William Wang: When softness rushes into the mist— Xu Chang's novel impressions

Xu Chang, author of "Fish on Land"

Text / William King

Xu Chang's novels, if not absolutely anti-interpretive, at least difficult to interpret, he deliberately carries the soil of life and uses the device of words to maintain its texture. It also leads us to rethink the characteristics of the genre of fiction.

From the point of view of discourse form alone, the novel resembles the whispers of the lonely, the mysteries of the prophets, the analysis of sociologists, and the elaboration of psychoanalysts. It is too inclusive, all-encompassing, and then through a strong imagination to construct reality and thus understand reality, perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a model of reality, but this model is not as clear as the drawings but chaotic, but we have to thank chaos, because only chaos can withstand constant elaboration. Between constant construction and constant elaboration, we are able to understand that life, though partial, is enough for us to linger for a while.

When I read Xu Chang's novels, there are always the above feelings emerging. He writes a novel that is very personal, and I like it because it has a strong breath of life, so that every pore of the novel is filled with intimate emotions. He is very patient, with a eloquent tone that allows people to enter the atmosphere of his meticulous depictions.

For example, in his short story "Pale Heart", he begins with the kind of indifference that resembles the whisper of a lonely walker in the nineteenth century: "After a few visits, I found a strange place next to the camphor forest." At first, I thought it was a burned-out campfire, but when I got closer, I found that it was incense ash. Fortunately, there was rain and it did not disperse. Incense ash and mud were mixed together, a thick layer, like a spread quilt. I walked around six steps long and three steps wide. I didn't think much of it, and I forgot about it not long after I got back. After a while, I was thinking about things at the door and saw someone crouching there. In the evening I went for another walk, and the incense ashes were burning deeply, revealing a cake-like red. ”

It is entirely the image of a loner, observing the world, curious about the details of the world that are not otherwise characteristic, but this curiosity is absolutely personal and private.

"One day before the Qingming Dynasty, there were indeed incense pillars on the land there. There are thin rows and thick reeds. A woman came out of a melon vine with a handful of beans in her hand. How can there be so much incense ash. I asked, as if I were talking to myself. She smiled as embarrassed, looking into the distance and looking at me again. Say it's a temple. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and said that it used to be a temple. The lonely individual has completed the exploration of the details of the world," I don't feel sorry for, just feel incredible. ”

Indeed, since the temple belonged to the past, that is, did not exist, why is there still incense ash burning today? The things of this world are gone, will there really be memories? How long can memories last? What kind of solidity can faith supported by memory be? This is indeed an incredible thing.

"Pale Heart" contains some codes from Xu Chang's novels, so let's continue to interpret them. The image of this narrator is also the appearance of a zero-than-zero person: "This one-room household is not well lit, and the curtains are closed, and it is impossible to distinguish between day and night." I don't have any friends and I'm afraid of having intimate relationships with people. Apart from daily procurement, there is nothing to be desired for society. To that end, I got a job at home. Meet with colleagues every two weeks. Interacting with colleagues is also moderate, and rarely attends their gatherings. Maybe a person stays for a long time, picks up snails outside, and wants to take them back to raise. ”

After this man's monologue, a simple story begins. A pair of lovers visit, Chen Yi is seriously ill, her boyfriend Zhouzhou is accompanied, and the narrator "I" also has a love for Chen Yi. When they left, "I" fell back into a lonely life.

The end of the novel is something I like very much: "At night, I took out a moldy Chen Xiang and went downstairs. The old man was chatting in the aisle. Walking to the ridge outside, in early May, the uncut Artemisia annua blooms with beige flower plates. A few excavators were parked next to the camphor forest, and I walked through and fumbled for the lighter in my pocket, but in the distance I saw that the thick layer of incense ash was scattered, and only two wide ruts were left in the middle. ”

Thinking of the opening image of the novel, it is no longer a temple place, still burning incense by memory, and the "two wide ruts" that appear in the middle of the incense ash at this time undoubtedly destroy that memory. And this is not only the "scene" in the heart of "me", the memory of "me" is also heavily impacted by a certain emotion of life and death, love and despair, and also leaves an indelible "rut". The narrative is coordinated with the imagery and atmosphere into an organic whole, which is endlessly evocative.

Raymond Carver said that in the process of writing, to discover the story. Xu Chang's "Pale Heart" gives me such an impression, the narrative of the novel is like growing out of a very personal situation and mood, it is in the process of writing, the story gradually emerges and then disappears, its disappearance is not abruptly stopped, but like a folk song at dusk, after the disappearance also left the complex meaning of the "rut" in our hearts.

Novels are particularly important in shaping the texture of life. Those weak emotional fluctuations, it seems to be unfazed, but refreshing. This object at the beginning and the end, this detailed description of man and the environment, is generating a larger world, enveloping this small individual. Of course, there is also a kind of self-reflection in it. Have we lost the ability to love, and have our hearts become increasingly pale so that we can survive in the wilderness with only memory?

Xu Chang constructed his own side of the world in "Fish on Land", and also had a view of a broader history. There is a sad and heart-wrenching child's perspective in this novel, and the defamiliarization of things is more and more real. The character of "Mother" created by the novel is the image of a loser who is completely wrapped up in the times. This mother once married a confident but ordinary father for love, and then went outside with some ideals, boarded the child in her uncle's house, and let the child taste the pain of sending people under the fence.

If you stand in the child's position, this mother's care and education for the child is completely dereliction of duty, and she does not assume the responsibility that a mother should have. But we are full of sympathy for her, and her dream is to build her own kindergarten, which is a kind of maternal love in a broad sense, but it obscures the most basic maternal love. She took her "snatched" husband to live in the urban-rural integration department on the outskirts of Shanghai, they had tried to enter the prosperous and rich city, but they were stuck in the urban-rural combination department under the mud and sand, with the development of the times, they were more miserable than the people who stayed in their hometowns, but they could not go back. Their disillusioned dignity made them almost unconsciously cut off any relationship with their hometown, and they could not even take care of their own children.

In fact, they were emptied and only fit to stay in this nameless and ruined place. It was inevitable that "Daddy" would start drinking again, while "Mommy" would become eerie and mysterious, and she would have a black room of her own, a grocery store that stored fragments of her dreams, her failed dreams. After "I" tip-off, "Daddy" opens the dark room, and "Daddy" is enraged, because all this is the curse of those "dreams", and "Daddy" wants to destroy them all. "Mom" completely collapsed, slapped "me" hard, and disappeared somewhere in the world.

In fact, "Mama" is a capable person, she has ideas, and dares to practice, but the beginning of the novel shows everything: "A year before I was born, my father returned to the snow field from his master in Nanjing. He was seen coming out of an old tricycle, covered in dust and without a single piece of luggage. He returned home and never came out. Failure is already doomed, and "Mom" is just going her own way.

There is a passage in the middle of the novel that has a lot of news about the changes of the times, which is also a reflection of the small efforts of "mother" as a person, which is a bit deliberate in the short novella, but the novel sometimes needs some deliberateness, because the deliberate is a reminder.

"Mother" at least has a happy time by nature, then the trauma suffered by the child has actually been accumulated, and there is no possibility of resolving. The novel comes to the last corner of its complex: "Before going to bed, I left a crack in the door. At night, my stomach was tense. After sitting up, I saw a figure watching me in the dim light outside the door. I pushed open the door, and the moonlight fell on the courtyard, and the figure trembled, as if a gust of wind could take it away. Mother is back? I rubbed my eyes, and the drowsiness hadn't dissipated yet. In the confusion, she seemed to say a word, as if she were saying goodbye to me. I wanted to cry, and I felt that what was in front of me was not real. I stood where I was and watched, and it stepped out of the light and shadow, and gradually disappeared into the night. ”

The imagery of this ending is unforgettable. The times changed so quickly that a person so passionate that she could not keep up with the speed of the times in the end, she was abandoned, and she became a completely abandoned product of the era of great progress. "Mom" whether she is dead or alive in the end is uncertain. Maybe she's still alive, but the so-called living is no different from dying. Notice that it is "it" that comes out of the light and shadow, not "she", not only a mother, but also a person who has completely collapsed under the weight of the world. The self-construction of subjectivity is nothing more than a halo of imagination. The crying that "I" had not yet had time to appear was clearly emphasizing that only "I" had not yet qualified to face the world.

Van Gogh paintings

After reading this novel, I couldn't help but think that Xu Chang is now the editor of a literary magazine, and he will receive many submissions from young writers, and he talked about his gains in an article, such as touching the warm novels of young writers: "Her novels were transferred to me after being rejected by many magazines. She is an employee of a communications company and one of the countless ordinary girls who have come to Shanghai to struggle. Her manuscript, written by a girl with a talent for painting, after a lifetime, finally understood the true meaning of Van Gogh's "Starry Sky" painting. After reading it, I fell into a long meditation. It turns out that in the face of art, the sufferings of those lives can also be turned into light. "Ordinary and all kinds of life are suffering inevitably, art turns suffering into light, is this Xu Chang's artistic view? I think yes, and that's what keeps us writing.

As he liked the myth of Sisyphus, what would happen to this suffering prisoner in his daily life? "Mom tapped me on the shoulder and said, don't you cry, I'll tell you a story." I sucked in my nose, trying to endure for a while. Mother said that once upon a time there was a man who had sinned against the God of heaven, and God punished him for pushing a boulder up a mountain. But the stone was too heavy, and when it reached the top of the mountain, it rolled down again. So he had to start pushing again. Roll down again, push again. And so on. And then what? I asked. Then he died. Mom said. The story reached a hypnotic effect, and I tilted my head to sleep, only to vaguely hear my mother say that probably only people would do this. The imagery of Sisyphus often appears in Xu Chang's novels. But in different contexts, this mythological image gives us a very different feeling.

Xu Chang's novels have a soft texture of furry, not paintings on the walls, but works of art that people want to fit into. It has a peculiar appeal, and some kind of low, fragmented narrative can be fascinating. This fascinating is not through the great drama of the novel, but through the authenticity, emotions and sensibility of life, which immerses the reader into the state of mind he has created. In his new work" "Surrounded by Mountains", this feature is even more vividly displayed.

This novel, like his other novels, is not complicated in plot and is still a fluctuating state in life. This is also the story of a pair of young people and another young man, but unlike "Pale Heart", the narrator "he" is not a bystander character, but a participant and actor, "he" went to Tibet with Han Qing and betrayed his girlfriend He Ling for many years, but in "he", this betrayal is limited, and it is unthinkable that this limit torments him and makes him not calm. However, after his secret was discovered by He Ling, he only had a physical relationship with Han Qing, which was a "complete" betrayal in his place, but it seemed that everything was so plain, and after the loss of that limit, the magic that tormented him suddenly lost its power.

See how Xu Chang describes this emotion: "Wipe your body clean, and they go to the bedroom to catch their breath." Han Qing leaned over and said, Do you remember that there is a pool of water in the valley? He nodded, but his mind failed to concentrate. When it snows, there is ice there. I stood on the ice in the morning, feeling like there was a gateway to another world. He pressed it to her forehead. She pushed him away and said, Sometimes I feel like we're standing on ice, worried about ourselves and at the same time having a hard time getting closer. "The temptation of the other world is the finiteness of the self-existence, the finite part always wanting to connect to a wider area in order to attain the integrity of life. But existence is so fragile that it cannot withstand the pressure of two people standing together and shatters like the ice surface of spring.

It can be seen that Xu Chang is particularly fascinated by Kafka. Yes, what young writer is simply incomprehensible without being obsessed with Kafka. But he did not directly deform life in his writing like Kafka, and he was more willing to present life as itself.

In Surrounded by Mountains, "he" adapts Kafka's short story into a video, which in itself is a very allegorical hint. "He" also began to write stories one day, writing a Kafka-esque absurd and bizarre story, in which the protagonist wrote himself and disappeared. This gives the novel a special breath and opens up more possible spaces.

At the end of the novel, there is a conversation between two people, and "he" tells her that a person who adapted Kafka slowly becomes the person he wrote. Finally the man hid on an island and became isolated from the world. She also appreciates this, but "he" thinks he is just an imitator and does not deserve to create in his place.

"Han Qing touched his hair and said, at least with me, you can." This is a very warm lover's whisper. "You know what? Kafka rejected all who loved him. He said. "He" returned to Kafka as a life, and Kafka's novels constructed Kafka's life, not the other way around, and Kafka's life lost its moisture as a result." Will you reject me then? Han Qing asked. "Han Qing clearly didn't love him enough, but like most people, she still couldn't tolerate his refusal." He didn't answer, he looked at the four corners of the room, which trapped the man in a box. ”

The novel has formed a symbol of the system here, as if the only air hole in the enclosed space is blocked, and we are already out of breath. The four edges and corners of the room with a sense of realistic straightness and correctness are actually the most terrible absurdities. Let us not forget the name of the novel, life is not only the imprisonment of houses, but also the heavy and majestic mountains surrounding it.

In Raymond Carver on Writing, Carver says, "The mission of a short story writer is to make full use of this 'glimpse' and use wisdom and literature to show the author's talent, sense of size, sense of moderation, and perception of external things." And all this is achieved by clear and accurate language. Use language to give life to details and make the story shine. The language is precise, and the details will be concretely conveyed. To describe it accurately, you can even use some popular words. When used properly, they can also have the effect of a thousand gold coins. ”

Xu Chang's language is precise, dimensional, and comfortable, and his novels are almost all the product of "a glimpse", and I can almost feel the novelist-style fog that spreads in his eyes. These novels have fully revealed his talent. Betrayal, confusion and despair, snow slowly flowing in dense and vivid sentences, he wrote a texture of life. I feel that this texture is dissolving despair itself, and if literature has any power, it is.

Xu Chang's novel makes me reiterate once again: the power of literature lies in reality, and the path of truth is fiction. Fiction is not a lie, fiction is the setting of conditions, the discovery of wisdom; fiction is the container that contains all that is innocent, gentle and sinful in life; and further down, fiction is an ideal. With ideals, you may not be able to achieve anything, but after all, you can make people go further. Xu Chang's novel has a fictional tolerance, and his softness rushes into the depths of the misty eyes with acceleration, generating the sound of the deep waves of the night, and seeing such a landscape depends not only on the ear, but also on the heart. Those who have truly experienced the loneliness of life (hasn't anyone experienced it?) Xu Chang's novels will never disappoint you. Moreover, in Xu Chang's novel, I also glimpsed the whole spectrum in the minds of young people today.

This article is an excerpt from the book review of Xu Chang's book "Fish on land", published with the permission of Huacheng Publishing House)

Selected Chinese books

"The Fish is on Land"

Xu Chang

Flower City Press

March 2022

"Fish on Land" is a collection of Xu Chang's short stories. The sojourn life of left-behind children in Yukita, the eternally glamorous "South" in the mother's call, the legend of the water town full of fox fairy monsters, the adventures of backpackers walking in the Himalayas... The vague childhood, the divided hometown, the imagination of the coastal city, the frustration and struggle that the teenager experienced when he integrated into the real society, loneliness and hope... Nine stories that reflect an individual's life explore the complexities of human nature and love in a clean and restrained language.

The novel focuses on the lives, emotions, confusions and fates of the post-90s generation, and presents the deep ripples under the change and restlessness of the times.

Good books in Chinese

ID：ihaoshu233