Reporter Shi Wenjing
On May 10, the People's Literature Publishing House solemnly launched the famous writer Jia Pingwa's blockbuster new work and long note novel "Qinling Chronicle".
The Chronicle of Qinling is the first work named after "Qinling" and the 19th novel of Jia Pingwa.
In "The Chronicle of Qinling", the writer tells nearly sixty Qinling stories in the form of notebook novels, which not only have the genes of traditional texts such as "Shan Hai Jing" and "Liaozhai Zhiyi", but also contain the different codes that the writer grew up in Si, with a broad realm and swaying penmanship. In the long passage, there are all creatures hidden in the mountains and rivers, there are whispers of life flowing in the rivers, and there are vivid things, people, and history in the folds of thousands of ditches.
Write about Qinling and me in Qinling
Jia Pingwa, known as the "evergreen tree of the literary world", has been engaged in literary creation for nearly 50 years since he published literary works in 1973, and has published a large number of blockbuster works.
The Chronicle of Qinling is the first work to be named after Qinling and his 19th novel.
In the past fifty years, as a very productive writer, heavyweight works have come out every few years. This time, Jia Pingwo returned to the Qinling Mountains where he was born and grew up in Sisi, carrying the traditional cultural genes contained in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Liaozhai Zhiyi", leisurely channeling the things, personnel affairs, and historical events in the Qinling Mountains, and dedicating a history of the Qinling Mountains, rivers, grasses, trees, animals, villages, and characters that have accumulated in his heart for many years.
When writing Shanben in 2017, Jia Pingwa said that Qinling was "a dragon vein, standing there, carrying the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, ruling the north and south."
In 2021, he wrote "The Record of Qinling" again, but he did not know how to say Qinling: "Decades have passed, I have been writing about Qinling, writing about the glory and suffering of its history, writing about its realistic revitalization and sorrow, writing about its landscapes, plants, trees, birds and animals, writing about its spirit of Confucianism, Taoism and red revolution. First it was to focus on the Shangzhou in the Qinling Mountains, and then to zoom in to the entire Qinling Mountains. If I can sum up in one sentence, it is: Qinling and the me in Qinling. ”
Whether it is novels or essays, the stories written by Jia Pingwa all occur in the sense of literary geography in the north and south of qinling, and most of the important events in China's great history also occur here.
In order to write a novel, in a few years, Jia Pingwo went to kunlun mountains where the Qinling Mountains originated; to Taibai Mountain and Huashan Mountain; to the seventy-two Daoyu between Taibai Mountain and Huashan Mountain; and to Tianzhu Mountain and Shangshan Mountain in Shangluo, but he deeply felt that it was only a dime.
In the Qinling Mountains, Jia Pingwo realized what it was like for a bird to fly into the woods, and what it was like for a grass to grow in a ravine. He regarded the peaks as the knot of the majestic spirit, and the ponds as the gathering of the cool and moist air, and the woods that appeared on the slopes or in the depressions made him look at them the most.
Pay homage to the Classic of Mountains and Seas
Some critics say that Jia Pingwo had already paid tribute to the Classic of Mountains and Seas in his heart when he wrote "Shangzhou", and in many later works, the story telling method of "Liaozhai Zhiyi" can also be vaguely seen. And "The Record of Qinling" is the writer's "One Man's Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "One Man's Chat of Zhai Zhiyi" that the writer has been immersed in for many years and has accumulated half a life.
In "The Book of Qinling", the reader can see: loyal dogs that can understand people's words; caves where high monks enter the caves where spring water will flow; soap horn trees where people hold and cry, and the leaves will shed tears together; fools who can write poetry, small clerks who can enter other people's dreams... These stories lead readers to break through the cramped and narrow reality of chicken feathers, and enter a chaotic and majestic and open situation, so that readers have an interest and imagination in traditional texts, and have the feeling of reading the contemporary "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
The "Birds, Animals, Fish and Snakes" in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and the chaotic god "Dijiang" in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" have no contradiction with the spiritual flower of the sword gate god and brilliant life painted by the author, and together with the mountains and forests and water veins of the ancient paintings of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", they are combined to form a strange form of "Qinling", and the swaying brushwork of the writer's text also forms a new text-pictorial relationship.
Jia Pingwa's works have always been both traditional and modern, both realistic and lofty, with simple and humble language, but the heart is full of waves. "The Record of Qinling" is such a simple and thick text, telling a long and modern story, and it is interesting to read.