Bai Xianyong is an outstanding writer who is famous at home and abroad after the famous general Bai Chongxi. He was born in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and experienced civil war; he grew up in Taiwan and spent most of his life wandering in foreign lands. His special identity and special experience have made him regard cultural China as his home, and plant his roots and soul in the depths of Chinese culture.
Bai Xianyong's masterpiece "Taipei People", in the "Top 100 Novels of the twentieth century Chinese", and "Scream", "Border City", "Camel Xiangzai", "Legend", "Siege of the City", "Midnight" and so on are listed in the top ten. This book of less than 140,000 words is a collection of fourteen short stories he published in Taiwan's Modern Literature in the 1960s in 1971. "Taipeier" has been translated into many languages, many of which have been adapted into film and television dramas and broadcast, and the 31 episodes of the Taiwanese drama "A Handful of Green", which swept the 51st Golden Bell Awards in 2015, are based on the second novel of the same name of less than 10,000 words in "Taipeier".
If you like literature, "Taipeier" must not be read; you like history, "Taipeier" cannot be read; you like to think about life, "Taipeier" should be read. What kind of book is this? The wild fox called it "an elegy of a piece of history and a dynasty." Let's look at this book through the analysis of "A Handful of Blue".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the origin and meaning of the title of the novel "A Handful of Blue"</h1>
The film "Blood Stained Begonia Red" is an ethical Chinese film produced by the Hong Kong Great Wall Pictures Company in 1949, the interlude "Dongshan Yi qing" was sung by the red singer Bai Guang at that time, and the record was popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan for many years thereafter.
Higashiyama a handful of green
Higashiyama which handful of green
Which handful of green in the west mountain
Lang has a heart to sister and a heart
Lang Ya we are good to get married
Oops, oops, oops
Let's be married
The flowers are good today
The Ming Dynasty fell flowers
Drift to where not to know
Lang Ya looking for flowers should be early
Look for flowers early
Go to the East Gate this morning
The Ming Dynasty took the West Gate
It was as if the landscape was flowing down
Lang Ya flowed until a few hours before stopping
When does it stop
The name of the novel "A Handful of Green" comes from the interlude of this tragic ethical film, in which "a handful of green" refers to a handful of grass, a handful of grass on the grave on the mountain. Bai Xianyong's heroine Zhu Qing in the novel, there is a "Qing" word in the name is also related to this, suggesting the tragic fate of the characters, "Dongshan a handful of green" This song is also the heroine Zhu Qing's favorite song in nightclubs and idle residences, "A handful of green" as the name of the novel, has the author's deliberate management side, which is also of great significance.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > two The plot structure of the novel</h1>
"A Handful of Qing" tells a tragic love story from a specific historical period: after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the leader of the flying squad, Guo Yi, returned from training in the United States, and this heroic young pilot fell in love with Zhu Qing, a Sichuan girl who studied at Jinling Girls' High School. Zhu Qing was only eighteen or nineteen years old, with a thin figure and a shy demeanor, "but there was a vein of unforgettable water show between his eyebrows." The handsome and young and conceited Guo Yi was in love with this Zhu Qing, who did not look very outstanding, and he often rushed into the school to find Zhu Qing, and even flew to the Jinling Girls' School around when he was practicing the machine, causing the female students to stick their heads out from the classroom to see the hilarity, the principal sued the headquarters, Guo Yi was punished, and Zhu Qing was also expelled from the school.
Zhu Qing's parents telegraphed her home from Chongqing and resolutely opposed her marrying the Air Force, so she fell out with her family, married Guo Yi in a hurry, and lived in the Air Force dependent area of Ren'ai East Village on the outskirts of Nanjing.
Before the honeymoon was over, civil war broke out. Guo Yi and his comrades-in-arms left Nanjing, and in the midst of months of fearful waiting, Zhu Qing waited for the notice that Guo Yi had fallen, and she rushed to the village entrance with Guo Yi's clothes and crashed head-on into a telephone pole. A month later, her mother-in-law carried the disheveled Zhu Qing off the bed and dragged her away with a scooter and a cover.
A few years later, in the New Year, in Taipei, the Air Force Xinsheng Society held a recreation party, and a charming woman sang "Dongshan A Handful of Green" on the stage, very debauchedly. Zhu Qing recognized on the stage the "Shi Niang" who had given her and Guo Yi great help and care, and she often came to ask Shi Niang to play cards and never mentioned the past. Her home in the air force dependent area of the fourth section of Xinyi Road is a place frequented by several young air forces, and her relationship with The Air Force Xiao Gu is not ordinary, and later, Xiao Gu fell off the plane again. When the master heard the news, she went to comfort Zhu Qing with the boss lady of a poinsettia, "Push the door in, Zhu Qing wears a pink pajama, picks up her pants and cocks her feet, and paints Kou Dan on her fingernails, and the hair curls at one end are not removed..."
Zhu Qing beckoned the teacher and lady to play cards together, and from time to time she hummed two sentences of the song she often liked to sing, "A Handful of Green in Dongshan".
Whoops, who
Lang, pick the flowers early...
The novel is narrated in the first person (Shi Niang), which has a great sense of immersion, especially the subtle changes in the inner world of the characters are very accurate and subtle. Structurally, the plot depicts characters with the contrast between the past and present in mainland China and Taipei, the story is not long, and the plot is very simple, but the author writes it as a intestinal stutter. The 10,000-word novel was adapted into a TV series for as many as thirty-one episodes, and there was nothing outside the original plot and theme, which showed the large capacity of the novel.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three characters and their meanings in the novel</h1>
Zhu Qing's image is completed by the contrast and portrayal of the appearance language of two different historical periods, although there are few descriptions of appearance and the language and actions of the characters, but through the stories told by the teacher and the historical background, Zhu Qing's image is still very distinct and profound. Zhu Qing of Ren'ai East Village in Nanjing: "Half-bowed, shy and timid, there is a kind of timidity that makes people feel pity." After Guo Yi left, she refused to go out one step away, for fear of missing the news from the headquarters phone to Guo Yi. Love has become everything in her life, after Guo Yi fell off the plane, she could not die for love, although people are alive, but the heart is already dead. "What does he know? Where is his consciousness when he falls to pieces? When he got there, he was gone, and I was dead, but I still had consciousness. ”
Zhu Qing, who arrived in Taipei, had already sentenced the two of them: "The woman was on the stage, smiling and moaning without a hint of shame... On the one hand, he was stepping on the rumba on the stage, upside down, twisting quite menglang. She wore a cheongsam sprinkled with transparent purple yarn and gold, a pair of high heels were three inches high, and when she twisted, the gold lock pieces on her whole body sparkled. At home, Zhu Qing passed the card game to Shi Niang, beckoning Shi Niang and a few young air force youths who often came to eat, "Two small knives, the big sister's chicken soup, actually ate the big sister's tofu!" She actually flirted in front of the master's mother with the two comrades-in-arms of Xiao Gu, who were good to her.
After Xiao Gu dropped the plane, Shi Niang went to see her, she calmly dressed herself, calmly played cards, played cards with laughter and groaned, and sang songs, and the state she showed like no one was afraid. It was really more mournful than the death of the heart, Zhu Qing's heart had long since died along with Guo Yi. The spirit of Zhu Qing in the past is pure, with the pursuit and protection of love, when the war destroys her love, it will also destroy Zhu Qing. Zhu Qing, who arrived in Taipei, became an indulgence of carnal desires, numb and extremely materialized, but behind this was more of a heavy and powerless struggle.
Zhu Qing's body has the idea of "fate" that Bai Xianyong wants to express, which is also further enhanced by the fact that The Teacher's Wife talks about Mrs. Zhou and Mrs. Xu in Ren'ai Dongcun. Mrs. Zhou was married four times, "Her current husband and the three people in front of her were originally from a squad, one dead and one of them, so it was turned." Mrs. Xu and her husband were originally her little brother-in-law, and the Xu brothers were both pilots of the Thirteenth Brigade, and the older brother was killed and the younger brother replaced. The original children, who were uncles and fathers, were still unclear for a long time. "But they still need to live, and they still have to live a life of talking and laughing."
Similar characters and stories in "Taipeier" are constantly repeated, and the specific circumstances of the characters' status and origin are different, but the tragedies conveyed by the conflict of history and morality are completely consistent. This kind of personal helplessness and helplessness is manifested in Bai Xianyong's pen as a kind of fate, or a "sinful" thing. In fact, they are all singing elegies to a period of history, just like the sacrifice poems, there is no praise, no criticism, only quiet and even laughing and chanting, just like Zhu Qing sang after Xiao Gu's death.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > four The theme of "A Handful of Blue" and the value orientation of "Taipeier"</h1>
"A Handful of Qing" is a love tragedy novel, Zhu Qing is a simple and clear girl, shy and shy, but tenacious and stubborn, struggling in the pain of losing her lover, and finally becoming a socialite of the Taipei Air Force Club.
Zhu Qing's body carries the weight of history and the death of a dynasty, zhu Qing's "sins", or fate, is also What Bai Xianyong himself has in his bones, after the door, after the demise of the dynasty and the withering of traditional culture, this is the collapse of the spiritual edifice in Bai Xianyong, he is powerless and helpless, and can only express a kind of memorial sorrow.
The sadness expressed in "A Handful of Qing" is repeatedly chanted in "Taipeier", and the grief under this fate in novels such as "Thinking of the Old Fu", "Liang Fuyin", "Lonely Love Flower", "Huaqiao Rongji" and other novels is constantly repeated, and the fourteen novels are reflected and stimulated by each other, so that the entire "Taipeier" is shrouded in a heavy atmosphere of elegy, and the connotation of each novel is also thicker because of the entire novel collection.
The title of "Taipei People" also has great meaning, none of the characters in the fourteen short stories are Taipei natives, they are all provincial people who have drifted to Taipei under the same fate as Zhu Qing, and Bai Xianyong himself is a representative. This novel has an autobiography of a certain nature, although it is not its own story, but it is completely its own mental journey and emotional experience.
The fourteen novels have no similarities in storyline and structure, each independent, but all present a "contrast between the past and the present" in different forms. The prosperity, splendor, achievements, and beauty of mainland life in the past are in stark contrast to the bitterness, depression, decay, and desolation of Taipei's life. The novel is like a movie shot, just switching scenes, not explaining the relationship between the two, but the historical background is the direct cause of these two different life situations, and there is no need to explain or explain.
"Taipei People" leaves people with heavy sighs and endless thoughts, but it is also indescribable sorrow. History cannot be chosen, but from the various individual lives we can look at history and think about history, which is probably the most important thing that "A Handful of Youth" and "Taipei People" can give us, as for the understanding of human nature, the understanding of life can also be regarded as another rich.