As early as 2002, I was still working at the People's Literature Publishing House, and in addition to editing the journal, I also edited a little book. I remember compiling a book by a writer at that time, which was very beautiful and later sold well. After the compilation, I always felt that something was missing. Oh, less landscape description. I communicated this opinion with the author very seriously, hoping to revise it once and add some landscape descriptions, but now it is a little too "dry". The author also listened carefully and said to go back and revise it well. But when he took the revised draft and looked at it, I said, this scene description is too ordinary, does not have its own characteristics, the key is not to integrate into the whole of the novel, dispensable, it is recommended that the author go back to continue to modify. After a while, the author told me with a sad face that he could not complete this revision, originally thinking that the landscape description was very simple, but now it is too difficult to find it too difficult to integrate into the whole of the novel. In the end, it can only be abandoned. The novel was published, and although it was a hit, I felt from the bottom of my heart that its texture was flawed.
Later, it was found that this was not a flaw of an author, but a flaw of some people, and slowly became a weakness of the current novel. In the novels I read, some writers often have good stories and themes, very suitable character settings, and even wonderful dialogues, but the landscape descriptions that we used to be very familiar with and liked disappear at some point.
Thought is the light of literature, and landscape description is the wetland in fiction
If it is said that works describing urban themes are not good at landscape description, it is enough, because urban literature is still a newly opened topic for writers, unlike local themes that have enough resources to transform, urban landscapes have no coordinates to refer to, and writers avoid or write poorly. Recently, I have read some novels with the theme of rural revitalization, and found that these works "see things but do not see people", character shaping lacks the imprint and personality of the new era, some successful character shaping works, and "see people do not see the scenery", those once beautiful rural landscapes are replaced by so boring meetings and interpersonal conflicts. The space in which the characters live has no landscape, just like the stage set up by the blocks, not vivid and unreal.
Beautiful landscape depictions are an organic part of literary works, and if the scenery is missing in the novel, it is like our living environment has disappeared wetlands, crowded, dry, and without vitality. Many years ago, some urban renovations used to fill in river berths and level wetlands, which were considered by managers at the time to occupy space. Later, drainage barriers became apparent, air quality dropped, and the cities reverted to wetlands. Does our novel also follow the old path of partial urban construction?
The functions of scenery in the novel are diverse, creating an environment, rendering atmosphere, setting off emotions, laying the plot, suggesting psychology, seemingly idle writing, but everywhere shining. If thought is the light of literature, landscape depiction is the wetland in the novel. Many of our memories of literature are related to beautiful landscapes. Those famous passages in ancient literature, such as "Yueyang Louji" and "Preface to the Tengwang Pavilion" still let us linger in the beauty of nature, lu xun, Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen and other modern writers wrote the customs and cultural landscapes of eastern Zhejiang, Beijing, Xiangxi and other places, becoming a regional cultural symbol and spiritual portrayal.
Shen Congwen describes the moving scenery of western Hunan in the novel. The picture shows the landscape of western Hunan Province
Why is there a lack of beautiful scenery in the creation of contemporary fiction? Landscape descriptions as "intangible cultural heritage" in literary works are becoming less and less. Cities without wetlands are just concrete forests, literature without beautiful landscapes is just a forest of words and language containers, and the characters float like empty shells, ungrounded, and pale souls.
The euphemistic and delicate narrative of the past is dominated by rough plots and bizarre stories
The reason for this lack of landscape depiction is first and foremost because fast food culture is constantly involved in daily life, which has a potential impact on writers' writing. Since the 1990s, fast food culture marked by best-selling books, film and television dramas, and online literature has penetrated into every corner of our lives, and literature is no exception. Writers are all involved in the writing of these three types of fast food culture to varying degrees, and literary publishing and literary judgment are naturally affected by these fast food cultures, and the "harm" to literary creation also occurs inadvertently.
The core of the best-selling culture, film and television culture and online literature that emerged at the end of the 20th century is commercial culture and the embodiment of the eyeball economy. Get more readers, win more viewers, get more clicks, in order to produce eyeball economy, business effects. These commercial cultures with traffic as the ultimate goal have had an impact on the creation of contemporary novels that cannot be underestimated, and their common features are consumption stories and consumption plots, while scene descriptions are a burden in fast food culture, affecting the rhythm of reading and viewing. In best-selling writing, the euphemistic and delicate narrative of the past is dominated by rough plots and bizarre stories. Fast pace is the biggest feature of bestsellers, and scenery belongs to slow writing, which of course is abandoned like a. A large number of writers join the creation of film and television dramas, and write blood transfusions for film and television dramas, but film and television scripts are basically the mode of scenes and dialogues, where is the space for scenery to survive? I once read a novel written by a well-known writer in the film and television industry, which was actually a simple rewrite of a TV script. The publication of such scenes and dialogues as "novels" is a blasphemy for serious fiction that focuses on psychological and scenic descriptions. Internet literature is essentially the product of the operation of commercial capital, the demand for traffic makes writing become an infinite superposition of plot and suspense, landscape description is at most a buffer to adjust the atmosphere, you want to enjoy the beautiful landscape description in online literature works that is the wrong door.
Illustration of Wang Zengqi's novel Ordination
The lack of landscape depiction is also caused by the writer's unfamiliarity with classic literature and lack of class. The threshold for online literature and best-selling books is relatively low, especially the threshold-free entry of online literature, so that some young writers have embarked on the literary world, not from the beginning of classic literature, but through best-selling books and online literature into creation, they lack in-depth reading and understanding of classics. Literary classics, both Chinese and foreign, have a large number of landscape descriptions. In particular, classical Chinese poetry pays attention to the blending of scenes, and the so-called "unspoken meaning" and "foreign realm" are all based on the description of scenes. "In the past, I used to be in the past, Yang Liu Yiyi, now I come to think, rain and snow are lightning", so is the "Book of Poetry", and so is the "Chu Ci" of "Beauty Fangcao". Tang poems and Song poems are even more classic landscapes that have left countless scenes blending and becoming popular among the population. The depiction of the scenery in "Dream of the Red Chamber", which is still considered the peak of Chinese novels, is unparalleled, and the landscape world between the virtual reality it shows is still talked about today.
Some writers one-sidedly understand the ideas of modern and postmodern novels, arguing that landscape depictions are classical, and that pastoral scenery and modern fiction are not the product of the same channel. Postmodernist writing sought flattening, abandoning the pattern of depth of symbolism. But the flattening of postmodernism is only the destruction of those conceptual symbolic towers, and the depiction of scenes is still regarded as the organism of the novel, but it is used more cautiously and subtly. García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of magic realism and a work revered by postmodernism, but there is no shortage of landscape depictions. Contemporary Chinese writers with postmodernity, such as Yu Hua, Su Tong, Ge Fei, and Bi Feiyu, have not given up on landscape depictions, and they pay tribute to the classic landscape depictions of China and the West with beautiful brushstrokes.
Landscape depiction is the basic skill of literary creation, just like the sketching and sketching of painting, which requires hard work to complete
The lack of scenery is ostensibly an imbalance in literary ability, and its deep-seated reason lies in the absurdity and impetuosity of the writer's heart. Modern novels are in a certain sense the art of narrative, and the art of narration is often the art of narrative perspective. On the basis of breaking the all-knowing and all-powerful narrative perspective of traditional novels, modern novels have given birth to many narrative perspectives, observing the world, society and life with different eyes. But no matter which perspective you take, you start from the eyes and see the world from the eyes. Although many works use the perspective of the character, in fact, it is the writer's potential perspective that is "speaking".
Perspective comes from the eyes, and eyes come from the mind. Da Vinci famously said, "The eyes are the windows of the mind.". As an outstanding painter, the eyes of da Vinci's characters are the windows of the soul, and the emotions revealed in the eyes of the characters in The Last Supper are the true portrayal of the soul. For modern novels, the things seen and expressed from the perspective of narration are the projection of the writer's mind. From the perspective of the psychology of literary and artistic creation, the lack of scenery in the novelist's pen today is precisely the lack of a certain spirit in the depths of the soul. Wang Guowei said in "Words and Words on Earth" that there is a distinction between the realm of literature and the realm of "the realm of having me" and "the realm of no self", but he also emphasizes that "all scenery is love language". This "love" is the existence of the writer's heart. The French Neo-Novel School's emphasis on "materialization" and "zeroness without self" is itself a philosophical pursuit. The lack of thought and the poverty of philosophy create a hollowness in the mind and a hollowness in the eyes.
Landscape depiction is actually the basic skill of literary creation, just like the sketching and sketching of painting, which requires hard work to complete. Recently, some so-called innovative works of fine art, novelty is novelty, weirdness is weirdness, painters have no lack of imagination and creativity, but due to the lack of basic sketching training, their works can often only be called "installation", or simply "performance art".
Good writers have their own philosophy to support. As a great thinker, why is Lu Xun's landscape unforgettable? Because these landscapes are the carriers of Lu Xun's thought. The opening chapter of "Hometown" reads: "As we approach our hometown, the weather is gloomy again, and the cold wind blows into the cabin, whining, looking out from the canopy gap, under the pale yellow sky, there are several desolate villages near and far, and there is no vitality." My heart couldn't help but get sad. This is a true depiction of the decline of the countryside at that time, and it is also a full embodiment of Lu Xun's sadness and hatred of old Chinese society, and his disappointment in the Xinhai Revolution and his worries about Chinese society also permeate it.
Wu Guanzhong's painting "Lu Xun's Hometown"
Wang Zengqi is a writer who pays great attention to narrative and is a writer who cherishes ink and gold, but in his representative works "Ordination" and "The Chronicle of Da Nao", there are large and large landscape descriptions, which are integrated with customs and folk customs, not only becoming the organism of the novel, but also becoming the "main building" of the novel. This is related to Wang Zengqi's concept of fiction, he believes that atmosphere is a story, and he pursues a harmonious aesthetic. In Wang Zengqi's careless depictions of landscapes, we read about the harmony between man and nature, the environment, and life.
Although the landscape descriptions of many novels are missing, it is gratifying that some writers have not given up. In the novels of writers such as Liu Liangcheng and Ma Jinlian, you can still enjoy the beautiful landscape descriptions. Ma Jinlian's rural landscape of Xihaigu is warm and kind. Liu Liangcheng's "One Man's Village" and "Carrying Words" have a strong description of the scenery of Xinjiang, and even let the scenery itself become the main body of the novel, which has received keen attention.
Gu Cheng has a famous poem, "The night gave me black eyes / But I used it to find the light" If a person's heart is gray, with gray eyes to see the world, see more of the interpersonal conflicts, interests and spiritual confusion under the market relationship, how can there be a bright and beautiful landscape world in the heart?
(Author: Wang Gan, Professor, College of Literature, Yangzhou University)
Welfare moments
In the novels you have read, what are the moving landscape descriptions and how do you feel? Please leave a comment below this article to share your thoughts. The top 5 readers who leave a message and like can get a copy of "Wang Zengqi's Twelve Lectures" provided by Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House, and the like time is until 12:00 noon on April 15.
Source: Guangming Daily (2022.04.13. 14th edition)
Editor-in-charge: Wang Zimo
Editor: Wu Yaqi Wang Yuanfang