Text/Smiley crayons
Source/Waizuo classmate
Speaking of Yu Hua, many people's first thought is definitely the novel "Alive", especially after it was remade into a movie, and it was widely circulated. Yu Hua can be said to have written the hardships of "living", and the protagonist Fugui silently endured the repeated bombardment of suffering, leaving the reader with endless sorrow and sighs.
However, compared to "Alive", I prefer Yu Hua's other work, "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood". As a long masterpiece of Yu Hua's transition period in the 1990s, this novel has many differences from the previous work "Alive".
Compared with the extremely dramatic plot of "Alive", "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" is more realistic. The narrative also abandons the cold and violent writing in "Alive", but instead narrates the ordinariness and struggle of the little people in humor and warmth.
Perhaps you want to say that the plot of "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" is very ordinary, and it is only written that Xu Sanguan sold twelve times of blood; the character of Xu Sanguan is also very ordinary, and he can catch a large handful on the street.
To tell the truth, this is also my real feeling when I first read "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood". But this novel, like a cup of bitter tea, can only feel its sweet and mellow aroma if you slowly touch it and taste it. The look and feel of "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" is rich, which will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you sad and happy.
When I first opened this novel, I really couldn't love the character of Xu Sanguan, and the selfish and ignorant Xu Sanguan had both the rustic atmosphere of a peasant and the tackiness of a small citizen. I can almost see it as a clown, enough to bear my endless disdain and ridicule.
1. Laughter: Ignorance and pity of Xu Sanguan
The character of Xu Sanguan is undoubtedly funny, raising someone else's child "Yile" for nine years without knowing it, and placing high hopes on him as his most valued son;
In order to be grateful and compensate for the object of his once crush, Lin Fenfang, after selling blood, he bought her a lot of supplements and was caught by Lin Fenfang's husband, which can be described as not confessing to himself;
Xu Sanguan deceived himself in the face of the suspicion that Everyone Yile did not look like him: "The son does not look like his father, and the son looks the same as his brother... It doesn't matter if Ichiraku is not like me, Ichiraku is like his brother";
After being raided, he had to sell blood before repeatedly telling his two sons to rape He Xiaoyong's daughter when he grew up, which can be described as a vivid reproduction of the ah-q style "son beating LaoZi" spiritual victory method.
After laughing, I feel that this character is also quite pitiful. After Ichiraku injured the blacksmith's child, the blacksmith led a large group of people to raid the house, and Xu Sanguan actually warmly welcomed him with tea and helped copy his own home, as if it was not his own things that had been moved.
His warm hospitality was to maintain his poor self-esteem in front of everyone, after all, Yile was not his own son, and the punishment he should receive had nothing to do with himself; he could see that the home accumulated after ten years of hardship was empty, and he and Xu Yulan were crying together.
Xu Sanguan is even more ignorant, thinking that drinking water before donating blood can dilute blood, even if it is a broken stomach, he must drink desperately;
In the face of the shouting soul with feudal superstition, the people in the village, especially the Xu Sanguan family, were even more convinced, so that when they acted, they were even more solemn, so that we could not help but associate with the ignorant people in Lu Xun's pen.
In the following article, it is mentioned that Xu Sanguan is o-type blood, which is once again a coincidence in laixi laishun's blood type, and once again echoes with Ah Q, who cannot write and can only draw circles, in a distant time and space.
But after encountering a series of changes, Xu Sanguan seems to be slowly changing and growing, and the warm and kind side of other people's humanity is gradually revealed. Tears in my eyes brewed from time to time, and my heart was also caught by his worries about donating blood one after another, and even secretly prayed that he would not have any accidents.
2. Tears: The kind and responsible Xu Sanguan
Xu Sanguan and Xu Yulan are absolutely joyful enemies, but when Xu Yulan was criticized, Xu Sanguan, who ignored others to "throw small stones and spit", insisted on delivering food for his wife, in order not to be discovered by the monitors, the witty he quietly hid meat in the rice, and had overflowing care and love for his wife;
Xu Sanguan, who sold blood for less than a month, drank with the captain of Erle, and trembled with fear under the dual effects of physical fatigue and inner worry, but in order for Erle to return to the city, even if he drank to death, he had to drink;
Under normal circumstances, the interval between two blood sales should not be less than three months, but in order to treat Yile's illness, he sold blood at the cost of his life, from the fifth to Lin Pu's seventh blood sale, on average, once a month; from the seventh time to the eighth time in a hundred miles, only three days apart; and the eighth time to the ninth, the ninth time to the tenth time, respectively, only four days and three days.
Xu Sanguan's body, who had been selling blood for "Yile", was already weak, but in order to make up for the medical expenses, he still struggled hard - "even if I sold my life, I also want to sell blood"; "I am happy to live to be fifty years old, what it is like to be a human being, I also know it all, I am dead and can be said to have earned." My son is only twenty-one years old, and he has not yet been a good man. ”
When the family encountered difficulties, Xu Sanguan took the initiative to shoulder the responsibility of being a husband and father, even at the cost of his own life, even if the saved son was not his own!
In the novel, Xu Sanguan's twelve blood sales, once used to marry a wife, seven times for one pleasure, one for the second pleasure, one for the whole family, one for private feelings, and the last time for himself. Overall, Xu Sanguan actually sold blood nine times for his family instead of himself. For the family, he has a touching sacrifice and responsibility.
3. Tearful Laughter: The Weak and Self-Respecting Xu Sanguan
Seeing the last chapter, I thought it was a happy reunion ending, and Xu Sanguan's family lived a happy life. However, even if there is no worry about food and clothing, it is unexpected that Xu Sanguan still has to sell blood. Now, he wanted to sell himself blood once.
The dying Xu Sanguan was ridiculed by the blood: No one will ask for your blood, and your blood is like pig's blood, which is only worthy of being brushed on the furniture by a painter.
Xu Sanguan's "feet are moving forward, and his tears are flowing down." His head was raised, his chest was erect, his legs were strong when they were sold, and his arms were not hesitant to swing, but his face was full of sadness. ”
The contradictory reaction of body movements and expressions made Xu Sanguan, who was not old and somewhat stubborn, jump on the paper, and the appearance of the spirit and the bitterness of the soul formed a strong contrast.
In order to soothe Xu Sanguan's injured heart, Xu Yulan took him to the Victory Hotel, which he must go to after selling blood in the past, and Xu San thought three times of "three plates of fried pork liver, two or two yellow wines", the repetition here makes people laugh, but after laughing, there is a trace of bitterness.
The old Xu Sanguan is like a child, although he has no strength to do anything, he still has his own pride. The novel finally ends with "dick hairs come out later than eyebrows, and grow longer than eyebrows", and ends abruptly in a language that feels a lot of anger and rustic. There is both the joy of the Xu Sanguan style and the helplessness and bitterness of the Xu Sanguan style.
Therefore, for the character of Xu Sanguan, you may be resistant to him at the beginning, but as you read deeper, you will gradually fall in love with this ordinary ordinary person. Although he is ignorant, he has his own responsibility. He is not a tall figure who does not eat human fireworks, but he shows the richness and complexity of human nature.
What is Yu Hua's attitude towards this character? Does it match my look and feel? With this question in mind, I read Yu Hua's creative talk, but found that it was not easy to answer this question, because Yu Hua consciously hid his attitude when shaping the characters and unfolding the plot.
Yu Hua said: "What I am looking for is a narrative without me, and in this sense, I agree with Li Hao's emphasis that there is a narrator between the writer and the work. In the narrative process, the easiest and most effective way to transform personal experience is to avoid direct expressions as much as possible and let the gloomy sky show the sun. ”
From this passage, it can be seen that Yu Hua attaches great importance to the existence of the narrator, that is, there is a storyteller in addition to the writer and the work, which is not exactly equivalent to the author himself in reality.
But the reality is often that it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. Especially when the work is written in the first person, the boundary between "me" and the writer himself in the novel seems to be even more confusing.
In fact, when a writer creates a work, it is always inevitable that he will have his own shadow. But to equate the writer with the characters in the work is to confuse the actor himself with his character.
Take "Kong Yiji" as an example, let the small clerk of the Xianheng Hotel tell the story, even if he calls himself "I" in the text, but he is definitely not Lu Xun himself. Why do people often confuse the two? Because for the authenticity and appeal of the work, writers often write with the characters themselves and project themselves into the characters.
Regarding Yu Hua's "self-free narrative" mentioned above, he went on to add: "I like such a narrative attitude, which is popularly said to tell others about others. And try to avoid another narrative attitude, that is, to tell others about their own affairs. Even if it is my personal matter, once it enters the narrative I transform it into someone else's business."
You may ask, what is "my way of narrating"? A good example of this is the road. In "Ordinary World", you often see "I" can't help but jump out and make comments, even if it is adapted into a TV series, there will be large sections of narration.
Yu Hua is very different from Lu Yao, and he seems to be less controlling about the characters and works, but strives to pursue a sense of distance. I rarely talk about myself, and when I have to tell my own story, I rewrite it as "someone else's story".
Most of the "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" is structured throughout the dialogue structure, creating a sense of distance between the author and the narrator, the narrator and the characters, and the characters and the reader. Authors rarely stand up and express their opinions, so readers can have a psychological distance of reflection, rather than completely immersing themselves in the plot and characters.
Therefore, Yu Hua's narrator is more objective and calm, and the author's attitude is difficult to see directly. This undoubtedly makes it more difficult for us to explore Yu Hua's attitude toward Xu Sanguan, but it is not helpless.
First of all, the advancement of the plot is a good key.
At the beginning of the opening chapter, the narrator seems to be silent, but in fact he is like a God who looks at all beings and laughs, writing the ignorance and pity of Xu Sanguan with humor and ridicule;
But in the subsequent plot, the narrator's tone begins to become milder, unconsciously changing the viewing distance, showing a certain amount of sympathy and praise;
In the second half of the article, the narrator's tone of voice changes, and the original humorous joke continues, revealing a warm mockery.
Thus, we can roughly deduce Yu Hua's complex attitude from the change in the narrator's tone of voice: both playful and ironic, as well as sympathetic and praise. Xu Sanguan is both ridiculous and shining with good humanity.
In addition to the plot, we can also read the text carefully and find small clues, so as to discover Yu Hua's explicit or implicit confession of the character's attitude.
I believe that many people are deeply impressed by the scene of Xu Sanguan drinking water before selling blood: "He saw that Lin Pu's Hedong was a little green in the bowl, he took a sip, and when the cold and bone-chilling river water entered his stomach, it made him shiver." After wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he lifted his neck and drank all the water in the bowl, and then he held himself in both hands and shook violently a few times. After a while, feeling the warmth in his stomach slowly return, he scooped up another bowl of river water and drank it again, and then he hugged himself again and shook it. ”
In order to sell blood to Yile to cure his illness, Xu Sanguan drank in the cold wind of the green, cold and bone-chilling river. He always "lifted his neck and drank it" when he drank water, much like the determined patience we had when we drank medicine as children.
And the action of "holding himself with both hands" is not only because it is too cold, but also because he can only control his body that is constantly trembling. From these detailed descriptions, we can feel the tenacity and persistence of Xu Sanguan, and Yu Hua's sympathy for Xu Sanguan is slowly rendered in it.
After learning of Genlong's death, "sitting down on a pile of bricks, the late autumn wind blew his body cold", this cold is not only the cold of nature, but also the sadness of seeing his future self dying from selling blood.
After Xu Sanguan sold blood several times, "his two legs were like dead branches in the fierce wind, shaking violently, and then the dead branches were broken, and his two legs were bent", vivid and delicate portrayal, like a long shot of the movie, so that the reader's heart also trembled, and he admired and worried about Xu Sanguan, who was dedicated to love.
As some critics have pointed out, "Yu Hua also inherited (repeated) Lu Xun's enlightenment views, soberly seeing the spiritual ignorance of the bottom group, but his affirmation of the spiritual value of the bottom layer selling blood and selling blood to support the family dissipated the pain and vitriol of Lu Xun's early ridicule, Xu Sanguan was not a hopeless citizen, nor a spectator who ate people, but they were just beings who 'took food as the sky', but the suffering that Xu Sanguan suffered for this turn dissolved the carnival tone of folk theory." This is also why it feels too heavy to talk about "Selling Blood" in the underlying discourse of the left, and it is too light to talk about "Selling Blood" in folk discourse. ”
Yu Hua commented that Xu Sanguan was "a person who always wants to oppose his fate, but always ends in failure, but he never knows failure, which is his excellence."
Undoubtedly, the character of Xu Sanguan is complex, and his ignorance and confusion about failure makes people laugh, but the struggle against fate, even if it is negative, is also awe-inspiring. The responsibility and responsibility for the family makes this image even more tall.
In short, Xu Sanguan is ignorant and pitiful, kind and responsible, and even more so, an ordinary person who still has strong self-esteem even if he is weak. Although there is criticism, there is also warmth, and the reader also glimpses the authenticity and richness of human nature in this laughter and tears.