Many writers today interpret their latest creative ideas and realistic depictions in short and medium-length stories, which will find their way into books many years later, but it is still literary journals that first take on these stories. The new column of "Journal Micro" opened by this newspaper starts from the short stories in the recently launched literary journals to interpret the new works and the changing trends of literary creation for readers.
This issue focuses on the new short and medium-length works published by four writers, namely Cai Chongda's novella "Destiny Jogging Group", Ye Mi's short story "Many Trees", Sheng Ke's short story "Sisters", and Li Feng's novella "Moral Lesson".
Embrace life in a jog
Cai Chongda's novella "Destiny Jogging Group" was published in People's Literature, Issue 3, 2024
Text / Bai Yujie
Young writer Tsai Chongda's newly published novella "Destiny Jogging Group" is a partial interception of his new novel. The title "Destiny Jogging Group" is actually the name given by the novel character Hei Chang to the jogging group composed of many middle-aged and elderly men. The focus of the work is also on "jogging", that is, when the middle-aged protagonist "I" faces the death of his father and the stagnation of life caused by the pressure of life, the appearance of Heichang changes the direction of "me" in stagnation or even regression, and both readers and "I" are gradually looking for a new direction in life in the slow progress.
"Destiny Jogging Group" uses "running" to write a microcosm of contemporary middle-aged people, families and society. Many of the sub-themes under the core theme of "running", such as personal growth, workplace pressure, and getting along with relatives, can be summarized into different networks. Under the family network, there are problems with "I" getting along with my parents, the father is not good at words and is afraid of dragging down his son, after the loss of his father, "I" face the mother with an evasive attitude, Heichang also has problems with the child, he conceals the terminal illness while ignoring the impact of this incident on his son's life; under the social network, the "confrontation" between "me" and the workplace boss is full of drama and helplessness, in the eyes of the boss, everyone should be a selfless dedication, sacrifice the small family to take care of everyone, "I" After his father's funeral, he ended his vacation early under the pretext of being busy with work, which was intended to escape from his hometown, but this incident became an excuse for his boss to prevent "me" from taking leave again...... In this sense, "Destiny Jogging Group" not only includes the exposure and reflection of many common problems, but also gives the author's own answers to life problems with philosophical hints - "jogging".
Hei Chang, the leader of "jogging", is the real storyteller. He is like the center of the story, and the details behind his father's dull and introverted father and the changes that occurred in "me" after the funeral are all shown through Heichang. The father's respect and pride in "me" intellectual identity, the maintenance of the mother, and the worry about whether his own body will drag down his son...... These trivial but necessary details unfolded with Hei Chang's words and deeds. Through Heichang, readers learn about the communication dilemmas faced by countless ordinary families. All this stems from the author's ingenuity - Hei Chang in the story has a dual identity, he has experienced the loss of his father, but also a father who is worried about his son's marriage, the dual identity is superimposed, he blends his own experience and lessons in it, and tells it to himself and "me" with an optimistic attitude, and tells it to every reader. As the story is pieced together, the tone of the story changes from the initial coldness to a color platter, so that readers can also find cultural and emotional resonance in these stories that are gradually coloring.
The novel has no complicated background and character relationships, just a group of simple and confused middle-aged people wandering and running between family and society. However, "fate is the way we run out", whether it is running, jogging or walking, only by looking forward can we find the key to solving the problems of life buried under the dirt on the side of the road, and welcome the spring of life with a more positive attitude.
It seems to be a matter of gain and loss
Ye Mi's short story "Many Trees" was published in the 3rd issue of "Novel Monthly: Original Edition" in 2024
Sentence / Non-Snow
Jiangsu writer Ye Mi's new short story "Many Trees" is a work that revolves around women and the pursuit of life. Leafy trees can soothe the tired body and mind, and can also become a huge cage, making it impossible to see the original color of the sky even if you try to look up. The story is bounded by the past and the present, which are separated by many years, and by depicting Wang Haiying's first encounter and reunion with the male protagonist Lei Xingdong in the past 40 years, the grass snake gray thread crochets the life issues such as love, freedom, and individual spiritual pursuit.
First of all, it is worth noting that "Many Trees" divides the theme into two layers, which gets rid of the overly didactic nature brought about by the theme and makes the work more eloquent. On the one hand, there are many metaphors in the text, such as the mention at the end of the "two things that the young man threw at her back then" - cigarette butts and magnolia flowers, both as metaphors, from the visual perception of the meaning of top to bottom - it is "thrown" rather than "handed", implying hierarchy and order; secondly, Zi Magnolia and Xin Yi exist as reverse hints, and the words of both are related to sincere and pure emotions. On the other hand, the work's grasp of the distance of time is also quite interesting, Ye Mi set the time base point is forty years, forty years ago, the brief encounter between Wang and Lei affected Wang's life, the writer focuses on the reunion after forty years, showing the subtle changes in Wang's mentality, it can be said that the failure of her spiritual pursuit has long been revealed, and her experience is unexpected and reasonable.
Wang Haiying is a typical character who embodies the writer's thinking about the plight of women's reality, and is also a unique and charming activist who is moving forward in the wandering. Ye Mi's writing continues Kong Yanni's emphasis on love in "Immortality", and uses details to build Wang's lifelong entanglement between "sense of the times" and "conservative barriers": forty years ago, her repeated emphasis on "small alleys" has confirmed her dedication to the metropolis with "many trees" on the roadside; forty years later, she has become more modern and modern, seemingly in line with the times, and seems to practice the creed of "living for ideals", but she suffers from gains and losses due to lack of confidence.
Chizuruko Ueno, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, argues in her book "Misogyny" that some women actually gain the affirmation of their superiority on the basis of belittling women of the same kind, which in turn deepens the alienation of women in patriarchal society. In the same way, the kind of people represented by Wang Haiying actually affirm their urban identity by belittling or looking down on small cities, but this has exacerbated the alienation of people in the materialistic urban society. Therefore, women's requirements and expectations for men in love carry their lifelong pursuits, and what they love is not a specific person, but a symbol that carries their hopes. Freedom means a change in thought and life, but the heroine escapes from a quagmire and then willingly steps into another wilderness.
"Many Trees" contains the writer's reflection on the living conditions of people in the real society, and has the mark of the times. Wang Haiying carefully weaves a cage of soul for herself, which can be regarded as a kind of warning: people should have pursuits, but do not follow the crowd and do not be a rabble, in order to move forward unhindered when covered with mud.
Bloom your own flowers in the corners
Sheng Ke's short story "Sisters" was published in Hunan Literature, Issue 1, 2024
Text / Yin Yilu
If life is compared to a garden, the splendid flowers compete with each other, and the rhizomes under the flowers are hidden in the dark soil, and the delicate roots are tempted in the dark, sometimes touching a crack in the soil, sometimes hitting a hard gravel. Others only have the opportunity to appreciate the silent flowers, and only the writer carries a small shovel, hoping to dig out the hardships and perseverance hidden in the source of life. Sheng Ke's new short story "Sisters" focuses on the family and social life of Rose and Peony, a pair of sisters named after flowers, showing the image of women under family relationships and social pressure, and showing the strength and value that ordinary people strive to uphold in complex lives. At the same time, it also highlights the complexity and persistence of each person's heart, as well as the ability to find tenacity and support in all this.
The story is based on the death of his father, and the separation of life and death will once again connect the sisters who are far away in time and space. The beginning of the work begins with a series of numbers: "The old man has been paralyzed in bed for 14 years, and my sister has taken care of her for 5,110 days by herself, fed her father 15,000 times, changed the bedpan 30,000 times, wiped her body 10,000 times, bathed 10,000 times, and said tens of thousands of words of encouragement and comfort", showing the filial piety and gentleness of her sister Rose, while her sister Peony seems to be a distinguished guest at home, busy with meetings and negotiations, and even the night of the wake for her father, she couldn't resist the sleepiness and did not persevere. But at the memorial service, she did not lose her temper, and was just right to be moved to tears, grateful to her father.
The distribution of family responsibilities, the repressed and formed thinking of women, and the emotional judgment of self-interest and altruism are the core of the author's hidden in this short story for readers to ask questions and reflect. The father's diary is full of sister's achievements, the sisters tacitly, with tacit understanding, "one willingly, one enjoys it", it seems that this is also a way to share responsibility, roses grow in the fence of the home, peonies bloom in the gorgeous sky, not only to meet the daily life of the elders, but also to let the elderly have gorgeous hopes. However, such a family situation can actually reflect the snobbery of parents and their dislike of the poor and their love for the rich. The last words left by the father to his sister and the love and praise of his sister in a diary formed a strong irony. Although Peony is proud and talented, she escapes family responsibilities, and seems to be at ease with her sister's kind and forbearant words, "Sister, since these things have disrupted a family, let me deal with it, there is no need to mess up your life again" as an excuse for self-comfort. Complaints about her sister's chagrin never seemed to exist in Rose's thin body, and no one knew if she had resolved it with occasional tears, or if the circumstances surrounding her had not given her the slightest opportunity for reflection and rebellion.
Roses and peonies bloom in their respective areas of life, two very different inner strengths and values. The author confronts the inner world of the characters, and depicts the warmth and bitterness of a family in a calm and delicate tone. Rose is not as dazzling as the peony, but her silent dedication still needs to be seen, grateful, and justified, even though there are distress and unbearable, entanglement and regret, but she continues her life steadily, stubbornly and unyieldingly blooming in her own garden.
Outside of morality, surrender to love
Li Feng's novella "Moral Lesson" was published in "Mountain Flower" No. 3, 2024
Text / Chen Jialu
Sichuan writer Li Feng's novella "Moral Lesson" is a story of moral origins in an ordinary narrative, where theory and real life are intertwined, but it is found that what the protagonist really wants to chase outside of morality is the recognition of the person he loves. Dostoevsky has a point in "The Brothers Karamazov": "Love a concrete person, not an abstract person, love life, not the meaning of life." Li Feng echoes it at the end of the novel: "In the final analysis, we live in the world just to get the approval of the people we love, to have love." ”
Under the deduction of Li Feng's double narrative, the life of Yibin's small town unfolds frame by frame, filled with the fragrance of osmanthus flowers, and the story is presented layer by layer like a cabbage under the pen of "me". The writer is particularly concerned with the free choice of the individual in the face of the existential dilemma of the little people, and examines the abyss of human nature on the edge of moral and self-entanglement. The whole story revolves around the "prison visit", Xiao Yun's husband Meng Zhiren is in prison, and he is concerned about Xiao Yun in prison, so he writes to her. Meng Zhiren's letter is the accelerant of the novel, involving the beginning of the moral lesson - the classic and famous "tram problem", and then leads to the story of Xiao Yun and the netizen "Little Manniu", and then throws out the reason for Meng Zhiren's imprisonment like a ball of yarn. A small golden Buddha pendant becomes the core of the case, quite the mystery of a crime story, everyone is like a gourd hanging on a vine, one after another rippling in the story of their folds and ripples.
Li Feng is good at adding twists and turns and ups and downs of the narrative in multi-line narratives, superimposing the emotional paths of characters and fate struggles from multiple perspectives. For example, Meng Zhiren's imprisonment implies a huge grievance, and the core of the dismissal of the grievance is the golden Buddha pendant engraved with the name of "Xiao Manniu", and it can be inferred that "Xiao Manniu" approached Xiao Yun not naturally but with ulterior motives - Li Feng's novels will always find a thread after a mess, and finally make people suddenly realize.
Li Feng's narrative language is also very moving, the force majeure in the torrent of fate is imposed on the little people, with a strong fatalistic imprint, but it presents real and steaming human characteristics. Meng Zhiren was in prison, Xiao Yun and "Little Manniu" got closer and closer in order to interpret Meng's letter and warm each other, but at the logical time, Li Feng set up many obstacles for the poor people in their lives. And Meng Zhiren is also difficult to escape from the whirlpool of "moral lessons", he is immersed in the problem of where the train of marriage is going, and it seems that he will perish no matter what, until he sees Xiao Yun subverting the "self" for himself, he realizes that all whirlpools are just waves on the sea, and the real life is not here.
In the world of wandering alone, what Li Feng wants to tell us is that everyone has their own subject, Meng Zhiren sent the "little wild cow" a ride with a pen, which may be a moment of warmth for the poor when fate occasionally snores, but everything comes down to "creation", these characters seem to be confused and overwhelmed by the kneading of fate, but in the end they surrender to love.
However, how could fate know that once some powers burst out, even Xiao Yun, who was despised by the world, would bloom like a flower and be as hot as fire. It is not so much that the morality in Li Feng's pen is being reborn, but that the morality in life is being reborn.
New Media Editor: Zheng Zhouming
Pictured: Photo.com
i: iwenxuebao
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