Ma Xiaoquan was born in 1978 in Longhui, Hunan. His works have been published in contemporary, harvest, October, people's literature and other journals, and have been selected into a variety of anthologies. He has published novels such as "Lost City", "Bank Archives", "Legend of Wudi", poetry collection "Three Dimensions", "Passing on a Classical Lamp", and essay collection "Baoqing Seal". Some of his works have been translated into English and French. He is currently the vice chairman of the Hunan Writers Association and the vice president of the Hunan Novel Society.
Here, we cannot fully explain the historical reasons and cultural logic of the "Cultural Revolution", but I just want to observe the profound and extensive impact of the "signs of the post-Cultural Revolution" on contemporary society from the perspective of a young author like Ma Xiaoquan. In Chu Xiaolong's life experience and the living environment around him, what made me feel most strongly was the lack of love. Sometimes I think to the extreme that the progress of society, the healthy development of mankind, is first and foremost built on the hotbed of love. Love is the sunshine that illuminates human civilization, and without love, human beings may still be creeping in the darkness and wild mud. The end of the Cultural Revolution seems to mean the revival of love, and people can freely express their inner love. But that doesn't mean the rift of love has completely healed. For although love returns, it will almost never return to its original sacred, lofty position. Love is equated with a substance that people actually need, becomes a worldly, materialized, valuable thing. Just like the young people on the underworld in the novel, they also need the love of women, and they will become more gentle and kind under the love of women, but their needs are more from physical or psychological desires, which are far from the ideal of sacred and elegant love.
The love depiction of Chu Xiaolong and Su Li may express a more complex level. The author spent a lot of ink on this pair of lovers, he described the love relationship between the two very real and moving, Chu Xiaolong's love for Su Li is straightforward and direct, in his life environment full of hatred, cruelty, bullying, the most lacking is the nourishment of love, Su Li walked into his life, so that his soul that longs for love has been comforted. For Chu Xiaolong, he can't get family affection, friendship, pure feelings between people, only the love of the opposite sex, can make his spirit get temporary anesthesia. Chu Xiaolong is also very sober about this, so he said that Su Li was the most important woman in his life after his grandmother's death, but even so, he still felt "afraid to say love". The lack of love under the "signs of the post-Cultural Revolution" is also manifested in the functional replacement of love and hate. Scheler said that "our hearts are prescribed by love as the first rule, not by hate; hatred is simply a reaction to a false love." For Chu Xiaolong, the information he obtained from the social environment was the opposite, and the society told him that hate is the first meaning, and love is also expressed through hate. Just like Chu Xiaolong deeply loved his parents, so he had to kill Huo Guoxiong, who had framed his father, "the revenge of killing his father, he had to repay", this is the principle that Chu Xiaolong identified. Of course, Ma Xiaoquan chose a relatively special field of life, which is what we call the underworld, the rebellious existing order of the underworld, with the nature of speaking strongly, will naturally strengthen what I call the "signs of the post-Cultural Revolution" to the extreme, which is a kind of writing challenge for the author. For example, the anti-social tendencies and anti-moral tendencies of the underworld and the rebellious emotions of the people caused by social injustice should be clearly distinguished in the narrative by the author. For example, how the author's understanding of the protagonist and his identification with the protagonist's unhurried humanity are harmoniously unified with the position of criticizing the underworld in the protagonist. Needless to say, Angry Youth's incisive narrative in the face of these complexities suggests that the author is far from mature in both the perception of the world and the art of writing.
The perspective taken by Angry Youth is very important. Perhaps we can say that the author and his protagonist belong to the same generation, and when he repeats the stories of these people, he is not an outsider, but more like a participant in the story or even a witness, so the perspective of the novel is neither purely objective, nor purely subjective, introverted, which makes the novel not only full of understanding and identification with these young people, but also makes the author's narrative position and the character's narrative position consistent, bringing great affinity to the narrative. At the same time, the author found a very appropriate form of narrative, which is a narrative form of the "bad boy's" growth history. In modern and ancient fiction, the bad boy is a character with whom readers often encounter. These bad boys often become the author's image envoys to express their dissatisfaction with the current state of society. Children belong to the future society, while reality belongs to adults. Children can not take responsibility for reality. But adults often warn children that the future extends from reality to the past, so you must first abide by reality, otherwise there will be no future for you. Obedient children do what adults say, keep to reality, and become good children. However, the recognition of good children by adults does not represent the value confirmation of future society, and perhaps to a greater extent, bad children convey the voice of the future for us. In addition, strategically speaking, because children are simple and have no internal entanglement with reality, their rebellion against reality is more just. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye gives us a classic bad boy image, a sixteen-year-old American boy, Holden, who refuses to read, is not motivated, pursues excitement, is cynical; he smokes, drinks, fights, flirts, and even plays with prostitutes. Such a child will obviously not be accepted by reality, and it is only natural that he will be expelled from school. But it is precisely because of the rejection of the social order that he may have access to the truth of society. So he found that no one in adult society was trustworthy, all "hypocrites of hypocrisy", even the only teacher he admired was a homosexual, and all he encountered in reality was hypocrisy and deception, and he had to be depressed, wandering, and indulgent. Of course, to achieve criticism with the narrative of the bad boy, it is necessary to make a fuss about the child, the child's innocence and simplicity, the white and ethereal soul of the heart, which is in stark contrast to the evil of reality. Therefore, in "The Catcher in the Rye", Salinger also focuses on rendering Holden's childlike heart of pure kindness, the pursuit of a better life and lofty ideals.
I dare not conclude that Ma Xiaoquan wrote "Angry Youth" consciously imitating the bad boy model to conceive, but I dare to conclude that Ma Xiaoquan is more devoted to teenagers with rebellious psychology in real life, and even in his bones, he himself has a bad boy complex. Therefore, his choice of the narrative perspective of the bad boy makes us feel that it is a handy thing, and he also has a good grasp of the bad boy like Chu Xiaolong. Perhaps in this way, the image of the bad boy will be formed, and all the basic elements will be fully prepared. For example, to design a lonely and helpless reality for the protagonist, Chu Xiaolong did not know who his parents were since he was a child, the class teacher planned to dump him to the poor student class in the last period, and the death of his grandmother finally led to his escape, and his escape and wandering were the only way for bad children. Of course, the most crucial thing is that Ma Xiaoquan clings to the "child" point. Perhaps from the perspective of right and wrong and morality, Chu Xiaolong is more thorough than Holden, but it is absolutely impossible to deprive Chu Xiaolong of his "childlike heart", the author is soberly aware of this, and he grasps it quite well in the narrative. What is particularly rare is that the author wrote about Chu Xiaolong's undisturbed reverence. Therefore, although he has fallen deep in the quagmire of the underworld, he finally stopped in the face of some things. For example, he was in awe of knowledge, so when he later returned to his hometown to meet Teacher Huo, whom he respected, he "immediately wanted to dig a hole in the ground and hide." In particular, he was in awe of heroes and justice, so he would regard the soldiers who were born and died on the battlefield as his idols, and the first time he saw Lu Dayou, he felt that this "old man had a respectable temperament", and he knew very well in his heart: "Although Lao Tzu is a scum, he also knows that qing officials cannot be killed." And all this reverence stems from reverence for nobility and holiness. There is no doubt that this reverence is first rooted in the author, so when he writes about the old soldier Lu Dayou, the brushstrokes suddenly become serious and respectful. He had no choice but to let Lu Dayou bypass the intractable confrontation in the form of cerebral hemorrhage. In reading, I sometimes feel that the author's narrative is simply cold to the extreme, but even so, the human blood of human nature has not been condensed, which is probably due to the author's reverence.
Over the years, the cultural circles have suddenly become enthusiastic about the cultural character of the region, and books on the characteristics of Hunan people have also been published in this regard. There is a saying that Hunan people love to eat peppers the most, so they are the most revolutionary. I don't know how much cultural basis there is for this claim, but from my actual exposure, there may be a similar experience. I felt that the acts and remarks of rebellion, rebellion, and resistance were the most likely to resonate among Hunan people, and the character of Hunan people may be strong. From this point of view, Ma Xiaoquan's narrative has a typical Hunan regional cultural character, and if he continues to develop in this narrative form, he may open up a broad stylized space. However, until the author is very successful, I think it is still necessary to remind the author that there should be sufficient vigilance in this regard. We should not easily make value and moral judgments on any kind of regional cultural character. At this time, it may be a wise move for us to move out of The Literary Master Shen Congwen of Hunan. Shen Congwen is also obsessed with the banditry and ghost qi of the Hunan region, he writes barbarism and fanaticism, he writes that evil is born from the side of fear, but his ultimate purpose is the beauty of human nature, the vitality of life, in Shen Congwen's mind, beautiful things are always eternal things, in turn, eternal things must be beautiful things. I suggest that Ma Xiaoquan may wish to absorb some nutrients from Shen Congwen's style in his future writing. Although I also know that in the context of the postmodern flood, my proposal seems somewhat out of place.
Originally published in Hibiscus, No. 2, 2003, with deletions
Included in the author's review collection "Reconstructing the Grand Narrative"
Self-prologue
Author: Ma Xiaoquan
This is a book of anger, a book of anxiety, a book of blood and ice stirring, a book of blindness and sobriety. Most of the characters in the book have strong vitality, but they are trapped in the black hole of fate and cannot extricate themselves. They shouted, wept, frantically or killed calmly, hoping to break through the repression and release their grief, but after a brief moment of pleasure they were besieged by heavier repression and deeper grief. They have no way to escape, they are not willing to obey, and they attack again in their anger, even regardless of the results, only trying to vent. This repression and grief are both the object of their vigorous resistance and the internal driving force of their actions. In this insoluble dilemma, they burst out with cruelty and madness that shocked themselves, and in the end it seemed that only destruction could end it all.
I saw their plight clearly, but I could not reach out and pull them out of them, but with a sympathetic understanding, from their actions and destiny into their hearts: intense loneliness, distorted desires, deep inferiority and perverted self-esteem, and irrepressible impulses to self-destruct. The Chu Xiaolong who was deeply entangled in hatred and killing and still refused to give up the way up, the tiger head who was holding an iron hammer and staring at the wine cup in the nightclub, the Gong Jianzhang who forged his heart while playing iron, and the Wang Yichuan, who was half passive and half active in cultivating the nature of a poisonous snake and killed himself, all made my heart excited, and the pen edge and blood were the same. Sometimes I feel that they are borrowing my hand to write their fate and voice, and sometimes I feel that they are me, I am them.
In fact, everyone has an "angry youth" in their hearts, but because of the difference in disposition and situation, some people actively or passively "castrate" this "angry youth", some people let the "angry youth" dominate themselves, and some people transform the "angry youth" into a pure and powerful energy through unremitting efforts, with innate benevolence and acquired rational thinking training, and walked out of the "hell road" of repaying evil with evil, provoking evil and destroying people and me. In the process of participating in the construction of a democratic and rule-of-law society, he has become a modern civilized person in the true sense, and has maintained the happiness of the entire human society while pursuing personal happiness. If Chu Xiaolong, Hu tou, Gong Jianzhang, Wang Yichuan and others were given more opportunities, how would they choose among the three paths? This question does not seem to be answered, but it cannot be known. Because even if circumstances can be determined, there are still many elusive aspects of human nature.
Good book recommendation
Angry Youth
Ma Xiaoquan/Author
Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House
"Angry Youth" is Ma Xiaoquan's famous work, consisting of four independent and closely related novellas. The book depicts Chu Xiaolong, Hutou, Gong Jianzhang, and Wang Yichuan, four young people with different endowments who embark on the same road of no return due to different family and social reasons, and combine the anxiety and anger of adolescence with the fission of a small city in the central part of the 1990s, with thrilling power. The book has been selected into the "Novel Selection", "Novel Monthly", "Chinese Literature Anthology" and various annual anthologies, and has been translated into English and French, which has had an impact on a group of post-80s and post-90s writers, and can be called a classic text contributed by the 70 generation of the literary world.
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