"Slippery" in the Narrative of the Novel
□ Hong Zhigang
Once read a small article, the author talked about Wang Xizhi's "Orchid Pavilion Preface", and thought that his calligraphy gave people the feeling that the ink was not in the paper, too ethereal, and quite oily. The author gives three reasons: first, this is a book that should be seen, not a work of immersion that Shusheng has brewed again and again; second, this is a work of drunkenness, and the pen is like driving the clouds with the wind, and the pen strength is uncertain; the third is that the famous people of The Great Southern Jiangsu have hidden the essence of oiliness in their bones, and shusheng is no exception. Although I don't know calligraphy, I still remember this judgment vividly, because this statement somewhat hit my inner feelings - I have been to Shaoxing Lanting many times, and whenever I look at the inscription, I do feel a little too ethereal, revealing Wang Xizhi's showmanship, arrogant and insincere.
The oil slippery on calligraphy is difficult to agree on because of the different preferences of the appreciator, but this does not mean that the oil slippery does not exist. As far as my personal aesthetic feelings are concerned, after some artists have obtained a certain meritorious name, or after their creative skills are relatively mature, they will show some oily and slippery atmosphere. This is also very obvious in the creation of contemporary Chinese novels. For example, some well-known writers often deliberately add all kinds of vulgar passages to some seemingly dignified narratives; some writers use a humorous tone from time to time when telling the survival suffering or unfortunate fate of the low-level characters; some writers use their juniors as narrators, but when describing their elders, they use a light tone, as if the respected elder is not the narrator's grandfather, but a vulgar person with a vanity; and some writers tell their own growth experience. Or flirting with history, or sneering at family affection... Reading these works, I always feel that the writer has great disrespect for the characters in his pen, and the flirtatious posture is revealed in the ridicule, and the oily tone is revealed in the joke. In the words of Mr. Zhu Guangqian, this type of work usually borrows "humor" as a talisman, and it is possible to laugh at the waves.
The so-called "oil slippery", the dictionary interpretation is "sleek and sophisticated but not sincere", usually describing people as immodest, frivolous and arrogant. It reflects the inner world of the speaker, including ideas and positions, implying the speaker's mentality of watching the fire from the other side, or self-righteous frivolity. Therefore, in daily interactions, people hate those who are slippery, because they can't see his sincerity and frankness, and they can't see his simplicity and humility. However, in the creation of novels, this oily aesthetic style can usually only be perceived in careful play, and it is difficult to seriously analyze and judge. Geiqiyin, between the author and the novel text, is not a simple dialogue relationship, there is also a narrator sandwiched in the middle, and this narrator in many novels is not necessarily a fixed role, but the continuous transformation of multiple roles. Therefore, if you want to judge whether the writer's narrative is slippery from a novel, you need to bypass various narrators and examine the true mentality of the creative subject behind the narrative.
But after all, the novel is created by the writer, and behind it always stands the creative subject. No matter how the role of the narrator changes, it must be controlled by the writer's subjective will, including the writer's spiritual style and aesthetic taste. The so-called "literature is like its person" refers to the writer's mentality, concepts and positions, which will always be expressed in the work in various ways, either implicitly or explicitly, even if it is a fictional novel. From Yu Hua's creative research, to the study of the group of writers born in the 1960s, to the study of the intergenerational differences between writers in the new era, for more than 20 years, I have focused on the discussion of the main spirit of chinese writers since the new era. Judging from my personal research, some writers will show some oily tones in their creations after their narrative techniques are mature and their literary fame is prominent. Whether they are writing about the countryside or the city, we can clearly see this by comparing their early creations, famous works, and later works.
The reason why oil slippery makes people vigilant, so much so that Mr. Lu Xun thinks that it is the "enemy of creation", is because it exposes the writer's lack of piety for creation, disrespect, and inconsiderateness to the characters in his pen, and unconsciously reflects a certain frivolous posture. This kind of lightness, in essence, shows that the writer does not breathe with the characters and share the fate in his bones, nor can he abide by the narrative law of "writing close to the characters", the writer and the characters in the pen are emotionally separated, and the writer's narrative has an arrogance that overrides the characters, and the showmanship is very meaningful. Everyone understands that in any excellent novel, all the characters are a reflection of the writer's life emotions, full of the freshness and abundance that life should be, in the words of Lawrence, even a cabbage in the rain should be a living life. If a writer writes characters in a posture of watching the fire from across the shore, thinking that he is far more intelligent and transparent than the characters in his writing, it is almost impossible for him to write living characters. Only because of this, Barkin said, "I write articles like life. The implication is that his writing has always been saturated with his own life emotions. Commenting on Lin Huiyin's Ninety-Nine Degrees, Li Jianwu also said: "A kind of observation with personality is the activity of all the body and soul, and there is no room for laziness. The oily narrative precisely reflects the writer's lack of investment or false investment in the subject's emotions, reflects the insincerity of the creative subject's heart, and reflects the double laziness of the creative subject's spirit and emotion.
In the specific practice of criticism, the biggest obstacle to judging whether the narrative of a novel is slippery is perhaps the lack of a clear boundary between it and humor, so many people often regard oily slippery as humor. On the surface, the oily narrative is often full of all kinds of ridicule and ridicule, and indeed reflects the humor to some extent, but if you play carefully, you can still see that behind the narrative is the author's arrogance and disrespect for the characters, and it is difficult to see deep sympathy and compassion. In this regard, Zhu Guanghao has made a serious analysis. He believes: "Originally, the origin of literature and art is close to the game, it is all playing on the fresh and interesting aspects of life, and it is the free activity of human beings when they are full of energy and vitality, so literature and art cannot be separated from a little humor." ...... We must acknowledge the importance of humor to literature and art, and at the same time point out that humor is not easy. Humor varies in degree. Speaking higher, Zhuangzi, Sima Qian, Tao Qian, and Du Fu, a class of great writers, have their humor; to put it lower, they also have their humor in such things as cross-talk, juggling, village drama jokes, city hooligans fighting lip and tongue, and reporting on the afterglow on the ass. According to Zhu Guanghao, literature and art arise from games, and humor should be one of its inherent attributes, so he emphasized: "All poetry inevitably has some humor." Emotions are both sad and happy. There is humor in comedy, and it is needless to say; even when the most tragic things are regarded as poetry, they must also see humor in them. If we carefully play with Works such as Suo Caiyan's "Sorrow and Indignation" or Du Fu's "New Marriage", or write our own tragedies, or write about the tragedies of others, we are all painfully thinking about it, and we regard what we write as an interesting image, and somewhat regard it as a drama. People who are not at all humorous are probably not easy to write poetry, nor are they easy to appreciate poetry. Although Mr. Zhu has some suspicions of ignoring humor, he cannot say that there is no reason for the "humor" contained in the tragedy.
More importantly, "there is a very subtle measure in humor, and losing this measure falls into the vulgarity." About the first class works, a high degree of humor and a high degree of seriousness often dissolve into one, a sneer, in addition to the amusement and the touch of humor, there is a deep and timeless meaning, not only intriguing, but also exciting emotions, laughter in tears, sarcasm in sympathy. Mr. Zhu Guangqian's words undoubtedly speak of the crux of the matter, that is, true humor, behind which there should be a serious creative subject, so that we can find the teardrops in the writer's heart from laughter, and see the writer's deep sympathy in the joke. In other words, true humor is the aesthetic expression made by the writer who pours out his emotions and hearts, which is full of the aesthetic insight and thinking of the creative subject, and also carries the life experience and unique perception of the creative subject. Otherwise, it is slippery on the low-level fun.
In order to clearly illustrate this issue, we may wish to look at the relevant works of Wang Shuo and Wang Xiaobo. Wang Shuo's novels were once called "leper literature", and most of the characters in his pen are some stubborn lords who are not doing their jobs, and they are full of all kinds of slippery atmosphere from beginning to end, such as "Playing is heartbeat" and "Naughty Lord" are representative works in this regard. When I was young, I didn't ask for much understanding when I read Wang Shuo, and I didn't understand Zhu Guangqian's painstaking emphasis on "playing with ropes", so I felt that these works were indeed a bit slippery. But as I grew older, I began to "play" with them in the process of teaching, and slowly experienced the honesty and intentions of writers. In "Playing is heartbeat", a group of young people such as Fang Yu, Gao Yang, Gao Jin, Wu Fatzi, Xia Hong, Liu Yan, etc., all of whom have had fiery revolutionary ideals, and some have also served in the military, but when they really integrate into reality, they find that they can never find their rightful place. Running in confusion and finding pleasure in boredom became the only way they could comfort themselves. "We wasted so much of our youth, it was a period of youth that was so self-righteous and so messy. There are laughter and tears, there is vitality, there is decadence, there is sweetness, there is absurdity, there is self-confidence, there is confusion. We are sensitive, we are paranoid. We stubbornly pretend to be strong. We hurt others easily, and we are easily hurt by others. We chase after decadent pleasures and revel in the beauty of loneliness. It is this irreconcilable internal contradiction that makes this group of characters so alive on the edges of reality, decadent, indulgent, and idle, yet looking around for excitement. The Three T Companies formed by Yu Guan, Yang Zhong and Ma Qing in "The Stubborn Lord" under the slogan of "Solving Difficulties for People and Solving Boredom for Others", have continuously encountered various unimaginable practical problems, of course, they have also discovered the unspeakable survival dilemma behind various glamorous lives. They are running from place to place, enjoying it tirelessly, not only did not let the customer get much happiness, but they continued to fall into various difficulties. They have both the unwillingness to achieve their ideals, the embarrassment that their self-dignity is difficult to maintain, and of course, the pleasure of poverty and self-exile. Thinking carefully about these stubborn characters, in their helpless, unwilling and misplaced survival, we can see Wang Shuo's different thoughts about reality and fate, and there are helpless tears in his laughter.
Wang Xiaobo's novels are also full of rage. In particular, the Wang Er in his pen, no matter in which novel, seems to be flowing and quite unorthodox. In "The Golden Age", Zhiqing Wang Er not only disobeyed discipline, often contradicted the production captain, but also fought with the leaders. In order to escape from labor, Wang Er looked around for ways to passively sabotage work; in order to resist the concept of abstinence, he and Chen Qingyang repeatedly drilled into the deep mountains and old forests "Dunlun Friendship". When he was arrested, he regarded writing confession materials and participating in the criticism meeting as a "struggle error" and used all improper ways to dispel the absurdity of the special era. In "Love in the Revolutionary Era", Wang Er, as an ordinary worker, first wrestled with the female director of the tofu factory, and was accepted as the object of discipline; when receiving political discipline, he actually made the object of help and the leader of the gang become lovers. On the one hand, Wang Er is indeed a loose man who does not submit to any order, a prodigal son who is incompatible with the times; but on the other hand, he constantly tears apart the absurd concepts and their orders that are contrary to human nature in the form of broken jars and broken cans, and subverts and deconstructs them, so he is also an unruly fighter. If we seriously "play with" these novels, we can realize that Wang Xiaobo actually reflects on some absurd ethics in a special era in a black humorous narrative. His ridicule stems from the writer's desire for the freedom of life; his mockery is the writer's desperate rebellion against absurd reality.
In fact, the use of jokes or ironic narratives to dissolve those seemingly serious and dignified realities and reveal the hidden paradoxes in them has always been Lu Xun's usual narrative technique. Especially in the "New Edition of the Story", this situation is even more prominent. In the preface to the "New Edition of Stories", Lu Xun once made a necessary reflection on this: "Because his respect for the ancients is not as good as that of the present, it is still inevitable that there are slippery points." At the same time, he also admitted frankly: "Oil slippery is the enemy of creation, and I am very dissatisfied with myself." "Dissatisfaction may be some, but because of the pain of acupuncture current events, Lu Xun abandons a single narrative discourse, mixes colloquial slang, literary language, realistic discourse, foreign language and even some fashionable popular terms, and uses the dislocation of various plots to create various ironic effects, which are quite postmodern. Although in Lu Xun's pen, the fate of many characters is quite funny, such as Houyi in "Running Moon", Lao Tzu in "Exit", Boyi and Shuqi in "CaiWei", all of which are far from the history we are familiar with, and even run counter to it, but in their bones, they reveal another interpretation and thinking of the writer on history. In particular, the "Cultural Mountain" in "LiShui" is crowded with all kinds of so-called modern scholars, but they are helpless against the actual disaster, and they are completely a group of outright empty talkers. Seriously "playing" these rather postmodern novels, whether it is those mixed language, funny plots, or absurd character fates, we can see that the writer has an ulterior motive to integrate the main thought, emotion and imagination into history, showing the writer's unique reflection on the relationship between history and reality, not the general shallow funny.
Regarding the difference between humor and oiliness, Lu Xun actually has a very unique understanding. In a letter to Tao Kangde, he criticized the Analects magazine edited by Dow: "If I forgive him for his blunt words, I think the content is not humorous, the text is mediocre, and even it has fallen into oil slippery." In response to the article in the forty-fifth issue of the magazine, "The Way to Write a Note", he said bluntly that it was not a humor, but a joke, "and the tactics of painting a turtle on the wall and writing his hated name on the back are not the same." When talking about his own creation, Lu Xun also said frankly: "Didn't I have a pious heart when I wrote?" Answer: Yes. Even without this kind of grandiose heart, there is no slippery tone. From here, we can realize that Lu Xun's oil slippery is a lack of piety and lack of real and real investment, which is a vulgar trick, which is no different from the vulgar pranks in the city.
In the final analysis, the slipperiness in the narrative of the novel is not a technical problem, but a problem of the attitude of the creative subject towards the world and life, a problem of emotion and ruthlessness, piety and playfulness, seriousness and frivolity. In some of the current novels, the reason why there is more and more slippery oil, and there is a growing trend, lies in the fact that writers rely too much on the confidence of narrative technology, and indulge in heartless, showy inertia writing. In "Illustration of "Funny"," Lu Xun once elaborated: "China has never had much humor. It's just funny, but there is a long gap between this and humor, and the Japanese once translated 'humor' as 'sentient funny', so it is different from the single 'funny', that is. So, in China, only funny articles can be found? But not at all. China's self-proclaimed funny articles are still slippery, light, and obscene, which is different from really funny. The key to this 'tanuki cat for prince' is that the remarks and facts that have always been serious about themselves are more or less funny, and people are accustomed to it, and gradually think that it is normal, so they mistake oil for slippery and the like, and think it is funny. According to Lu Xun, oil slippery is not funny, farther away from humor, but the Chinese people seem to have lacked vigilance about it, so the wind of oil slippery is still spreading in the current novel creation.
—END—
Excerpted from Literary and Art Controversy, No. 4, 2020
The original journal is responsible for editing | Wang Shuanglong
The journal is responsible for editing | Yu Xiang noon
"Yangtze River Literature and Art : Good Novel", No. 3, 2022
▲Hong Zhigang |
Hong Zhigang, born in October 1965, Dongzhiren, Anhui, doctor of literature. Dean and Professor of the School of Humanities of Hangzhou Normal University. He has been selected as the "New Century Excellent Talents Support Program" of the Ministry of Education and the "Qianjiang Scholar" Distinguished Professor of Zhejiang Province. He has been engaged in the research and criticism of modern and contemporary Chinese literature for a long time, and has published more than 3 million words of papers and reviews in journals such as Chinese Social Sciences, Literary Review, Literary studies, Southern Literary Circle, Contemporary Writers Review, and Novel Review. He has published more than ten monographs such as "Overwatch", "Yu Hua Commentary", and "Research on the Intergenerational Differences of Writers in the New Period of China". He has won many awards such as the 4th Lu Xun Literature Award and the 1st Contemporary Chinese Literary Critics Award.