Literature Guanlan Book Club
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Founded in October 2016, the "Creative Reading and Writing Workshop" relies on the magazine "Chinese Writers Research" to discuss the latest works of contemporary writers and the outstanding film and television works of the moment, deeply analyze the contemporary significance of writers' creation and cultural phenomena, and bring inspiration to creative writing. Advocate reading as a service to writing, and use creative reading to train creative writing. The participants are mainly young teachers and graduate students of creative writing and contemporary Chinese literature, and some undergraduate students who love creative writing are also absorbed.
"Homecoming": a literary expression of rural revitalization in the new era
Author: Ye Wei
Publisher: Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House
Publication date: September 2021
The countryside is the deep background of Chinese society, and in-depth investigation of the countryside is the key code for a comprehensive understanding of China. The creation of novels with local themes is even more connected with the pace of the CPC in promoting rural construction over the past hundred years, providing important spiritual support for rural modernization. Entering the new era of literature, how to write and shape the revitalization of the countryside? This reading meeting focuses on Ye Wei's novel "Homecoming" to explore the literary expression of rural revitalization in the new era.
@ Wen Dechao: A literary conception of a beautiful blueprint for rural revitalization
Ye Wei's "Homecoming" continues the creative ideas of the "Native China Trilogy" and the "Transition Era Trilogy", once again focusing on the homeland, through the return of home at the intersection of dreams and reality, history and reality, leaving home and returning home, etc., rhetorically shaping the "three hometowns" - the hometown in memory, the hometown in reality, and the hometown in the ideal, and strive to present the history of social customs and national spiritual history under the great changes in the countryside in the past century. With deep and broad compassion, he crawled on the land of his hometown, where he "appeared again and again in my dreams, and then, again and again, reappeared and restored in my pen."
"Homecoming" narrates that the first two hometowns are to pave the way for the appearance of the third hometown, the hometown in memory is the spiritual source of the soul, the hometown in reality is the starting point of reform and innovation, and the focus of the work is to explore how to effectively connect poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, how to do rural revitalization, and how to build beautiful villages, and hand over the writer's answer sheet in a literary and aesthetic way:
First, in the concept of rural governance, from the duality of urban and rural to the overall integration of urban and rural development. Through his works, the author expresses that the development of agricultural and rural modernization needs to get rid of the partial perspective of "discussing the countryside on the countryside", combine the countryside and the city, and take the road of integrated development, shared results, and mutual benefit and win-win results. Zhao Xungen believes that "it is a good thing to engage in tourism development, and the way is right. Now that everyone's living standards have improved, they all think about how to eat and how to have fun, and they all think of playing in the land with mountains and water. We have green mountains and rivers here, and people in the city are naturally willing to come over. "The second is to adapt to local conditions and integrate resources on the path of rural governance, and comprehensively promote and benefit Sangzi."
In "Homecoming", we were pleasantly surprised to see the initial awakening of the consciousness of rural subjects. With regard to intellectual resources, there are Zhao Xungen and other social elites who have gone out of the countryside to offer suggestions and suggestions for the construction of new rural areas in their hometowns; there are the enthusiastic participation of rural intellectual groups such as Liu Junshan and Han Huihui; and there is the fiery passion of Liu Shaojun and other rural cadres and officials in starting their own businesses. On the basis of profoundly grasping the law of modernization construction and the changes in urban-rural relations, "Homecoming" can enter the countryside and present rural experience, focus on achieving the overall goal of "industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural style civilization, effective governance, and affluent life" in rural areas, and empower rural areas in the new era to embark on an innovative path of priority development and high-quality development.
It is the duty and mission of contemporary writers to tell a good Story of China, especially the vivid and wonderful stories of struggle that have emerged in the process of rural revitalization, and to record the earth-shaking changes that have taken place in the rural land. "Homecoming" goes beyond the enlightenment model, romantic pastoral model and socialist rural theme model of traditional vernacular literature, the author enthusiastically praises the "big cause" of "small people" on the road of rural revitalization, trying to illuminate life with the light of reality, the light of reason, and the light of ideals, so that people can see the beautiful, see the hope, and see the dream is ahead, it can be said that this is a literary work with bones, morality and temperature.
@ Tian Zhenhua: Where are the "roots" of returnees in the new era?
"Post-70s" writer Ye Wei has spent more than ten years creating more than a million words of "Native China Trilogy", "Blessed Land", "Rich Mine", "Hou Tu", and recently published the vernacular literary work "Homecoming", which is enough to see his sincerity, determination and confidence in loving the countryside, deeply cultivating the countryside and searching for roots.
As a generation that has gone out of the countryside, how to reconstruct the connection between the self and the countryside is the test of the current "post-70s" local writers. In "Homecoming", the author focuses on the current countryside, uses the way of intellectuals returning to their hometowns to "find roots", expresses the emotions of self-body and mind and rural separation, and writes about the dark areas in the current countryside that we cannot touch. The author named the protagonist "Root Seeking", which may have multiple meanings here, on the one hand, why does the protagonist Zhao Xungen "seek roots"? Perhaps that is because there are no roots in the city, life is like a wandering duckweed, so that he has to "find roots"; on the other hand, Zhao Xungen believes that the countryside has his "roots". However, today, the rural areas have experienced a magnificent historical process of reform for decades, from "native China" in the sense of Fei Xiaotong to "new native China" in the sense of He Xuefeng, and then to modern China in the sense of "accelerating society" in the new era, can Zhao Xungen still find "roots"?
In "Homecoming", the opening chapter is full of divinity, and the work takes the protagonist Zhao Xiangen's dream of returning to his hometown "Mazhuang" as the prologue, physically more and more distant from his hometown, but mentally closer and closer to his hometown. Mazhuang, where Zhao Xungen's hometown is located, is the location of Fuxi Nuwa, and Fuxi Nuwa dreams of him - the Mazhuang Mine has collapsed. This coincided with reality, Zhao Xungen's father called to say that the collapse of the Mazhuang Mine had flooded the ancestral tomb with water, and urged Zhao Xungen to quickly return to his hometown and move the grave. As a witness to the history of the countryside and as the sustenance of the spirit and faith of modern people, the ancestral tomb has been completely "washed away" by industrial civilization. In a sense, it can be said, or in Zhao Xungen's view, the ancestral tomb is buried with the "root" of rural Chinese people, and the ancestral tomb representing the "root" is washed away, which also symbolizes the lack of "root culture" in the countryside at present. In a metaphorical way, the author presents the reader with the achievements of the current rapid development, partly at the expense of traditional agricultural civilization.
The flooding of the Mazhuang cemetery became the fuse for Zhao Xungen's return and "interference" in the development of his hometown, and in the process of "intervening" in the development reality of Mazhuang, many contradictions unfolded one after another. Several people who grew up in the same countryside have undergone earth-shaking changes in their later life trajectories and development processes. Some people rely on their unswerving will and self-pursuit to go out of the countryside and go to a farther world, such as Zhao Xungen; some people can rely on power and means to make a fortune in the countryside, such as Liu Shaojun; some people have relatively limited ability but have certain pursuits, such as Liu Junshan, a rural teacher; and some people are relatively conservative or backward, and can only stick to or have to stay in the countryside, such as left-behind women, the elderly, and children. In the face of the development of the times and the changes in the countryside, their world outlook, values, and outlook on life are changing quietly or violently, and their views on history, life, life, and death have even gone to two poles. However, they all face the revitalization and development of the countryside in their own way, burning their own lives and strength.
It is worth mentioning that in the shaping of characters, the author has no subjective first, Zhao Xungen, as an intellectual standing on a higher vision, has his own selfish intentions while caring for the countryside and saving the countryside; Liu Shaojun seems to be cunning and arbitrary, but to some extent he has also promoted the development of the countryside; Liu Junshan is unknown, but it is their existence that there are people like Zhao Xungen. The author really grasps the complex personality of different personalities and different professions. Cleverly, the author unfolds in the form of chapters and backs, and each time uses a protagonist as the first perspective to view himself and Zhao Xungen. This form of alternating the first perspective allows us to see each person's external behavior and inner spiritual world, and several characters refer to each other as mirrors, especially focusing on Zhao Xungen with different eyes, allowing us to see the whole process of his personality from generation to development.
@ Qian Siheng: Literary answers and reflections on rural revitalization
Different from the countryside in the past, which is in the single linear structure of "tradition and modernity", the hometown of Mazhuang in "Homecoming" faces more forces and tension games, the inheritance of the oldest cultural bloodline, the warmth and suffering of revolutionary China, the contradiction between the development problems and traditional moral requirements faced at present, and the complex human nature infiltrated under the influence of all these influences, penetrating history and finally intersecting in the present. Zhao Xungen is not only a simple "recorder" or "witness", the more effective meaning is that he has become the embodiment of the countryside with "urban skin bags and rural bones", and the repeated hesitations between the urban daughter Wan Xiaolu and the rural fa Xiao Han Huihui reflect the embarrassing situation of today's rural areas where there is no return; on the other hand, the government's determination to change the countryside and practical actions have given this historical problem a new impetus to solve at the moment.
The ubiquitous cultural totem that pervades the countryside peels off the ancient ghosts and mysteries along with the dust, leaving a spiritual empty shell waiting to be rediscovered and activated, "the body is in the city, the spirit is in the countryside" Of the city, Zhao Xungen, a foreigner in the city, is such a "cultural archaeology team member", returning to his hometown Mazhuang, which was originally "the place where Confucian civilization is gathered, the birthplace of Han culture, and the origin of human ancestral culture", but today it is constantly withering and suffering impacts. This shock is both a symbolic flood of water that directly floods the old grave, which is one of the consequences of the ever-expanding of modern industry, and more importantly, a silent change in the moisturizer of each individual.
Liu Shaojun, a strongman in the countryside, is such a typical example, or he embodies the symptoms of hidden change. In contemporary vernacular novels, especially since the new century, rural strongmen or capable people have always been an extremely important type of character image, and Liu Shaojun's portrayal is adding a very personal stroke to this genealogy. The strongman politics represented by Liu Shaojun has in fact replaced the traditional Confucian virtue politics to play a role in the rural grassroots; the gentle, village-style moderation and harmonious rural governance have lost its most solid and thick rural soil, the gentle virtues have been shelved, "affordability" has become hegemonic, and emphasizing reality, stressing efficiency, and looking at efficiency has become the yardstick for measuring all behaviors.
The transformation from the rule of virtue in the countryside to the rule of the strongman, and all the relevant cognitive models and value standards behind this, is the current situation that the countryside in China's urban and rural structure needs to face with difficulties. The ordinary and stubborn sons and daughters of Lunan are placed in the rapid operation of the times and the huge roar of the machine without choice, and the changes of morality, spirit, mainstream and marginality, interests and entanglements occur rapidly, and try to subvert the historical inertia of thousands of years to challenge the current Mazhuang people, but also to the writer and every reader to ask questions worthy of careful consideration.
Zhao Xungen, who is bent on the mission of redemption, is also deeply trapped in the repeated entanglement and competition between the city and the countryside. As a rural concrete flesh, he still can't cut off the umbilical cord with the land mentally when he enters the city, so in those childhood memories that are constantly flashing back, the warm veins of "earthy breath, mud taste" profoundly affect and determine Zhao Xungen's personality and behavior, but for the modern city, what kind of posture should be used to face such a rural son? Just like his name, even if he has settled in the city, Zhao Xungen is still a sojourner, and his spirit is always inseparable from the ideal and destination of "searching for roots", and the summoning of the homeland in his dreams and the admonitions of his ancestors make him have to face up to the problem of identity. This is a question about emotional identity, cultural conversion, ideal sustenance of the soul ultimate dependence, with the deepening of the search, Zhao Xungen more and more found a large number of historical and cultural relics around Mazhuang, these relics are not only about Lunan Mazhuang geographical business card, but also Zhao Xungen himself to complete the spiritual puzzle.
That is to say, what "Homecoming" accomplishes is not only a simple connection between the city and the countryside, but also a prescription for the current gradually distant rupture between the two, that is, to find a solid fulcrum to rely on on the extension line of traditional culture.
For the current real world, real changes are happening objectively. The construction of Xiaokang Village, the planning of the four major projects, etc., these exciting earth-shaking changes are the real answer to the mystery of history, and only the notes of the grand main theme that individuals can make themselves more meaningful in the torrent of the times. Therefore, whether it is the foundation for the establishment of Liu Shaojun's strong man-ruled village, or Zhao Xungen's design and planning for the future of Mazhuang can become possible, the axe of tiangong behind "daring to call the sun and the moon for a new look" is the planning and implementation of the party and the government's package of rural transformation projects.
At the end of the novel, four major infrastructure renovation projects in Mazhuang are about to begin; the new cemetery is successfully completed, and Wan Xiaolu, who has not been pregnant for many years, has finally given birth to a son. This indicates that Zhao Xungen's spiritual roots and soul roots have finally found a home, and he and the city have finally reached a reconciliation, and the grand background of these "small people" looking for their own happiness is backed and supported by the "Chinese speed" and "Chinese power" that are repeatedly emphasized in the text as the "Chinese speed" and "Chinese power" of the "infrastructure madness". The countryside, the city, the tradition, and the party and the government have made great efforts to change the reality of the countryside, giving more diversified answers and reflections to the ancient rural propositions, and are also a new answer to history at present.
(This article was published in the 8th edition of the special issue "Literature Guanlan" jointly organized by China Writers Network and Literature and Art Daily on April 20, 2022)