Writer Zhang Chengzhi
He does not complain, he does not get wounded; he does not advocate reflection, nor does he care about finding roots. He does not engage in avant-garde, he does not engage in the New Wave; he does not drill in the camp circle, he does not belong to the genre. However, it is strange that as soon as Zhang Chengzhi's work came out, it immediately received extremely enthusiastic attention. Needless to say, the academic circles and literary circles are afraid that most of the people who pursue and like him and his works come from ordinary readers from all walks of life.
Teacher Hao is naturally also a "fan" of Zhang Chengzhi. The first time I read his works, I was a junior high school student. When I read "The River of the North", I had just finished taking the middle school entrance examination. Because of his family's poverty, he could not go to high school and college, so he had to take a shortcut to go to secondary school.
At that time, he had already been admitted to the local normal school as a "middle school teacher", and had not yet enrolled. During those green years, while lying on the hillside herding sheep, while reading Zhang Chengzhi's beautiful and moving words, he shed tears several times, and then waved his whip at the sheep with excitement, ecstasy, and happiness.
In 1984, Mr. Wang Meng wrote this text, which I only read later. Although he talked about Zhang Chengzhi from the perspective of a writer, he also said what I felt as a general reader at that time:
How did he find such a good, I would say extraordinary title? Your eyes are burning with envy! Zhang Chengzhi, a young man of thirty hanging zeros, actually had such courage and such a mind, and in a novella of more than 60,000 words, he wrote four northern rivers in one breath, the Yellow River, the Wuding River, the Huangshui River, and the Yongding River, as well as the Irtysh River in the Altay region of Xinjiang and the Heilongjiang River in April. Don't lie to us, Zhang Chengzhi, you have actually been to Heilongjiang, otherwise how can you write so truly, closely, closely, as if in front of you? What boldness, what ingenuity! After reading "The River of the North" (in the first issue of "October" in 1984), I thought, finished (the work uses the word "la" almost entirely, which gives Zhang Chengzhi's rather tempered language a kind and sharp, you fucking never want to write about the river again, at least thirty years, you can't write him. (Wang Meng: "The Praise of the Earth and Youth")
Writer Wang Meng
This passage gave me many inspirations. The most important thing is two takeaways:
The first is to know the difference between "d'" and "la" and the difference in semantics, to be more aware of the richness of the connotation of the word "la", and Zhang Chengzhi's unique ability to temper the language.
The second is to be surprised that the big-name writer Wang Meng actually exploded in literary criticism and used the word "fucking" national scolding, but it did not appear abrupt and contradictory at all, but felt more appropriate and playful.
Re-reading "The River of the North" today, the long-lost emotional impact and beauty have come again; however, what I want to explore is not the reading feeling, but further questioning:
1) Zhang Chengzhi's novels are not like novels at all, why do they have more novel power than those decent novels?
2) How does lyrical fiction capture our hearts, and how do beautiful, affectionate, and even gorgeous sentences gain a solid aesthetic foundation without making you feel pretentious, whitewashed, and flashy?
3) How do "Black Horse" and "River of the North" narrate the characters and plot as novels, and how do poetic and emotional sentences complete the narrative function?
4) What is the core value of Zhang Chengzhi's novels, and where is the most moving soul of a classic novel?
The first thing to explore is why Zhang Chengzhi's novel is so grand and majestic, and the big rivers, the grassland Gobi, and the mountains and rivers are all in his pen?
In general, the subject matter is related to the theme, and the content of the novel is closely related to the writer's experience. Zhang Chengzhi's personal experience is a legend in itself.
According to the records of the literary dictionary, we know that in 1966, 17-year-old Zhang Chengzhi, Luo Xiaohai and Yuan Dongping gathered at the site of the Yuanmingyuan in the western suburbs of Beijing for a meeting and decided to establish a Red Guard organization. The name "Red Guard" is taken from Zhang Chengzhi's pen name "Red Guard". In other words, Zhang Chengzhi is the name of the "Red Guards".
In 1968, Zhang Chengzhi joined the team in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. In 1972, he was admitted to the History Department of Peking University, and after graduating in 1975, he was assigned to the China History Museum to engage in archaeological work.
In 1978, he published his debut novel "Why The Rider Sings Mother", which won the first National Outstanding Short Story Award. In the same year, he was admitted to the Department of History and Philology of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to study the history of the Mongols and the northern ethnic groups.
In 1981, he graduated with a master's degree in the Department of Ethnic History and Language, and was assigned to work at the Institute of Ethnic Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as an assistant researcher. In the same year, he published the novella "Black Horse" and won the second National Outstanding Novella Award.
In 1984, he published the novella "The River of the North", which attracted the attention of the literary circles and won the Third National Excellent Novella Award, which became his masterpiece. After that, he engaged in research and literary creation, and has resigned from public office in 1990 and is now a freelance writer.
"The River of the North" was published in October, No. 1, 1984
From these experiences, it can be seen that Zhang Chengzhi is a young writer who joined the inner Mongolian steppe in his early years, and then engaged in archaeological work in Xinjiang, The Loess Plateau and Inner Mongolia in China, conducting fieldwork, providing insights and reflections for his creation of "Black Horse" and "The River of the North".
Of course, the most important thing is that Zhang Chengzhi has formed a unique ideological understanding and aesthetic feelings in these life experiences, allowing him to show his talent and style in the literary explosion of the new era.
Without the insertion of the queue, there would be no "Black Horse", and without the archaeology of Xinjiang and the investigation of the Loess Plateau, there would be no "River in the North".
Or conversely, "Black Horse" epitomizes Zhang Chengzhi's refinement and thinking on the life of the inner Mongolian grassland, while "The River of the North" is his gradual deepening and poetic expression of the core values of the excellent spiritual culture of the Chinese nation through his field investigation of the northern land and mountains.
What kind of poetic expression?
Let's look at these lyrical passages in "The River of the North", which are so thick that they can hardly be dissolved.
This is the protagonist "he" riding a liberation car on the Loess Plateau, and suddenly, people find the Yellow River rushing under their feet. Someone is shouting:
"Look! Yellow - River! " He was shocked and turned his head. The liberation car is ascending to the top of the mountain. This must be the loess mountain, you have forgotten it all. He gently blamed himself and held his breath. The northern Shaanxi plateau was cut off, and the entire plateau was bravely throwing itself into the majestic valley ahead, and he watched as the ravines on the edge of the plateau straightened out and fell straight into the misty huge canyon, and thousands of loess mountains still rolled from behind like waves. He murmured excitedly, "Hey, Yellow River, Yellow River." " He saw that at the bottom of the huge canyon, a mighty river with a slight white light was meandering from the end of the sky. The blue-blue mountains of Shanxi Province are like a misty stone wall, quietly standing on the other side, as if watching the waves of the loess beams that are desperately pouring down here. The great river is deep at the bottom of the valley, but it is hazy and vast, and it is majestically patrolling the nature that bends its back to worship it. The damp cool river breeze blew up the carriage, and he had rushed to the front of the truck, his spasmodic fingers pulling the barricades. He had not forgotten this memory. He cherished this memory for more than ten years. He had always remembered the moment when a stinking hairy boy stood stunned and panicked at the top of the mountain, facing the moment when the mighty river that split the continent and separated the loess world and the rock world was the moment.
The Yellow River rushes
The protagonist of "Black Horse" Baiyin Baolige is a child who has lost his mother, his father is busy at work, so he is entrusted to the care of the white-haired grandmother, and grows up with the grandmother's granddaughter Soumya from an early age, and the two gradually fall in love during the growth process.
On a snowy night, Grandma's horse miraculously gave birth to a dark foal and died, and the foal became a new member of their family. Two years later, the foal grows into a brave black horse, becoming the protagonist's companion and mount, and also witnesses the love of the two young people.
The beautiful lyricism of the novel is like a long tune on the grassland, melodious and beautiful. The narrator is the protagonist Baiyin Baolige, and his monologue is even more beautiful and moving. The following passage is simply an unpaid poem, a series of arias:
Grandma was singing lovingly, and unexpectedly, she was still a singer! As she dragged out her long, gentle tail notes, her voice was hoarse and high-pitched, as if she could sing hard-to-sing flowers at will, perhaps I had been accustomed to listening to the cheerful children's songs taught at school, and this simple and ancient "Black Horse" made me feel so new. Soumia and I looked at each other, not even daring to breathe out, listening to Grandma's self-indulgent chant. Grandma sang the story of an older brother riding a beautiful black horse on a long journey through the vast grasslands in search of his sister. She always chanted in a convoluted tail cavity, and until she had tortured us enough, she simply told us in one or two words what the step was looking for. Again and again, the rider's brother couldn't find his sister who had been away for a long time, and even we were anxious for him as we listened. Oh, what a fresh, moving song, it's like a clear stream of snow, like a wind that blows transparently, soaking my skin and caressing my heart... I stood silently on the grass, clenching my fists and listening. The stirring sensations evoked in my soul by the divine melody gradually turned into a black satin-like, high-headed horse; the mane of this black horse imprinted such a deep and realistic impression in my mind.
The beauty of love and the beauty of humanity on the prairie are perfectly combined. Such lyricism is easy to infect, because it creates poetry in a specific environment: white-haired grandmother, black horse, Mongolian love song, snow water stream, steppe wind, love story, young lover... Fused together, it forms the novel's inner lyrical image group, which is intoxicating and also allows the reader to enter the infinite reverie without emotion.
This is the benefit of lyrical fiction: deliberately diluting the story, but the emotions are full of abnormalities; the characters do not have much ink, but each personality is distinct. That's because it dispatches a wealth of poetic elements, lays the atmosphere for the novel, renders the background, like Chinese freehand paintings and splashing ink, not in the realism of the lines, but on the creation of the artistic conception, natural and flexible, touching, full of vitality.
Childhood playmate Dark Horse
"The River of the North" is almost entirely narrated and monologue by the protagonist "he". This way of writing breaks the traditional way of describing novels and constructs the storyline with narrative language, which is a difficult genre: if not done well, it will make the novel loose, cluttered and confusing to the reader.
However, Zhang Chengzhi, with his highly lyrical style and strong subjective spirit, solidifies the story elements of the novel in the lyrical text of the protagonist.
If you look at such a narrative, it is highly condensed with the plot, and it will not destroy the lyricism and innerness of the whole novel. An inner monologue of "he" in "The River of the North" is actually an introduction to the background of the story:
Later you went through the state capital, and you competed with society, politics, nature, and so many complicated people. You dare to shout out in a crowded venue, and you dare to walk at night in the empty and terrifying barren mountains. You fall off the horse, and the rolling horse presses over your tender body. You don't believe in the road, you count with a compass, and you stubbornly climb towards the mountain that stands in your way. Later, you fell in love with the frontier and ran all the way to Dzungar, to Altay, to Ili. You come back with a look of great popularity, disdain for the squeamishness of your classmates who have only been to the big cities, and you walk past them with your black and red face that has been stripped of your skin, holding your head high like a gust of wind. You don't know, you can't possibly know—there's a twelve-year-old girl making up a completely different story. You didn't understand tears, you didn't understand the cost, you didn't know that history also suffered.
Lyrical novels do not have a specific story, but deliberately break up the storyline and penetrate into the narrative of the lyrical subject.
There are actually sharp contradictions in "The River of the North". For example, when he was in Xinjiang, the protagonist "he" was betrayed by his girlfriend Haitao. This kind of story is a major highlight in Zhiqing literature and can be played arbitrarily, but Zhang Chengzhi puts this kind of story behind the paper, giving way to the lyrical protagonist's recognition of life and the negation of human sophistication.
"He" put it this way:
You're not doing a bad job, man. He thought silently, generously giving his young self five points. It turns out that you didn't plan to do that, it turned out that you were going to crash into the nest and beat her up. You're drunk and jump when you hear someone whispering the name Haitao. Without a word, you rush out with an empty wine bottle, and your throat burns with fire. But then you were ashamed, because you suddenly felt that you should be a little manly. What's a good guy to run around drunk and hit a girl? You think, turn your head and change direction and run to the river, looking at the big river that is moving steadily. Irtysh, that too, was a river, he thought, the only outflow in the country flowing to the Arctic Ocean. The water pouring water from the entire southern slope of the Altay Mountains pours into it, and it is mixed with a series of swamps and lakes, flowing confidently towards the true north. It was a great river that had been nurtured freely by the scorching heat and cold of the Kazakh steppe, and it had quietly changed the people who had drunk its milk. He pressed the cigarette butt on the iron pedal of the carriage and took one out of his pocket to hold. Today, it seems that every move you made when you broke up with Haitao was due to the Irtysh River, a free and wide river that reshaped you.
In this text, the protagonist's understanding is sublimated, his thoughts are sublimated, and his realm is sublimated. What is particularly crucial is that through this narrative, the reader feels the grandeur and breadth of the Irtysh River with the protagonist, the only river in China that flows to the Arctic Ocean, and connects countless rivers in the swampy Hubei, which not only shapes the protagonist, but also reshapes the reader as a co-participant in the text.
Irtysh River
There are many factors why a classic work has survived, but at least one quality should be the basic element, and that is the literary stance, that is, your attitude towards the poor, the suffering, the underclass. Tolstoy the Elder admired Maupassant's work, but also made harsh criticisms of him. He considers some of Maupassant's works:
The lack of understanding of life, the lack of interest and affection for the working people, the lack of description of them, and the representation of them like half-orcs who act only on the basis of senses, malice and greed, is one of the most important and serious mistakes of most modern writers, including Maupassant, who are portrayed vulgarly not only in this story but also in his other works, like stupid animals who can only smirk.
In Tolstoy's view, the character of a true work of art has at least three points: a correct value, the beauty of form, and sincerity. The correct value is the moral connection between the author and the work, which is actually the writer's thoughts and feelings.
The writer's emotional connection with the poor, the suffering, and the underclass is reflected here. Zhang Chengzhi's novels are particularly touching in this regard.
The so-called "new enlightenment" in the 1980s was, to some extent, a neoliberal trend of thought, with an extreme emphasis on the value of intellectuals and disregard for the value of workers. At this time, Zhang Chengzhi held high the banner of "for the people" seemed out of place, but he insisted on going his own way.
His praises and praises for the kind grandmother and the suffering Soumya in Black Horse are the embodiment of this position. And "The River of the North" deepens the praise for the suffering. He described an old man from the northwest as follows:
He took a big stride. When he came to Gaomiaozi alone the previous summer, he met this old man with the surname Gao. He walked into a dry-walled manor house and asked the old man for water to quench his thirst. The tall old man set up a small wooden table under the porch and placed a cup and a pot on the table. A little girl with a red-headed rope pulled out a large tray from the house, on which were four frighteningly large steamed buns. There were purple-red spots on the white bun, and when he asked, he knew that it was mixed with home-grown rose petals. The first time he saw someone steaming steamed buns with rose petals and noodles, he was amazed and fresh. Later, the old man went out with a shovel and asked the little girl to refill his tea. The little girl was born with a water spirit, and tiptoed carefully to add tea to him. He drank a lot of tea with some salty flavor. I walked out of the small mansion in the back of the corridor. Not far away on the Huangshui River beach, he saw the tall old man standing alone in the hot sun, and when he walked over to thank the old man, he saw a bend of canal water being guided by the old man with a shovel, flowing into a green poplar forest. After the canal water had filled the small, lush grove of young trees, the old man told him that these little trees had a son. He asked why, and the old man said, "Baby, I have no queen." A lonely old man, dragging a little granddaughter. Ten years later, this forest has grown into wood, and it is sold for money. When the day comes when you can't move, don't say something difficult. He remembered that he had been unable to speak for a long time, and only stared at the green and leafy grove in a daze. The poplar tree was thin and tender, swaying in a crackling sound. Later he walked away, and when he looked back, he saw the old man hunched over, carrying a shovel and pacing in search of it, alone with the small tree.
The depiction of the old man is not "sympathy", but appreciation and praise: the old man is not overwhelmed by the hardships of life, but optimistic, tenacious and at ease with the situation. He planted a grove of trees in order to make a living, and his life with his little granddaughter came to an end. The grove is hope, the hope for life.
survive
Zhang Chengzhi's heartfelt praise for the simple beauty of the young people at the bottom is also the guarantee that his novels become classics. This simple emotion of his makes his novel avoid pickles and filth, and there is a kind of human beauty and custom beauty. You see him describing the little couple this way:
The streets and alleys are lined with small rice shacks and small guest houses. He and the latter bought some white soba doughnut, pies wrapped in vermicelli, vegetables and a little oil. The cake was fried yellow and crispy, and he ate it sweetly as he walked, chatting with the descendant, constantly using the three northern Shaanxi words of "sniffing, untangling, and keeping up". As they would draw money, he caught a glimpse of a bundle of bright golden-red wool that appeared in his yellow canvas bag. For your aunt? He teased the afterlife. Hou Sheng blushed and smiled wistfully, his big clear eyes hiding from him. He imagined the woman in northern Shaanxi who was going to weave a sweater with this golden red woolen thread. The way the woman looked he knew. He guessed that it must be a black and red and athletic woman like a blue flower or a plum fragrant flower, who was too ashamed to look up at the sight, and tied an apron sewn with blue flower cloth.
Calvino defines the classic as follows: "A classic work is a work in which, even if it is now dominant, which is incompatible with it, insists on becoming at least a background noise." "
Zhang Chengzhi's novels show the sense of closeness and beauty of the people at the bottom, and no contemporary writer can compare.
On the contrary, many contemporary writers are more energetic than writing about the ugliness, evil, and gougeful work of laborers, writing about the yellowness, lust, and vulgarity of the people at the bottom, and writing about the stupidity, stupidity, and greed of the suffering people than they are, and rarely love them, kiss them, sing them, and praise them from the bottom of their hearts like Zhang Chengzhi.
Although Zhang Chengzhi is incompatible with the mainstream contemporary literary scene, this is a persistent "background noise", and Hao believes that this "noise" will become the Huang Zhong Da Lu in the history of literature.
I like Zhang Chengzhi's novels, not only because of its lyricism, stylistic beauty and intoxicating gorgeous sentences, but more importantly, the feelings expressed in his novels: love the magnificent mountains and rivers, and love the people who have grown up in this magnificent mountains and rivers, especially those at the bottom of society.
Gorgeous sentences are as alive as elves
Finally, allow me to quote another calvino criterion about the classics:
"Your" classic is a book that makes you unable to remain indifferent to it, and it helps you to establish yourself in your relationship with it and even in the process of opposing it.
The meaning of this sentence is that the so-called classic is that even if you don't like it and deny it, you are positioning your own value through your "dislike". Or more sharply, the so-called classic is a mirror, standing in front of it, you can see your own ugliness.
Zhang Chengzhi's novels have exposed many people's ugliness, whether it is the past, the present, or the future.