| Yan Li on Cuiliu Street: A light of youth in the inner volume era

Inner volume era

A ray of youth

□ Yan Li

At the beginning of 2022, Zhou Jianning's novella "Tomorrow's Party" appeared in October magazine, reflecting her "Landscape of waves" published in Zhongshan in March 2020. With this, it dawned that yesterday she was still the female writer associated with the "New Concept" composition, "Carp" magazine and the "post-80s" writer group, who had already behaved so calmly and calmly, and quietly achieved a self-breakthrough in creation.

About twenty years backwards, the works that write about the youth growth and youth pain of the younger generation erupt in a concentrated way, almost creating a new genre, and even creating a subcultural phenomenon, which constitutes our stereotype of youth literature. "Landscape of the Waves" and "Party of Tomorrow" look back at the youth of the "post-80s" in the first decade of the new century - this time period is just right, neither because it is too close to lose the sense of distance, nor because it is too far away to lose the sense of vitality, or can be seen as an examination and combing of the collective youth memory of the "post-80s". Yes, the "post-80s" have begun to be nostalgic, although what Zhou Jianning wrote is so different from the youth literature of the past, from story presentation to spiritual temperament.

From a storytelling point of view, loneliness, death, violence and sex, which are common elements in youth literature, are largely absent in Landscape of Waves and Party of Tomorrow. "Landscape of the Waves" is written about two young people in adversity, "I" and Ultramarine, one who graduated from Pheasant University because of the epidemic, one who studied in Japan and was forced to work as a black worker by an intermediary, both of whom once "felt that they were cockroaches of society", but after occasionally taking over a clothing stall, they unexpectedly found the direction of life and pursued wealth and life experience under the beating of the business wave. "I" in "Tomorrow's Party" dropped out of school halfway and began to chase the dream of music with Wang Lu, an art student who was also deeply influenced by radio music host Zhang Zhou. They test hosts, have music parties, and live a free-spirited "group life" with a group of like-minded "romantic friends." What Zhou Jianning found were two more serious and bright themes: struggle and friendship. The "we" in the novel are like a group of young Don Quixotes, agitated, excited, frustrated, persistent for the cause, and also happy, touched, and "happy to sigh loudly" for friendship. Struggle and friendship run through every pulse of youth, becoming two cornerstones of mutual support in young life. This is a youthful landscape with a tidal temperament, "Have you ever seen those who surf in the sea, waiting for a perfect wave for a long time in the clear and dangling water, and when the wave comes, they jump on the board and draw a long and beautiful white arc on the tip of the wave." Such youth is not only rebellious, impulsive, and gloomy, but also creative, hardworking, trial and error, and unrepentant and unrepentant about the things loved, and brotherhood with the people they love.

Contrary to some youth literature that permeates the "culture of mourning", from Zhou Jianning's novels, we can read a surging passion and a throbbing of life. Behind her simple, restrained and flexible narrative, it presents the way and process of some young people at the turn of the century to exert their youth. At that time, idealism had not yet completely receded, society had not yet been completely controlled by capital and commerce, and young people could still use innocence to confront the world, resist the erosion of the world with true disposition, and experience the best seasons of life in a carnival way. The protagonist of the novel expresses his views on dreams in this way: "Sometimes when I encounter difficulties, I imagine where he goes, imagine other possibilities in life. How the wind is, and how the grass rolls into waves. But now I feel that I have never encountered real difficulties. Or maybe the most difficult time has indeed passed. Again, the friendship is described this way: "I think what fascinates most of us is not the performance itself, but the extralegal time with friends." In the mountains, on the seashore, flying sand and stones, reveling all night. "As Kim Lee commented, "Landscape of waves" pays homage to an era of chaos and chaos, when the furry corners have not yet been trimmed and leveled. This novel 'witnesses the end of an era', inevitably nostalgia, and narrates the memories of youth, unforgettable memories of youth. ...... However, perhaps it is the original sincere writing nature, sincerity actually gives Zhou Jianning a kind of reflexivity. As a result, nostalgia and a little sadness are all stained in the vitality that rises from the ground and the vastness of the sky. ”

As the developmental psychologist Erikson points out, in the early adult period, building a successful love life and laying the foundation for a career are the most important tasks. The former can obtain a sense of intimacy between people, including friendship and love, while the latter can enable people to obtain good sociality and achieve full interaction with society. If the two develop smoothly, the personality will further mature and the individual will enter the next stage well. If the development is not smooth, it will make people emotionally lonely, unable to get along with others, alienated in social relations, and unable to bear social responsibility. - Emotionally lonely, alienated and escaped from social relations, is this not what is described in the present state of "lying flat"? If the earlier group of young people existed as the antithesis of youth, now, and for a long time to come, young people need to face the tendency of the whole society to be involved, and the general disappointment caused by populism worldwide. Because of this, from "Buddhism" to "lying flat", from "waste" to "social animals" to "cabbage", there are now a large number of young people who have succumbed to the inward roll, and they have chosen to passively wave youth, curled up like ostriches in their own small space.

Thanks to Zhou Jianning, her two works are like a youthful light projected on the inner volume era. She left an appropriate image of the past youth, when the inner volume has begun to appear, and social competition has been fierce, but there are always some people who reject the alienation of youth and exalt the ideal spirit. Struggle (establishing contact with society) and friendship (establishing intimate relationships with people) are the two prescriptions for the confused youth of the inner volume era, and the enthusiasm and selfless attitude of young people give the best annotation to youth. In the end, it is still back to Mr. Lu Xun's sentence, "May the Chinese youth get rid of the cold air, just go upwards, do not have to listen to the words of self-destructive, can do things, can make a sound, have a point of heat, a point of light." Zhou Jianning's youth writing contains such a "upward" power, which also gives the novel a crisp and clear style, just like the real youth itself, which has inspiring significance even in the era of high commercialization.

A generation has a generation of youth, and a generation has a generation of youth literature. In the Age of Enlightenment, "The Diary of Lady Shafi" called for the liberation of people; in the revolutionary era, "Song of Youth" drummed up revolutionary enthusiasm; in the new era, "Female College Dormitory" wrote the pride of heaven in the new era, "Eighteen-year-old went out and traveled" and "Shouted in the Drizzle" reflected on history and reality, which are the products of resonance with the times. The youth literature that arose in the 90s, when some young writers, under the impetus of various factors, held high the banner of rebellion and harvested a generation of young boys and girls readers, and finally because of the narrowness and bias of their value orientation, coupled with the convergence and monotony of creative techniques and narrative style, they failed to occupy the position of mainstream literature and failed to leave enough convincing masterpieces. Some writers even become greasy middle-aged as they grow older, and eventually become the kind of people they hate. The fans of "The Catcher in the Rye", as soon as they write about youth, pretend to be decadent and angry, as if cruel youth is the only state of youth, but they have never created the current Chinese wheat field watchman.

Youth is easy to grow old, and Haruki Murakami once wrote a small essay "The End of Youth", telling how his youth ended abruptly at a critical point in time: at the age of thirty, he met a beautiful woman in the restaurant of Azabu, exactly the same as the woman he once loved, "because of her short words, in that instant", "the vague state of mind that may be called youth has also ended", leaving only some regret. Youth should be a spirit, not a gesture. However, we can find from Zhou Jianning that she is connecting the privatized youth to the social reality, substituting personal emotions into the discourse of the times, regaining ideals, regaining vitality, revealing the true experience of specific life stages, finding the eternal positive value of youth, and bringing certain enlightening significance such as the inner volume era. Therefore, no matter how much youth time has taken away, we can always feel the vigorous vitality, sincere laughter and tears from works such as "Landscape of the Waves" and "Tomorrow's Party", feel "running away for half a life, returning is still a teenager", "always young, always full of tears".

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"Yangtze River Literature and Art : Good Novel", No. 3, 2022

▲ Yan Li