Identification of the Natural State of Vernacular Literature (Tan Jiayao)
——Read the vernacular prose of Yichang writer Zhou Gongxu
After the New Culture Movement, there were local works represented by Lu Xun, such as "Hometown" and "Blessings", and later Peng Jiahuang's representative works "Living Ghost", "Encouragement", "Chen Sipa's Cow", Lu Yan's representative works "Children Under Gunfire" and "Wounded Soldier Hospital", Xu Jie's representative works "Miserable Fog" and "Gambler Jishun". After that, there is Shen Congwen in the south, represented as "Border City", Xiao Hong in the north, and the local representative works are "The Field of Life and Death", "The Legend of Hulan River", etc. In modern and contemporary times, there are many local writers, and local representative works, whether it is prose and novels, rural film and television works, can be described as "blowout". For some reason, there are so few works that really make readers remember.
Yichang has a long history. Located at the gateway of the Three Gorges, it is the cradle of ancient Ba culture and the birthplace of Chu culture (the hometown of BaChu culture). The Yangtze River culture and bashu culture are intertwined and prosperous in western Hubei. The simple folk customs are locked in the depths of the mountains, and the pure Western Hubei style cannot be spread. The open Yangtze River has opened the closed door of the Three Gorges, and local works have been active in the fields in various forms, such as the folk storyteller Liu Defang, who is an outstanding representative of the local culture of the Three Gorges region.
This article is about the local writer Zhou Gongxu. I have never met Zhou Gongxu, and I remember his name in my impression, all because of his series of vernacular prose. The intention, lyricism and language of each essay present the natural state of the Three Gorges regional culture. This kind of small-sectional dynamic folk style realism does not require multi-angle vision, and does not require complicated expression skills. With a realistic heart, a natural brushwork, a free song to express the simple folk style, the text is natural and fluent, the content is familiar to the indigenous people living in this place, although it does not resonate, as long as there is a little collision with the reader's mind, a little subconscious correspondence, such a vernacular prose is presumably a more successful prose.
Zhoujia firewood stove
"The Wood Stove of the Old House of the Zhou Family" has the natural state of characters and folk customs. The mother has been with her mother for decades around the wood stove and the firewood stove, and the folk customs on the tip of the tongue are the author's cultural retention and nostalgia for the past. Vaguely see the author with tears in the memory of the kind and industrious mother, there is no trace of thought between the lines, and everywhere is the thought, the sentence is a souvenir, this is the expression effect of the natural state of true temperament.
The "wood stove" is a projection of history. From the co-production contract responsibility system to the later energy-saving stove, it is probably the author's youth and youth, and the "wood stove" is refreshing its face with the changes of the times, no matter how it changes, it is a new bottle of old wine - the food culture under the domination of the mother. I can't see my mother's face, but I can feel my mother's busy figure, she is skillful and nurturing her children, and she has written about the spiritual qualities of an authentic ordinary village woman in Xiajiang. "In the 1980s, we built new houses four times to drink happy wine, four times to receive sister-in-law to drink happy wine, nine times to get nephews and nieces to put on happy wine, and countless planting rice, New Year pig rice, Tuan New Year meal... They are the happiest, happiest and most unforgettable folk feasts in our lives. The dozens of tables of relatives and friends reveled in their mother's firewood and rice again and again. "These digital listings make the hard-working mother intelligent, and the wise mother is written competently and popularly.
The "wood stove" is still a natural manifestation of the prosperity of the people. From the hearth of the wood-burning stove to the table, this assembly line, a variety of cuisines have been innovated and improved by mothers, giving a tantalizing visual and taste feast. The author does not write that the mother and grandchildren are full of halls, and the fireworks are flourishing. But from the joy of my mother's busyness and the variety of specialties, I can feel that this is a big family. The family atmosphere reads its harmony and strong family affection from the scale of food culture.
The humble old school
"The Old School of the Mountains" also writes a sense of the times. I was born in the 60s, and my childhood impression of studying was basically similar to that of the author. In this essay, the place of success is still the free swing of nature, the thick lines are few words to write a few impressive teachers, as far as memory is concerned, it is right to cherish ink like gold; in terms of emotion, the author feels that a few typical examples should be selected to move towards the delicate literary path, so that the typical ones set up are more glowing and emotional identification. The valuable thing is that the author's perspective has never wandered away from the countryside and there is no disease-free groan of urbanization, which is equivalent to stepping on a country road in the overlooking vision of "Yangchun White Snow" compared with the elegant words of the cultural petty bourgeoisie.
The author did not complain about the "old school" and did not complain about the wrong people, nor did he specifically pick the weakness of the backwardness of the times, but crawled in the childhood school with deep affection like embracing his mother, and looked at the lost time with gratitude. The meaning of literature lies in the remembrance, gratitude and nostalgia, from the song of life in nature and the countryside to sing the clarity of the ruts behind them, looking at the poetry of life in the distance. The song is not a chorus of bel canto, more like the minor key of a folk single, and the cultural background is forever painted with the local background of the Gorge River, which is the childhood school depicted by the pure style of true temperament.
The old school door was snubbed
A completely different technique from "The Old School of the Mountains" is "Killing Pigs". "Killing the Pig" is delicately and vividly written, especially the scene description and dialogue description, and presents the natural state of the folk customs in front of the reader's eyes in an artistic way.
"When killing a pig, it generally takes a few strong men, pulling the pig's ears, pulling the pig's tail... Pulling and dragging, dragging, dragging and dragging it out of the pigsty forcibly 'please', its extreme reluctance, the struggle to resist and the blood of several claws touching the ground, will always hurt in our young hearts. With the extra-visual distance of childhood, watching the desperate struggle moments of the "Second Master Brother", a series of action sequences of "pulling, pulling, dragging, mentioning, and please", the procedures and skilled actions before killing the pig were written, and then they used their own feelings to sing an elegy of lamentation for the tragic fate of the "Second Master Brother", and the scene was real and cruel.
The "Second Master Brother" died tragically
"What terrified me was that no matter how the Nian Pig struggled, no matter how the Nian Pig called for help, no matter how the Nian Pig pleaded, I saw the Pig Killer involuntarily pull out a sharp knife that was more than a foot long from his back basket, grab the pig's head with one hand, and stab it into the pig's throat with the other hand, clean and sharp until the heart, a stream of red and lustrous blood, like a waterfall from the knife edge through a beautiful arc, flew straight into the prepared basin. We watched it struggle a few times and then never move again. The "three "no matter" writes about the indifference of the pig-killer. (In fact, this matter can not be blamed on the pigman, it is the owner who wants its life), the next action is barbaric and bloody, and human beings, from carnivores to omnivores, are slaughtering living beings almost all the time. The author does not question the slaughter and superiority of human beings as the author does, but from the scene description and the dialogue description of the characters, it can be read that this kind of reflection that questions the courage of human beings and betrays themselves can be read.
Literature is to decorate and wrap the straightforwardness of the heart, and the decoration cannot be too gorgeous, and the package cannot be too thick. If it is gorgeous and thick, or most people can't see it clearly and can't understand it, it can only be a lonely self-appreciation, and literature will lose the meaning of reading and appreciation. The purpose of literature is still to let most people understand the truth, prose is reasoned by words and narratives, which is only a formal difference from the thesis. Zhou Gongxu's prose is easy to understand, the language has a strong regional culture, the context has a local atmosphere, and the pronunciation also has dialect slang. In a word, the soil has to be slagged off, and the villagers taste very good.
The pictorial presentation of "The Old Press of The Creek Mouth" once again brings the reader into the 60s, 70s and 80s of the last century. Nearly thirty years of trivial memories, in "The Old Press of The Creek Mouth" smelled the aroma of vegetable oil.
"The old press is a stage where the wood shows its magic. Whether it's a wooden squeeze, or a crash bar. Whether it's the mill frame, or the doors and windows. Whether it is wooden wedges, buildings, etc., they are all made of blue wood. "The press is both a product of the agricultural era and a sign of industrial backwardness, and the only way for the people of the Three Gorges to eat oil at that time. Nowadays, when I mention the old squeeze factory, there is a feeling of seeing things and thinking about people, and this sense of intimacy and nostalgia is like seeing an old photo, touching the scenery.
"From sieving seeds, car seeds, fried seeds, grinding powder, steaming powder, stepping on cakes, pressing, wedge cutting, crushing to oiling, etc., all rely on the master squeezer to operate one hand and one foot, without a link, it is impossible to eat fragrant vegetable oil." Wrote out the feeling of a drop of vegetable oil and a drop of sweat, and every process, the master squeezer had to pay sweat and hard work. The author does not introduce one process after another, but grasps the process of squeezing and describes it in detail. Starting from the action behavior of the squeezer, the detailed drawing is slow, and the action composition of the squeezer is continuous and uninterrupted, which not only writes the hard work of the physical work, but also writes the skill of the technical work. One action after another, like a brush stroke, delicate and delicate. Tension is measured, flexible and orderly. The imprint of the era is engraved in the mill, a realistic reflection of the life of that era.
A busy scene of a barn yard
"The Milling Yard of hometown" once again brings readers into the era of nostalgia, and the social emotions conveyed by "nostalgia" cannot be underestimated. "The grain mill in my hometown is a big scenery of 'wearing gold and silver' in the autumn of my hometown. In memory, it has changed profoundly with the changes of the times. In the era of collectivization, a production team generally had only one central milling field. After the household contract responsibility system arrived at the household, it mushroomed like mushrooms, sweeping to the north and south of the river and thousands of households overnight. "This is a big scene of rural harvesting, magnificent and unprecedented in scale. He wrote about the appearance and development momentum of the countryside in the early stage of reform, and even wrote about the folk customs and sentiments in the memory of the countryside.
"When it comes to harvest season, [the rice paddies] are a boundless golden ocean, drunk with the sun, drunk with the moon, drunk with hometown." This is the atmosphere of the scene, in which the spiritual outlook of the people is ready to come out: "In the golden rice paddies, the crowd is surging and laughing, and the heat is in full swing." Some wearing straw hats, some draped over their shoulders, some tying their tunics around the waistband of their pants, men and women bent over and again against the golden rice stalks, brandishing their sharp scythes again and again, reveling in the joy of a harvest. "These sound images make up a busy scene of harvesting." The sound of the valley cutting and the joyful laughter of the people are like a beautiful 'march', which is pleasant to the ear and urges people to forge ahead. The busy scene of rushing to cut rice is like a magnificent picture of 'thousands of troops and horses racing in the wind, sweating like rain to celebrate the harvest'. "The metaphor composed of two metaphors once again writes the happy scene of the harvest alive and alive.
In summary, zhou Gongxu's native prose is naturally released, and he sincerely sings a field tune in the Three Gorges region, and we recognize his local works, which is equivalent to returning to his unforgettable homeland to eat and eat roasted bud valleys when he often eats rice, and this local complex will always remain in the deepest part of memory.
Written on April 5, 2021 in Nanhu, Guangzhou