Abundant sketches show lofty beauty——Read the collection of essays of Qiushan Mountain, "A Tree Higher Than a Mountain"

Author: Fu Yichen (Specially Appointed Writer of Liaoning Writers Association)

Qiu Shanshan's essay collection "Trees Higher Than Mountains" (published by Tomorrow Publishing House in April 2022) contains nearly twenty short chapters that record the stories of soldiers on the edge of the plateau and shape the heroic group portraits of border guards. More than a decade ago, the writer continued to walk on the Tibetan plateau and the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau, personally experienced the life of ordinary border guards unimaginable, and also recorded many amazing and shocking life experiences. As Qiu Shan Shan said in the preface: "Walking the plateau again and again, leaving worries again and again." As a person who has been on the road, I can't stick to the plateau with the people on the plateau, just as I can't stick to the hometown with the people in my hometown. All I can do is record the roads I have traveled, the people I have met, and even the trees on the side of the road. ”

Walking the plateau again and again, Qiu Shan Shan saw and heard too many moving stories. Whether it is a general or a soldier, in the face of harsh natural conditions and harsh living conditions, they silently persevere; In the face of sudden life and death tests, they have not flinched; Faced with the entanglement of personal emotions and the entanglement of family burdens, they were willing to sacrifice and dedicate, and composed a lofty and majestic military song with youth and life. These short chapters and sketches open up a vast time and space for current readers, especially children's readers, that are very different from the experience of daily life, so that they can feel the greatness of nature, the tenacity of life, the greatness of soldiers, and the loftiness of heroes.

Qiu Shan Shan recorded the typical environment and typical characters in a sketch manner, with a few strokes, and the form and spirit were all out. As an independent art form, sketching emphasizes the use of concise lines to briefly draw dynamic or static images of people and objects in a short period of time; As a short, concise and vivid style, sketching emphasizes the use of generalized pen and ink to depict characters, narrate events, and restore scenes. Qiu Shanshan's writing is short, restrained, transparent and strong, and often uses quick and powerful short sentences, looking back at the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau full of primitive greatness through accurate details and exquisite metaphors, exploring the arduous and defamiliarized plateau life of border guards, approaching, imagining, and describing their living conditions and life situations, thus constructing the spiritual world and inner experience belonging to the plateau soldiers. These records and sketches of the military life on the plateau are filled with the pyrotechnic atmosphere of life, retaining the true texture of life, reaching the softness of the reader's heart, moving but not sensationalizing. Those once young, youthful faces may fade over time, but those thick and warm military experiences still stubbornly retain their original appearance and texture.

Whether it is a plateau or a heroic legend, whether it is a grass-roots military affair or a soldier's feelings, it is so real and natural, simple and powerful, and the experience, story, love and even sacrifice of the officers and men of the plateau have been turned into legends, legends and even admirable history. History, as a process or event that has occurred objectively, has become a thing of the past; But the interpretation of history continues to revive it and to have contemporary significance. Living history is always alive through specific narratives, which turn the past into the present. I think that at that time, Qiu Shan Shan recorded the "here and now" and reality that she personally experienced; Nowadays, the world is changing with the passage of time, and the individual lives of those vivid and vivid soldiers, together with the legendary stories of those earth-shattering and weeping ghosts and gods, have sunk into the depths of history. Curiosity, empathy, and sense of mission drive Qiu Shanshan to sort out and imagine historical figures and events, and what we read from the collection of essays is the "other side" and history that we look back and reconstruct through the writer's perspective.

The essay "Trees Higher Than the Mountain" is the beginning of the book, writing about the trees on the plateau and the lush left-handed willows in the compound of the military station, thus connecting the difficult history of the 18th Army's entry into Tibet: "People often say that Tibet is magical, and in my opinion, one of the magic is that the trees planted either cannot survive, and if they live, the wind and snow will also live, and they must grow taller and stronger than the inland... Half a century has passed, and the trees planted by the 18th Army in the past have long since become rows, into forests, shades, and the world. Each tree records the changes of Lhasa, and records the spring, summer, autumn and winter of the Shubian soldiers. "The combination of the physical tree, the figurative tree and the tree carried by the soldier together transcends the test of the natural environment and erects a spiritual monument inscribed with the imprint of the life of the soldier on the plateau." "Mountains" and "trees" as the central imagery runs through the book, taking pictures of different aspects of the life of soldiers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. When writers use metaphors to represent the world, they create a possible connection, connecting things that are otherwise unrelated and giving things a distinct meaning. "A tree higher than a mountain" thus has a clear meaning. The border guards standing on the high mountains stood up into growing trees; And the mountains are also more vivid and majestic because of the roots and growth of these trees. With the blessing of the tree, the mountain has the possibility of approaching the sky infinitely; And superimposed the height of the mountain, the spirit and soul of the soldiers are even higher.

Qiu Shan Shan adopts the technique of combining detail laying and white narrative to reproduce the military style and bones of the officers and men of the plateau in the "life forbidden area" and present the unique living conditions of the plateau soldiers. "A Day of Guilt", Du Yonghong, a surveyor and mapper of the older generation, died in the front line of surveying at the age of 24. The writer chooses the witnesses of the protagonist's sacrifice of the first few key time nodes, and uses their perspectives to connect the last time of the protagonist's life. The ingenious structure expands the narrative time and space, making Du Yonghong's character image more vivid and three-dimensional, which also fully demonstrates Qiu Shanshan's narrative ingenuity as a novelist. "General Cliff", "Singing Plateau", "Watching the 318 National Highway", "Green Mountains as Tombs", "Thousands of Waters and Mountains Spread Everywhere" and other articles closely link history and reality, and write the constant spirit and value of soldiers in the contrast between the present and the past; It also writes about how daily perseverance and sacrifice in extreme circumstances profoundly affect the underlying logic of military emotions and inner worlds.

"Rhododendron on the Snow Line" combines reason and dreams, and the difference between the azaleas in the writer's dream and reality confirms the different styles and symbolic meanings of the plateau rhododendrons: "Other flowers may bloom to show beauty, or to show youth, and these azaleas bloom, but they are dying heroically, they are heroically sacrificed, so the whole mountain gives me a feeling of sadness." "Camel Thorn" focuses on the high-altitude outpost of Chagola, from the soldiers' home letters to love letters to the highland plant camel thorns, through the empathy from camel thorns to flowers, writing about the hardships and spiritual beauty of the officers and men of the outpost. The writer of "Canola Blossoms" came to the Gamba Border Defense Battalion, and the level of logistical support of the troops greatly surprised "I." The huge contrast highlights the continuous improvement of the material conditions of the troops stationed in Tibet. In fact, the improvement of material conditions is a dynamic historical process, which affects and shapes the living conditions, life conditions and emotional world of highland soldiers in all aspects.

The sketches in the book depict the scenery of the plateau, and also carry a large number of real life experiences. The faith and spirit of Tibetan soldiers have been passed on to a younger generation of soldiers, implanted with a fresher footprint of life. The stories and characters told in the book are like seemingly rough but radiant silhouettes, shining with a deep and heavy luster like metal. In addition to each fragment, it is more of a blank space, leaving the reader's own experience, emotion and imagination to be substituted for the end.

In short, the prose collection "Trees Higher Than the Mountain" has a solid description of the natural customs of the plateau and the living conditions of the soldiers, integrating the writer's perception, observation and thought into the short sketch style, and the concise and warm tone of the pen brings the reader a deep and rich aesthetic experience, conveying a lofty aesthetic power.

Guangming Daily ( 2022-09-21 14 edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily