Come to Baidu APP to enjoy high-definition pictures
Wang Meng
An era has the literature of an era, and an era has its own representative writers. Writer Wang Meng has worked hard in the literary world for 70 years, leaving behind more than 20 million words of works, and in 2019 he won the first national honorary title of "People's Artist". Wang Meng's literary creation corresponds to the history of the entire Republic, and he grew and progressed together with the Republic, and has sufficient historical length to form the intertext between literature and history. History has endowed Wang Meng's writing with great creative impetus and literary resources, and Wang Meng's writing has also left a unique literary text and spiritual reservoir for the Republic. Wang Meng's literary coverage is extremely broad, from the perspective of time, his works cover all historical stages of the Republic, from the early days of the founding of New China to the reform and opening up, from the new century to the current life, covering Beijing, Hebei, Xinjiang and other parts of the world, the characters are ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and the genre is novels, essays, poetry, criticism, reportage and other genres. In recent years, the research and interpretation of ancient Chinese culture, from Zhuzibaijia to Li Shangyin and "Dream of Red Mansions", his vision covers almost the entire development context of Chinese culture. The excellent traditional Chinese culture illuminated Wang Meng's creation and cultural practice, and the more than 20 million characters left by Wang Meng are also deeply connected with the literary map of the Republic and have a common path.
I. A mirror of the Republic
The metaphor of "mirror" is somewhat trite and mechanical, but when we discuss and identify the meaning and value of Wang Meng's creation today, we seem to find no better metaphor to express Wang Meng's historical significance. Of course, I can use other literary words to describe and summarize Wang Meng's literary contributions, but as an easy-to-understand historical commentary, "mirror" is undoubtedly the most common and appropriate.
Wang Meng is said to be a mirror of the new China because Wang Meng grew up with the new China, he joined the Communist Party of China in 1948 at the age of 14, and served as the leader of the regiment in Beijing's Dongcheng District in the early days of the founding of New China. Since 1953, he began to engage in literary creation, wrote the novel "Long Live Youth", published the short story "A Young Man Came to the Organization Department" in 1956, which aroused strong repercussions, taught in the Chinese Department of Beijing Normal University in 1962, moved his family to Xinjiang in 1963, and worked in rural Ili for 6 years, and his novel collection "In Ili" recorded this period of life. He returned to Beijing in 1979 and continued to engage in literary creation, serving as editor-in-chief of People's Literature from 1983 to 1986, Minister of Culture from 1986 to 1989, and then director of the Committee on Literature, History and Study at the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 2019, he was awarded the national honorary title of "People's Artist".
From this text, we can glimpse that Wang Meng's literary career is closely related to the development of Chinese society, and almost every important moment in Chinese society, Wang Meng's fate will undergo some changes and turns. On the eve of the founding of New China, the city of Beijing was full of mountains and rain, and Wang Meng, who yearned for light and pursued progress, became a "young communist", in 1957 Wang Meng traveled to the frontiers, and at the end of the 70s to rectify the chaos, reform and opening up, Wang Meng served as a member of the Central Committee and Minister of Culture, after that, he returned to the literary world from the political arena, focusing on literary creation and literary research. It can be said that Wang Meng's works almost completely record the social and historical changes he has experienced, the "Young Communists" complex of "Long Live Youth", the tendency of "A Young Man from the Organization Department" to face life head-on, the reflection on history and personal in "Butterfly", the "ministerial mentality" of "The Legend of Famous Doctor Liang Youzhi", and the sigh and emotion of "Spring Causeway Six Bridges" on Chinese society and culture in the 1990s, these novels almost include his own life experience, and at the same time reflect the ups and downs of New China for decades.
If the novellas in the past were phased and fragmentary expressions of changes in social life and mentality, still partial and lacking internal continuity, then the multi-volume novels in the "season" series of novels "Season of Love", "Season of Gaffe", "Season of Hesitation", "Season of Carnival" and "Post-season" "Green Fox" in the 1990s used the method of chronicle to vertically show the style and spiritual course of the times and spiritual processes in various historical periods from 1949 to 1985. Qian Wen's fate and Wang Meng's fate have a certain intertextuality, and Wang Meng reflects the mental journey of contemporary Chinese intellectuals through Qian Wen's life experience. Wang Meng in the new era is still full of creative vitality, and his "Embarrassing Affair", "This Side of the Landscape", "Stuffy and Mad", "Monkey and Boy", "Xia Mantian", etc., or recording the current life situation and mental state, or reviewing the historical hook and sinking past, have become a true reflection of the life of the times.
Lenin called Tolstoy a mirror of the Russian Revolution, because Tolstoy's works recorded the course of the Russian Revolution. In the same way, Wang Meng is also a mirror of the Republic. This mirror reflects the glorious and arduous historical process of the Republic and is the living spiritual archive of the Republic. From the youth of the first generation of middle school students of the Republic of China to the marriage of intellectuals in the middle and old age, from the "infighting" of old-style families in Beijing's hutongs to the living conditions of the Uygur people in Xinjiang, from the joys and sorrows of peasants in the suburbs of Beijing to the adventures of football stars and famous doctors, all of which are reflected in Wang Meng's works in different periods and regions.
It is said that Wang Meng is the mirror of the Republic, and in terms of physical time, Wang Meng's creation in each period can correspond to the physical time of the Republic. These objectively existing physical times have left obvious traces in Wang Meng's novel writing, "Long Live Youth", "This Side of the Landscape", "Season" series of novels, "The Voice of Spring", "Butterfly", "Difficult to Meet", "Green Fox", "Embarrassing Wind", "Servant", "Strange and Strange Everywhere Mourning", "Goddess", "Laughing Wind", "Xia Mantian" and so on, these works are strung together to become the time archives of the Republic, recording the entire historical process of the Republic. If you arrange Wang Meng's works, you will find that it is actually a chronicle structure, that is, Wang Meng unconsciously became the "clerk" of the Republic (Balzac).
This physical time is also expressed in the tense of Wang Meng's writing, who is both a writer of reminiscence and a writer of immediacy. This immediacy may adhere to the original intention of writing "Long Live Youth" and "A Young Man Came to the Organization Department", and it is also related to the spiritual temperament of loving the current life. Wang Meng's "Voice of Spring", "Youyou Inch Grass Heart", "The Legend of Famous Doctor Liang Youzhi", "Embarrassing Affair", "Servant", "Xia Mantian" and a series of novels can be said to be the "live broadcast" of current life, his writing time and the time in the novel are synchronized, he and the novel have a common physical time, the novel and life coincide in time.
As a mirror of the new China, Wang Meng not only stays at the level of an intellectual's and a writer's observation and reflection of contemporary Chinese society, but also lies in the fact that he is a member of the new China organism, a participant in the new Chinese revolution, not just a literati, as the critic Gu Xiao said, Wang Meng's novel is "the sublimation of the revolutionary complex." Wang Meng's deceased wife Fang Rui (pen name) said in the book "Me and Wang Meng" that Wang Meng likes "political analysis" in his daily life, "often it is a little thing that is worth it or not, he always loves to analyze, always talks about the truth he has from his own observations, and he thinks that it is true." This complex is also an important symbol that distinguishes contemporary Chinese society from other societies, and Wang Meng's ability to stay in it is out of the way, and his novels naturally become witnesses of the revolution, because he himself is a witness of the new China.
Witness is one of the attributes of mirrors. But Wang Meng's mirror is no longer a mirror in the traditional sense, his mirror is multi-functional, has the function of refracting and reflecting the original appearance of things, and has the role of magnification and microscopy, and sometimes it is a deformed and exaggerated haha mirror. In any case, the concept of "mirror" still stems from realistic aesthetics, and Wang Meng is not satisfied with the realization of realistic aesthetic ideals, his innovative spirit in art is sometimes almost crazy, more often he uses the mirror of the mind to refract life and society, and his novels have a lot of modernist colors.
Synchronizing with the literature of New China and intimate contact with reality is Wang Meng's attitude to life and also Wang Meng's literary trigger point, he uses the closest literary method and the most sincere emotions to express the changes of the Republic, the vicissitudes of society, human growth and changes in the spiritual world, and his works have also become a precious spiritual archive of the Republic.
Second, the banner of literary innovation
To read Wang Meng, you must master a key word, which is "youth". The mentality of youth allows Wang Meng to maintain the youth of literature forever. Many writers have written brilliant chapters in their youth or post-adolescence, but often lose their vitality as they become silent with age. Wang Meng seems to never grow old, maintaining a youthful state, after accompanying his contemporaries "Five and Seven" writers, and then accompanied by "Zhiqing" writers, when the writers of the Zhiqing ethnic group and avant-garde writers are in decline, Wang Meng does not show the slightest fatigue, his recent work "Xia Mantian" can still see the "butterfly" style of agility and "vigor", and his declaration of "Wang Meng is old" is actually a sign of his inner disobedience to aging. Although he is nearly ninety years old, his heart is still full of vitality "Spring Causeway", "a recklessness and naivety that has many vicissitudes but is still unrepentant" (see "After Writing "The Six Bridges of Spring Causeway"). It is this vicissitudes, recklessness and naivety that forged a literary king.
The youthful mentality and ageless demeanor allow Wang Meng's creation to maintain a very high production capacity, and it is also a model of "high-quality development". Wang Meng's creative youth comes from his spirit of continuous innovation, and his 70 years of literary creation have always been in a state of revolution and innovation, because he knows that the vitality of literature lies in innovation. It is innovation, that is, walking in front of others, and then there is a slightly tragic term, called pioneer, pioneer because rushing in front of the team, often to open the way, expand and advance.
In the literary circles of the 80s of the last century, there were many names for literary innovation, initially called modernism, later called experimental literature, also called new wave literature, and then the title of avant-garde literature, which is closely related to the characteristics of literature in the new period. The high-speed rotation of literature is like an endless tornado, constantly introducing new tricks, new trends, new characters, the elimination of writers and the renewal of ideological trends are also proceeding at an unprecedented speed.
The first wave of literary innovation in the new period was inseparable from "Eye of the Night", "Voice of Spring" and "Butterfly", Wang Meng's artistic tentacles touched the category of modern Western literature, in his novels readers can see the influence of "stream of consciousness", "symbolism", "black humor", "surrealism" and "absurdist drama", in the mid-1980s, he launched the full-length masterpiece "Activity Becomes Human", which actually laid a solid example for the later "New Realism" movement, "Activity Becomes Human" Turning the social criticism of literature at that time into cultural reflection and criticism of human nature, the humanistic feelings of tolerance and compassion and the objective and calm zero-degree narrative became the main aesthetic spirit of "new realism". In the late 1980s and early 1990s, his exaggerated and absurd comic-like allegories, such as "The Adventures of Football Stars" and "A Thousand Birds", actually opened the precedent of contemporary literature "postmodern". After the 1990s, Wang Meng entered another peak period of his creation, and in the past ten years, he commented on the Red Chamber, Li Shangyin, popular culture, and humanistic spirit. The publication of the 1.5 million-word series of long-form "seasons" fulfilled his great wish, and he wrote a more multi-valuable book in the cross-century project he devoted ten years of painstaking efforts.
After entering the new century, Wang Meng's creative work has not diminished with age, and his passion for literary experimentation and innovation has not diminished, and he still maintains a vigorous and curious avant-garde mentality. After writing the "Seasons" series of novels and "The Green Fox", he turned to "unskilled" writing such as "Embarrassing Winds". The so-called "no skill" is not really zero skill or lack of skill, but "brilliant to the extreme to the bland", is to hide the skill, in the state of no visible mountains, complete the meaning of the novel. "Embarrassing Winds" is Wang Meng's longest series of novels, and it is also Wang Meng's conscious work to "align" with traditional Chinese notebook novels, he finds the contradiction of "embarrassment" and "amorousness" from the daily life of "Lao Wang", the novel has a strong documentary and instant writing nature, but the work uses concise notes and minimalist techniques, and seems to distance itself from characters and life. Wang Meng's attempt and experiment did not attract widespread attention at the time, and when we later read "Goddess", "Stuffy and Mad", etc., we found that Wang Meng was accumulating strength, adjusting the literary style, cultivating and recuperating, and taking a step back, in fact, it was for a greater leap. In fact, "Embarrassing Affair" is not just a simple return to the body of notes, but a combination of absurdist elements in the documentary, sometimes with "black humor", making people sneeze, make people squirt, and chill. Moreover, in terms of volume, "Embarrassing Wind" is also experimental and creative, and four volumes of nearly one million words of notebook novels are rare, but the current creative and experimental research on "Embarrassing Wind" in the literary world is not enough.
After 2014, Wang Meng's second "Voice of Spring" era has come again. Stream-of-consciousness works such as "Goddess", "Stuffy and Mad", "The Wind of Laughter", "Monkey and Boy" and other stream-of-consciousness works known as "cluster grenades" turned into multi-warhead missiles, which shocked the slightly dull novel world. Because after entering the new century, especially in the past decade, the avant-garde spirit has gradually faded, and the former avant-garde has slowly turned to realism and conventional writing, while Wang Meng did the opposite, he continued to hold high the banner of the avant-garde and continue to explore and experiment. "Stuffy and Mad" is the culmination of this period, and it is also Wang Meng's most complete stream of consciousness or image stream work. This novel concentrates all the characteristics of stream-of-consciousness novels, scattered narration, character image dilution, no complete storyline, imagery becomes the backbone of the novel, and the subconscious and unconscious of the characters loom in the "madness" and "stuffiness" of language. The most important thing is that Wang Meng's works transform the once very strong color and consciousness of old cadres into the feelings of an old poet and old literati, which is also a common expression method used by avant-gardes, and Wang Meng's natural presentation is particularly valuable.
Wang Meng has also tried the creation of genre novels, his novel "Assassination - 3322" is a parody and deconstruction of speculative novels, while "Life and Death Love" is a borrowing of romance novels, and "Embarrassing Wind" is a transformative use of the shell of notebook novels, all of which show that he is constantly conducting stylistic experiments and artistic innovations. For literary criticism, Wang Meng also hopes to be eclectic and boldly innovative, he proposed in "Liberate the Style of Literary Criticism", "Don't put on such a standardized frame as soon as you write a review." Of course, the true tendency can be commentary, thinking and thinking, lamenting and sighing, associating and thinking, or playing on the topic, making a big fuss, or being ingenious, and having other high opinions, why is it not a comment? Wang Meng's own style of criticism is free-spirited, and under his influence and promotion, literary criticism flourished in the 80s of the last century, and a large number of young critics emerged, becoming a landscape in the literary world.
Wang Meng's promotion of the new wave of literature is not only his own creation, but also supports the experimentation and creation of the younger generation through criticism and working relationships. During his editor-in-chief of "People's Literature", he took the lead in launching Liu Sola's "You Have No Choice", and then a group of young writers created adventurous works appeared one after another, such as He Liwei's "White Bird", "Flowers Are Not Flowers", "Three Deaths Overnight", Zhang Chengzhi's "Nine Palaces", Han Shaogong's "Daddy", Xu Xing's "Variations without Theme", Mo Yan's "Explosion", "Red Sorghum", Liu Xihong's "You Can't Change Me", Ma Yuan's "Himalayan Ancient Songs", Yu Hua's "Traveling Away at the Age of Eighteen", Hong Feng's "The Flow of Life" Oblivion", etc., with the originality and irreproducibility of aesthetic art, influenced the literary trend of the time. Liu Xinwu's "May 19 Long Shot", "Bus Aria", "Wang Fu Kaleidoscope", etc., using the unprecedented method of "non-fiction" to convey new information and new dynamics in life in an instantaneous manner, have attracted the attention and praise of readers and critics.
In his later years, Wang Meng's ability to innovate in literature did not decline due to age, and after the age of 80, he "talked about juvenile madness" and wrote a series of works such as "stuffy and crazy" and "monkey and boy", which became an unfailing banner of literary exploration.
3. The wise man who remembers modernity
For 70 years, Wang Meng has been entangled, gamed, and dialogue with modernity. As a young man, he equated revolution with modernity, and in his eyes, revolution was enlightenment, and revolution was modernity. After decades of ups and downs, the sheer idealism of his youth seems to have changed, which is euphemised and delicately expressed in his works.
For more than a hundred years, the Chinese literati's pursuit of modernity has not stopped, due to the characteristics of modernity's "unfinished design", which also allows modernity to be updated and mutated anytime and anywhere, and the copying and cloning of dogmatism will make modernity lose its vitality. Wang Meng is not a dogmatist, he is a practitioner and practitioner. After 70 years, Wang Meng's pursuit and rumination of modernity has never stopped, which is also related to the characteristics of modernity itself, every level of modernity in its own development process, has been cross-examined and criticized, both attacked by conservatism and deconstructed by postmodernism, but modernity has not stopped moving forward, the meaning of modernity is to move forward, like Ni Zao swimming in "Activity Becomes Human", constantly swimming forward, there is hope.
It makes sense that the literature of the new period is called another round of modernity after May Fourth, and we read too much about the struggle and the "resentment" hidden behind it in the works of that period. Wang Meng's novels during this period did not painfully show his physical and mental wounds, but worked hard to heal wounds and repair physical and psychological pain. His novels such as "The Most Precious" and "Leisurely Grass Heart" do not have much anger and resentment, but look at the history of suffering over the years with the psychology of a guilty person, during this period of time, repairing the relationship between the individual and the surroundings, repairing the break between the mind and the body, has become Wang Meng's choice to face history. In the two novellas "Bu Li" and "Butterfly", Wang Meng writes about the personal suffering that writers often wrote about at that time. After being tricked by fate, Zhong Yicheng suffered a lot, but still could not forget the salute of the "Bolsheviks", while Zhang Siyuan in "Butterfly" forgot everything and me, hallucinating butterflies, completely free of external trauma, and even the heart was transformed into a state that transcended time and space.
These are all because of Wang Meng's sharp and calm insight into human nature and life, which is fully expressed in the subsequent "Activity Becomes Human", Wang Meng has no mercy on the mental illness of his father's generation, and the description of the spiritual vices of his mother's generation is also sharp, but in such a novel with a certain "spitting" meaning, Wang Meng is still full of the spirit of Fiepera, he writes very painfully, writes very unredactedly, but is still full of compassion in his heart. And Jing Yi and Jing Zhen in "Activity Becomes Humanoid" with the atmosphere of agricultural civilization "pre-modern" easily defeated Ni Wucheng's high-profile attack on "modernity" and enlightenment, and Wang Meng painfully discovered the fragility and hollowness of modernity.
"Variegated", a novella with both modernist and postmodernist overtones, can be said to be Wang Meng's reflection on modernity. Wang Meng expresses his confusion through the avatar of Cao Qianli, who is actually Wang Meng's confusion about modernity, and in the novel is the lifeless, lifeless and unmodern motley old horse. Compared with the jujube red horse, the variegated old horse is a symbol of uselessness and incompetence, but sooner or later the jujube red horse will also go to the situation of the gray motley old horse, the novel writes: "The leather whip rides the years, and one day the jujube red horse will also be like this gray and variegated old horse, Xiao Xiaoran, nightmare, auspicious and fierce, spoiled without shock, right?" "So, everyone says it's safest to ride this gray old horse." Yes, when it lost everything, it was safe. And with security there will be everything, without security everything becomes zero. ”
If the jujube horse is a symbol of modernity, the gray variegated old horse is somewhat anti-modern, an old horse abandoned by time, "Look at it like this: gray mixed with white, even a little brown-black variegated, untrimmed, so long and grassy mane." A frayed, black, disgusting backbone with blood and bruises. The ugly blood vessels on the belly, the deep, thick and clumsy buttocks, thus making it particularly cruel to see... Especially the dirty, tattered, muddy and dead grass saddle that belongs to it hanging on the pillar - Hu Da, can this be called a saddle? In Variegated, Wang Meng already has a premonition that modernity will also age, become fragile, and become the "past tense" of time. By the time of his novel "Activity Becomes Human", Wang Meng's confusion in "Variegated" is slowly transformed from the stream of consciousness of emotions and the extended regeneration of language into a realistic rational presentation.
Years later, Wang Meng wrote the novel "The Wind of Laughter", in which Fu Dacheng's yearning and pursuit of "modernity" was expressed through the pursuit of love. Fu Dacheng felt the joy and joy of modernity, but the confusion and pain brought to Fu Dacheng by the pursuit of modernity also tormented Fu Dacheng. Fu Dacheng and Du Xiaojuan may represent a certain modernity, while Bai Tianmei represents the pre-modern, representing a certain local civilization, and Fu Dacheng, who travels between modern civilization and traditional civilization, becomes more and more hesitant in choice and judgment after experiencing the joys and sorrows of love.
Fu Dacheng's heart is scarred, his emotions are scarred, he is undoubtedly with an idealistic goal to choose marriage, but the arranged marriage of his parents is not idealistic, Fu Dacheng married Bai Tianmei, but he has frustration, feels that life is "unreal", feels that life is too vulgar, this is the anxiety caused by modernity. But after Fu Dacheng married his ideal "lover" Du Xiaojuan, he did not have the happiness he imagined, and eventually broke up. After the divorce, Fu Dacheng felt more "deceived" and produced new "scars", because after the realization of the ideal he pursued, he felt more lost and weightless, so he returned to Bai Tianmei's "side", and even wanted to build a "marriage museum" for her to complete her idea before her death. Life is so paradoxical, is love free or lonely? Wang Meng's question is a philosophical question, Wang Meng's writing is often praised as "wisdom", Wang Meng's "no resentment" actually lies in the deep understanding of life, not simply through the observation of modernity to judge, not with an absolute idealism and absolute truth to analyze the right and wrong of life, black and white, simply divide people into good and evil, beauty and ugliness, but follow the essence of life, restore the phenomenon of life itself, because the novel is not the sounding board of ideas, modernity is not a panacea for all diseases.
Wang Meng not only regurgitated modernity through novels, but also expressed his thinking and enlightenment through writing, ""Feierperai" should be implemented" is his pursuit of modernity, and in the "humanistic spirit" discussion in the 90s of the last century, Wang Meng also put forward his own views in a wave of "salvation" and "decadence". Looking back at the discussion of the "humanistic spirit" at that time, it is a planning and interpretation of China's modernity, and it is also a response to the noise of modernity after it landed in China. Wang Meng's calmness and sobriety once again proves that his regurgitation of modernity is not based on dogma, but on the love of life, vigilant against any "step forward" truth.
Fourth, everyone in the Chinese imagery stream novel
Since the new period, Wang Meng's novels such as "Eye of the Night", "Voice of Spring", "Dream of the Sea" and "Kite Streamer" have broken the previous creation mode of storyline structure novels and structured novels with the feelings of characters, which caused huge fluctuations in the literary world at that time and triggered a great discussion of the "modernist" school of Chinese literature. Wang Meng himself did not realize that writing these novels would cause a novel revolution in the entire literary world, and he felt that the interweaving of information and the layering of complex emotions at the intersection of time and space of "eight thousand miles of the motherland and thirty years of wind and clouds" were difficult to express in the traditional novel way, so he simply adopted a more free way to express it, so it was called a stream of consciousness novel. And Wang Meng did not come into contact with the works of Woolf and Proust and other stream-of-consciousness masters at that time, so where did Wang Meng's stream of consciousness come from? Can these works of Wang Meng be considered a true stream of consciousness?
Although Wang Meng did not have direct contact with stream-of-consciousness works, Wang Meng loved Li Shangyin's poetry, and he wrote several reviews of Li Shangyin, and he admired Li Shangyin's Untitled Jinse. If we look at it from the point of view of modern poetic iconography, we will find that Li Shangyin's "Jinse" is a very normative imagery poem, in fact, it was through the rewriting and creation of the works of Chinese Tang Dynasty poets such as Wang Wei that Pound founded the Imagist poetry that had a great influence on modernism, and Pound's Imagist poetry later had a direct impact on the irrational psychological expression of stream-of-consciousness novels. In other words, Wang Meng's so-called oriental stream of consciousness is actually the same as Pound and other modernists, and it is all Tang poetry - the imagery aesthetics embodied in Tang poetry. Wang Meng's appreciation of Li Shangyin is actually admiration for the aesthetic spirit of his imagery, and in his novel creation, he can feel that "Li Shangyin" is transformed into his colorful imagery torrent, breaking through the barriers of traditional novels, and is a free getaway. The title of the novel "Difficult to Meet" is directly adapted from Li Shangyin's "Untitled". The stream of consciousness in Wang Meng's novel is actually a stream of imagery transformed from the aesthetics of Chinese poetic imagery.
Before the Cultural Revolution, the novellas of Sun Li, Wang Zengqi, Ru Zhijuan and others tenaciously embodied the poetic tradition of Chinese novels in the non-poetic literary environment of that time, that is, the obsession and attachment to imagery writing. Sun Li's "The Beginning of the Storm", Wang Zengqi's "A Night in the Sheep House", Ru Zhijuan's "Lilies" and so on all have the rhyme of figurative writing, and the novel scenes they either create from the perspective of women or childhood have distanced themselves from the novels of that time. After 1978, the large-scale use of imagery was initially a special method of some avant-garde writers, but it was quickly accepted by more writers, who at the same time borrowed Western symbolism to form imagery writing with Chinese poetic characteristics. Zhang Wei's "Ancient Ships", "September Fables", Tie Ning's "Rose Gate", Zhang Chengzhi's "Golden Pasture", Mo Yan's "Red Sorghum", Sun Ganlu's "Messenger Letter" and "Visit to Dreamland", Su Tong's "Poppy House", "Escape in 1934", "Riverbank", Gefei's "Qinghuang", etc. all make extensive use of the means of image writing to enrich the connotation and level of the novel. Zhang Wei's "Ancient Ships" belongs to a realistic novel, but the whole narrative process is always full of the passion of imagery, and "September Fable" is a masterpiece of his image novel, the connection between history and reality in the novel, the carrier of thoughts and emotions, is built with the help of imagery. Another writer, Su Tong, who almost devoted himself to image writing and initially established his own image kingdom, has become a masterpiece of image flow novels with his novel "Riverbank" outlining a magnificent torrent of novel language with abundant image language. If we look at it together, we will find that Wang Meng actually uses the montage of imagery to structure the novel and organize the language, which is similar to the stream of consciousness.
In this way, it is normal for Wang Meng's image stream to be misread as a stream of consciousness. The "Oriental stream of consciousness" originating from "Eyes of the Night", "The Voice of Spring", "Kite Streamer" and so on, actually stems from Wang Meng's love and love for the aesthetics of imagery, and Wang Meng's novels are actually not structured by plot or the fate of characters, but through an image as a trigger point to structure the novel. "Eyes of the Night" is Chen Qiao's wonderful association with the city night, which then expands into the flow of emotions, and the characters' thoughts and subconscious also surface. "The Voice of Spring" uses Strauss's famous song to run through the novel, and through the listening and association of sound, he discovers the turning point of life. And "Kite Streamer" is regarded as a symbolic novel, but there are many opinions on symbols, just as Tang Xiang said that Wang Zengqi's early novels were "full of symbols without any symbolic 'meaning'". The same is true of "Dream of the Sea", what does "sea" symbolize? It is also difficult to implement concretely, but it constitutes the overall structure of the novel. "Butterfly" was called a "reflective novel" at that time, and Wang Meng was indeed recalling history and ruminating life, but Zhang Siyuan's final butterfly illusion made the novel transcend the popular routine of the time, not only historical reflection, but also self-doubt and loss. The appearance of "Variegated" can be said to be the perfect presentation of the aesthetics of image flow. Although "Variegated" has the form of a stream of consciousness, writing the thoughts of Cao Qianli and the variegated horse walking on the grassland, the flow of its imagery and the free combination of imagery have a Li Shangyin aesthetic. The structure of "Stuffy and Mad" transcends the thinking form of "Variety", "Variety" is still a product of fixed-point narration, Cao Qianli and Variegated Horse are fixed in time and space on the grassland, while "Stuffy and Mad" completely combines imagery in a way of scattered perspective of Chinese painting, and uses imagery to run through the novel, through time and space, linking the future, time and space disappear, just the ocean of imagery.
When Wang Meng and Zhang Ailing talked about "Dream of Red Mansions", they invariably mentioned that one of the characteristics of "Dream of Red Mansions" is that "Dream of Red Mansions" can be read from any time, and even a page can be read with relish. Wang Meng discovered the special features of "Dream of Red Mansions" with the characteristic acumen of a writer, saying that some chapters of "Dream of Red Mansions" can be read as short stories, because "Dream of Red Mansions" adopts a nonlinear way of thinking, and structures the novel through the imagery of "crossing the cloud ridge" and "fuming thousands of miles" (Li Yanzhai's commentary). Wang Meng is not a particularly good writer at telling stories and arranging plots, he is better at expressing emotions and rendering emotions in his works, and the structure of his novels often does not use plot as the main line, but uses imagery to structure, as can be seen from the title of his novels. The title of the novel is the literary eye of the novel, and it is often the source of inspiration for a writer to conceive a work, "The Eye of the Night", "The Voice of Spring", "The Dream of the Sea", "Kite Streamer", "Bu Li", "Butterfly" These six novels were originally called stream of consciousness, in addition to "Bu Li", the remaining five are figurative picture sense, image morphology. Later, he wrote novels such as "Spider", "Summer Wave", "Laughing Wind", "Green Fox", "Activity Becomes Human", "Spring Causeway Six Bridges", "The Spirit of the Grape", "Xia Mantian", "Goddess", etc., all of which used imagery as the title.
In addition to the imagery of the novel's structure, Wang Meng's characters are also imagery and have a strong spirituality. Wang Meng is deeply influenced by the writer of "Dream of Red Mansions", and his novels have both very realistic characters and a large number of imagery characters, especially in novels such as "Bu Li" and "Variegated". There are also some characters with blurred images, such as Yue Zhifeng in "The Voice of Spring" and Chen Jiao in "The Eye of the Night", they are not as angular as the characters in traditional novels, they are closer to the characters written by the Impressionists, emotional and deformed. The imaged characters do not pay attention to the whole picture of the characters, but the fate and character of the characters are displayed through specific imagery, and the imagery of the image plays a huge role in Wang Meng's novel writing, they are not necessarily the main images in the novel, but the important roles that accompany the protagonist when the psychology of the protagonist changes dramatically, these characters are mostly the externalization of the protagonist's heart, this externalized imagery makes the novel leave the real finger and enter the virtual realm, making the novel very aesthetic imagination space. Xiangming in "Lai Jin" is no longer a specific name, but a character distinguished by sound, and the "de-concretization" of the name does not affect the reference of the name itself, so the most interesting thing about the novel "Lai Jin" is the imagery of its name, and the imagery of the person itself brings about the imagery of the person itself.
Wang Meng's stream of imagery is misread as stream of consciousness, which also has a certain meaning, Wang Meng's subsequent novel creation consciously explores the expression of oriental stream of consciousness, such as "The Flash of the Bell" and "Coming Energy" is indeed just a wonderful flow of language or stream of consciousness, and the masterpiece "Variegated" is a super stream of consciousness work, saying that it is "super", is not only the expression method of stream of consciousness in the novel, but also other modernist and postmodernist means of expression. The walking of Cao Qianli and the motley horse on the grassland brought about new changes in language and consciousness, and also became a landscape in the literary world. In his later years, Wang Meng rekindled his enthusiasm during the "Sound of Spring" period, once again explored the limits of the image flow, and wrote a stylistic and unruly masterpiece "Stuffy and Mad". In this novel, Wang Meng gives infinite play to the multiple viewpoints and ignorance points of stream-of-consciousness narrative, free-writing the subconscious and unconscious of stream-of-consciousness, skillfully integrating the functions of anti-language such as "automatic writing" and punctuation narration of stream-of-consciousness language, and successfully grafting the cross-space, space-free, and zero-space-time aesthetics of classical Chinese poetry imagery.
5. A good teacher who inspires young writers
Writer Zhang Wei once said that Wang Meng "is a role model for Chinese writers." He has promoted so many young and middle-aged writers for a long time, not only his personal creative achievements, but also made great contributions to the cultivation of the entire Chinese writer team." Zhang Wei's words spoke the hearts of many young people.
Wang Meng loves spring and loves spring, he knows that the future of literature lies in youth, and the spring of literature is also in young writers. In January 2000, Wang Meng donated the 100,000 yuan prize of the "Contemporary" Rally to the People's Literature Publishing House, advocating the establishment of a literary newcomer award to reward writers under the age of 30 to support the creation of young people and promote the prosperity of Chinese literature. At that time, some people suggested that the name be named after Wang Meng, and Wang Meng insisted on naming the award after the "Spring Literature Award", which implied the hope of literature and the future in the spring. The Spring Literature Award has been awarded for a total of five times, and more than a dozen young writers have won the main prize and nomination award, and Xu Zechen, Li Xiuwen, Zhang Yueran, Dai Lai, Yirong, Peng Yang and others have won the Spring Literature Award when they show their sharp corners.
Wang Meng's identity in the literary world is mainly a writer, but he also has a glorious editing career. After becoming the editor-in-chief of "People's Literature" in 1984, "People's Literature" became a highland for new literary talents and new literary trends. In order to learn more about the creative plans and current situation of young writers, in 1985, People's Literature initiated and organized a national symposium on the creation of young writers, and Mo Yan, Ma Yuan, Tashi Dava, He Liwei, Liu Sola, Xu Xing, etc. all attended the meeting and made personalized speeches. Many years later, Ma Yuan said in the article: "These new writers who appeared at this seminar of "People's Literature" in 1985 led to a new round of novel aesthetics and novel methodology in the mainland literary circle. Wang Meng's promotion of avant-garde literature was not only to publish the works of young writers in People's Literature, but also to write articles as famous artists to review them after their novels caused controversy in the literary circle. He wrote a large number of reviews for young writers, and Yu Hua's "Going Away at the Age of Eighteen" had just come out, and he wrote an article recommendation in the "Wenyi Daily", which Wang Meng wrote in his spare time from busy creation, reflecting the spirit of daring to be the first and willing to dedicate to young writers.
On September 22, 2022, the first (2021-2022) Wang Meng Young Writers Support Program Annual Selected Writers List was announced in Beijing, and young writers Sun Pin, Zheng Zaihuan and Du Lan were selected. This is another "special operation" by Wang Meng after the Spring Literature Award. 70 years ago, Wang Meng hailed long live youth, and 70 years later, he was already old, passing the torch of youth to younger writers in a special way.
6. The bridge between traditional culture and modern civilization
In the past ten years, in addition to his creations, Wang Meng has carefully studied the classics of traditional Chinese culture, and has successively published works such as "The Galloping of Zhuangzi", "The Happiness of Zhuangzi", "Dancing with Zhuangzi", "The Enjoyment of Zhuangzi", "Lao Tzu's Help", "Lao Tzu's Wisdom", "Heaven and Earth Benevolence", "Tianxia Guiren", "Chinese Xuanji", "Walking Against the Wind", "Winning the People's Hearts and Winning the World", "Governing the Country and Leveling the World" and other works, and conducted all-round interpretations of the works of ancient thinkers and philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Liezi.
Chinese culture has a long history and is broad and profound. Wang Meng wrote in "Life in Heaven and Earth": "The purpose of our discussion of culture and tradition is not to check and correct ancient history and ancient things, not to think about the ancient charm, nostalgic elegance, nor to return to the way of life of ancient and ancestors, but to have a deeper and comprehensive understanding of the present, to understand our culture and the origin and subtle connotation of our life, and to understand the tenacity and new changes of traditional culture." Wang Meng has spent many years of study and interpretation, deeply and simply interpreting the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization, revealing the rich connotation and far-reaching significance of China's excellent traditional culture with his own unique life-oriented, philosophical and speculative language, and responding to the call of the times for cultural transformation and innovation. One of the characteristics of Wang Meng's works is that on the basis of respecting the original works, they interpret boldly and creatively, take the relationship between culture and life as the starting point of interpretation, explain the possibility of linking traditional Chinese culture with the psychology of Chinese people in the new era, and emphasize the empathy and spiritual support of traditional culture for current life.
In these works, Wang Meng strives to carry on the past and enlighten the future, connect the past and the present, and connect China and the world. With the passage of time, these writings of his and his literary works will shine more brilliantly in the starry sky of the Republic.
(The author is a professor at the College of Literature of Yangzhou University: Wang Gan)
Disclaimer: The pictures and texts released by this public account are only for communication and sharing, the pictures and text content from the Internet, its copyright belongs to the original author and the website, if you have any questions, please contact us to delete!