Art comes from life and is higher than life. We cannot demand that a novel be entirely true. As for whether this novel is worth reading, I think the standard is whether the reader can get some inspiration from it. And the views in the novel can be completely sought while reserving differences, after all, this is only a novel, not an authoritative academic journal.
Today I want to talk about Jiang Rong's "Wolf Totem". Because I personally like this novel, and it is also the first physical novel that I bought at my own expense. At that time, I was still quite inspired by watching it, and there were many feelings.
This novel tells the story of the Beijing Zhiqing Chen Zhen in the 1960s and 1970s when he joined the team in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, he was dependent on the steppe wolves and nomads. With the wolf as the main narrative, the book runs through dozens of wolf stories, the plot twists and turns, and the scenes are grand and magical. At the beginning, Da Qingma bravely and calmly broke into the wolf array alone, which made me deeply immersed in the atmosphere created in the book, and then the Mongolian woman and the nine-year-old child fought with the wolf with their bare hands; Mongol hunters sit on the mountain to watch the wolves ambush the yellow sheep; the wolves and military horses have a fierce life-and-death duel to the death of the little wolves and the steppe. As a story about wolves unfolds, let's intuitively portray the image of steppe wolves. They are wise, cunning, have a good sense of unity and sacrifice for the family, they advocate freedom, do not resign themselves to fate, desperate for survival, and so on.
As a Sichuanese, I didn't have any intuitive concept of wolves before reading this book. In my memory, wolves are ferocious and brutal carnivores. So when I read this book, I felt that I had subverted the inherent imprint in my heart, and I was deeply moved by the image of the steppe wolf it created, they regarded death as if they were dead and indomitable; their united and intelligent images seemed to be right in front of my eyes, fascinated me.
The discussion of the famous ethnicity of the steppe and the Han people in the book does have its bias and sophistry. The emphasis on the strength of the steppe clan is even more offensive. If the steppe peoples were really as strong as written in the book, if the nomadic peoples could really crush the farming peoples, they would not be ethnic minorities today. But I agree with the author's final statement that "not to be a 'civilized sheep', not to be a 'barbaric wolf', but to be a 'civilized wolf'". Because we really lack the offensive spirit of wolves.
I love this novel, at least it creates a very addictive image of a steppe wolf, embodying a spirit of self-improvement and continuous struggle.
It's not easy to create, so share it!
The picture comes from the Internet, and the intrusion must be deleted!