Body Writing: Wei Hui and Mian Mian, who despise tradition but cannot find their own happiness

The term "body writing" was originally used to describe the female writers represented by Wei Hui and Mian Mian who appeared around 2000, and their representative works are "Shanghai Baby" (Wei Hui), "La La La", "Sugar" (Mian Mian) and so on. But their understanding of body writing is different from the later lustful depictions of pure bodies such as Muzimi.

Mian Mian once told reporters: "The statement [of body writing] has a poetic meaning, and points out the characteristics of my writing relative to other writers." I think that this 'physicality' refers not to desire and senses, but to a closest, transparent, perceptual way of grasping reason. ”

She expressed deep indignation at the "misreading" of others. She is reluctant to accept even the word "avant-garde": "I express my love, my confusion and my helplessness in my works, I analyze dangerous youth in my works, and I look for inspiration." I don't need to show my avant-garde by writing. What cannot be denied is that Mian Mian's remarks were to a certain extent out of the need for self-defense (the public opinion at that time formed a lot of pressure on her), so there was a certain insincerity.

In general, Wei Hui and Mian Mian's novels are written by girls who do not know what life is, but they want to find out what life is all day long, and they are struggling to explore for this, and they are suffering for this, and all their behaviors, including physical behavior, belong to a way for them to explore life, or a kind of venting when they cannot explore the true meaning of life, they are extremely sensitive and hysterical, but their hearts are broken and there is no landing. They separate love from sex, and when it comes to sex, they are not absolutely beneficial, and they are very sexually aroused; But their love is often very single-minded, they can try to kill and commit suicide for the sake of this love, and their physical relationship with men they do not love is only a testimony to their pain. They often have unusual experiences, they don't want to live a mediocre life, but they can't find the kind of life they want to live. So they indulge and ruin their bodies, their bodies are crazy, crazy with their souls. They experience all sorts of hysteria, all sorts of extreme, non-physical sensations of life: "The only thing I don't understand is why our lives are doomed to get out of control" (Sugar). Or rather, because their souls are crazy, their bodies can't help but be crazy. They despise tradition but cannot find their own happiness, and finally utter a desperate cry of "God please save me."

They have not found the truth", but they are searching, and they are suffering because they cannot find the truth, "whether we are out of control for freedom, or is our freedom itself a kind of loss of control", "I know that there is a realm that I can never reach." What is truth? Truth is an air, and I feel its coming, and I can smell the breath of truth, but I cannot catch it. The years have passed in a hurry, and how many times have I passed by the truth?"

(Tao Dongfeng's Reading Notes on Contemporary Chinese Literary and Art Trends and Cultural Hotspots)