The Sound of Spring, a novel written by the famous writer Wang Meng, is mainly about the thoughts of the engineer Yue Zhifeng, who returned from a visit to Germany and traveled back to his hometown to visit his family on the eve of the Spring Festival on a stuffy train.
The sound of the train starting "bam" is the starting point of the main character's association, which makes him think of his sweet childhood, and shows his nostalgia for his hometown and love for his parents. Train running "the sound of the louder and louder", making him think of "hail", "hammer on the anvil", "in the countryside of the Loess Plateau, everywhere there are still people ironing". and everywhere there are people making iron"; he thought of the song "spring water ding dong ring"; he thought of "many triangular ceramic plates hanging under the pergola of the Guangzhou people, which accompanied by the breeze, emitted a tinkling sound, delighting the soul"; and then he thought of "the American abstract music, but it is crazy". The American abstract music, however, calls for madness" and so on.
The sound of these natural disasters and backward production methods symbolize backwardness; the beautiful sound that embellishes life expresses people's desire and pursuit of modern life. Through these, Yue Zhifeng's worries about the backwardness of the motherland and his desire for its prosperity are exuded.
"The Sound of Spring" does not have a storyline that runs through the whole piece, but mainly uses the characters' state of mind, association and subconscious activities in a specific environment to create a certain typical mood, reflecting the social life and the mystery of the human mind, and conveying the message of spring to people.
Expanded Information
The Sound of Spring is a relatively successful novel created by drawing on the stream-of-consciousness technique in China, which, in its actuality, breaks the traditional mode of creating novels with characters, plots, and environments as the main elements, and is a pioneering work in the history of contemporary literature. From the perspective of prosperous literature and art, it gives us the message of spring.
The novel successfully draws on the creative technique of stream of consciousness, with the help of information stimulation around the characters, such as sound, shaking, taste, music, etc., to let the main character's consciousness flow and produce rich associations, and then the unending, unstoppable, and volatile stream of life is panoramically and contrarily reflected through the spinning of the characters' psyche. The use of this technique breaks through the boundaries of time and space, revealing the mystery of the protagonist's mind and the atmosphere of the times.
The theme of the novel is "Singing about new opportunities in life", but it does not emphasize on characterization, storyline narration, or normal chronological order. He borrowed the Western "stream of consciousness" technique, but not pure Western "stream of consciousness". The "radioactive" structure of the novel has one end point, which is the mind world of the main character sitting in the special environment of a stuffy car compartment. The novel focuses on the associations and psychological states caused by the outside world acting on the main character's heart during the time-space switch, and uses this to express the theme.
Baidu Encyclopedia - The Sound of Spring