Zhang Xuexin, | of Literary Geography and Contemporary Northeast Narrative Studies: The "Desolate Aesthetics" of Ban Yu's Northeast Narrative

Zhang Xuexin

One

It is hard to forget that in the mid-1980s, Chen Pingyuan, Qian Liqun, and Huang Ziping collaborated on a blockbuster article, "On Twentieth Century Chinese Literature".[1] In this essay, they propose to look at twentieth-century Chinese literature as a whole, placing it in the context of "world literature", describing and outlining its basic outlines. In particular, the spiritual and aesthetic aspects of the general theme of "transforming the soul of the nation" and the modern aesthetic characteristics with "sadness" as the basic core have been judged. Therefore, under an extremely open field of vision, they began to sort out and interpret Chinese literature in the first eighty years of the twentieth century, trying to make aesthetic definitions or theoretical positioning. When discussing a large number of texts that write about the historical process of the Chinese nation's transformation from the old to the new and its overall aesthetic characteristics, the article takes "anxiety" and "sadness" as the core keywords, and "sadness" as its deep structure of aesthetic consciousness, forming an overall grasp and judgment of the literature of the past century. They described the aesthetic characteristics as "sadness", used "the fog of sadness, all over Hualin" to describe and reiterate the pain and twists faced by the Chinese nation in the continuous progress and difficult rise, and used it to describe the vicissitudes and sadness of the twentieth century writers represented by Lu Xun to the entire Chinese nation. This kind of "sadness", at the level of the atmosphere presented by the text, forms a difficult, cold, and desolate existence form and context. But at the same time, it is also manifested as the narrative subject's resistance and struggle against reality, existence and nothingness, and is an all-round presentation of literary narratives on reality, existence, nationality, human nature and other thinking into the philosophical level.

About twenty years later, in 2007, I had a literary dialogue with the writer Yan Lianke in Dalian, Shenyang and Benxi for nearly a week. When we discuss Yan Lianke's creation, we have repeatedly mentioned this "outline" of twentieth-century Chinese literature by Chen, Qian, and Huang twenty years ago. In this dialogue, it seems difficult for us to easily get out of the textual atmosphere and aesthetic feelings of the twentieth century "sadness" that they have summarized. Starting from Yan Lianke's own writing, analyzing and discussing the cold and cold aesthetic elements in his texts seems to be more able to confirm the accuracy and rationality of the above judgment. Moreover, from the deep depiction dimension of the existing world presented by literature, the philosophical consciousness in literary narratives and the spiritual logical starting point of writing are derived, which triggers Yan Lianke's deep reflection on his writing ideals, aesthetic pursuits, spiritual dimensions, aesthetic values and practical significance.

Yan Lianke: I know that I often have a feeling of neurotic desolation, but I am not aware of the coldness of the world as a whole, nor do I intentionally publicize this desolation in literature as a whole. I just felt desolate to a certain time, and when I couldn't tell people and wanted to say it, I started to write a novel. Lonely or cold, I'll make that comparison: a single, no matter how happy he is, is still lonely and desolate compared to a warm family. A happy family is lonely and desolate compared to a thriving family; a prosperous, developed family is lonely and desolate compared to a prosperous town. By analogy, the ratio of small cities to large cities, the ratio of large cities to Beijing and Shanghai, the ratio of Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo, New York and Paris, the ratio of small countries to large countries, such as Palestine, Serbia, Iceland, Serbia and Montenegro and China, the United States, India, and the ratio of poor countries to rich countries, such as North Korea and Japan, the United States, and European countries. Also, put this human being in the universe, how small this star is, how vulnerable it is. Whether you are a person, a group of people, a nation, who is not lonely, who is not lonely, who is not lonely? In fact, we humans have the same undiscovered heart, that is, cold and lonely. [2]

The cold and loneliness are not only inner, but also an environment, atmosphere, context and "mirror of reality". For a contemporary Chinese writer like Yan Lianke, he was born and grew up in the Northern Central Plains for several years, personally experienced and felt the persistence, tenacity, forbearance and self-improvement that people urgently need to face existence, reality, fate and suffering in the process of history and the development of the times. These have long constituted the spiritual starting point of his writing. In the subsequent reflection and research, I noticed that the writers in the north were significantly different from the southern writers in terms of spiritual temperament and cultural accumulation. The North, or "Northeast", as a specific historical, cultural, and physical geography field, the "core" and "hard core" of the personality presented by the writers living in it in the process of aesthetic narrative seem to be more "spontaneous" to a certain extent. And those symbolic, metaphorical objects or situations, or a feeling, intuition, and reflection hidden in the narrative, constitute the "second item of aesthetics" in the narrative, which is cleverly integrated into the root of the narrative. In fact, that "often neurotic feeling of desolation" is the inducement of a large image, which constitutes the entire "emotion and form" of Yan Lianke's narrative. Since then, "cold and hard and desolate", such an aesthetic consciousness or "idea" between psychological feelings or aesthetics, has become an aesthetic level that I often pay attention to and taste with my heart when reading literary works. We can realize that this sense of "desolation" often looms in the texts of many contemporary Chinese writers, revealing the impact of narrative on reality and human nature, and gradually becoming a mysterious, subtle, and melancholic aesthetic element and spiritual category in the empirical world. Now I think, for many years, why did Yan Lianke present "desolate cold" so "wantonly" in the narrative? Perhaps, the responsibility of an outstanding writer is to live up to the silent soul of every severe environment, and he must respect the dignity and faith of the weak; and at the same time, he is moved and pays tribute to the unbearable squeeze of the poor and weak, just like the rebirth of weeds, tenaciously resisting slaughter and desolation in hardship.

From Yan Lianke's strong "sense of coldness", "cold mood" and "desolate narrative", I can also feel a large number of northeastern literature and northeastern narratives with their strong similarities, especially similar aesthetic characteristics and appearances, and crawl out a unique aesthetic path from the texts of Xiao Hong, Chi Zijian, Ban Yu and other generations of writers. The "lonely coldness" of the "bones" hidden in the depths of the text constitutes the inner spiritual elements of the narrative, like a stream of ghostly light, releasing human nature, nature, especially the stimulation and pain brought about by the alpine climate. I think that we can touch and cut into human nature, the trauma of survival and the spiritual difficulties, from the dimensions of life history, spiritual history, regionality and soul, to the depth of the writer's spiritual care and survival thinking.

Yan Lianke and Zhang Xuexin: "My Reality, My Ism"

Chinese University Press| 2011

Two

In recent years, from the overall perspective of "Northeast Literature", I have considered the "hustle and bustle" and prosperity of "Northeast Literature" as a whole in the literary map of Hei, Kyrgyzstan and Liao since the late 1970s and early 1980s in the era of "reform and opening up". At that time, many writers who had an important influence on the "literature of the new period" emerged, showing the broad literary horizon of the "Great Northeast" and the inheritance of the literary traditions of the Xiao Hong, Xiao Jun, and Duanmu Hongliang periods in the 1930s. However, from the late 1990s to the 1920s, there were very few outstanding writers in the Northeast who could continue to write. Writers like Chi Zijian and Ah Cheng have become the banner and "evergreen tree" of Northeast Literature since the new era. In fact, on the whole, the current situation of Northeast Literature is really worrying. Here, I don't want to do too much analysis and evaluation, because there are many complex reasons, with literary and non-literary dual factors, limiting and bothering the writing of writers in Northeast China. I remember once when I exchanged with Chi Zijian about the current situation of northeast literature, we all felt infinite emotion and worry: will the writers in northeast china be ashamed to a certain extent of this majestic and vast land and the complex and changeable history of the past hundred years, as well as the vast number of people and the social life of the era of change and change. Writers in Northeast China must have a sense of mission and cultural responsibility, which should be the unshirkable responsibility of literary writing. In fact, the history of Northeast China over the past century can be said to be a long and complex history of spiritual and cultural changes and development. In the texts of many writers, we have seen how the "big history" of modern and contemporary China enters the hearts of northeastern writers, and how it excavates the grand historical depth, showing the majesty and openness of the northeastern narrative.

If we continue to trace back, in addition to the "Zhiqing" generation of writers, the "local writers" in the northeast such as Chi Zijian, Ah Cheng, Jin Renshun, Liu Zhaolin, Dali, Diao Dou, Ma Xiaoli, Chen Changping, Li Tie, etc., in the course of the development of the "reform and opening up" for more than forty years, especially in the face of the northeast at the turn of the century, taking the century-old history and the hometown in reality as the creative blueprint, with the eyes of history and aesthetics, examining and describing the "past and present lives" of the Great Northeast, many texts show the culture and psychology of the northeast story in the process of "modernization". A deep depiction of the spirit. In his article "Literary Northeast and Chinese Modernity" written in 2019, Professor Wang Dewei made an extended analysis and interpretation of Northeast Regional Culture, Northeast Literature and Related Issues. He places the writing of northeastern writers in the field of "family", "nationality" and "nation", analyzes the "cross-border narrative vision" in literary writing, and judges the potential narrative power, regional experience and modernity with Chinese characteristics carried by "literary northeast" from the perspective of "northeast china's reflection on the internal and external, Hua and Yi, and the constant changes of us and others". He stressed the need to open up a full and full, profound and open space for cultural and aesthetic speculation, and then inspire us to discover and explore the vast, complex, and changeable historical accumulation and vicissitudes behind the text of "Northeast Story". Wang Dewei said: "Under such a severe situation, how can we talk about 'revitalizing' Northeast China from the perspective of literary research? One way to do this is to retool the story of the Northeast. The so-called story, of course, is not limited to the origin and transition of literary fiction, but also more related to how a society condenses an imaginary community through various forms of dialogue and communication. In other words, to give a new narrative and restart the big narrative. ...... We must use the power of narrative to reposition the region's past and present, as well as to forge a vision for the future. [3] Worryingly, in the 1920s, in addition to the "post-50s and post-60s" writers, the Northeast writers' group even once showed serious "broken file" worries and the embarrassment of "no one to follow". The writing of "post-70s and post-80s" writers as a whole shows a trend of lack of narrative strength, and their understanding, cognition and grasp of history, reality and the existing world require clearer aesthetic recognition and the establishment of a new narrative ethic. Therefore, for a period of time, the regional characteristics of Northeast Literature were gradually missing. However, in recent years, we have seen that young writers from Shenyang, Liaoning Province, such as Ban Yu, Shuang Xuetao, and Zheng Zhi, can be described as turning out to be born. In three or five years, their texts quickly occupied a prominent position in important domestic journals, rapidly producing remarkable literary influence and a "sensational" effect that should not be underestimated. This makes our eyes light up, and we feel a special upliftment and joy. In this regard, I am more willing to place the writing of a new generation of Northeastern writers such as Ban Yu, Shuang Xuetao, and Zheng Zhi in the value system of contemporary spirit and culture, from the perceptual realization and text presentation, from the exploration of human nature in a specific era, to the lack of rational contemplation, in-depth consideration and analysis of the psychological, spiritual and soul breath of the life of our times infiltrated and radiated by their novel creation in recent years. In particular, Ban Yu's writing, showing more full confidence and appropriate narrative moderation, has gradually shown the pattern, and from his two short story collections in recent years, "Winter Swim" and "Getaway", it has been evident that he has insight and expressiveness of reality and sobriety. I noticed the explosiveness, potential and subsequent development of his writing, and I felt the value and significance of his writing. I believe that he, together with Writers Such as Shuang Xuetao and Zheng Zhi, have great hope of becoming important representatives of the new generation of Northeastern writers since the new century.

The most important issue at present is how to tell the new northeast story in our time today, so as to continue the narrative tradition and style of northeast literature of "The Legend of Hulan River", "The Field of Life and Death", "The Right Bank of the Erguna River", "Pseudo-Manchukuo", "The Bravery of Migratory Birds", "Six Gifts of the Nianguan", and "The Gunshots of the Solun River Valley", which is the responsibility and mission of a new generation of Northeast writers. In the nine-hour "Tiexi District" filmed by Wang Bing that year, we saw Liaoning, the "eldest son of the republic", those shocking images of traumatic memories and self-reflection in the major changes of the times. Since then, although there have been many literary works expressing the contemporary reality of Northeast China from the late 1980s to the new century, most of the "sketches" and white-drawn texts that "go with the flow" have rarely explored the contemporary reality of the Great Northeast from a new perspective or from a new narrative ethic, close to the fate of contemporary people, and presented people's emotions, psychological ups and downs and complex changes during this period. Now, we see a new hope for the "Northeast Narrative" in Writers such as Ban Yu who came out of Shenyang's "Tiexi District". In a certain sense, his text shows not only a certain spiritual pain of our time, but also a sober cognition and profound presentation of the era and the spiritual state of society that transcends the "generational". In particular, in Ban Yu's novels, I deeply realized and experienced the "desolate" atmosphere contained in the text, which may also be a special emotional link between the Northeast literary narrative and the "North". It can be said that in this unique northeast context, Ban Yu feels, captures and expresses the "northeast atmosphere" with the most personal qualities, and in the breath of this breath, he patiently diagnoses the psychological and spiritual diseases of two generations. It can be said that the "Northeast Story" has formed a new narrative form under the pen of Ban Yu's generation of writers, and reconstructed the memory of the life of the times, and has formed a closeness, continuation and extension of the aesthetic characteristics of the "desolate cold" and "sadness" of the twentieth century.

Ban Yu: "Winter Swimming"

Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore | 2018

Three

In another article about Ban Yu's creation, I described my feelings about reading Ban Yu's novel for the first time: "A copy of "Winter Swimming" and a copy of "Getaway", although it is only the beginning of Ban Yu's writing, has already shown extraordinary strength and dignity. These two collections of novels printed on 'light paper' are heavy in my hands, and I feel that it writes not only the northeast, but also the vicissitudes and heaviness of the history and reality of our time. Moreover, his writing shows a new temperament and vitality, full of youthful literary atmosphere and showing a writing spirit that is gradually maturing. In Ban Yu, I seemed to see the shadow and breath of Wang Shuo, Su Tong, Yu Hua, and Ge Fei's serious 'youth writing' at that time, with maturity after contemplation, without the slightest 'juvenile twilight' and the spontaneity, arbitrariness and willfulness of young writers. [4] What particularly amazed me was the overall context, context, and atmosphere of Ban Yu's narrative, including the "desolate aesthetics" that gradually penetrated into the text. In many of his novels, there are also amazing imagery presented. These images have become the hidden words of its narrative text to solve the mystery of reality. Try to see a depiction of the "slaughter" scene in "Purge":

After my dad was laid off, he took the money to buy out his working years and bought a used motorcycle to pull his feet. Every morning at six o'clock out, the stainless steel basin is filled with warm water, carefully wipe the car, and then buckle the helmet on the back seat, stand at the intersection of light industry street and wait for work, when there is no guest, they will follow several companions to bake the fire for warmth. They set up a paint bucket on the side of the road, which was piled with waste wood window frames, poured oil and lit, and the flames suddenly burst away, more than half a person tall, and everyone chatted around the flames, and the sound of explosions came from time to time, like a poor party. They all looked very close, wearing knitted hats, wearing pie overcoming, knee pads tied to leather knee pads, constantly stomping their feet around the paint bucket, occasionally extending their hands, slowly pushing towards the flames, as if playing tai chi against the exuberant heat, and then shrinking back to cover their faces. The air around the flame is not balanced, the light has undergone several degrees of refraction in it, people and things have shown a fluctuating silhouette, as if to be melted, very dreamy, look at it for a long time, the line of sight is also trance, there is always a heat wave in the eyes, so they always have to smoothly glide for a while after relaxing the clutch, and then slowly twist the throttle, after driving out for tens of meters, the cold wind awakens the spirit, the wave gradually fades, and the world becomes real again.

At this time, I began to strongly realize that this was a classic "killing" image or a special situation. In the extremely cold winter in the northeast, "fire from the hearth" and "warming up the group" have become the street "feast" for those who make a living. Ban Yu smiled in tears and described it as a "poor party" that "drove away the cold". I think this is perhaps the most realistic situation that Came to Ban Yu's mind when he named the novel "Slaughter". Real life and life circumstances melt into cold dreams when everyone stretches out their hands and "slowly pushes towards the flames". At this time, I seem to see the compassion of the writer gushing out. Reality is time and sensory journey, and it is also the bitter memory of the Ban Yu generation for its predecessors. Instead of curling up in cramped spaces to pity themselves, the "laid-offs" began to delay their promises to tomorrow day and night. A sentence "The cold wind awakens the spirit, the tide gradually fades, and the world becomes real again little by little", Ban Yu instantly lit up the darkness of the character's heart with words. Undoubtedly, we can also understand this narrative impulse as a "slaughter" of Ban Yu's slaughter-like dilemma, and a burst of reality by implicit tolerance. A group of middle-aged companions "like playing tai chi against the vigorous heat, and then shrinking back to cover their faces", this detailed description, let our reading get a little warmth and relief in an instant. Obviously, this is also a simulation of Ban Yu's expectation of warmth and kindness. These middle-aged people, who were directly hit hard by life, became the main bearers and breakouts of Ban Yu's "slaughter" atmosphere. In "The Killing", he described the images of two fathers: "my father" and Xiao Shubin, two "lonely people" who quickly fell from the position of "big brother" in that era. History, times, and social realities have fissioned, bringing unexpected changes to a generation, irresistible, and no one can stay out of the matter. "Buying out" their working years, "buying out" their future lives, that is, they only have the right to choose again, and they do not have the "courage" to give up on themselves. It's like an old poet's verse: "Time has begun." However, such a "beginning" is more testing of life and destiny. Therefore, the individual life and human nature itself must begin to walk alone in another identity on the "wasteland" of the earth and the wolf-like city. Will they really become the "Steppenwolves" of this era? There are no tears, no despair and decadence, neither escape nor panic, just as Mo Yan tells the stories of "my grandfather", "my grandmother" and "my father", Ban Yu tells the past events of "my father" on behalf of the "children".

I lamented Ban Yu's boldness and courage, driving his narrative from heavy bitterness to a sudden emotional rift. Finally, in the psychological and spiritual "explosion" caused by the character's behavior, the cause and effect of things are completely reversed, or the ultimate meaning of the narrative rushes to another incredible soul dimension, causing an unexpected surprise to our reading. "Purge" allows us to perceive a kind of pain and sorrow of human nature that is not easily detected. This pain is like a crack somewhere in the body, full of a slow, helpless to chew sad desolate smell. In this short story with an uncomplicated plot, the eleven-year-old "I" have begun to directly witness and witness the tragic fate and life situation of "my father".) Undoubtedly, the fate of the fathers is objectively determined by the times, which is a heavy reality that cannot but be faced. "My dad" relied on a second-hand motorcycle bought "with the money to buy out his working years", and "delivery of people" became a means of livelihood, talking about maintaining the basic living conditions of a family of three. At that time, "buyout" had become a "proper noun" with special connotations in a specific era, which meant a one-time "settlement" between a person and a "collective", suspected of being "weaned" between the baby and the mother. This is the most difficult "period of pain" experienced by the northeast since the founding of New China, and many people have encountered the most real and depressing survival dilemma. Socio-political, economic transitions, and the shocks caused by transformation have had a huge impact on these individual beings. They silently and calmly endure, bearing the responsibilities entrusted to them by life in anxiety and uneasiness. In the multiple, fractured, fragmented reality of time and space, in the unchangeable situation, maintain their vitality and human dignity. The wind and bone that lives towards death stands out in the body of "my father" generation. The narrative of this novel, which takes on abrupt changes in the second half, constitutes a turning point in the narrative. Xiao Shubin, a super fan and laid-off worker who was originally "the same as the fallen man at the end of the world" with "my father", deceived "my father" who also lived on the fringes of society, and seemed to be a sudden and heavy "sneak attack" on "my" family. The point is that this is a complete crisis of trust and an affront to self-dignity. It is worth noting that Ban Yu showed an unusual choice in dealing with the "attitude" of "me" and "my father" towards Xiao Shubin. The striking consistency and tacit understanding of the attitude of father and son makes people feel the sympathy and compassion of the "same disease" people who live on the same level. This makes the "ending" of the novel somewhat unexpected and meaningful. It removes the causal care of the narrative and makes us feel the warm power of secular life.

Xiao Shubin was in the tunnel at the bottom of the bridge, leaning on the curved side, with white lights on his head, bright or dark, across the car window, a few feet away from me, his face was complex and thinly dressed, and his mouth with a cigarette couldn't stop shivering, while my father's motorcycle was parked aside. The wind at the end of October lingered at the lowest point of the city, blowing away debris, leaves and water, and he saw the trolleybus full of fans coming by and suddenly waving his flag wildly, as if to launch a charge.

I believe my dad and I both saw it, but neither of us spoke or looked back. We drove past in silence, followed by a slight brake, and the people behind us all squeezed up again, like cascading waves, and we were pressed a little breathlessly.

Xiao Shubin, who has not been found for many days, is right in front of him, what choice should the father and son make? This is clearly an unforgettable, innerly battered "slaughter" situation or image, which is another kind of "cold" and "cold" on the earthly earth. In essence, this is also a fierce "strangulation" of the character's heart. Everything here seems to constitute the beginning of a great reversal, as well as the re-regulation of emotions and reason. Earlier, the sharp weapon in dad's leather briefcase that "I" found—carried all day long when he was struggling to find Xiao Shubin and chasing after the motorcycle—was like the fear and anger blade that clenched his throat, and instantly disappeared into nothing in the cry of "making fun in pain". The silence of the father and son, which underpins a great sense of sympathy, the revenge that has engulfed the power of engulfing since the loss of the motorcycle, seems to drift away in an instant. The deep connotation of "Slaughter" lurks behind the superficial story. Under the special life circumstances, the binding force of morality appears crack, resulting in Xiao Shubin's psychological alienation, constituting an internal conflict of human nature. Here, Ban Yu does not publicize and amplify Xiao Shubin's "inferior roots" and entangle the immorality of personal qualities, but focuses on the inability of the individual to break through the bottlenecks of the real environment that are deeply rooted in him, and the fear of escaping into the endless darkness. The word "slaughter" conceals a sigh at the transmutation of reality, and the real situation and cruelty of the soul constantly being eaten by inferiority and lack of subjectivity. It can be said that each of Ban Yu's novels seems to have undergone a short suffocation in a long "deep breath", and when he describes people's emotions and living conditions, he always has a special tone, and always has a special look, which makes us aware of the existence of the "uninhibited" narrator: or embarrassment, or sigh, or more intense "impulse", and the power that "resists" existence. Therefore, his thick literary aesthetic feeling cannot but fascinate those he prefers. Facing the life of the times, the social context and human nature, the narrative reveals the changes and invariances in human nature, and presents the dilemma, pain and "deformation" of human nature. Although there is a stagnant nature of the narrative, Ban Yu writes the natural code of the characters to express their hearts, penetrates into every corner of life, subverts the rigidity of the realistic narrative, and is full of deep artistic intelligence.

Of course, Ban Yu did not pose as a "trial father". His narrative presents the intersection and "cross-cutting" between the two generations of father and son, which is both "like a shadow" and "if it is separated". In other words, "shadows" are everywhere, and the "sub-generation" is helpless to try to get rid of them. In some of Ban Yu's novels, I also feel a situation similar to Yu Hua's narrative—the nightmarish "crying in the drizzle.". Yu Hua portrays a child's "inexplicable fear of the night" and how it takes the courage to break, shatter, and begin to "another memory." Compared with Yu Hua's description of the long nightmare situation of that era, Ban Yu's feelings are even heavier. Now it seems that the "generation" described by Ban Yu is a generation of "few dreams" and "lack of dreams". Their growth has always been accompanied by the collapse of their parents' dreams and reality, and they have witnessed the life and living conditions of a generation from "prosperity" to "decline". Therefore, when they consider their own path, they always maintain a maverick posture and take a very "realistic" choice of reality.

Ban Yu said in a speech: "The art of fiction as a ghost does not rely on the presentation of printed materials, it relies on memory, body, technology and perception, its transmission method is like a collective infection, the author's writing is a kind of mourning, those depictions and imaginations are for an 'invisible visible', countless past things and related links form a counterattack, questioning and erosion for this moment, and freely construct, provoking the new and old memories of others, thus completely canceling the future, after all, 'that belongs to the ghost'." [5] From Ban Yu's first dozen texts, we can see that the main materials of the narrative, the orientation of the subject matter, and the elements that directly lead to the occurrence of the writing all stem from the "invisible visible" that he advocates, which is a "ghostly" memory presentation, "a kind of mourning". However, writing can easily form a black hole of sadness, obviously with self-suffering, suffering, and even the void of letting go, "autobiography", self-pity sadness is indescribable, the pressure of sadness is everywhere, and words become the narrator's interpretation, like "slaughter" itself has become a metaphor. Even if it is written realistically, the text never seems to be able to get rid of the entanglement of the "father generation" and the ghost of the "child generation".

Ban Yu: The Getaway

Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House | 2020

Four

"Winter Swimming" and "Getaway" extend the inner spiritual afterglow of "Slaughter" to a certain extent. I feel that the "afterglow" here is still the continued expansion of the overall meaning of the narrative, and the tone of repression and indulgence has once again emerged. This is also the continuous "delay" of the difficult life situation and life state described in "Slaughter". "Killing" not only constitutes the atmosphere of the narrative and the atmosphere of the context, but also thickly wraps the lingering cold syndrome of the characters themselves. The series of sensations, psychology and spirit of people triggered by this "sense of slaughter" and the noise, mutation and panic of the surrounding world stir up the emptiness of personal situations and the implosion of the soul, and the "sense of desolation" and "coldness" that characters breed from this may directly lead to their embarrassment and helplessness in the secular space. If you enter the "inner universe" level of the characters, "slaughter" is the slow contraction of emotions in the psychological space. Then, how to resist this "slaughter" of the external situation, as well as the self-frustration of the characters' state of mind, will indeed make the "sub-generation" worried, and will trigger them to have a different human fission than their predecessors. However, how to choose your own path and get rid of the "original trauma" of your father has become an unavoidable "serial set" between father and son. For the "sub-generation", although it is not necessary to pay tribute to and bid farewell to the predecessors in a rupture or rebirth, this "eighteen-year-old" teenager who has no accumulation, and the spiritual umbilical cord cannot be cut arbitrarily, and does not yet understand the nirvana of the soul, begins to "go out and travel" without thinking.

Obviously, Ban Yu's narrative is not some kind of "mourning", nor is it a light melancholy and affectionate remembrance of the events, but a personalized "intervention" and self-inner monologue facing the current reality of fate. Ban Yu's literary narrative chooses a special node in the history of Northeast China- the pain point of the sudden changes and transformations of social economy and contemporary culture in the early 21st century. This is a long-term echo of the "Tiexi District", which was once an important industrial town in northeast China, after several years of decline, and has become a long-term echo of another generation of people who have fully affected and oscillated at the psychological and spiritual levels. However, such "echoes" are often full of bitterness, pity and loss. Ban Yu focuses on the historical situation of the overall decline of the old industrial zone in the northeast, the inner entanglement and real situation of the new and old generations of northeasters, and their inner existence of uneasiness or fear, like smog, shrouded the body and mind. With new aesthetic narrative strategies and ethical judgments, Ban Yu excavates the rifts and tears between the hearts and souls of the two generations, places them into a new visual and cognitive system, captures the key factors of people and events, and tries to build a spiritual pontoon bridge in the intergenerational transformation.

The title of "Winter Swimming" itself is full of endless chills and depressions. This novel, which looks like a love story, is essentially an ordinary "life story", but it has nothing to do with growth, only indulges in the depiction of the living world. I feel that this novel has a distinctly "non-fictional" nature, and has a strong narrative impulse to dissolve the "possibility", and the narrative "directly" approaches the "original" reality of life. This reminds us of the "new realism" novels of the 1990s, and what Ban Yu presents to us is almost the "flow of life" state in the texts of Liu Zhenyun, Chi Li and others. So, what kind of narrative is it possible to transcend life? This is also a great challenge that the complexity of contemporary real life gives to fiction writing, and to the fictional power and imagination of writers. Here, Ban Yu "tests the fa by example", he is like a "shadow writer", shuttling between different texts, facing the secular life of two generations, and maintaining a "bursting" posture. Looking at it now, as Wong Tak-wai put it: "With the power of narrative, we can reposition the past and present of this region and create a vision for the future." [6] In this way, if we link Ban Yu's narrative to Ban Yu's personal experience, thus expanding our horizons and reading boundaries, and attaching them to the traumatic memories of the northeast and even the nation, there is no doubt that here we will experience the non-virtual nature of Ban Yu's narrative. This "non-virtuality" seems to be a subversion of the fiction and possibility of the narrative, but this "confusion" greatly enhances the depth and breadth of the narrative. So, can it be said that narratives like this, which are excavated through sensory memory and spiritual reflection at the same time, return to the "origin" of life, and the "mirror images" they form, are "repositioning the past and the present"? At the very least, it is a refactoring of the past. I think that "slaughter" and "winter swimming" basically laid the tone of Ban Yu's earliest narrative text, and these two words are infiltrated and accumulated with the cold of the bones. All the "present" could not escape this silent depression. Almost all of Ban Yu's "stories" are precipitated with a strong northern unique "cold breath". Such a cold breath "constructs" the unique context, situation and overall narrative atmosphere of the narrative, and the "desolate cold" pervades and penetrates between the lines, stimulating and stimulating the fighting spirit of resisting despair. "Winter Swimming" involves this generation's view of love, marriage, life, and values, and Ban Yu uses his own sensitivity and cognition to show the struggle of individual life and the fierce spiritual collision between the characters. With the simplest and concise narrative technique, he shows us the basic images of life in this era. Although, on the surface, his clear attitude towards people and things is not clear, the thinking and judgment of fate itself and the logic of existence full of doubts seem to be calm or intense in the narrative, such as the undercurrent, seemingly unfazed.

In "Winter Swimming", the promotion of the relationship between "I" and Sui Fei is naturally due to the mutual "appreciation" and recognition of personality and interest, and more is the result of the mutual running-in of the value level. Only when they are related to each other can they be imprinted on each other, and what dominates their emotions is the "chemical reaction" generated by the convergence of spiritual logic.

Suddenly I heard a noisy voice behind me, someone calling my name, a total of two voices, one sharp, one childish. I remembered that many years ago, there was also such a childish voice, panicked and urgent, calling my name, and I was holding on to the shore, overwhelmed, watching him fall into the ice, sink into it, no longer appear, and the shout disappeared into the black water, turning into a whimper, and for a long time, the voice always echoed in my ears. I plunged headlong into the water and wanted to disappear from it, but unexpectedly, the water in the nullah was clearer than it seemed, and there was a smell of wine, mellow and strong, straight to the top of my head, intoxicating, my eyes stinging, and tears constantly flowing. The darkness was extremely great, there was a sporadic flash of light on both sides, as if there was snow falling again, the bottom of the pool was the same color as the water, I plunged in and out, all the shadows in front of me, I saw someone on the shore running towards me, like Sui Fei, the closer to me, the more blurred, but behind her, everything was clear, as if there was a galaxy rising, brilliant and warm, she ran to a position at level with me, her hands on her knees, her voice was sharp, crying to me, I was pregnant, and then there was blood flowing out from under the body.

It is an extremely "open-ended" ending, which is still full of slaughter. The eerie scene is a deliberately edifying and metaphorical picture that Ban Yu has deliberately depicted. Moreover, the warmth in the midst of slaughter has been constantly flickering faintly between the lines. A man's heart is confused but determined, showing a trace of sadness at the same time, but also making people feel a little warm. After the fear and trembling of all this slaughter, "I" am getting rid of the "dark apparition" and trying to make the power of forbearance and hope rise again. All the darkest moments have an end.

In "The Getaway", Ban Yu constantly lets us perceive the cold meaning of the temperature "inside and outside" from a woman's heart. The atmosphere of "desolation" and "slaughter" is spread between the lines of the text. This also constitutes an "echo" of the unique "coldness" of the northeast region presented in a large number of texts such as "Slaughter" and "Panjin Leopard". The "cold" and "cold" of the external world have become a space field that renders the meaning of desolation and coldness. Xu Lingling's memory of winter contains a wisp of fear, which is also her overall feeling about the world:

The temperature was low in the early hours of the morning, as if it were back in winter, and there was the smell of burning asphalt in the air. I was confused, remembering the many winters before, when Tanna and I were now holding hands, going to school in the dark, everything was quiet, but as I walked, suddenly it would light up, defenseless, the sun was rising, the streets were lively, people all came out, riding or walking, rolling up dust; sometimes it was cloudy, the world was depressed, there was thunder in the sky, and it was heavy and low and long, and the wind came from the north, stirring everything, and the day was about to start again.

It is hard to imagine what kind of happy travel a patient who is undergoing "dialysis" will have. Xu Lingling's heart, or rather, her body and mind, are experiencing "labor pain" and being torn at the same time. Here, forbearance once again becomes the basic appearance and characteristics given to the character by Ban Yu. Therefore, Zhao Dongyang, Tan Na and Xu Lingling, "one man and two women" three used to be small, and the three of them traveled together, which also became the most luxurious trip in The life of Xu Lingling in the illness. Obviously, they are not a pampered generation, their parents did not give them any capital that can "nibble on the old", the road of personal development due to many factors, just entered the society on the bumpy, taste the hardships and hardships of the "bottom". Zhao Dongyang and Tan Na also have their own difficult life situations, although they still have the impact of the residual warmth of youth in life, but the poetry and romance that the young generation should have are gradually drifting away from them. Ban Yu's characters, especially the northeast girl in this "Getaway", the "sick girl" Xu Lingling, although in a difficult situation, her young life is coming to an end, life is slowly rushing to death, the desire for individual life is still difficult to dissolve, but she regards herself as a "survivor". When she traveled to Shanhaiguan with the two former "small hair" people, she still did not want to owe too much "human affection" to her companions, she thought that it was not easy for everyone, and always especially soberly handled the "human affection". Ban Yu tries to portray this young woman who is in a difficult situation in life and has a "brave heart" when she encounters a cold.

It can be seen that Ban Yu, a young writer who came out of the "Tiexi District Workers' Village", will take the area where he has always lived since his birth as the main narrative background of the novel, and strive to precipitate the taste of the northeast and the "heart" of the northeast, which is his ingenious choice of discourse. Although his narrative is cold, desolate, and solemn, what lurks behind the words is a clean, moving, warm heart and kind feelings. Resisting "slaughter" with warmth, soothing, relieving, psychological trauma and the downturn of human nature, this has also become the starting point of Ban Yu's narrative ethics and spiritual logic.

Ban Yu

Five

In fact, we should also pay special attention to the treatment of "ending" in many of Ban Yu's novels, and further fully feel the restraining power of its narrative. Among them, it can always feel that Ban Yu is doing everything in his power to "reverse" his life, making people realize that the characters are calmly, plainly and bitterly filtering all the experiences. Ban Yu is good at activating the flow of the plot in a dramatic way, so as to achieve the "dazzling dance" of the soul that can transcend the banality of an unannounced life. Obviously, the writer's understanding of the things of the world contains a greater metaphor. He is sometimes willing to "reconstruct" the ideals and beliefs of life with empty and deformed brushwork, and does not speak directly about the grotesqueness, hidden worries and desolation of existence. For example, at the end of "Winter Swimming", there is no doubt that the young worker's heart is "externalizing" some kind of irrepressible life force, and he is submerging and refining himself to resist the slaughter. Sometimes, Ban Yu will spontaneously reverse the normalcy in the narrative of endless emotions, endless love and hate, and repression through the abnormal and explosive actions of the characters. The narrative makes people's personalities full of impulsiveness and forbearance, and generates a strong and powerful force, escaping from the forced servants and breaking the cold of unfortunate human nature. In this regard, "Panjin Leopard" is the best proof. Sun Xuting did not know that his ex-wife had mortgaged his house with a loan, and when two "strangers" came to "confiscate" the house he relied on, he jumped up in the air, "born again from the cracked wind", and roared and went straight to the two strangers. Although this is not a picture full of miracles, once a person has the dignity and spiritual outlet to guard his dignity, it is precious and exciting. In "The Getaway", Ban Yu finally described her daughter Xu Lingling's return from a trip, because it was not yet time to tell her father's return, she saw the rental house lit up, knowing that her father Xu Fuming was at home, she stood up with a tired body and mind, resisted the cold, quietly in the cold outside the house, waiting for the pre-planned time to return home. The difficulty of living and surviving dissolves Xu Lingling's long-standing blame for her father, so that her heart surges with love and compassion in the world, and the true love of the world will never be "desperate". This is similar to the end of "Slaughter", the narrative in the turbulent torrent of life, the moment to get a soothing turn, the kink quickly opened. The father and son of "Slaughter" and the helpless tolerance of Xiao Shubin constitute a strong ethical "reversal", like a powerful warm current, covering and melting the glacier of human nature. Of course, this treatment does require the writer's deep inner concentration, and this must also be the rekindling of the "flame of hope" for life and life. In "Tomb of guns", Ban Yu tells the fate of a father and son in the way of "meta-narrative", but also shows the desolate cold and the atmosphere of the interaction between the dismal fate of the characters and the environment.

Three years later, his mother befriended a young doctor and became pregnant again, so she divorced Sun Shaojun, and the court awarded Sun Cheng custody to Sun Shaojun, who began to live with his father, and during this year, Sun Cheng just turned seven years old, silently watching his mother leave, without shouting or crying. It was also at this time that his grandfather was deaf in both ears, at the beginning of the transformation of the urban area, he was demolished on all sides, he was in a huge collapse sound every day, but he ignored it, his face was grim, half a year later, his grandfather died, the funeral was deserted, there were few mourners, the eve of cremation, Sun Shaojun gambled all night, lost cash, had no money to buy an urn, had to bring a mooncake tin box from home, after incineration, his ashes were shoveled and crushed, and then poured into it, the iron was hot, the four characters on the lid of the box were full of moon, Sun Shaojun held the return journey, and he was embarrassed.

The novel's writing is deliberately concise and restrained, but shocking. Good writers can always find new perspectives on life, but the form of the text and its narrative connotation are the natural existence of life, so the writer should try to find the cruelty and beauty behind the apparent world in the paradox. And these have become the tragic writing of all ordinary lives worthy of awe to get rid of the difficulties of life. Ban Yu has his own unique understanding of the authenticity of human nature, emotional writing, story and emotional logic in the narrative: "On the other hand, the story and emotional logic of the novel. Although when we defend the genre of the novel, we often regard the news, film and television dramas, etc. as obstacles and opposites, because it quickly injects rough and arbitrary principles and positions into the social body, and the novel should play another dimension of the function, should transcend or at least show different cognitive and reading space, and advance towards the truth, truth and truth, the reality is that whether as authors or readers, we seem to have been passively subjected to some kind of discipline and transformed by the system. It will always fall into an obvious contradiction, that is, whether what is written is in line with the logic and ethics of real life at the moment, rather than the logic and ethics within the novel. ”[7]

Ban Yu also believes: "The end is the end of the author and the end of the reader, but it is not the end of all people and things." They have always stood side by side, in the unknown blank, to fight against the endless fate, more devout than us, and braver than us..." Here we can feel Ban Yu's reverence for the characters in his text. In this regard, Wang Xueqian pointed out: "Characters are also the source of the beauty of Ban Yu's novels that cannot be underestimated. Much of the details, the language, that we speak of, focuses on the characters. These characters and their fates often have great appeal, attracting us, making us have strong emotional resonance and all-round thoughts, so as to more deeply understand the humility and suffering of the bottom life under the heavy misfortunes of history and reality, and also see the division, darkness, ugliness and flashes of human nature. [8] From the stylistic level of short stories, Liu Qingbang once expressed his inner entanglement when writing. He said that when he first conceived each novel, his original intention was to write them beautifully, but his pen became extremely nervous once it touched reality, and facing reality itself, and his deep thinking about reality, immediately made his writing mentality become severe. And, in the end, this "nervous" mentality almost constitutes the occurrence of his writing. That kind of "deep and widespread anger", confusion, and anxiety have evolved into a gaze that forces human nature and soul, so that he reaches the darkness of life and human nature, and at the same time, he runs to the road of finding hope. [9] I don't know whether Ban Yu is also in a particular "tense" state or state of mind in the process of narration, when facing the "cruelty" of the characters, what are the reasons for the initial occurrence of writing, and how his nerves rely on the support of certain beliefs to pull these "bottom" daily lives into their own narrative context, that is, how does Ban Yu "refine" life and experience? But I think that the maturity of a writer may be importantly reflected in his initial choice of the angle and narrative direction of his own life, or it may depend on the play and application of personal talents in the day after tomorrow. For Ban Yu, although he has only a few years of writing experience in the contemporary literary world, his handling of personal experience and narrative strategy, that is, the "storytelling method", has been expressed as pure and old,almost vulgar and unconventional. The aesthetic forms of "metaphysical" and "metaphysical" texts have been well integrated artistically in the narrative. His descriptions of many emotional, psychological, ethical, and spiritual dimensions are also very bold, and it may be said that some of them overflow the boundaries of the world. Ban Yu should be regarded as the kind of novelist who is both talented and diligent, whose text narrative is between the story and the speech, the plot is not over-exaggerated, the narrative is generous, authentic and spontaneous, stretched, unfettered, and some of the texts are unrestrained human nature, and everything seems to go with nature. He writes about the pain and sorrow of life and emotion, and often "tearful smiles", and the glimmer of human nature permeates from time to time in forbearance. He always looks at people with a frank gaze, and does not deliberately construct the rigor and integrity of the so-called "narrative structure", but maintains a free, self-sufficient and calm posture of the text.

The degree of freedom presented by Ban Yu's "Northeast Narrative" text immediately connects us to the language problem of Ban Yu's novel. I've always believed that the most important thing for a writer is language. No matter how thick a writer's literary feelings and life experiences are, and what kind of structural power he has, what he ultimately needs or waits for must be the emergence of a certain way of discourse. It can be said that Ban Yu is a writer who found his own narrative of "tonality" as soon as he got started. Perhaps, it is the strong penetration of the northeast dialect in the narrative, diffusing out a "hollow" sound that is both rough and long, coupled with Ban Yu's personal experience with a self-evident stubbornness, the narrative of The Ban Yu style, intonation, rhythm, ups and downs, making his narrative form eclectic and fascinating. For Ban Yu, the fiction is only the apparent structure of things and life, while the conscience in the depths of the soul is always real. The "desolate aesthetics" characteristics of Ban Yu's "Northeast Narrative" reflect his sharp examination of inhuman life, his deep concern for poetic life and the "grassroots world". Ban Yu wrote about the physical and mental encounters of their entire generation. Here, there is not only the unique disposition and atmosphere of youth discourse, but also the persistence and persistence based on the yardstick of humanity. Perhaps, it is precisely the rise of young northeastern writers represented by Ban Yu, Shuang Xuetao, and Zheng Zhi as the starting point that the northeast narrative will show the world a new style of "literary northeast".

This paper is a phased result of the National Social Science Foundation project "Research on Cultural Consciousness and the Occurrence of Chinese Literary Writing in the New Century" (project approval number: 19BZW154).

Notes:

[1] Chen Pingyuan, Qian Liqun, and Huang Ziping, "On "Twentieth Century Chinese Literature"," Literary Review, No. 5, 1985.

[2] Yan Lianke and Zhang Xuexin, My Reality, My Doctrine, Chinese Min University Press, 2011, pp. 74-75.

[3] [6] Wang Dewei, "Literature in Northeast China and Chinese Modernity: A Discussion on the Study of Northeast Studies", Novel Review, No. 1, 2021.

[4] Zhang Xuexin, "Panjin Leopard, Winter Swimming, Getaway: Ban Yu's Short Story, and "Northeast Literature"", The Great Wall, No. 3, 2021.

[5] [7] Ban Yu: "The Book of Ghosts, Material Bodies and the Future", this article is Ban Yu's speech at the "Status Quo and Future of Fiction" Literary Forum of Tsinghua University, published in the "Tsinghua University Literary Creation and Research Center" public number november 26, 2021.

[8] Wang Xueqian, "The Desire to Write the Great Metaphor of Man in History: On the Aesthetic Charm of Ban Yu Tiexi's Novels," Journal of Social Sciences of Jilin University, No. 6, 2021.

[9] See Zhang Xuexin and Yu Tian, "How to Refine the Classic of Short Stories: Notes on Reading Liu Qingbang's Short Stories", Contemporary Literature, No. 6, 2020.

Zhang Xuexin, | of Literary Geography and Contemporary Northeast Narrative Studies: The "Desolate Aesthetics" of Ban Yu's Northeast Narrative

Read on