Bai Xianyong's novel review | the analysis of the hidden theme in the novel "Autumn Thoughts"

Text/Wang Xu

(Works: "Autumn Thoughts", by Bai Xianyong, included in Taipei People, Guangxi Normal University Press, January 2015)

Mrs. Wan learned Japanese, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and even walked to sift tea, and bowed, "all around her body was stained with the tone of the Oriental Woman." This made Madame Hua despise her.

Madame Hua's contempt for Madame Wan shows Madame Hua's own talent and rich inner strength, but it also contrasts Madame Wan's current operation with Madame Hua's fate. In the novel "Autumn Thoughts", Madame Hua's talents are the elegance of the hands and feet, the thoughtfulness of considering the world's feelings, and the contemplation of the past, which under the smile of Madame Hua, give this woman who has undergone changes a touch of spiritual temperament. Its rich inner circle was summed up by Madame Wan's complaints as if they were affirmations of Madame Hua, "Madame Hua, are you really so honorable about these chrysanthemums?" I was also reluctant to send us two cuttings. It was a "bunch of snow" of the top chrysanthemum, delicate in nature, under the attendant of Madame Hua, the "bunch of snow" that was on the verge of dying not only came alive, but also bloomed so prosperously.

Mrs. Wan's complaint inadvertently reflects Mrs. Hua's inner show, but it also shows that different encounters are enough to change the indisputable daily experience of individual mentality. Mrs. Wan does not appear in the novel, and she serves as a laughing stock in the idle conversation between Mrs. Hua and Miss Lin of the beauty salon, which somewhat relieves the arrogant and sad soul of Mrs. Hua in the situation of gradual decline.

Ambassador Wan was about to be released to Japan, and Mrs. Wan, who was in operation at the time, began to get busy, and she learned a lot of Japanese tunes, "as if she was afraid that others would not know that Ambassador Wan was going to put Japan abroad." When Mrs. Wan praised Japan, Mrs. Hua carried a sense of loss in her mansion, lazy, tired, and uneasy. Bai Xianyong uses short, fluent words to describe daily experience, and the bland life scenes have an uncomfortable and strong metaphor in his pen. This is a harsh chen saying of the world's feelings, making it difficult for individuals to jump out of the sadness and joy of meeting. Sorrow and joy are hidden in the depths of the narrative in "Autumn Thoughts", reflecting the ripples in the character's heart like an ancient well on the cross-section of life.

When there is fluctuation in the heart, there is also resentment. I don't feel angry about Mrs. Hua's confidence in her own appearance. In the idle conversation with Miss Lin, Mrs. Hua seemed to be careless, but in fact, she asked Miss Lin with great anticipation, herself and Mrs. Wan, "Who in the end can stand to see it?" "Loss and indignation are intertwined into the only weapon a woman can reshape herself after losing her care—her appearance." Madame Hua wants to defeat Madame Wan in other people's population by virtue of her own appearance, and this inner loneliness makes the real life of a type of person appear decadent in the novel.

When the well-behaved Miss Lin told Mrs. Hua that Mrs. Wan had gone to the beauty salon for surgery, Mrs. Hua suddenly recovered her spirit. She asked carefully, and Miss Lin answered trivially. Knowing that Mrs. Wan's surgery failed, Mrs. Hua suddenly relaxed a lot. Bai Xianyong released the woman's loss with Madame Hua's "gentle sigh of relief", but the decadent atmosphere of the times became more and more profound.

The wives and wives of Taipei, represented by Mrs. Hua and Mrs. Wan, in addition to using mahjong to spend their emptiness and relying on cosmetic surgery to retain the dazzling beauty of the past, there are only the wives left to fight overtly or covertly. Bai Xianyong did not explicitly write about the struggles of his wives, but did not hesitate to lay out the daily scenes with pen and ink, and the struggles naturally emerged in those scenes, and the decline and weakness of a type of person's mental outlook became a chronic disease that was difficult to cure and had a textic significance of pointing out the theme.

Talented and intrinsically rich Lady Hua is outstanding in the end, she will maintain, be good at dressing, and know how to match the costumes, but privately she still despises Mrs. Wan, who is vain and shallow. Only because Madame Hua has a prosperous past, that is the scenery she once was, and it is also the glory of a class of people in the past. This scenery was touched by the "bouquet of snow" in the garden, and in the flow of her consciousness, she saw "when he took his army and drove into the city of Nanjing." At that time, "the Japanese ghosts ran away, and the chrysanthemums in Nanjing City also bloomed outside the score." In the sound of firecrackers in a city, she also laughed, "laughing so much that she bent down and said to him: 'Welcome general, Banshi back to the dynasty—'"

The beauty of memories cannot resist the sadness of reality. Mrs. Hua, who was about to go to the poker game, finally decided to pick a bouquet of "a bunch of snow" and give it to Mrs. Wan, so as not to be complained about and laughed at by her again. This "bouquet of snow" in the garden is the best white chrysanthemum, although it blooms in full bloom, after Madame Hua pulls out the leaves, there are "many flower buds, which have rotted to death." Those flower buds, withered black, wicked, yellow rust, crawling full of chrysanthemum tigers, chrysanthemums still have a pungent smell in the cold fragrance of chrysanthemums. It was this fishy smell that made Madame Hua see him at the time of his death. Bai Xianyong transforms the sigh into a cold text, and through the writing skills of starting, bearing, turning and merging, the change of the past and the current individual situation is seamlessly connected in Madame Hua's consciousness space, and the outline reveals the beginning of the tragic sound of the times.

Chrysanthemum, the favorite of the noble. Today, the chrysanthemums, which lack anyone to serve, show signs of decay, which are no longer the same as the extraordinarily lush chrysanthemums that were opened in Nanjing after the victory of the War of Resistance. Not to be spoken of, there is also the symbol of the season. The same autumn, in the joy of celebrating victory in that year, was the harvest and the jubilation, so"That autumn, everyone said: Even the chrysanthemums bloomed and flourished-" At the moment, without his care, Xiao Suo in the autumn season made everything in Madame Hua's eyes a withered and ruined color. Even the old gardener Huang Youxin, in the decay of the withering, also blended with the decadence of the times, witnessing the superficial prosperity and honor of the Waffles, but in fact "mutilated" themselves in the wear and tear.

"Residue" is the feeling brought by the withered flower buds to Madame Hua, and it is also the implicit theme of the novel "Autumn Thoughts" through the remnants of chrysanthemums. A type of person fades the aura of glory and avoids Taiwan, such as Madame Hua and Madame Wan, although their status has not changed much, they still enjoy the same honorable name as before, but they have lost the spiritual connotation of their health and progress in the wear and tear of the years day after day. Just like "a bunch of snow", although it is a famous species moved from Qixia Mountain, it cannot bloom like the lush jubilation of the chrysanthemums in Nanjing City. Chrysanthemums are still there, not to mention the Scythians. In the midst of the wear and tear, Madame Wan highlights her vanity and shallowness, and Madame Hua indulges in her daily attire and nostalgia for the past. Bai Xianyong implicitly writes about the absence of a class of people's spiritual themes, in which the sense of distress is further raised at the end of the novel through Madame Hua's remaining firmness.

Some of the chrysanthemums were mutilated, and the pruning was left to the old gardener Huang Youxin. The old gardener's "white eyebrows and white sideburns, trembling on his back" make autumn even more meaningful, and also make the author's point of mention more intense. The remnants of the chrysanthemums cannot be picked up, and by pruning, the remaining chrysanthemums can be preserved in an effort not to be lost in the relentless autumn wind. After all, Madame Hua had personally experienced the joy of the "Return of the Class Teacher", and she had the remaining firmness that she had heard from him. Such firmness is the author's deep meaning: pruning the spirit and reshaping the connotation are the important spiritual themes conveyed by the novel "Autumn Thoughts".

(End of full text.) (made on March 30, 2021)

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About the author: Wang Xu. His pen names include Wang Muyu, Xu Muyu, Xu Muyu's Bookcase, and Wang Xu 326, who settled in Chongqing.