Chapter 3 RELATED BOOK REVIEW If Literature Wasn't the Art of "Rising"

--talk Zhang Xinxin one First I read part of it in "The End of the World", and then the appendix of "All Things Bloom". Now, it is completely independent and self-sufficient, and it is here by itself. At the beginning, we may just regard it as an interesting "folk language"; when Lin Bai told us that part of the material of "All Things Bloom" came from this, we have to consider the relationship between personal creation and folk narrative .Lin Bai said that the relationship between chatting records and "All Things Bloom" is roughly equivalent to the relationship between soil and plants.At that time, I felt happy when I saw this sentence, but I felt a little bit that Lin Bai didn’t say enough. I retorted in my heart that chatting record is not only soil, but also a plant and a flower in itself.Our understanding cannot stop here: individual plants and flowers grow on the folk soil; the folk itself has lush plants and wild flowers blooming everywhere.That is to say, if it can be more thorough, chat recordings cannot be just "materials", let alone "appendices" created by individuals.

I guess, Lin Bai probably vaguely realized this idea at that time, but it still needs a clear and clear process.After all, it has been a long journey from "One Man's War" to "All Things Bloom". Where else can Lin Bai go?At this time, it is really possible to test a writer's talent, strength and courage.I have been groping and digging in my dark personal space for a long time. One day, I opened a window, and the new air, sunlight and the scenery that can be seen from the window suddenly brought me a fresh feeling of a vast world. At this time, some New elements appeared in her literature.The test I was talking about appeared at this time.Many writers refuse this kind of test, and they stay here. You cannot say that their literature does not contain a lively life and a vast world, but that kind of life and world are just the life and world felt by the window and the door, and they will not Get out of your room.In our literature, there are many such window literature and door literature. Of course, I do not deny that sometimes you can feel the fresh wind and the diverse scenery within your vision in such a position.But at this time, Lin Bai was strongly tempted to leave the window, step over the threshold and walk into the vast world, showing the thoroughness of his character.

With such thoroughness, there is such an independent film. So what about literature? When a writer walks into the vast world of life, if he still has a literary reserve and a sense of artistic superiority, it is impossible to truly devote himself to and integrate into it.He is not fully open to the world, and the world will not be fully open to him.We say that literature comes from life, so it seems a low profile for a writer to learn from the world of life; but we also believe that literature is higher than life, so it is impossible for him to face the world of life without literary reserve and artistic superiority .He wants to extract the essence from the living world and "raise" it to literature and art.This deep-rooted concept is very interesting to investigate carefully, and many plausible problems will be exposed.We can't delve into it here, but we might as well think in another direction: what if literature is not an "ascending" art, but a "descending" art?If literature gives up its reserve and sense of superiority in facing the vast world of life, what will it lose and what will it gain?

At least it is an attempt to change the "ascending" art into a "descending" art, "descending" from the height of personal literature to the vast world of life.I think such a change is not only of great significance to Lin Bai himself, but also deeply touches some fundamental issues of contemporary creation. two In "Louis Bonaparte's Eighteenth Brumaire", Marx said about the French peasants in the Restoration era: "They cannot express themselves; they must be expressed by others." Edward Said put This sentence is placed on the title page of "Oriental Studies".I also borrow this sentence here to discuss the issues of low-level expression and folk narrative.

Whether in the sense of oppressing them or liberating them, the lower class have long been seen as incapable of expressing themselves, and they have been called the "silent majority".Silent, do not speak. But, do they really not talk? When the word "speak" is replaced by "expression", "expression", "narration", it seems reasonable to describe them as "silent".That is to say, although they speak, their words are not up to the level of "expression", "expression" and "narration". Their words are not "standard" and do not have much "meaning" and "value".To put it more bluntly, their words are not words.

So, whose words are words?Who determined what kind of speech is "normative", has "meaning" and "value", and is qualified to be called "expression", "expression", and "narrative"? The power mechanism of expression has been constructed over a long history, and is constantly being constructed, adjusted, and consolidated.In this complete and complex system, literature is regarded as an extraordinary discourse of "expression", "expression" and "narration" by emphasizing its "particularity". Only a few people with special talents Possibility to master and use this set of words.The more the "particularity" is emphasized, the stronger its repulsion; the stronger the repulsion, the more prominent the "particularity".Why does literature always like to discuss questions like "what is literature and what is not literature"?One of the secrets is hidden here.

I think I will also face such a problem.It broke the assumption that peasants could not speak and had to be spoken for by others, allowing a woman who went to work in the city to speak directly.As soon as he opened his mouth, he was eloquent and his expression was flying.She talked about the real situation, the history preserved in personal memory, the people and events in the village, the local customs and things, all of which are endless, but they are as natural as flowing water and wind.Literati writing, learning from flowing water and wind, "caress at any time and anywhere, as if water meets a floating aquatic plant and makes him float a few times, and the wind meets a hole that can scream and makes him scream a few times, but he still flows as if nothing has happened. Blow past the past, and continue his journey toward the sea and places where the air is thinner." (Zhou Zuoren's Preface to "The Biography of Mr. Mo Xuyou") There are probably very few literati who can really reach this level; Muzhen who is not a literati, but Shu is close to it.She is not a literati, so she doesn't want to write essays; when she speaks, she doesn't care about "norms", "meanings" and "values", she is just chatting.

Gossip, and it’s women’s gossip, the east and the west are short, old millet and rotten sesame seeds, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, pig farmers and cows have children, and they are blown away by the wind when they are spoken; Lin Bai organizes them into words, and wants to let Isn't it an offense that such a vulgar thing enters the elegant hall of literature?This is of course offensive.Enclosing oneself in the circle of "particularity" and regurgitating literature with a sense of superiority and artistry is too much to be offended.It would be great if a gap could be created to connect the real life and the vast world.In my limited reading, I can't cite a few contemporary works, so that I can get close to the rural areas and farmers in contemporary China as I read, and I can really feel the people who live in various ways. Heart—Although the Muzhens didn't directly tell their spiritual history; I couldn't find a few works that were as simple, free, and fresh as Muzhen's chatting.We didn’t see Muzhen talking, but we could see she was beaming from her narration; the narratives of today’s literature, alas, if they can reach the state of beaming when they should, then our literature will Much more attractive.

September 2, 2004