Jiang Bing
In recent years, in the film and television circle with the most mass media communication power, it seems that works that tell first-line urban stories have mostly occurred in Beijing and Shanghai, from the popular TV series "Shichahai" and "Thirty Only" in 2020 to the Recently Discussed Shanghainese Film "Love Myth". What about Guangzhou? The land of wealth, the ancient city of a thousand years, the unique way of life, the immigration province, Shenzhen, the city of miracles, growing up in the great changes of reform and opening up, how many strange people and wonders, the vicissitudes of the times. Where is the much-anticipated story with strong regional color? Did it gradually disappear with the rise of Guangdong's industrialization era?
The answer is no. On the contrary, in the context of the era of globalization, re-examining the homeland under the feet, re-understanding the local culture, and finding the "export" of Guangdong's literary and artistic creation are the ultimate references and aspirations of the "local narrative" of Guangdong regional culture.
It is worth mentioning that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, as a national strategy, provides us with an opportunity to re-understand Lingnan culture. Taking Guangzhou as an example, as a thousand-year-old commercial capital and an important port on the Maritime Silk Road, it has historically constituted one of the original sources of Imagination China in Europe and even the world. This image actually points to the urban color and modern temperament in Lingnan culture - marine and cosmopolitan, forward-looking and open, which must be fully valued in the cultural construction of the Greater Bay Area today. It reminds us from time to time that the backwardness of concepts is one of the biggest obstacles to cultural construction.
In addition to maintaining the leading position in cultural concepts, literary and artistic creation based on Guangdong's regional culture, especially long novels, has two aspects that need to be urgently improved - first, telling Guangdong stories well requires superb language art skills. For today's young readers who are deeply influenced by the image reading era and Internet culture, writers need to seriously study this audience group, and if the work is not disseminated, there will be no reader and no effect. How to have a good artistic effect? Inseparable from novel stories, exquisite structures and exquisite language art techniques, literature itself must be mobilized to the greatest extent in order to attract the attention of readers. For novels that require "length, density, and depth", if they lack complexity and depth, passion and change, the pace is still slow and delayed, the writing is biased, the imagination is constrained, and the artistic techniques are relatively old, then such works are difficult to attract.
Second, highlighting the personality of regional culture is an effective way for Guangdong literature to "go global". In this regard, the "Thirteen Elements" series by Guangdong writer Ah Bo is an important breakthrough in Guangdong's local literature. The local events, local characters, local language integration, local cultural atmosphere in the novel, as well as the novel momentum, the interpretation of the commercial road, the fierce business war, the atmosphere of Yangcheng in the Qing Dynasty, the folk customs of Chaoshan and Southern Fujian, and various character portrayals can all be remarkable, and Lingnan culture has become radiant through the novel.
Guangdong writer Wu Jun's novel "Wanfu" relies on the author's observation of the interaction between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and contains continuous thinking about "time" and "space". The novel begins with the unique characteristics of the Greater Bay Area, where Hong Kong style and Shenzhen style collide and collide, bringing out the various characters of a big drama. The author has made unremitting attempts in the absorption of Cantonese dialects and the vivid description of Guangdong folklore, which has brought useful enlightenment to the "localization" creation of Guangdong.
Some people say: A writer first spells life, then spells skills, and finally spells life insights. Most novelists in Guangdong have a rich accumulation of life and have a long-term observation of everything in society. It is expected that they will broaden their horizons, absorb the strengths of all, rationally grasp and deal with the subtle relationship between the superficial narrative and the deep narrative of the artwork, and at the same time repeatedly ponder the various ways of artistic expression, and strive to make the artistic expression of the work to a higher level.
(The author is president of Guangzhou Lingnan Cultural Research Association and professor of Guangdong University of Finance and Economics)
The original article was published on March 27, 2022 in the Literary and Art Review edition of Nanfang Daily Culture Weekly
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【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client