Chapter 2 Use life to speak (Jiang Xiaowen)

——Reading Guo Hui's novels/Jiang Xiaowen's novels are such a form of novels: the narrator carefully and carefully describes two men and women who were originally irrelevant but brought together due to some accidental or inevitable factors, Like two seeds planted in the living soil of a certain area in a certain era, and then, like a most patient gardener, imagine that the plants he planted will take root, germinate, bloom, bear fruit, and have luxuriant branches and leaves; Some flowers and fruits are fresh and beautiful, while others are gloomy and inconspicuous.While some branches and leaves are thriving vigorously, other branches and leaves have begun to wither or even die of old age.The author is immersed in this kind of imagination, and then carefully records the growth process of these lives. Those flowers, those fruits, branches and leaves, and even the first germinated seeds of life may only come from the narrator's imagination, but Among them, it is clear that there is an inseparable umbilical connection with real life.They come from the narrator's observation and thinking about life, and from the narrator's actual experience and feelings in life.We are used to calling such novels family novels.Because it carries the stories of many lives and the traces of many people's lives, and because those lives originate from the same root, they are both integrated and independent, and because of this, this form of novel can often carry many exciting The meaning and connotation of deep thinking: the relationship between the change of the times and the state of individual life, thinking about various life states and ways of life, and the powerlessness in the face of inevitable factors that are difficult to get rid of and unknowable accidental factors in life , the perplexity of such elusive and elusive topics as life, death, love, and fate, as well as the deep emotion when facing the endless cycle of life.At some point, it can even be endowed with a certain symbolic meaning, symbolizing the history of a nation and even the living conditions of the entire human race.

Guo Hui's novel is just such a family novel in the traditional sense.In this era where all kinds of new terms are emerging, thinking has become a symbol of cultural identity, and many people deliberately fill novels with so-called meanings and characteristics that are worth analyzing, commenting on, attracting attention, and causing controversy. Such a simple, plain, objective and calm novel that narrates my own observation and thinking about life and destiny is really a comforting thing.Because he has no intention of making a magnificent and grand narrative, nor adding many dazzling or even dizzying meanings and profound connotations, what the narrator seems to do is to try his best to objectively and truthfully record, although sometimes he can't help it. Putting his own feelings into it, revealing a special liking for some characters, but on the whole, the narrator just calmly and faithfully records some ordinary people and their life trajectories in daily life without judgment.Therefore, when these various people and things appear in front of us, we seem to be able to find many shadows of deja vu from the life around us.Those characters are distinct and typified, but they are also real, amiable, and ordinary, just like every dust under our feet, but our society is condensed by such fleshy dust .Those ordinary and real characters often have shortcomings, weaknesses and even selfishness and triviality, but they are also kind, affectionate and rich in heart, with their own rules and goals in life.We can't look at those characters in terms of good and evil, good and bad. However, a family and a society are always composed of those very different people, but in different times, different cultural atmospheres and living soils, There will be different ways of being.Just like what the widower said shortly before the beginning of the novel, "There are so many ways to live, you can't survive in a lifetime", and it has been passed down from generation to generation, and generations are different, so there are all kinds of ways to live.

Sometimes, a good novel is often not a novel that can be commented and analyzed with many fresh terms.For this novel, the meaning and connotation are hidden behind the vivid pictures of life, which allow us to feel and experience it in a real way when we read it.Everyone in the novel just lives in their own way, and shows us the complexity of life and the greatness and value of life through their respective life trajectories.From this perspective, such a unique title is not just an eye-catching gimmick, but a special way used by the author of the novel to express his thinking about life and life: when we try to express life and When dealing with such a grand theme of life, it seems that all words are pale, anemic, and weak, as if the words created by human beings cannot bear such a heavy load.And all we can do is to sincerely and objectively examine, capture and reproduce those real lives and real living conditions.In fact, only the real, amiable, flesh-and-blood life image itself can convey the great power of life and life to us through human words.