Chapter 9 Section 2 "Reform Literature": Calling for Heroes and Worries about Lost Individuals

If scar literature is an instinctive response to pain, then reflection literature is an inquiry into the cause of pain.However, literature cannot always indulge in denouncing the disaster of the Cultural Revolution and stroking the pain. "In the 1970s, the booming new technological revolution in the world pushed the world economy forward at a faster speed. my country's economic strength, technological strength and The gap in the international advanced level is obviously widening, and we are facing huge international competitiveness. We must lead the people to catch up with the trend of the times through reform and opening up." (3) After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee at the end of 1978, Chinese society began a top-down national economic system reform. The rapid changes brought about by the reform are dizzying, and writers are inevitably thrown into the tide of reform. In recent years, many writers have begun to draw their creative attention from history to reality. Jiang Zilong's "The Story of Qiao's Inauguration", Ke Yunlu's, Gao Xiaosheng's "Chen Huansheng" series, He Shiguang's "On the Countryside" and other series reflect the urban and rural areas. Works on the reform of the rural economic system came into being. While paying attention to the reform and development in reality, writers expressed their various thoughts and ideas about the development of the motherland in literature, thus forming a trend of "reform literature" that was popular for a while.All literary works that reflect the reform process in various fields of our country and the resulting social changes and changes in people's psychological destiny should belong to "reform literature". (4) "The Story of Director Qiao's Appointment" was created in the summer of 1978. At that time, Jiang Zilong was the director of the forging workshop of Tianjin Heavy Machinery Factory. "People's Literature" asked for a draft. He happened to be resting at home due to illness, so he wrote it in three days. this short story.The novel is fictitious, but it has the background of life and the author's thinking about reality. There are many problems in his workshop, such as: there are drawings but no materials, and it is difficult to find all the materials. Not neat, wait.He felt that "I was like 'fighting fire' every day, and I often had to turn around day and night, exhausted physically and mentally." Thirty years later, he recalled: "The novel is very easy to write, just write about my troubles and ideals, what would I do if I were the factory manager..." "'Director Qiao' came uninvited", "At that time I have never been in touch with modern management, and I only have a little experience in grassroots work. Based on this experience, I designed the 'management model of Qiao Factory'".The novel was published in the seventh issue of "People's Literature" in 1979, and it aroused widespread repercussions in the society. First of all, it was in the business community. Some grassroots leaders even used the novel as a central editorial or a textbook for business management. Find someone to argue about the attribution of the title of "Director Qiao", and even find Jiang Zilong to ask for his name to be rectified.A fictitious novel caused such great social repercussions because it touched the most sensitive nerve in reality, revealed the contradiction between the old economic system and the construction of the "four modernizations", and recorded the difficulties and twists and turns of the reform cause. course.Later, some people divided the reform literature into several stages: "The Story of Qiao Factory Director's Inauguration" marked the beginning and beginning period of reform literature. "Reform Literature" entered the second stage. Most of the works in this period showed the difficulties and hardships of the reform process, and revealed the overall changes in the social structure brought about by the reform of the political and economic system, especially the ideological, moral and ethical concepts. After 1985, the "reform literature" as a trend of thought gradually came to an end.

Reform literature has created a group of "new heroes" who are pioneering, brave, and upright. Qiao Guangpu is a representative of the image of a reformer. He was ordered to rectify a heavy machinery factory that was called a mess. The production of the factory will soon be on track.Zheng Ziyun, the vice minister of the Ministry of Heavy Industry portrayed by Zhang Jie in "Heavy Wings" has an upright personality, dedication and dedication, and is incompatible with the old traditions. Chen Yongming is people-oriented and rigorous in his reform. Liu Zhao in "No. 5 Huayuan Street" (Li Guowen) has endured many hardships in the past because of his birth, and in the new era, he has paid a heavy price for the cause of reform. Reform hero.In "Men's Style", Zhang Xianliang portrayed Chen Baotie, an alternative hero with elegant demeanor and profound cultural heritage. He worships power and has a smooth career. The expectation of an ideal personality and the optimistic imagination of the prospect of reform, although contrary to the reality of life, can inspire the spirit of reform and inspire people's fighting spirit.In order to change the backward situation of the country or the enterprise, these reformers devoted themselves to the public, committed themselves to the torrent of reform without hesitation, and resolutely fought against various opposition forces, backward thinking and bad habits.The young secretary of the county party committee Li Xiangnan (played by Li Xiangnan) voluntarily gave up his superior working environment and went to work in the remote and backward Guling County. Difficult to extricate themselves from the predicament.Among them, Fu Lianshan violated the partial interests of local protectionists in order to implement the provincial power system reform plan, so he was ridiculed and personally attacked.However, no matter what difficulties and obstacles these reformers encounter, they will overcome all difficulties under the care of their superiors or under the care of the party's policies, and achieve staged victories in their reforms. They have a clear sense of heroism and revolutionary romanticism , they are spiritually connected with or continued with the hero worship in the seventeen years of literature.Although some novels have written about the difficulties and resistance of reform, the ending of reform must almost become the same narrative pattern.These novels that show the process of urban or industrial reform cover a wide range of fields, ranging from key state administrative departments, large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, down to small factories in the streets, and the living conditions and inner worlds of ordinary people, reflecting the author's love for society and the times Extensive and realistic thinking and concern.

Consistent with the times, the life and spirit of farmers have also undergone great changes during the reform, which is reflected in many rural-themed works.Hehe and Yanfeng in Jia Pingwa are typical examples of how to get rich by relying on policy support to transform from a single production structure to multiple operations during the transition period of China's rural economy.Gao Jialin in Lu Yaozhong sees the hope of changing his destiny in the process of reform and opening up. He is full of longing for modern civilized urban life, so he firmly grasps every opportunity to integrate into the city. Although his struggle ends in failure, But the times, after all, provided him with unprecedented opportunities.At the same time, the affluent life brought about by the reform and opening up has also won the dignity of "human" for the peasants at the bottom.Chen Huansheng in Gao Xiaosheng's "Chen Huansheng Going to the Town" is looked down upon by others because of his poverty, and he is excluded in the group, and no one wants to communicate with him.The reform and opening up gave him the opportunity to sell oil ropes in the city. In the process, he obtained a lot of new information in the city. In addition, the encounter with Secretary Wu, a symbol of power, made him a capable person in the eyes of the villagers, and he completed his pursuit of dignity. Search.The same situation happened to Feng Mo's father in He Shiguang's novel "On the Countryside".From Gao Jialin to Chen Huansheng to Feng Meba, we can see that the reform and opening up not only changed the rural economic system, but also stimulated the awakening of peasants’ subjective consciousness and self-awareness, making them aware of the value and significance of their own existence. Traditional peasants Also stepped into the ranks of enterprising people.The reform and opening up has changed the traditional consciousness of being content with the status quo and being satisfied with the status quo. The enterprising people are striving hard on the stage of the times by virtue of their own abilities and talents.At the same time, the open social environment enables ordinary farmers to move toward a vast world of free development and become the masters of their own destiny.Although enterprising people lack the dedication that reformers have, nor do they have heroic spirit and lofty ideals. Their actions first think of their own interests, rather than changing the poor and weak face of the motherland. But because there are countless ordinary but great enterprising people, Relying on their down-to-earth style and hard work, reform and opening up can accelerate the pace of progress.Reform literature is warmly welcomed by mainstream culture and readers because of its "presentness", because people can't stay in the painful memories and reflections of the "past" forever, and human beings have the inferiority of "forgetfulness" and pursue the principle of "present" happiness The natural nature of the people pays more attention to the improvement of the current living conditions, and the transfer of the economic center in the 1980s, the proposal of the "four modernizations", and the gradual advancement of the "reform and opening up" have painted a beautiful picture of life for the Chinese people. Blindly grasping the "past" is obviously not in line with the requirements of mainstream culture and economic development, and it is also contrary to the natural development of human nature. In addition, the social contradictions that inevitably occurred during the transition from the old system to the new in the early stages of reform and opening up also need to be resolved urgently. Reform literature emerged as the times require. , has become a trend of thought in novels that "combine utilitarian discourse and aesthetic discourse more perfectly" since the new era.

Reform literature ended the "reflection on scars". After just a few years, reform literature writers forgot the pain of the past, and began to strongly identify with and enthusiastically sing about the country's "policy". The most representative writer It is Gao Xiaosheng and Jiang Zilong. Chen Huansheng in "Chen Huansheng Going to the City" was called by the spring breeze of rural reform, quickly "forgot" the pain of the Cultural Revolution, and went to the city to do business in high spirits. After a series of adventures, he became more energetic in his work. The root of the change is "taking the car of the secretary of the county party committee" and "living in a high-end room for five yuan a night". This is actually a transformation of power worship or idol worship. The writer's literary imagination is not based on real life and its inner development. The author subjectively presupposes the upcoming changes in the life and spiritual world of farmers, and the novel expresses the author's idea of ​​"should be so "life" and characters "should be such a mental outlook", the author at that time probably could not presuppose the desolate rural scene that will appear in the middle of 20 years later. "The Story of Director Qiao's Appointment" skillfully replaces the creative principles and narrative mode of the "three highlights" of the Cultural Revolution into the literature of the new era. The same, except that the background of the story is replaced by the frontier of reform in the 1980s, and the revolutionary heroes and anti-Japanese heroes are replaced by "reform heroes", but the hero's tall image and perfect quality have not changed. The struggle mode of the mutual game of forces, the ideal ending (happy reunion) of the romantic reform and the victory of the righteous force, in the early stage of reform, this narrative quickly matched the people's growing desire for social reform, demonstrated and publicized the national policy, and catered to the The cultural values ​​and aesthetic psychological stereotypes formed by people after the founding of the People's Republic of China.According to the internal development logic of the novel, the main obstacles encountered by the reformers are the superficial contradictions of the old system such as concepts, habits, and conservative thinking. This kind of optimism was needed in the early stages of reform. "Wings", and other works objectively describe the difficulty of reform.Jiang Zilong established the realistic legitimacy of "Reform Literature" in the literary narrative in the new period by returning to the traditional narrative mode and aesthetic style of the Cultural Revolution.

The strong social utilitarian characteristics of reform literature and the return of the narrative mode and aesthetic style of the Cultural Revolution, and its idealism and heroism have also attracted the attention and criticism of theorists and critics. Reform literature tries to keep pace with the rapidly changing reality. The desire for clear and clear value judgments is good, but the application of the binary opposition mode of artificially elevating the main heroes by means of exaggeration and deformation, and turning the villains into clowns and caricatures makes the character characteristics of the "reformer image" There are obvious similarities", "behind the similarization is idealization", "behind these idealized images of reformers, there is incorruptibility—an old ideal model" (5) This is the essence of reform literature Fundamental flaws, and certainly historical limitations. "Consciousness of upright officials" is a kind of collective unconsciousness of the Chinese nation. It has long been a profound cultural accumulation and is a product of the centralized patriarchal society. The overthrow of the Gang of Four and the reform and opening up are all top-down reforms. Reformers and writers will The final solution to the difficulties of reform and the confidence and hope in reform are placed on "honest officials", which is inevitable in history and reality. In terms of writing, the writers who had just woken up from the nightmare of the Cultural Revolution did not have enough courage and ability to rationally criticize the reality of reform.This task needs to be completed by later writers. Nowadays, more and more writers have started to reflect and interpret the issue of educated youth again. I believe that there will be writers who will make new interpretations and interpretations of the period of history represented by reform literature. , Standing at the height of modernity and globalization, put that period of history in the long river of Chinese history and culture to investigate.

The passion for reform constantly encounters new problems and new resistance in reality, and the writer's thinking about reality has also deepened, and contemplation about the incompleteness and loss of individual spirits has gradually emerged between the lines.Zhang Wei's "Ancient Ship", Jia Pingwa's, Lu Yao's "Ordinary World", Ke Yunlu's "Kyoto Trilogy", Wang Runzi's "Three Topics on Novels", and Jian Jian's "Eight Topics on Novels" etc. The reforms in China have obviously reduced the color and passion of ideal romance. They pay more attention to and express the conscious demands of ordinary workers for reform, and describe the daily life and emotional needs of ordinary people. The works are intertwined with new and old, good and evil. , modernity and tradition, etc., the keynote of the work is no longer blindly optimistic, but objectively and calmly reflect on reality and think deeply about it.In terms of creative techniques, he no longer sticks to the traditional principles of realism, but on the premise of adhering to the principles of realism, he absorbs and draws lessons from some modernist expressive techniques and techniques, enriching the realist expressive methods.

For Chinese farmers, the most important thing is "land", so after 1979, the implementation of the land contract and production responsibility system set off a huge economic and spiritual change in the countryside.Many sensitive writers have paid extensive attention to the changes in farmers' production methods and spiritual world after they have the right to control the land.Some commentators believe that the changes in the image of peasants in "Photography of a Black Baby" and "Chen Huansheng Going to the City" are "great spiritual upliftment brought about by economic changes" (6) Yan Gang believes that Chen Huansheng is like "the Chinese socialist revolutionist" It is a mirror of the beauty and weakness of peasants in China”, (7) but Gao Xiaosheng himself believes that the protagonist Chen Huansheng “has not been freed from the burden of tradition.” (8) He has always focused on the process of changes in the material and spiritual life of ordinary peasants. The reality that the ideological concepts and behaviors in China are relatively lagging behind does not blindly respond to the expectations and imaginations of modernity in the mainstream discourse, because spiritual modernity is not synchronized with the affluence of peasants' material life, and the living conditions and cultural psychology of ordinary peasants Illustrated and narrated by some writers with the discourse of modernity. In "Luban's Sons", the author reveals the conflict and contradiction between old and new ethics in detail and profoundly. The old carpenter in the novel does not reject the modern production tools and production skills of the young carpenter. He also admits that "machines work faster ", "The work done by smoking a bag of cigarettes is enough for two strong carpenters to work for a whole day"; however, what he cannot accept is the modern value concept of "whoever is rich is right" of the young carpenter, which is based on "commodity exchange". The modern ethical concepts based on principles” seriously deviated from the old carpenter’s traditional values ​​and ethics. The old carpenter firmly believed in sticking to the behavioral norms and moral standards of traditional Chinese society.This inner conflict of value and ethics constitutes the inner tension of the novel, and has also caused some controversy. Zeng Zhennan believes that ""Lu Ban's Sons" has a history of sacrificing social conflicts in order to vent the author's subjective moral indignation. Defects in content. That is to say, while the author expresses his pure and strong moral sense, he loses a little sense of history in some important respects." (9) What was blamed at that time now seems to be precisely the historical value and practical significance of the novel. Since the end of the century, the mental confusion and social problems caused by moral decline have made us feel helpless and powerless while regretting it. I also began to pay attention to whether economic development and affluent life must be at the cost of moral degradation and spiritual loss?Doesn't this have anything to do with the eagerness for quick success at the beginning of the reform and the lack of questioning spirit and reflection consciousness in the reform literature?While promoting the reform process, reform literature also objectively affected the changes in people's hearts.How to dialogue between traditional rural ethics and modern Western ethics, the choice of reform literature seems to be a bit eager for quick success and instant benefit today.

The reform has inspired people's yearning and pursuit of a new life. Works such as Tie Ning's "Oh, Xiangxue", Lu Yao's, and He Shiguang's "On the Countryside" all express people's eager yearning for a new life and their beautiful imagination of modernization. , but the changes in people's inner world and spiritual level brought about by the reform, as well as the changes in the thinking mode of rural people have not attracted enough attention, or have been consciously ignored or suspended. Although root-seeking literature has the desire to correct, it is obscure The way of expression and the ideological strength of the works are lacking, but they cannot resist the powerful temptation of the increasingly rich material life. The wave of secularization and the affirmation of new realism to secular life make people feel very close, and they quickly integrate into the false pursuit of materialism. in the modern landscape.

In reform literature, the interests of the state, the collective, and the individual are intertwined. When national interests and collective interests conflict, national interests are sacred. It must be combined with the scientific rationality that represents modernization, and finally overcome collective or regional interests. interests (); the collective is in the gap between the state and the individual, and the writers at that time lacked enough courage and wisdom to question the "country", so in the narration, they cleverly transformed the opposite of the collective into self-serving in the name of the state Private individuals, or villains who obstruct the eyes and ears of the country and play tricks (such as "Elegy of Yanzhao", "The Will of Zhao Yingtou", etc.).The creations of Gao Xiaosheng and He Shiguang are "works that describe the reform side by side" and "pay more attention to the impact of reform on the lives of ordinary people, especially the impact on the spiritual life of ordinary people."The basic narrative mode of reform literature is the binary opposition of "reform-conservative" and "tradition-modern". Rationality, efficiency, etc. Reform heroes represent the will of the state, their heroic character is endowed by the state, and the heroic feats of reform are supported or acquiesced by the state. In the narrative of reform literature, the state is always the highest legal existence hidden behind the text. , and what is finally suppressed is human selfishness, and what is ignored is the sanctity of human individual existence.Due to the eager desire for modernization and the purpose of social utilitarianism, what the "reform literature" and even the mainstream of Chinese literature in the 1980s lacked most was the expression of individualized discourse. The people in the book are people who have been institutionalized, conceptualized (modernized), and collectivized. Reform literature has effectively promoted the development of reform. Its social value is beyond doubt, but its literary value has always been questioned, because reform literature lacks most What is most important is the strong questioning of the national discourse and its value to the individual, especially the neglect of the human spiritual world. The degree of human spiritual modernization still needs to be improved.