Chapter 8 Section 2 Exploration of Folk Art Space: "Great Changes in Mountains and Villages"

In the creation of novels in the 1950s, works on rural life accounted for a considerable proportion. Especially in 1953, the large-scale socialist revolution in the countryside - the cooperative movement, attracted the attention of most writers.This involves changes in the fate of each peasant's family and individual, especially the "movement" that requires peasants to be liberated from the thousands of years of production methods of small producers and traditional private concepts, and transformed into the driving force of China's socialist revolution , For the vast number of peasants whose dreams of obtaining land from the land reform and making a fortune through labor have just begun to burn, it is really a painful test that touches the soul.Similarly, for some writers who are familiar with rural life and emotionally connected with farmers, they have to experience a severe soul struggle.Politically, writers all understand the significance of this revolution, and hope to promote the smooth progress of this revolution by praising the new things in the countryside. As well as the reborn test they endured, the souls of the intellectuals who were truly willing to share the fate with the peasants could not but experience the same shock and emotion.Of course, some young writers who do not have deep feelings for farmers can formulate and illustrate this movement according to the policies stipulated in the central documents, and easily judge the entrepreneurial dreams of generations of farmers as "spontaneous forces taking the capitalist road." , easily declared "can't go this way"!But for most serious writers, they have to find a possible truth to express between the common name of the times and the painful spiritual struggle that the peasants are immersed in.At this time, the factors of folk culture form play an appropriate role.

Although Zhou Libo's novel "Great Changes in the Mountains and Villages"6 is not the first work to use art to describe the cooperative movement, nor is it the novel with the most theoretical depth, it has a very distinctive artistic personality, that is, from natural, clear, simple In the folk daily life, it has opened up an artistic aesthetic space that is completely different from the severe and urgent political space.Zhou Libo participated in the left-wing literature and art movement in the 1930s, and has good Chinese and foreign literary accomplishments. His translation of Sholokhov's novel "The Reclaimed Virgin Land" and Kirsch's reportage collection "Secret China" are both famous. A momentous literary work.After the Yan'an Literature and Art Symposium was held, he consciously gave up his original literary cultivation and creation path, and while participating in the actual political struggle life, he tried to go deep into rural life and learn language and art from the people.His first novel "The Tempest" was based on the land reform movement, and he won the second prize of the Stalin Literature Prize (1951) with Ding Ling's novel. However, this novel was not successful in learning from the folk. The local colors and dialects at the superficial level are out of touch with the overall style of the work. In 1955, he moved his family to his hometown in Hunan to settle down, and deeply understood and studied the mental state of farmers in the cooperative movement. Perhaps because of writing about his hometown, Great Changes in the Mountains and Villages successfully demonstrated the writer's unique artistic language and creative personality , is quite eye-catching in similar themes.

Regarding the attitude towards the cooperative movement, Zhou Libo undoubtedly stood on the common name of the times and encouraged farmers to take the cooperative road.The basic idea and character relationship of the novel, including the design of the rural class struggle, have maintained the consistency with the mainstream ideology.This is somewhat similar to Liu Qing's "History of Entrepreneurship", but the difference is that the author of "History of Entrepreneurship" has a more rational grasp of the relationship between rural classes and their conflicts, and thus has a more ideological perspective. The "profoundness" and the "sharpness" of the conflicts and conflicts of the characters.But it should be explained that this kind of profundity and sharpness is from the standpoint of the mainstream ideology at that time. What "The Great Change in the Mountain and Country" lacks is precisely these two points. The writer puts a political movement in the folk life. Performing on the stage avoids the profoundness of thought, but gains the naturalness, mellowness and harmony of human feelings; avoids the sharp expression of conflicts and conflicts of characters, but writes a few vivid peasant characters casually. "Folk culture form" is a complete artistic whole in literary creation, and the use of "national form" and "folk language" in isolation cannot explain the real artistic achievement of the novel.

As an example.The time background of the novel was written in 1955, when Mao Zedong criticized Deng Zihui’s policy of rectification and contraction of cooperation, and pushed the cooperation movement to a “climax”. The plot of "rightist line" was written into the work, and even "The History of Entrepreneurship" could not get rid of this influence.In the 1970s, some writers based on this period of history fabricated the "Cotai Strip" against "capitalist roaders in the party".Of course, Zhou Libo couldn't go beyond the historical environment to discern the differences among the top leaders of the CCP. He also wrote about the mistakes of the rightist party in his novels.However, starting from the actual rural work situation, he instinctively realized that this "right deviation" was exactly what the peasants needed.Li Yuehui, secretary of the party branch of Qinghui Township in the novel, is a "mother-in-law" who "man has no sex, blunt iron and no steel".In response to the policy of rectifying cooperatives, he "shrunk" the only cooperative. As a result, he was accused of making a rightist mistake, but he was very calm and only believed in one principle: "Socialism is a good road, and it is also a long road. What are you in a hurry for? There are still twelve years left. Do good things calmly, and make mistakes in haste.” Regarding others’ criticism that he is a right-leaning “woman with small feet”, he retorts confidently: “I’m just too lazy. Aren’t women with small feet also human? What’s the matter? Angry?" The writer did not overstep his authority to publicize the anti-rightist line at the time, but expressed different voices in a tortuous way through such a "not too high" theoretical consciousness of rural grassroots cadres.Li Yuehui and Liu Yusheng, the president of the cooperative, are both the main rural cadres in the novel and the leaders of the cooperative movement, but they don't have the "smell" of artificially elevated heroes that often appear in similar novels, and they are all ordinary mud legs.Li Yuehui said: "What I'm most afraid of is that people are afraid of me... I am separated from the masses, not to mention that I can't promote my work, and I don't even have anyone to play poker with me." He loves to play cards, and he himself said, "Before liberation, I’m also a rascal, and it’s only after Liberation that I can achieve success.” He was born in a poor and settled household, studied, did a small business, and later became a cadre, so he was not expert in farming, and only relied on his popularity and sympathy to get farmers. trust.This is very much in line with the actual situation of rural grassroots cadres.And Liu Yusheng not only expresses his simplicity and kindness through his labor, but also through the inner pain of forgetting his home due to work and being forced to divorce his first wife.Due to the true nature and folk human touch of these two grassroots cadres, the policies and practices (represented by the secretary of the district party committee Zhu Ming) that were left-leaning and blind and hurt the feelings of farmers in the cooperative movement were diluted, and there was a gap between the will of the state and folk life. a bridge of communication.

It is not to say that Zhou Libo's image of grassroots cadres in rural areas is the original appearance of life. In fact, there are many cases where rural "laipizi" became grassroots cadres, and then fish and meat farmers catered to the needs of the superiors without regard to the people's sentiments. On this point, the works written by Zhao Shuli, who is deeply rooted in the folk, are much deeper and sharper.However, Zhou Libo, as an intellectual standing on the common name of the times, can shape the images of cadres like Li Yuehui and Liu Yusheng instead of the "high and complete" new type of peasants and contemporary heroes, which not only shows his love for the free and natural folk culture The respect for form also reflects the writer's personal good character of kindness, generosity, and innocence.Out of such a beautiful subjective desire, there are no imminent class conflicts in the main screens of the novel (except for the forced story of "class enemies" such as Gong Ziyuan and his wife, which is an obvious failure), and the images of old farmers such as Sheng Youting, Chen Xianjin, and Wang Jusheng All are portrayed vividly and vividly.The writer first warmly praised the excellent qualities of these farmers from the attitude of labor. Almost all of them opened up wasteland and cultivated under inhuman labor intensity, and even paid the blood, sweat and lives of several generations, and just obtained a little land. Now the government suddenly asks them to join the cooperatives with fields, forests, and livestock. Spiritual struggle and emotional pain are very natural.Although it is impossible for the writer to write more profoundly about the cruelty of this spiritual struggle due to his political standpoint, he did not vilify them spiritually and insult them. Instead, he wrote about their simple human beauty from a folk perspective. Give them kind sympathy.Later, the theoretical circles called the artistic images of these peasants "intermediate characters". In fact, in the era of one-sided exaggeration of class struggle, only these "intermediate characters" in literary creation could convey the true voice of the folk to a greater or lesser degree.

The beauty of humanity, nostalgia and nature are the main pictures displayed in this novel. It can also be said that the essence of folk society deep in the mountains of Hunan described by Shen Congwen is hidden here.A large number of folklore, rural customs, and natural scenery are interspersed in the plot of the story just right. It seems that the writing is idle, but it broadens the artistic conception of the novel on the basis of rich folk culture, so that the political theme of cooperation is not the only thing to be expressed in the novel. s things.The first chapter of the novel describes how the county working group went to the countryside to promote the cooperative movement, and female cadres entered the mountain village by boat along with the slow flowing water, implying a sign that foreign political storms will sweep over the free civil society.The narrative of the novel overlaps the two strokes everywhere. Politics is one scene, and nostalgia is also one scene, and it is a more beautiful and authentic scene.For example, the fat girl Sheng Shujun who fell deeply in love, with her fiery love for her lover and complicated and delicate psychology; for example, the girl Guiman quarreled with her husband because of jealousy, and when he committed suicide by taking poison, she still lost her temper. For example, Sheng Jiaxiu worried about gains and losses after being abandoned by her husband, became docile and considerate after regaining love, etc., all people in life are in various forms, even without the needles and threads of the cooperative movement, it also shows the richness of folk life. .