If, regardless of success or failure, we only use the most plain words to objectively describe the three most memorable things in Huang Nubo's life experience so far, then my choices in no particular order are: 1. outdoor sports, climbing the highest peaks on the seven continents of the world and trekking to the North and South Poles, three times personally and in 2018, peking university Mountain Eagle Society to summit Mount Everest; 2. poetry creation, public publication and distribution of poetry collections; 3. business, is the founder of Zhongkun Group.
It is not surprising that someone with such an experience created a novel about mountaineering and business warfare, and it can even be called him, as I thought when I learned that he had the impulse to write this novel almost a decade ago. However, what was not expected was that the 400,000-word novel now presented to the reader, from that moment on, Huang Nubo actually spent nearly a decade for it, and specifically for this purpose in 2013 for the third time to climb Mount Everest, the entire text is three times the draft, the whole world is turned upside down, which shows the weight of his intentions.
The reason why I use the above two short passages as the beginning of this article is not to imply that Huang Nubo's debut novel has a distinct "autobiographical" character, but "personal experience" is undoubtedly a "big mountain" that he had to face when creating this long novel. Or to put it another way, this "big mountain" undoubtedly provided a wealth of nourishment for Huang Nubo's creation, but at the same time it was a "roadblock" when he created this novel, and if he could not successfully cross it, the aura of "Everest Conch" would undoubtedly be greatly reduced. Although the creation of novels requires the thick accumulation of life, it is also absolutely inseparable from inserting the wings of imagination to fly freely. Although it is often said that life is sometimes more exciting than imagined, it is only "sometimes" after all.
With such a reference, looking back at the length of "Everest Conch", you may be able to see it more clearly and thoroughly.
The basic framework of the work is based on the protagonist Yingfu climbing Mount Everest for three days before and after the distress, and then during this period, he either retrospects or parallels narrates the Shanghai battle he encountered before and after this summit, different living environments, the same life and death fight, and together weave into a multi-tonal work that includes multiple elements such as polar peak exploration, Shanghai ups and downs, and emotional entanglements. Although the tone of "Everest Conch" is rich, the main structure of the work is basically composed of two lines: one is the three days before and after Yingfu climbed Mount Everest from distress to escape, and the other is the life-and-death struggle between the forces before and after the completion of the first phase of the large real estate project "Oriental Dream Capital" that he presided over and built at the foot of the mountain. The interaction and synergy between the mountains and the mountains compose this aria of Everest snow white and mall blood red.
When it comes to mountaineering, this is undoubtedly a magical and eerie sport for human beings. The good are fascinated by it, and the disgusted are puzzled. Why climb with your own life and relentlessly push the limits of humanity? Just as there are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers, there are also a thousand reasons for climbing, but the eternal origin lies in: mountains, eternal standing; people, a hundred years of climbing, because the mountain is there, the relationship between people and mountains is constantly given new connotations in this intimate contact, although different times will give different meanings to climbing, but each climb is not the courage of human beings to put themselves in an extremely harsh environment, to find and challenge their own physical and psychological limits. With such a realization, it is not difficult to understand why Yingfu resolutely disappeared and returned to Mount Everest when the "Oriental Dream Capital" project he built was facing major risks. This is both a strategy for him to be in a life-and-death business war, and at the same time a self-redemption of his own soul.
Because Huang Nubo has a wealth of personal experience in climbing, the protagonist Yingfu in "Everest Conch" was handled from the three days before and after the adventure to escape from danger when he climbed Mount Everest again, which constituted the most brilliant, thrilling and richest part of the new novel. Forgive me for reading, I have read relevant documentary works dictated or written by climbers themselves, and a long fictional work like "Everest Conch" is the first encounter, and the significance of this first time is not only to digitally fill a certain gap in the creation of contemporary Chinese novels, but also to fill a thick filling. In the dozens of hours that Yingfu was trapped on the cliffs of Mount Everest, he encountered life and death again and again, fierce battles in shopping malls, the purity and holiness of nature, and the charm of the rays around him... The torture of the soul, the struggle of life... Unwillingness and helplessness, expectation and despair... If there is a miracle, if life ends... The strange things in life, the many things in life, one by one flash back to the mind of the hero who was trapped in that narrow and unable to get his way, everything was woven tightly and breathlessly, and people could not bear to release the volume. At the same time, the old village chief Gabu and his sons and villagers who are nervous and busy to support Yingfu's ascension to the top and rescue Yingfu, the new Tibetan images such as Rob, Gyatso, and Xiao Bala, who are mainly the backbone of the mountaineering service team, although they only appear in this narrative line from time to time, their personalities are very distinct: Baima who is in charge of the whole, Rob who is not in a panic, Gyatso who is wise and courageous, and Little Bala who is loyal and stubborn... What supports the actions of these new Tibetans is that in the overall development of the country's mountaineering industry, they have worked hard with their own pragmatism and diligence to create a new road for the development of the tertiary industry, and thus embarked on the road to prosperity. The social significance of "Everest Conch" has also been expanded, and the snow-white Everest has witnessed the competition between strength and cowardice, survival and death.
Compared with the narrative line of Yingfu's climb to the top of the danger, the strength and blood of the business war under the mountain are not inferior at all. When the first phase of the large-scale real estate "Oriental Dream Capital" was completed, it was not the joy of success that accompanied it, but a huge commercial conspiracy, and black hands from several sides hunted their wealth and projects. This is not only a condensation of the development process of China's reform and opening up in the past few decades, but also a group picture of all sentient beings who have been involved in this historical torrent: from small merchants and peddlers to capital predators, from being able to share happiness and bitterness to being unable to share glory, as well as various people with different purposes and motives... Is this not a miniature landscape of various miscellaneous world conditions in the initial stage of socialism with Chinese characteristics when the market economy is still in the period of development and exploration? The blood-red mall has witnessed a frank battle against intrigue, loyalty and betrayal.
In this way, "Everest Conch" places the two story lines of "Snow White" and "Blood Red" in the same time and space to unfold the narrative, interspersed with each other, echoing and comparing, but the focus falls on the confrontation of spirits. Yingfu was reborn in his life-and-death struggle to reach the summit of Mount Everest for the third time, and his former shopping mall partners fell apart before the temptation of interests, which once again fulfilled Tai Shigong's famous saying: The world is bustling for profit, and the world is bustling for profit. Such a two-line narrative structure builds a spiritual bridge between climbers and entrepreneurs, thus making the connotation of "Everest Conch" richer and more polyphonic.
Of course, if you compare the two narrative lines on the mountain and the bottom of the mountain, the author is undoubtedly more comfortable and calm in dealing with the mountain. Although the same choices of life and death are faced, the climber's side of the box obviously gives the reader a more realistic, heart-wrenching, and more natural feeling, while some scenes on the other side of the mall are somewhat skin and blunt. The same is all personal experience, why is there such a difference? This is actually a very interesting topic, it is reasonable to say that in real life, the intensity and intensity of fighting and life and death in the mall are not inferior to climbing, and its scenes must be more diverse, and the brilliance may not be less. But now "Everest Conch" shows a certain difference in text. Is this because the understanding of man is difficult than the understanding of nature? Or is there something difficult to express about the understanding of people? It is said that Huang Nubo himself still has unfinished regrets about "Everest Conch", so as the end of this article, I will leave this question to him in his next work.
Author: Pan Kaixiong is a well-known literary critic
Editor: Xu Luming