Whispers related to Bordertown
——Reading Shen Congwen's "Border City" has a feeling
Introduction: From Sichuan to Hunan, there is an official road to the east. When the official road approached the border of western Hunan to a small mountain town called Cha Tong, there was a small stream with a small white tower by the stream, and under the tower lived a single family. There was only an old man, a girl, and a yellow dog.
I was bitter, wandering, and flirtatious. I believe that the humble and careful people who are rushing to the impetuous city will feel lonely and shameful at a certain moment; it is not so much that I open this humble novel, but rather that her melancholy temperament like a pale chrysanthemum attracted me and resonated with it, wading through the babbling brook flowing under Shen Congwen's pen, and I gradually approached the pure world he created.
When I was reading this book, the moon that belonged to Xiangxi quietly poked her head on the billboard of the film and television building opposite, and she did not hesitate to sprinkle the gentle moonlight down, some of which fell on the hurried pedestrians, but they did not notice at all, some poured on the bright squares in the city center, but more were diluted by the lights in the city. The moon is rising.
In this book, I describe her as an understatement to outline a quiet and peaceful ink painting. The inscription of the painting is one word - dream. At first, I thought that the small town in Xiangxi was still quietly waiting for me. Thinking day and night, haunting the soul. I always imagined that under the gentle caress of the slight rain, I would step on the peaceful and lonely bluestone slab road to find the traces of Cuicui's existence. There were peasant girls who were laughing and laughing by the river while they were busy with their laundry; there were naughty boys who were slippery as loach leaping down the bridge; there were porters with bare arms, and in their burdens, he was full of joy; and there was an old gentleman in a green shirt and white hair, muttering something... I thought that what Old Mr. Shen wanted to tell us was such a place, telling us Cuicui's sorrow. I was touched by the love between Cuicui and The Second Lady, and I was touched by the simple and lovely folk style. Bordertown is a love story. A beautiful love story that takes place in a beautiful place. One day, I'll go to that place alone with my bag, even though my bag is full of exhaustion and confusion.
The country is developing rapidly, and society is also quietly changing rapidly. With the continuous acceleration of the process of marketization, urbanization and industrialization. The traditional vernacular society is gone, replaced by a new type of stranger, rootless society. Everyone became a migratory bird. More and more people are going out to study, and more and more migrant workers are working. The Spring Festival seen on TV, the position of the railway station is like a war. The next-door neighbors upstairs and downstairs are no longer open-chested and fan-fanned to each other. Instead, the Iron General guarded himself from others, leaving a thing called cat's eye to peep out with a lewd mentality. Contracts, contracts, laws have become the only things left between people. I was immersed in a bunch of geometric figures, cumbersome formulas, and argumentative solutions. Occasionally, I also looked out, and I watched my parents go from place to place every day to worry about life, and my heart suddenly felt sour. I, in the city of reinforced concrete casting, the reflection in my eyes is the intertwined traffic and crowds, and everyone is like a wooden stereotyped puppet with a sluggish and stiff expression. Echoing in the ears are people's sweet words, deceitful. There are more and more high-rise buildings, smaller places to live, and smaller and smaller people's hearts. People say that the place where we live should have light, and the world has neon lights. But the flickering neon lights diluted the pure white moon and covered the innate tranquility in my heart. I gradually became impetuous. Always feel like I want this, I want that. Looking in the mirror, I saw another person, he was so strange and so hideous, that was not me, what was the difference between that person and the people with stiff and sluggish expressions outside.
In the darkness, I could clearly hear the earth-shaking wheels of the progress of the times, like the rudder of wood, emitting some harsh and anxious "creaking" sounds. Under the pressure of the giant ships that have been built in this flood era, society is distorting, deforming, and breaking. With my humble glimpse into the great changes in society, I was at a loss. In such a situation, I miss that small town more and more. Indifferent, tranquil, peaceful.
It was a clear afternoon, the windows were clear, and "Border City" was turned out of the bookshelf, and it was covered with a thin layer of ash. A flurry of bullets with your hands. Turning over the slightly yellowed title page, I suddenly found that the ink painting in my heart had long been blurred and faded away like immersion in water. Slowly turning the pages, I watched the movement of the sun, and finally the moon climbed up and my heart flew. Break through the ceiling, jump off the roof, and up, fly over the neon lights and the obscuration of the tall buildings. There, I saw the long-lost white moonlight. It was then that I watched thousands of miles away in the sky as the border city that I thought had always existed was withdrawn from the entity. Like me, it's flying upwards. Under the stars, only me and that beautiful small city, I did not have the slightest fear of being cold in the heights, some of them were the sense of the Great Peng rising for thousands of miles, and I experienced the calmness of the independence of the world. I reveled in this boundless tranquility. Gently turning back, I saw that the long red dust was where I came from and belonged, and I was in a cold sweat. Like a childhood nightmare, I fell from a high altitude, and the sound of my body falling and rubbing against the air in my ears suddenly realized that maybe I would not go to the place where I had missed countless days and nights. Because, the border city is not there, the border city has always been in my heart. I went there, and I couldn't find the border city. There is a border city in the heart, and everywhere at the end of the world is a border city. It is also cruel that a dream that has been far away is suddenly pulled in front of me, because it means that my dream is shattered. Maybe it means I've grown. I feel that the coldness and sadness revealed between the lines of "Border City" are conveying what a fiery emotion. The border city is still like that, I can still hear the rough but lingering country love songs, is it the return of the second guy to sing to Cuicui? The cold iron cable still crosses the not very wide but clear and sweet river year after year, witnessing the gradual withering face of the raccoon peasant woman by the river, and the metabolic life cycle in the river. Everything is so peaceful and natural, I still imagine a drizzle afternoon, I walk alone on the foggy stone road, quietly listening to the soles of my shoes hitting the stones to make a crisp "clucking" sound, the sound of light rain sprinkling in the small river, allowing the rain to wet my face, my lonely heart. Oh, I could even look for the bluestone slab where Cuicui had sat, and there was still her faint melancholy on it, and the old hoarse, but caring voice of her grandfather, telling Cuicui to be careful of sores.
"In winter, the collapsed white tower was repaired again. But the young man who sang under the moon and made Cuicui gently float his soul for the song in his sleep had not yet returned to the tea valley.
…………
This person may never come back, maybe tomorrow 'come back'! ”
No matter how I change, the final ending is always sad. To this green girl who has lost her dearest love, I can only sigh. Closing this book, the border city became a brand, burned in my heart.
The source | Solidarity Newspaper
The author | Liu Jia
Editor| Liu Na
Producer | Chen Hao
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