Chapter 68 The Exploration of the Narrative Aesthetics of the Second Section: "The Temptation of Gangdise"

In the history of contemporary Chinese literature, Ma Yuan was the first to put the narrative factor of the novel in a more important position than the plot factor. He widely adopted the technique of "meta-narrative" and consciously pursued a narrative effect that is both real and illusory. Formed the famous "Ma Yuan's Narrative Trap". In fact, this made him not only devote himself to dismantling the "plausible illusion" of classical realism, but also created a new understanding of reality. The first feature worthy of attention in "The Temptation of Gangdis" is the use of "meta-narrative" technique.In the fourth section of the novel, the first-level narrator "I" directly jumps out and declares to the readers that the story here is not a love story; in the fifteenth section, he stands up and directly discusses the "structure" of the novel with the readers , "clues" and "remaining issues", such as why Dunyue disconnected inexplicably, why didn't he write a letter to his fiancée Nim?The narrator rudely tells readers that Dunyue "sacrificed on duty shortly after enlisting in the army" and so on.He obviously does not shy away from setting the ending in this way out of technical considerations in the novel.This technique of consciously exposing the fictional nature of the novel will of course produce an alienating effect, telling readers clearly that fiction is fiction and that fiction cannot be regarded as reality.Ma Yuan not only ironically satirizes the plot coherence of traditional realist novels and the integrity and authenticity based on this, but also fundamentally questions the integrity, continuity and authenticity of experience. Only then did the novel's "plausible illusion" be shaken. This is also reflected in the structure of the novel.This novel is a splicing and assembling of several stories, but unlike the general view, Ma Yuan does not seem to be out of purely technical considerations.Under the first-level narrator who organizes and narrates the whole story, there are several "second-level narrators". It tells the mysterious experience of the hunter Qiongbu while hunting; the other is a third-person narrator, telling the story of Lu Gao, Yao Liang and others who went to see the "Sky Burial", and relaying the mysterious stories of Dunzhu and Dunyue that they heard .These stories all involve unknown mysterious factors: In the story of the old writer, he saw a "huge sheep's head" on a mysterious journey. This sheep's head is a mysterious religious icon or a prehistoric creature. Fossils, or hallucinations of the old writer's paranoia?In Qiongbu's story, he seems to have encountered a "Himalayan snowman", but the narrator immediately tells us that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of this kind of snowman, so what exactly did Qiongbu encounter?In the story of Dunzhu and Dunyue, the illiterate Dunzhu suddenly could sing the entire epic "The Legend of King Gesar" after he disappeared for a month (he only felt that he had gone out for a day). , mythological, materialistic interpretations, but none of them can convince the holders of other interpretations...etc.These mysterious story fragments, which have a beginning but no end, and have removed the causal relationship, are put together to form the general body of the novel.In all these stories there are mysterious and unknown factors involved, but the author is never prepared to tell the reader what these mysterious factors are?And even more importantly, do they really exist?Or is it just human illusion and conjecture?All to no avail.Although the narrative methods of these stories are all told with a very precise, realistic, and even "objective" attitude.

Ma Yuan wanted to achieve an artistic effect of "both real and illusory" in the novel, so he allowed the first-level narrator to appear directly in the novel unscrupulously, breaking the narrative process and dismantling the "real" by means of meta-narrative And the wall between "fiction".In fact, the novel shows this at the very beginning, and it quotes a sentence from La Grove: "Of course, it is up to you to believe it or not. Hunting stories cannot be forced to be believed." What is more intriguing is the first section of the novel. Who is the first-person narrator "I" who emerges from the novel?We can't figure out from the text of the novel that he is obviously not an "old writer" because he is only in his thirties; nor can he be Lu Gao, because he is knocking on Lu Gao's door and encouraging him to take part in an adventure; He himself told us that he is not Yao Liang... In short, he cannot be any character in the novel's story, because he does not show up at all later.Is he the writer Ma Yuan?Can't figure it out either.In short, this ambiguous narrator, who we only know not to be, but who he is, initiates and organizes the whole expedition that is the basis of the novel.So who organized this expedition and who narrated it?Who is the narrator of that first level?We don't know, so the whole novel becomes ambiguous, vague and suspicious.

From this we feel once again that an art form is not just a form.The all-knowing narrator and the receding of the illusion of reality are more than a minor revolution in artistic skill.Traditional authoritative ideologies have the capacity not only to explain life but also to organize experience (even the most personal) into a coherent and coherent narrative. A novel like "The Temptation of Gandese" is a sign of the authoritative ideology no longer having universal significance. The era of ambiguous, seemingly real and illusory individual experiences and personal narratives remains.Perhaps from this we can understand the significance of Ma Yuan's narrative revolution in the history of contemporary literature.