Xu Haijiao's "Dear Idiot" is a children's growth novel full of humor and comedy, and it is also a thought-provoking and resonant educational apocalypse.
Yu Yibao is a real fool in the eyes of Xu Haijiao, and his "stupidity" is reflected in many aspects. Paragraphs that are easily acceptable to others have two blank spaces at the beginning, and he always cannot understand them. Others can always calm down during the exam, but he can't stop laughing because he sees a certain question. He wants to do good things like his classmates, but he always does something "good" that doesn't look like a good thing. For example, he worries that the stonemason's family will help Grandma eat them in the summer when he worries about the remaining bayberry left by his grandmother, or he will help a rat that has fallen into the water to return to the shore safely to do his best, or he will help others tear off a redundant thread hanging from the back of the thread and pull out a long strip. In order to help Yu Yong's pigsty to make up for a stone that had been rubbed off by the pig, he took a steel shovel but made the stones near the hole in the wall fall more and more, and the pig shot out the pigsty like an arrow at the big hole, never to return.
At this point, good things are not good things, and good things have become bad things. It is unbelievable that even one of the most basic good things cannot be done.
The plot that seems rather bizarre to these bystanders is that in the stupid world of Yibao, it exists so appropriately and reasonably, such as the warmth of the sun in winter and the coolness of rain in autumn. Xu Haijiao created a world that only belonged to the fool, and also created a stupid teenager who was called "Mu Da". Reading it carefully, the reader will often laugh at being teased by all kinds of inconceivables, and after laughing, he will wonder: Is Yu Yibao an idiot with no merit?
Apparently not.
If he is a real fool, at least he will not be calm and unable to hold on. Even if he became an outlier duck, even if the people around him avoided him like a plague god, he still did not think of changing himself to cater to the people around him. The reason why he didn't understand that the beginning of a paragraph should be two blocks blank was because he felt that he could not waste paper. The reason he wants to tell others to grow new teeth is because he wants to share his joy. The reason he didn't let people pull him away from the tree was because he wanted to hear the sound of the tree. The reason why he went to Principal Dong to admit that he had once put a bucket into the well was because he believed that the principal must have a point.
Behind his "feeling" and "believing" is his own set of thinking and logic, which is somewhat different from ordinary people, beyond what ordinary people think and think a little, which makes him unique, and also achieves the "stupidity" in the eyes of others.
It's not so much that he's stupid, it's that he doesn't know how to hide his opinions, that he doesn't want to hide everything he wants to express. Compared with his peers, he is somewhat exaggerated, some more true, some clumsy, and nothing more. These are not the characteristics of stupid people. Through his works, Xu Haijiao wants to remind us that for a child like Yibao, we need to be tolerant. Of course, tolerance alone is not enough. In addition to tolerance, there must also be appreciation. He has many advantages that children do not have.
Doesn't it take courage to ask the principal to admit a previous mistake? Can you hear the sound of trees and don't need a soft and sensitive heart? Knowing how to appreciate the beauty of Teacher Li's youth and the beauty of his voice is not the expression of his love for beauty? Is it not precisely because he did not lie by resolutely not identifying Wang Dingfei, Yu Qiang, and Li Tianle as the initiators of the "tug-of-war"?
If he is not alert, brave and resourceful, the three members of Chen Shanghai's family may encounter an accident in the typhoon disaster. Immersed in the 11 books borrowed from Xiao Li, he felt the spiritual stirring between the lines of the hidden words all the time. His poems, born out of the sea, are simple, concise, and jumpy, and clearly shine with the light of literature, which makes people excited and excited after reading. Yu Yibao's body flashed with advantages that many of his peers did not have. He's not stupid, he's a genius in some way. For the stupid people in the eyes of everyone, in addition to looking at the problem from another angle, do we need to have enough patience to face and wait? It takes time for flowers to blossom, and it takes time for results to take equally. If you don't have enough time to pick it, will it leave bitterness and bitterness in vain? The blossoming of flowers and the fruit of the knot require not only a lesson and some homework, but also the sunshine, rain and dew outside the classroom, and a breeze.
Echoing and mirroring the grandson Yu Yibao is Grandpa Yu Laoyi. This old and young two "idiots" appear together and sometimes alone in the novel, bringing a lot of laughter to the reader, creating a witty and serious atmosphere for the whole book, both relaxed and heavy.
Where is Yu Laoyi a fool or a madman? He just lives in the world of art with wishful thinking, he just doesn't care what the people of Shrimp Island think of him, he just treats everything around him in his own way. Seemingly acting crazy and stupid, he lived more clearly than everyone around him. No matter how difficult life, no matter how much pressure, no matter how much grief, can not stop his sincerity to go all out for art. Looking back and examining carefully, can this young and old two idiots only be ridiculed? Can't the many bits and pieces in them teach people profoundly? When people laugh at the grandchildren, they make the double mistake of one-sidedness and extremes at the same time?
After reading the novel, readers suddenly realized that Yibao was not only not an idiot, but also a heroic teenager who dared to save people and was full of responsibility, or a literary teenager who wrote a good poem and won an award. The writer Xu Haijiao gave Yibao a different patience, let him see many landscapes, experienced many setbacks, let him be hurt, licked the wounds, let him enter the heart, poured out himself, let him disappointed and even despaired. It is precisely because he is full of expectations for a treasure, so the author deliberately overturned the basin of life for him, so that he was drenched. This patience surpassed that of the principal, the class teacher and the classmates, and more than most of the people on The Island.
Yu Laoyi is the grandson Yu Yibao's dear fool, as evidenced by Yibao's poetry. In the eyes of his grandson, Grandpa's "stupidity" stems from his obsession with painting and from his inseparability in painting. In Grandpa's eyes, Yibao is not a fool, but a genius who has not yet been discovered. Dear Idiot is Grandpa's nickname for his grandson, and also his grandson's love name for Grandpa, and these two "idiots" are a pair of living treasures. Live in the teasing of the people of Luo shrimp Island, live in the free world, live in the expectation of the future full of imagination, live in the inner love and obsession. How many people can hope for such a day? To be alive, it is important to be happy yourself, not the eyes and faces of others. "Dear Fool" is Xu Haijiao's romantic, free and uninhibited writing, which points not only to the grandchildren, but also to more living beings who are growing up vigorously.
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"Dear Idiot"
Author: Xu Haijiao
On the island of falling shrimp on the east coast, two "idiots", one old and one young, began their legendary lives. Blinded and coldly treated, the storm of fate hit them violently, but failed to change their search for truth and beauty. This is a misunderstood story of genius, with warmth hidden in the pain and laughter in the heartache. In the light of love, through the thorns of prejudice, the fool is refined into a genius by fate.
"Dear Fool" throws care into the small people in the dark corners of life in the process of the big era, thus showing the radical changes in human fate, showing the complexity and benevolence of human nature. On the life path of the protagonist Yibao and the painter Crazy Grandpa, the wind and rain are turbulent, and the sunshine and clear sky after the wind and rain are particularly clear.
The story of an island, but as open as land, breeds the faith and courage to grow, and breeds the power of human nature to be good.
"Dear Idiot" has valuable juvenile feelings. This sentiment is related to truth and belief, about love and acceptance, and about the courage of a teenager to move forward. There is kindness and compassion for life in Dear Fool, and this kindness runs through the book, making us always believe that pain and suffering also contain bright hope.
——Hong Zhigang, dean of the School of Humanities of Hangzhou Normal University, winner of the Lu Prize and critic
Prejudice, misunderstanding, the mockery of fate, as elusive as a storm at sea. The teenager and grandfather followed the path of seeking truth and beauty, facing the open land of life, which is a profound allegory written for growth and a book of faith written for teenagers.
——Zhang Quanmin, special teacher of Chinese in Zhejiang Province and doctor of education
Stupid and genius, madman and artist. What a dramatic shift. Just as the moon is on the opposite side, the moon is always the same moon, and the difference is in the perspective from which it is observed. I hope that we will let go of prejudice and treat every life, every person, every flower, and every tree with tolerance and kindness. Cherish every life, tolerate their uniqueness, and leave more room for children like Yibao to grow.
——Wu Zhouxing, editor of October Juvenile Literature and writer of children's literature