1《Flourishing Flowers》
Flowers shine in the eyes, but they are ultimately empty.
The surrounding circumstances of a city, a generation, and an era make us feel like we have spent most of our lives in this city.
"Flowers" is a memory novel, and the narrative frequently intersects between two time and space.
The novel revolves around these three Shanghai teenagers with different backgrounds, and brings out more than 100 characters.
The 60s and 90s alternate between the two timelines that tell the history of their interactions with each other and with other people.
The 60s were a teenager with nostalgic dreams, and the beauty of childlike fun and the cruelty of the world shine with each other.
The 90s was the middle age of dogs and horses, and it was one story after another.
When the flowers fall, it is life.
The novel is told in two intersecting timelines, contrasting the past with the present.
It seems that under the flowery and lively scene, no one can avoid the joys and sorrows, birth, old age, sickness and death.
In the end, after all, "the vast white land is really clean".
2 "One Sentence Top 10,000 Sentences"
A person's loneliness is not loneliness, a person looking for another person, a sentence looking for another sentence, is the real loneliness.
Liu Zhenyun's Mao Dun Literature Award work "One Sentence Top 10,000 Sentences" tells you plainly that everyone is lonely.
I believe that everyone who has read this book can feel the same way.
Because, in China's humane society, loneliness is in the staggered, you come and go, seemingly lively social, but it is difficult to find a person who can say a few words from the heart.
"One Sentence Top 10,000 Sentences" has created as many as 100 characters, including county magistrates and town mayors above the court, as well as ordinary butchers, head shavers, and tofu sellers.
The story of "One Sentence Top 10,000 Sentences" is also very simple, the first half is written about the past, the lonely and helpless Wu Moses walked out of Yanjin in order to find an adopted daughter who can "speak".
The second half is written about the present, Niu Aiguo, the son of Wu Moses' adopted daughter, also looking for a "talkable" friend in order to get rid of loneliness, and went to Yanjin.
Although everyone's life is very lively on the surface, they are extremely lonely in their hearts.
They try to fill this emptiness and loneliness with human relationships, but they can never find a person who can "speak".
3《Shirakahara》
"White Deer Plain" is Chen Zhongzhong's famous work, with ups and downs in the storyline and complex background of the times.
From marrying wives and having children and building ancestral halls in the old society, to the subversion of the Qing Dynasty and the invasion of Japanese invaders, it can be said to be an epic masterpiece of social changes in the past 50 years.
In the story, Bai Jiaxuan, who has always straightened his waist and behaved, can be said to be a representative of the traditional Chinese people.
He thinks that if he has done something, he is not afraid that others will know about it, and he should not do what he is afraid that others will know.
In front of anyone and anything, he can be worthy of his heart and calmly accept the scrutiny of others.
Therefore, no matter in the face of bandits, Japanese criminals, or his son's drug addiction and the decline of the world, he always stood upright under the eyes of people and adhered to his integrity and justice.
4 "The Dust Settles"
A Lai's "The Dust Settles" is known as the book with the most "One Hundred Years of Solitude" temperament in China.
This book is not only an epic novel about the Tibetan Tusi system, but also reveals a world full of mystery and fantasy through the perspective of a "silly son".
The existence of the Tusi system in the novel provides a unique historical background for the whole story, and the Tusi system, as a special social system in Tibetan areas, has played a crucial role in history.
And Alai uses this system as a carrier to show the changes of an era.
From the rise, prosperity and decline of the Tusi family, to the intervention of external forces such as the Kuomintang warlords, all kinds of contradictions and conflicts in the entire historical process are fully reflected in the novel.
5 "The World"
The 2023 CCTV hit TV series "The World" is based on Liang Xiaosheng's novel of the same name.
As the winning work of the Mao Dun Literature Award, "The World" uses three volumes and nearly 1 million words to restore the people's livelihood in China in the past 50 years.
Liang Xiaosheng's pen tone is springy and rainy, but it is concise and powerful, completely integrating social changes and the glow of human nature.
The protagonist of the story is a dozen commoner children from the north, who leave the town to work in the city.
The time span is from the 70s to today, and a group of grassroots dreams, struggles, love careers, joys and sorrows, have been vividly written.
I believe that the strong curiosity about these people's past will continue to push you to read.
The novel is like a mirror to life, even though it is the protagonist of the story in the novel.
In fact, it is also the bits and pieces of our lives that are reflected.
Perhaps by reading others, we will be more sober and confident in our own path.
6 "Tuina"
There has never been a novel that allows able-bodied people to perceive the world of the blind like "Tuina". In this book, every blind massage therapist has a painful life that normal people can't imagine.
Like normal people, they have love, hatred, and bitterness, as well as the spiritual world and life world that also need respect and attention.
But they have to carefully fight for the independence of their personality and the dignity of living.
Their stories are intertwined,
Paint a complex picture of the intertwining of dignity, love, responsibility and desire.
It can be said that this is a masterpiece that crosses the boundaries of physiology and goes straight to the depths of the soul, and it makes us understand that even in the darkest of environments,
7 "Hibiscus Town"
"Furong Town" is a novel that feels terrible, engraved with the courage and reflection of an era.
The story is based on the story of Hu Yuyin, the "Tofu Shih" in Furong Town, who made a fortune but caused misfortune, and connects the ups and downs of the lives of small people with different personalities.
Although she lost her first husband, her life's money and house, and even her spiritual and physical freedom, she never gave up hope in life, and never wavered in the love and dignity of her soul.
In fact, no matter how big or small the characters are, no matter how dark the fate is, people still have to live, even if they live like animals, because the light will eventually come.
Hu Yuyin's experience also makes us understand that only if we dare to resist the darkness, the dawn will come.
8 "Ordinary World"
"Ordinary World" is a great work that has inspired hundreds of millions of Chinese youth.
Whether it is the original book or put on the screen, it can always ignite the infinite passion for life in our hearts over and over again!
In the story of "Ordinary World", people of almost every era can find the shadow of their own growth in the book.
Because the conflicts and confrontations between the book and the world, reality, and life in the book will be experienced by every young person.
The book tells the story of a pair of ordinary brothers who have very different growth stories.
A person who aspires to cross the class by reading, although his achievements fall short, he has gained an incomparably rich spiritual world.
One chooses to work to get rich, relying on his own hands to live a good life.
These two brothers represent countless ordinary people in China.
They live an ordinary life, although their noses are blue and their faces are swollen in the face of the mockery of the great changes of the times, but they always run in a beautiful direction.
It is our struggle, struggle and pursuit that make the ordinary life extraordinary.
9 "The Right Bank of the Erguna River"
"The Right Bank of the Erguna" is not just a novel, it is more like a history, an epic of life.
In Chi Zijian's writing, the life, history, culture, beliefs and predicaments of the Evenki people are delicately and profoundly presented.
As the core of the novel, the Ergun River is not just a river, it is the soul of the Evenki people.
It is full of natural beauty, ecological harmony, and the philosophy of symbiosis with heaven and earth. The right bank, on the other hand, represents the land that has been gradually eroded by modern civilization and the traditional way of life that is about to disappear.
The life, emotions and beliefs of the Evenki people are deeply rooted in this land.
They are in the company of nature, hunting, grazing, sacrificing, and every detail is full of awe of nature and love for life.
10 "Bell and Drum Tower"
"Bell and Drum Tower" tells the daily life of December 12, 1982 from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., interweaving stories from different occasions to show a rich picture of life in a timeline.
The novel is written about what happened in one day, but it involves the evolution of the entire era, and is full of strong Beijing flavor.
Life is varied, the bell and drum tower stands tall, as a witness of social history and personal destiny and eternal existence, can be called "Beijing Qingming Riverside Map".
This book is like a window into the soul of old Beijing.
In fact, this is not only a book, but also an emotional sustenance and a cultural inheritance.
11 "Jiangnan Trilogy"
Tsinghua University professor Ge Fei's "Jiangnan Trilogy" not only won the Mao Dun Literature Award with a super high number of votes, but also was called the contemporary version of "Dream of Red Mansions" by Mo Yan.
"Jiangnan Trilogy" consists of 3 stories spanning 100 years - "Peach Blossoms with a Human Face", "Mountains and Rivers into a Dream" and "Spring in Jiangnan".
Three stories, three histories, from the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China to the 21st century, tell the story of five generations of a family since the Republic of China, spanning a hundred years in the mountains and rivers of the south of the Yangtze River.
Three loves, three eras, ups and downs in the tide of history are sober and confused, after all, they can't go beyond the mundane and the love of children.
After reading this set of books, it was like having a century-old dream, and I only felt that I was immediately engulfed by a torrent of pathos, and I couldn't extricate myself.
"Jiangnan Trilogy" is not only written in a corner of Jiangnan, it is written about the past and present of the society we live in.
Once anyone steps into it, there is no sense of alienation, and even in the real world of the book, we can find our own shadow and see our own soul.
12 The Funeral of a Muslim
Hoda's "The Funeral of a Muslim" is not only an epic about the rise and fall of a Muslim family, but also a masterpiece that profoundly reveals human nature, destiny and history.
The story is based on the rise and fall of the jade workshop "Qizhen Zhai" of the Hui craftsman Liang Yiqing, and skillfully intersperses the different fates of the three generations of the Liang family.
The rise and fall of sixty years, the ups and downs of the fate of three generations, and two love tragedies that happened in different times with different contents but were intertwined and kinked.
In the book, Hoda vividly depicts the vigorous sense of destiny of the protagonists in pursuit of their ideals and careers.
This sense of fate is not only reflected in Liang Yiqing's persistent pursuit of jade, but also in his children's persistent pursuit of love, career and family.
It is this persistent pursuit that has enabled the Liang family to always maintain a tenacious spirit in the torrent of history.
13 "Song of Long Hatred"
"Song of Long Hatred" is the famous work of Wang Anyi, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award, which tells the story of a woman's love and love.
The story describes the twists and turns of the life of "Miss Shanghai" Wang Qiyao, from the cardamom years to the accidental murder of a death.
Wang Qiyao's lover died tragically, she changed from a noble aunt to an ordinary person, and because of the pressure of life, she became a famous courtesan, and finally was killed because of money.
She is ordinary and tenacious, and she survives several failures in love and marriage, but ends up dying tragically at home. Although her life has ups and downs, it alludes to an old saying: if you are not careful, you will lose everything.
The once bustling and noisy Shanghai Tang, after experiencing war and artillery fire, finally returned to the ordinary, just like the heroine in the book, which remains in people's memory.
"Song of Long Hatred" completely integrates the fate of the little people into the historical process of a city, and we can't help but sigh that time crushes not only the ups and downs of a person, but also the vicissitudes of a city.
14 "Zhang Juzheng"
In the late Ming Dynasty, the officialdom, the ideology was rigid, the finances were chaotic, and the system was rigid, which had firmly bound the Ming Dynasty in place.
But by this time, the general situation of the world had changed dramatically, and the Spanish fleet was already in full array, and was about to leave for England, opening a new era of maritime hegemony.
However, the ruling class of the Ming Dynasty was not aware of the internal troubles in the great changes unseen in a thousand years, nor was it aware of the external troubles that quietly rose and were eyeing the tiger.
At this time, Zhang Juzheng, the first assistant, turned the tide with his own strength, hoping to slow down the pace of decline of this feudal dynasty through reform.
During the reign of Zhang Juzheng, the Wanli period once became the most prosperous era of the Ming Dynasty.
However, Zhang Juzheng only regarded the civil official clique as a tool for his own reform and governance, and when he was favored by Wanli, he was arrogant and arrogant.
This also led to Zhang Juzheng's death, which was quickly and completely liquidated.
After Zhang Juzheng's death, the reforms of the Wanli New Deal were all abolished, and the Ming Dynasty continued to fall in a hurry.
15《蛙》
"Frog" is a long-form masterpiece that Mo Yan has been brewing for more than ten years and has painstakingly created that touches the most sore part of the soul of the Chinese people.
This novel is also Mo Yan's masterpiece that won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The novel takes the life experience of the village doctor's "aunt" as a clue and describes the implementation of the family planning policy in rural areas.
My aunt's father was a military doctor of the Eighth Route Army, and since the beginning of inheriting the mantle, my aunt has implemented a new method of midwifery in the countryside, and in order to save mothers and babies, she did not hesitate to fight with ignorant midwives.
My aunt acted in a hurry, but she was kind-hearted, and was even willing to help the villagers deliver cows, and soon won the trust of ten miles and eight towns.
However, with the beginning of the family planning policy, my aunt, who is a family planning worker, had to use her hands to meet 10,000 newborns to strangle the sprout of life.
"Frog" uses the fate of the little people to write an absurd and true story, witnessing the social process in the decades after China's liberation, and also reflecting the difficult choice made by the state to control the dramatic population growth.