We all know that life is made up of events large and small. For many people, it is enough to cope with these large and small events, so they rarely think about "life" itself, and they rarely think about the meaning of life, and they do not care much about the "different phases" hidden behind different events. Moreover, when any event occurs, its greater meaning and value may take a long time to appear, or it will be completely overwhelmed by other events, and no one will think of it again, including the parties.
Any event will have a cause, it may trigger something else from this event, or it will form a larger chain reaction. Just like the "butterfly effect", but most people's cognition always stays on the event itself, more concerned about the news effect it forms, and rarely explores the deeper and broader social nature of these events, let alone excavate the literature contained in it.
Therefore, the comprehensive literacy that writers must have must be multi-faceted. That is to say, it is necessary to have the ability to link from the event (news) to the life, then from the life to the social, and finally to rise and refine the literary, and not only in the ideological cognition, but also in the text expression.
That is, the value and meaning of literature lies in the comprehensive judgment of the events that occur (past, present, and even future).
From this point of view, Mei Yu obviously has a strong sense of literature.
"Twelve Different Phases" can be said to be written from twelve events. We often emphasize a writer's "realist view" and sense of responsibility.
What is reality? I thought that "reality" was not a concept of time, but a concept of value. For literature, "reality" should be a kind of value judgment and philosophical thinking of the author standing in the present to review history, pay attention to the present, and express the future.
Therefore, when any writer faces any event that occurs at the moment, if he only stays on the event itself, on the "newsworthiness" produced by the event, it is not enough, and it can even be said that it has nothing to do with literature. A writer, facing the "incident" should be like the police facing the case, looking for any clues that may be related to the "event" from the scene, and then peeling it off and restoring it little by little, bit by bit, and returning to the "essence". Moreover, a writer has to go one step further than the police to solve the case. That is, not only to think about the reasons for the occurrence of the event, to find the "murderer", but more importantly, to think about the reasons for the "case", to think about the reasons why the "murderer" became the "murderer", and so on. It is also at this point that the value of a writer is reflected. In the relationship between life and literature, if a writer does not have "criticality" and does not assume the responsibility of "criticism", the existence of such a writer is of little significance.
To put it simply, "Twelve Different Phases" writes twelve stories, and these twelve stories present the "different phases" that are not uncommon in today's society, such as "crowdfunding", "extramarital love", "online games", "divorce", "demolition", "kidnapping", "leukemia", etc., related to these "different phases", as well as "little three dissuaded teachers", "network killers". The events written in each novel are not unfamiliar to us, and can even be said to be a bit commonplace, but Mei Yu has turned these "events" into novels, and this alone is enough to show Mei Yu's sense of responsibility and literary courage.
In the performance of the twelve novels, Mei Yu has his own design, which is the expression of the novel. For short and medium stories, the "sense of design" is very important, because short and medium stories cannot be laid out and rendered like long stories, but need to be quickly cut in, quickly advanced, and abruptly concluded. This requires a certain amount of skill. On this point, I once elaborated on this in an article commenting on the expressiveness of Mei Yu's novels, "The Web Woven by Life and the Stripping of the Cocoon of Art".
However, I think that even the best means of expression exist in order to present the "thoughts" of the author.
In "Alien Phase", the author borrows the protagonist's psychology to preach, "The human heart is more likely to produce a different phase." This seems to be true, for human society, all "aliens" are indeed born from the heart. But the "mind" does not produce a dissimilarity for no reason or cause.
What makes the mind different? Mei Yu found what "alien phase" in her attention again and again, which is what we need to think, face, look directly, and torture.
"After the Great Cold" writes that a family has been knocked into a "vegetative person" because of his son Xiao Yong, and the bottomless pit-like treatment cost has made the family "out of phase". If the novel only revolves around the treatment of Xiao Yong, the difficulties faced by the family and the resulting contradictions are not impossible, but Mei Yu implants the "crowdfunding" that has emerged in recent years and is popular in society. If you only use "crowdfunding" to reflect the love of the crowd for a difficult family, it will undoubtedly be warm. However, Mei Yu's pen turned sharply, writing about the people around Xiao Yong's family, after seeing the huge "power" generated by "crowdfunding", the "alien appearance" in their hearts began to question, began to attack, began to complain, and began to "moral kidnapping". Humanity is stripped away in this alienation, leaving families who are suffering to suffer even greater pain. It also allows us to see the mother, the mother's love in the protagonist of the novel, Lan Ying, is the greatest "alien phase" of human hope.
I was also impressed by Shadow Opposite Death and Red Mandala.
These two novels are very powerful in their torture of human nature.
His father was a humble watchmaker, and his mother and sister were handicapped. Therefore, since childhood, poverty is engraved in Li Zheng's bones. He needed to change, and when he got into college and needed to come up with a sum of money that was huge in their house, he tried to figure it out on his own. "I don't have anything to advance except my body," and when he donated blood, he was hired by Mu Xiaowen, the chairman of the real estate company, to the company. And so the story unfolds.
This novel tells us that in the present, when the whole society magnifies the "rich", "poverty" must be regarded as an incurable disease, and "poverty" must be freed from "poverty" to live like an individual. However, when a father who can repair the "sick" table cannot give his son wealth, when a normal person does not have the conditions and ability to be "rich", but must face all this, perhaps only "betrayal" and "revenge" are left.
This novel reveals such a "heterogeneity". When Li Zheng finally understood that the pie that fell from the sky was because the scarce blood type on his body could save another one, he collapsed, and he began to retaliate madly. His revenge worked, but it also forced himself into a desperate situation. The novel proposes the proposition "What guarantees can a greedy heart give us?" Yes, when greed becomes a "virus", one person is helpless, a group of people are helpless, and a society is helpless.
This is a kind of criticism, and this is also the thinking and responsibility of the writer!
"Red Mandala" is very designed, but this is not what impressed me about this novel. I think that in this novel, Mei Yu is proposing the disaster brought to mankind by the lack of "reverence".
"Middle school student Fang Haowen was killed."
If someone is killed, we must track it down, solve the case, and find out who killed it?
In the end, Fang Haowen designed his own death!
Fang Haowen said through the Internet, "Life is sometimes darker than darkness. He was a poor student, "always undisciplined, truancy, skipping class, playing with mobile phones, teaching repeatedly", almost expelled from school, these many factors added to a middle school student can undoubtedly make him unable to find the direction. But these are not the reasons and reasons for him to give up his life. In fact, it is these factors, coupled with the cognition formed in the virtual world of the Internet, and the combined power of facing what he thinks of as "deception" - female classmate An Yu is not a virgin - that makes him give up the reverence for life when he has not established a concept of life. As the novel writes, "Their ideas, like this open and inclusive era, are pure and corrupt, bright and perverted. ”
What is sin? There is a sin that is certainly to give up the fear of life, and this renunciation has two consequences, killing others or killing oneself!
Fang Haowen chose to kill himself. However, there is another cruelty, supporting Fang Haowen's suicide process is an online game called "Red Mandala", and the top designer of this online game is the son of Zhou Xiaowei, a policeman who intervened in the investigation at the beginning. Zhou Xiaowei's son is not directly responsible for killing Fang Haowen, but the torture given to us throughout the novel is who killed Fang Haowen. Is it Fang Haowen himself? yes! Is it Liu Yanwei who implements the "task"? yes! So, what about Zhou Xiaozhou, Zhou Xiaowei's son? So, what about the entire online world? So, what about the whole real world?
In novels such as "Another Truth", "Persuasion", "Fingertip Blossom", "Kidnapping", "The Taste of Roses", "Encounter" and other novels, "extramarital love" and "little three", that is, betrayal. Then there is murder and murder, revenge and retribution, hurt and being hurt.
In Encounter, the author quotes a phrase by Hugo that "the noblest revenge in the world is tolerance." This sentence is easy to understand, this truth is easy to understand, but is it really easy to understand?
Many people want the truth, but is there a truth? Can you face it after finding the truth? In fact, the first thing many people lose in life is their ego. When a whole new world comes, it begins with an absolute emptiness. Countless people have never found this "emptiness", so that they have been "empty" in life until the "crisis" comes. What ruined a marriage? What ruins trust? What ruined the self?
"Twelve Different Phases" presents a lot of thinking. Mei Yu tells the society through these "different phases" and tells people that the overall change of social concepts and the specific changes faced by each family and each person are forced out of the changes in people's lives and lives, and when dealing with the helplessness of change, they will also be forced out of the change of behavior and consciousness, this change will be distorted after hitting the wall everywhere, and this distortion will change people's lives again, which may be destruction and destruction.
Society is always whimsical, and life is always whimsical. Every life may be a different phase, but how should we present it?
Reading The Twelve Aliens will definitely inspire thinking! (Liang Shengzhi)
Mei Yu, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a student of the advanced study class of Lu Xun Literature College, a contracted writer of Shanxi Literature College, and a "three Jin Talents" of Shanxi Province, whose works have been published in "Shanxi Literature", "Yellow River", "Times Literature", "Yellow River Literature", "Haiyan", etc., and has won the "Yellow River" Literature Award, the Haiyan Popular Writer Award, etc., and has authored the novel collection "Twelve Different Phases".
Liang Shengzhi, a native of Dingxiang County, Shanxi Province, is a senior media person, art scholar, and director of the Xiurong Academy Museum.
He has published novels, essays, poems, and reviews in literary newspapers and periodicals across the country, such as Poetry Journal, Star Poetry Journal, Poetry Newspaper, and Poetry God. The curated and translated "Marco Polo's Travels" was published by China Literature and History Publishing House, republished and later published by the Hong Kong Commercial Press as a youth reading book for publication in Hong Kong. Published a collection of personal poems "A Man's Love" and "Today has become a thing of the past".