article was originally published in Literature and Art Daily)
Moonlight Box
Tang Cheng was difficult
Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
This is an architect and novelist who depicts the sorrow and joy of life, trepidation and comfort, poetry and violence little by little, leaving a complex and fascinating trajectory of fate on white paper. "Moonlight Treasure Box" is a collection of short and medium stories by Tang Chengnan, including seventeen novels written in various periods. Tang Cheng's poetic meaning of Difficult Jiangnan writes about the daily humility of these little people. Those worldly warmths mixed in the feathers of a place, those joys and sorrows that are still full of thirst for light in the midst of forbearance, are the daily survival of ordinary people.
Shanghai Culture Publishing House
Shanghai Story Club Culture Media Co., Ltd
Shanghai Chewing Character Culture Communication Co., Ltd