Chapter 12 Critical Realist Novels: "Nine Waves", "Escape"

Bi Ruxie, an old Red Guard, whose father was a bureau-level cadre of the Central Propaganda Department. Although the length of "Nine Waves" is not very long, about 100,000 characters, its content weight and historical span have basically constituted a long novel.Bi Ruxie was the first person to use critical realism during the "Cultural Revolution", and also the first person to directly reflect the reality of social life during the "Cultural Revolution" movement.The characters described in his novels, like Sima Li, lived among the people, with typical authenticity. The life scenes of the characters described in the novels are also familiar to people. It was the place where the children of Gaozhi and high-ranking cadres often visited at that time—— Like "Old Mo" (Moscow restaurant), like "Beach" (one section describes the strange lights of the night scene on the beach, which left a deep impression on the readers, quite like Andreev's style of writing).Although it reflects what is happening in people's lives, it still makes people feel thrilled after reading.The novel naturally reveals familiarity with foreign artists and their works, without any sense of pretentiousness. The novel involves music, painting, and aesthetics in a relaxed and decent manner, showing the author's self-cultivation immersed in Western literature .

The novel is narrated in the first person.The protagonist is a middle school student who sits on the second floor of his home reading books and painting every day. He is bored every day, like a writer in the 19th century overlooking the one-story courtyard below, where all living beings live.One day, the male protagonist suddenly notices a beautiful girl walking by the window, which attracts the attention of "I".Later, "I" discovered that the girl often walked by the window with a good temperament.Gradually, the male protagonist began to look forward to her daily appearance.At this time, "I" was still a pure boy.Later, "I" and "she" - Sima Li went together to study painting with a painting teacher, but "my" beloved girlfriend was cheated by the painting teacher (this explanation is too simple, there are other explanations ).Since then, Sima Li has fallen, and "I" is disillusioned in front of the cruel reality.In the end, this "I" also followed the other men, playing with the holy "goddess" in my heart - Sima Li.

Sima Li was born in the sound of cannons besieged by the People's Liberation Army. It can be said that she was born at the same time as New China.Her father is an old intellectual, and the family has an old bureaucratic background.Sima Li was born to her father's concubine, which caused her to suffer discrimination and humiliation in a social environment that emphasized class struggle, and in an era when "blood theory" was rampant after the "Cultural Revolution".But Sima Li showed amazing nobility, independence and holiness.In the later period of the "Cultural Revolution" movement, Sima Li's family was hit hard, and she was isolated and helpless, with little prospects and no personal way out.One night, "I" and Sima Li came back from studying painting and were suddenly robbed by hooligans in a small alley. "I" was cornered with a knife and fled in a hurry. Sima Li was dragged to a dark corner by the "hooligans" and raped. Fortunately, someone from the night shift passed by and rescued Sima Li.Sima Li's clothes were torn, and she wandered alone in the darkness, "I" followed behind.Later, "I" discovered that Sima Li had run to the painting teacher's house, and the lights in the teacher's room were turned off. "I" was devastated and ran away covering my face.

The name of the novel comes from the oil painting "Nine Waves" by Russian painter Evazovsky.The picture is: the vast sea, covered with dark clouds, amidst the turbulent waves, a sailboat is about to capsize.This painting hangs in the teacher's home in the novel.After Sima Li fell, she lived a life of indulgence, and she was completely different from before, with no shame at all.Among the young men, dirty words about her were spread, saying that this girl was a badass waver, and that she was a class nine. At the end of the novel, the male protagonist also had sex with Sima Li, making a fool of himself.In the process of writing nonsense, Sima Li took off her clothes, revealing the scars from cigarette burns on her chest, as well as the brassiere trimmed with gold wire (a symbol of decay), the scene was shocking.After the hero "I" plays with Sima Li, the novel immediately jumps to "Old Mo".Start a conversation between "I" and a friend at the dinner table, and say in a joking tone: the teacher is the first (referring to playing with Sima Li), "I" follows behind, following in the teacher's footsteps, and the others follow one by one.At this point, the novel is over. (There is another version. At the end of the novel, the male protagonist and Sima Li went to the countryside of Shanxi to jump in the queue).

The novel shows the author's familiarity with high-level cadres, children of high-level intellectuals and their circles.His description of "undressing" shocked most educated youth at that time, including most people in the circle who had not been exposed to so many "darkness" of society, but no one expressed any objection to the truth of the novel. "Nine Waves" confronts the harshness of life, tears away all the illusions of life, and tells many truths with a sharp and concise style.The novel intersperses the life of Sima Li's parents in Paris, and then returns to write about the "Cultural Revolution", forming a sense of historical depth.The author writes accurately and thoroughly about the confusion, disillusionment, distortion and degeneration of a generation of young people during the "Cultural Revolution".The novel reproduces the "mental journey" of a generation of young people who experienced the split, disintegration, and transformation under the impact of the movement and mental oppression.Sima Li is one of the glorious "tragic characters" in the gallery of contemporary literary characters.The work leads us into her inner world. In the raging waves of the vast sea, she struggles desperately and longs for salvation. She fights against fate with the courage of a weak woman, and finally she is willing to self-destruct, sink and rot.

In the unprecedented "Cultural Revolution", which soul did not set off the "Nine Waves"?Sima Li is what Engels said, "a typical character in a typical environment" during the "Cultural Revolution".Under the historical conditions of cultural tyranny, it is indeed commendable for the author to follow and adhere to the laws of art itself, pay attention to "human beings" and pay attention to the human soul. "Nine Waves" was quickly circulated and copied among the educated youths in Beijing in 1970, and gradually spread.The novel was widely appreciated and recognized at that time.But at that time, there was no praise, "things are rare and expensive".During the "Cultural Revolution" few novels reached the artistic level of "The Nine Waves".Bi Ruxie's use of words is relatively concise and unhurried.When it comes to sexual matters, the language is tame and elegant, enough is enough.Observation tends to be profound, and description is concise.Shows that the author is a connoisseur of storytelling.However, after the author ridicules and plays with "suffering", he seems to have a kind of depraved ease.Is this the emotionless calm of a broken heart?Sima Li's "self-destruct" is a protest?Or a proof of "life is meaningless"? (The author mentioned "existentialism" in fragments in the novel.) After reading this pungent, sour, and tragic manuscript novel, the reader has no choice but to bury the book and meditate on his own.

At that time, there was a gossip that Premier Zhou said after reading "The Nine Waves", the author is still talented, can he write works of socialist revolutionary realism?This legend needs to be verified. At the same time as "The Nine Waves", there is also a "Escape". "Escape" describes the experience of several educated youths who jumped in the queue in the northeast and took the train back to the city.In the novel, several educated youths climbed into an empty iron carriage loaded with coal, and curled up in a group in the cold wind, each of them entered the memory, and each had a past event to recount.The end of the novel: In a small station in Northeast China, the frozen bodies of these educated youths were found. Several educated youths hugged each other and disappeared in their sleep.

Picking up cars should be a common experience for many educated youths.Some people froze to death in stuffy tank trucks, some burned to death inside the wagons to keep warm, and some were imprisoned for picking up passenger cars.The educated youth in the novel dreamed of their childhood, youth, and their parents and relatives before they died.This can't help but remind people of Andersen's "The Little Match Girl". The novel uses the memories of different characters to cover different aspects of life at the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution". There are ugliness and filth in human nature, and there are also fleeting beautiful fragments. Different memory fragments are edited together to form the historical scene of the "Cultural Revolution". .This is a work that dares to face life directly and boldly exposes the dark side.There is no novel that can reveal the tragic fate of the educated youth so sharply and profoundly.

The significance of the novels "Nine Waves" and "Escape" in the history of literature lies in their reversal of the tradition of "false realism" in literature.It regains the May Fourth literary tradition of critical realism and humanitarianism.This was a bold and fearless creation and development at the time.