The small scenery under the moon, the night in the water town, and the pure love are in sharp contrast with the barbaric customs and foolish village rules and regulations. Masters use small villages to symbolize the history and culture of the nation and the country, and show the broad social and historical picture in the cultural conflict through the rise and fall of characters.
Chen's White Deer Plain, Jia Pingwa's Impetuousness, Wang Zengqi's Taking the Ring and Shen Congwen's Border Town are all representative works of China's local literature. What kind of local feelings and social changes did their works record in China?
Chen Bailuyuan
"Bailuyuan" is set in Bailuyuan Village, which is known as "Renyi Village" in Guanzhong Plain of Shaanxi Province, and reflects the feud between Bai and Lu. The book contains profound national historical connotation, shocking realism and heavy epic style.
Two generations of descendants of a family have been fighting endlessly for the rule of Bailuyuan, and staged a series of thrilling live dramas: taking the land of geomantic omen skillfully, using the honey trap badly, the dutiful son being a bandit, killing the daughter-in-law by relatives, frying each other by brothers, and turning lovers against each other. Along with the Great Revolution, the Japanese invasion and the three-year civil war, Bailuyuan was in turmoil, with flags changing, family feuds and ethnic hatred intertwined, and the ancient land trembled in the pain of rebirth.
Through White Deer Plain, Chen conveyed to readers the changes of characters' personalities and fates in Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province during the revolutionary period, as well as the baptism of traditional backward folk customs by the new forces.
Jia Pingwa's impetuousness
Impetuousness is a book about Shangzhou, the author's hometown, which tells a story on a river. Based on the emotional experience of rural youth Golden Dog and Num, this paper describes the problems exposed in the early stage of reform and opening up, as well as the impetuous state of the whole society and the emptiness under the impetuous surface.
Golden Dog loves Num deeply, but he has to marry Tian's niece in order to get a position in a newspaper. With a sense of guilt for Num, Golden Dog embarked on a long journey. The specific figures in Shangzhou, a small place, gradually developed with his life experience.
The novel tells readers that in the early days of reform and opening up, society experienced unprecedented excitement and agitation after breaking the closure. One person gets the word, and nepotism gives birth to privileged people. Ordinary people have no chance, dare to be angry and dare not speak, even if they dare to speak, they have nowhere to tell, so they have to live in poverty.
Wang Zengqi's "Being ordained"
Being ordained depicts the fresh and hazy love between the young monk Minghai and Xiaoying, and shows the pastoral scenery of Lixia River in northern Jiangsu in the 1930s in a poetic way. The full text is full of a kind of inner joy, praising the beauty of simple and healthy human nature.
Being a monk is a profession for local people to make a living. They can eat ready-made meals, save money and get married in the future. "Being ordained" was originally a ceremony for monks to accept Buddhist precepts, but at the same time of being ordained in Minghai, the love between the two little heroes also matured. When Ming Hai rowed home with Xiaoying after being ordained, they declared their love and rowed the boat into reeds.
Through such a secular Buddhist story, Wang Zengqi described the joy of ordinary people's lives, expressed his affirmation and praise of simple folk daily life, and at the same time implicitly expressed his denial and criticism of discipline.
Shen Congwen's Border Town
"Border Town" describes the tortuous love between Tianbao Henuo, two sons of Shancheng Chadong Wharf Group, and Cui Cui, the granddaughter of the ferryman. The pure love story of Cui Cui, a boatman girl, shows the goodness and beauty of human nature. However, in the end, all the good things can only be left in my memory: one of Tianbao and Nuonuo died, the other ran away, and my grandfather died in a stormy night. A natural love story ended in tragedy.
As Shen Congwen said: "Everything is good, but there are misfortunes everywhere. Since it is unfortunate, then a simple and beautiful ending will inevitably lead to tragedy. " In addition to aestheticism, Border Town also conveys people's helplessness in the face of the variables of fate. This helplessness and compassion for life has given Border Town a profound character and charm.
Border Town entrusted Shen Congwen's aesthetic ideal. By describing the pure love between young men and women, the deep affection between grandparents and grandchildren, and the kindness and mutual assistance between neighbors, the beauty of mountains and rivers and the beauty of local customs in the western Hunan world are highlighted. But the discerning eye can see at a glance that the background materials used by Shen Congwen hide the shadow of social contradictions and the author's support for "the people engaged in the great cause of national rejuvenation."
Liu Zhenyun's "One sentence is worth ten thousand sentences"
The first half of "Becoming a Monk" tells the story that the lonely and helpless Moses Wu lost his only adopted daughter who could "talk" and went out to find her. The second half of Back tells the story of Niu, the adopted daughter of Moses Wu. In order to get rid of loneliness, he also looked for "talkative" friends and went to Yanjin. As soon as you leave, you will be delayed for a hundred years.
In the novel, all social organizations and family harmony, even sex, are related to whether people can talk, and if so, whether they can touch the soul. Once words become the only communication between people, seeking and loneliness will accompany them all their lives. "In the book, Lao Pei who killed pigs, Lao Zeng who shaved his head and Yang Baishun all spoke better than me, with wisdom and depth."
Liu Zhenyun proved to the world through "a word is worth 10,000 words": due to the differences in environment, status and respective interests, and the lack of honesty, there are not many friends between people who can talk confidentially and warm their hearts, but most people live in loneliness.
Since the rise of local novels in the 1920s, from Lu Xun, Jia Pingwa and others to Chen and Han Shaogong, the local novels written by these masters not only reflect the changes of social customs in China in the past hundred years, but also convey the sadness of the fate of small people in the historical tide, and also warn the world that if we can't keep pace with the times and get rid of confusion, the ending will always end in tragedy.