Individuals and Their Fate under the Manipulation of History| About Ye Zhaoyan's Novel "The Gate of Yi Feng"

Ye Zhaoyan's novel "The Gate of Yifeng" was first published in the first issue of Harvest in 2022

　　"The Gate of Yifeng" is Ye Zhaoyan's new work, which seems to use Yifengmen as the background of the novel's story, but it is actually about the modern and modern history of Nanjing. That is to say, it is a city gate as an observation point to tell the history of a city. Historically, Yifengmen is the "back door" of Nanjing, and out of Yifengmen is the Xiaguan Wharf and the Yangtze River, which is actually quite far from the main urban area of Nanjing. The author's observation point of view is actually to write about how the outer part of the city determines and affects the center and interior of the city.

　　Such an idea is quite consistent with the character relationship setting and narrative structure of the novel. The novel takes Yang Kui, a low-level villain, as the protagonist, and tells the story of how he rose from an insignificant rickshaw driver to an important businessman in the Shimonoseki area in the tide of the turbulent times since modern times. According to this writing, Yang Kui should be a hero or a tyrant. But the fact is that from beginning to end, we can't see how much Yang Kui has surpassed from the author's description of Yang Kui. He was neither brave nor resourceful; neither broad-minded nor sharp-minded; neither ambitious nor far-sighted. All we see is that Yang Kui seems to be somewhat assertive or slightly calm; he is not as impulsive or reckless as his two brothers Shui Gen and Feng Yixiong. In the final analysis, Yang Kui is actually a lackluster person. But it was such a mediocre person who became an important figure in the Shimonoseki region. This raises the question of the relationship between the individual and history. While the novel shows Yang Kui becoming an important merchant in the Shimonoseki area step by step, it often highlights the fact that he cannot control his own destiny, the most typical example of which is that in order to avoid war or turmoil, he often hides in the Asian hotels opened by the Japanese, and even finally takes the life of his beloved wife. At the end of the novel, the author briefly explains the portrayal of Yang Kui's life after his wife's death in the form of an "epilogue", which is an indispensable state of life - only driven by the inertia of daily life, without joy or deep sorrow. This may be Yang Kui's original state.

　　The novel is ostensibly telling the life story between Yang Kui and Shui Gen and Feng Yixiong, and the ups and downs of the fates of the three people constitute the main line and branch of the novel; but in fact, the fates of the three people are closely linked to a person named Zhang Haichao. The Shuigen murder incident caused Zhang Haichao to appear as a policeman, but Zhang Haichao's real identity was a revolutionary party, and he took a fancy to Yang Kui and their inn outside the city as a stronghold for the revolutionaries, so Yang Kui and others were vaguely involved in the anti-Qing struggle at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and Yang Kui's life changed greatly. Although Yang Kui's origins are on the one hand helped by the nobleman Zhang Haichao, on the other hand, he relies on his own ingenuity, Yang Kui's success is not inevitable, and Ye Zhaoyan does not seem to want to write about Yang Kui's strong subjectivity. In the novel, although Yang Kui is the protagonist, he is actually a character with a vague personality and weak action recognition from beginning to end. That is to say, Yang Kui is really just a "marionette", he was only accidentally selected by Zhang Haichao and then rose rapidly. Following this clue, it is not difficult to find that the powerful people other than Yang Kui in the novel, such as Zhang Haichao, and even the warlord leaders who ruled Nanjing like Feng Guozhang and Sun Chuanfang, are not historical "marionettes"? They seem to be strong, but they are in fact very weak and incompetent: they are brought into the torrent of history, and they are not always in charge of their own destiny. They are also characters who are not very subjective. Such a manifestation of a helpless and dominated fate, although not necessarily Ye Zhaoyan's original intention in writing this book, has already been engraved on the walls and gates of Yifengmen, and in the end it all points to or symbolizes the fate of China as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society: the fate of Nanjing or China since modern times is precisely the kind of characterization that can be called the external decision inside--outside the city determines the inside, and the foreign determines the domestic--the so-called personal or urban fate is involuntarily embodied here.

　　In this novel, the author had intended to establish some mysterious connection between a man, a city gate and a city to distinguish most of his previous works, but in fact, the fates of the three are only accidentally intertwined. This kind of accidental manifestation is the direction of the historical destiny of modern China, which is not subject to individual will. For this direction, people in it are naturally unable to see and think clearly, so most of them have become "puppets" of history, and there is not much initiative or subjectivity of individual people. But in fact, this seems to be the effect of Ye Zhaoyan's novel deliberately or diligently presented. He has no intention of constructing and hooking the revolutionary history that has taken place in and around Nanjing since modern times (although it is not easy to build the revolutionary history of Nanjing Since modern times, but it is not impossible), and his Nanjing narrative can hardly see the great current or undercurrent of historical progress, and naturally can only present the chaotic life of all sentient beings in Nanjing Under the decadence of history. From this point of view, his protagonists are certainly manipulated by the strange giants of history, but the great changes in history also give them the opportunity to highlight their limited initiative, such as the celebrity style and the resentment of the remnants of the remnants ("Chasing the Moon Building") that were expressed in the name of patriotism under the invasion of the Japanese Kou Iron Hoof, or the brilliant bloom of romantic love before the fall of the city ("Love in 1937"). This can be said that Ye Zhaoyan has always been the secret of Nanjing's writing, and "The Gate of Yifeng" is naturally no exception.

　　But this does not mean that "The Gate of Yi Feng" has no new ideas. For Ye Zhaoyan, the significance of this work may also lie in the expressive angle of urban narrative. In recent years, the writing of urban biography seems to have become a trend, and Ye Zhaoyan has also been eager to try and write "Nanjing Biography", but he seems to be more inclined to the style of fiction. "The Gate of Yifeng" attempts to represent the Xiaguan region as a perspective on the modern process of Nanjing, and its writing practice of entering the city of Nanjing from the edge of Nanjing is reminiscent of Xia Shang's "Chronicle of the East Bank" and Zhang Yiwei's "Night You Don't Know". These are all attempts to express the city from the side of the city. The difference is that the author of "The Gate of Yifeng" has been writing about the city of Nanjing, and this time it can naturally be seen as its continuation and deepening. This is not to negate Ye Zhaoyan's exploration, but just to show that when the author tries to link the history of the city and the expressive angle of urban literature with the fate of the city's non-subjectivity, the inherent tension between the three certainly makes us feel the tension within the text and its rich connotation, but also makes people wonder: Is this constructing the past and present life of modern Nanjing, or is it doing the work of secret deconstruction?

(Author: Wang Bingbing)