As a Lanzhou native who has worked in Shanghai, I came to Shanghai again on December 30, 2023, after three years. Recently, I just finished reading "Prosperous", many scenes and road sections in the book are all too familiar, such as: Huating Road, Huaihai Road, Changle Road, Shaanxi Road, Changhua Road, Moganshan Road, Jiangning Road, etc., along the development of the storyline, the mind presents a "real picture", as if I am also a bystander in the plot of the book, this feeling is the first time I feel it in reading, compared with movies or TV series, reading can better bring a sense of involvement.
The three protagonists in the book, Bao, Husheng and Xiaomao, come from different social strata in Shanghai. Their stories are intertwined to form a complex picture of urban life. However, no matter what their origins are, no matter how their fate turns, in the end, they cannot escape the fate of life - prosperity is gone, and everything is returned to dust.
In "Flowers", it is not only the plot that touches people's hearts, but also those delicate brushstrokes. First of all, the unique dialect narration may make people feel a little obstructive at first reading, but it also makes people unconsciously slow down the speed of reading, as if following the author into the inner world of the characters in the book; "Past", the simplified Chinese characters are marked with "present", and when encountering ancient texts, ancient words, and ancient sentences in the text, they are also switched to traditional Chinese, which not only enhances the sense of the times in the story, but also makes people feel as if they have touched the unique fusion of tradition and modernity in Shanghai.
The reason why "Flowers" is shocking is not because it tells an earth-shattering story, on the contrary, it is its casual narration of trivial life, its deep insight into the ordinary world, that makes people's hearts feel unprecedented shock. As it is said in the book, "God does not speak", it seems that everything is under control, but in fact, the final chapter of life has already been written, but it is only to decay and death.