Chapter 14 1958 "Shanghai Morning"

Genre: Novel Author: Zhou Erfu Original publication: Published: Issue 2, 1958 During the "Seventeen Years", most of the writers' creations mainly focused on themes such as rural areas, wars, and history. Few people set foot in urban themes. on the platform of the struggle.Obviously, the city is still hidden in the field of literary creation.The novel "Shanghai Morning" published in the second issue of 1958 is one of the few works that presents "urban space".For this reason, many years later, when urban literature re-emerged in the Chinese literary world and showed a prosperous trend, when critics tried to find the source of new Chinese urban literature from the "Seventeen Years of Literature", people were surprised to find that "" "Shanghai Morning" turned out to be the only urban-themed work in the 30 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China.It can be said that "Shanghai Morning" is the only literary achievement in the "Seventeen Years of Literature" that describes urban life.

The author of "Shanghai Morning" Zhou Erfu is a prolific writer with great energy and rich experience.His original name was Zhou Zushi, and he was originally from Jingde, Anhui, and was born in Nanjing.Literary creation began when he was a student. In 1936, the first collection of poems "Night Travel Collection" was published. After graduating from university in 1938, he went to Yan'an. Went to Chongqing in the winter of 1944.After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, as a special correspondent of "Xinhua Daily" and Xinhua News Agency, he went to Northeast China, North China, Central China and other places for interviews. In 1946, he went to Hong Kong to work in the united front of cultural circles.The novel "Doctor Bethune" created by him has had a wide impact. In May 1949, he returned to the mainland from Hong Kong and worked in the united front and cultural departments, serving as the vice minister of the Ministry of culture.

"Shanghai Morning" consists of four parts, with a total of more than 1.7 million words.The first part was created in the summer of 1952, the first draft was completed in March 1954, the revised draft was completed in November 1957, and the full text was published in the second issue of the magazine in 1958, published by Writers Press in May 1958, and published in July 1961 Completed the second revision, reprinted in February 1962. In June 1979, People’s Literature Publishing House published the first edition in Beijing; the second volume was created in the spring of 1954, and the first draft was completed in September 1956. From September to October 1962, some chapters were selected and published in the third edition of "Beijing Evening News". Published monthly. In June 1979, the People's Literature Publishing House Beijing New Edition 1.The third part was created in the spring of 1957 and published in the first and second issues of the magazine in 1979.The fourth part was revised into the second draft in November 1976, published in the "Xin Yuan" literary quarterly in the winter of 1979, and published by the People's Literature Publishing House in 1980. So far, the whole book has been published.The creation of the book lasted 27 years from the repeated writing to the publication of the last one.

"Shanghai Morning" is based on the chronicle, with Shanghai in the early days of liberation as the background, and the conflicts, entanglements and emotional changes among the cotton spinning entrepreneur Xu Yide and his family (three wives) as the main story line, reflecting the After the founding of new China, from the "three evils", "five evils" to "public-private partnership", the entire historical process of the proletariat's socialist transformation of the bourgeoisie. (The author once planned to write six parts, but later he gave up this plan and only wrote four parts: the first part is about the rampant attack of the bourgeoisie at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China; The masses of workers, adopting the strategies of unity, education, isolation, and transformation, fought against the illegal capitalists and repelled the attack of the bourgeoisie; the third part is about the democratic reform of factories after the "five evils" movement; the fourth part is about industrial and commercial Public-private partnership, due to the situation, capitalists such as Xu Yide agreed to the reform of the public-private partnership.) The work simultaneously describes the life of the bourgeoisie and the working class, portrays various types of industrial and commercial people, and shows the different mentality of the capitalists at that time from multiple aspects.At the same time, the work also reproduces the life of textile workers in the early days of liberation, shapes the images of many cadres, and reflects the style of Shanghai in the early 1950s.In the novel, there are more than 70 characters with names and surnames. It is a panoramic novel that reflects social movements as the main narrative.In addition, the author also gives a macroscopic description of major social movements and historical events such as democratic reform, land reform, and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, which shows the author's writing ambition of trying to control the big history.

The 1950s was a lyrical era for literature, and writers wrote about the party's great achievements mainly through praise and lyricism.This kind of praise is not only an artistic method, but also represents a political attitude and moral behavior.Among the three, the political attitude ranks first, that is, "political firstness".For this reason, the writers' creative themes are single, mainly focusing on revealing the social theme of "only socialism can save China", without thinking about human life, life, human nature and other literary themes.This way of creation transforms and distorts the writer's life discovery, forcing the transformation of personal discourse into national discourse, leaving deep historical traces of ideological transformation and regulation of personal lyrical discourse.Zhou Erfu himself once said in a creation talk that "Shanghai Morning" "contradictions between the working class and the national bourgeoisie are handled according to the teachings of Comrade Mao Zedong and according to the contradictions among the people."For this reason, the creation of this work is actually a response to the "two-faced nature" of the national bourgeoisie in the period of the democratic revolution and the period of the socialist revolution mentioned by Mao Zedong in his article "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" in 1957. Diagram of his thesis—"In our country, the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie belongs to the contradictions among the people. The class struggle between the working class and the national bourgeoisie generally belongs to the class struggle among the people. This is because our national The bourgeoisie has two sides. During the bourgeois-democratic revolution, it has a revolutionary side and a compromising side. During the socialist revolution, it has the side that exploits the working class for profits, and it also supports the constitution and is willing to accept socialism. It is impossible and not allowed to go beyond the political nature of these social movements themselves in the writer's understanding and evaluation of the social movements he reflects, so the themes of the works are inevitably limited to the theoretical policies of these social movements Within, it is difficult to have deeper and newer digging and development.For this reason, people's affirmation of the theme of "Shanghai Morning" is higher than its artistic evaluation.However, what is commendable is that "Shanghai Morning" is not like other works of the same theme, which turn the city into a "workshop", but extends the brushstrokes to the real life, and describes the original ecology of life to a certain extent. Modern city images such as "dance hall", "famous car", "West Point" and "garden house" appeared. In addition, it also rendered the decadent color of urban wealthy men and women, and the huge temptation of money, power and color in the city. , as well as the decadent tendency shown by people's inability to refuse temptation, has made a wonderful portrayal.These are not found in works of similar themes at that time, and they can be described as a bright spot in the "Seventeen Years of Literature".

"Shanghai Morning" is most praised for its successful portrayal of a group of national bourgeois characters.Among these images, Xu Yide, the protagonist of the book and the chairman of Hujiang Spinning Mill, is most prominently portrayed: he is cunning, sinister, old and cunning, and is called the "iron abacus" of "Ten Miles Foreign Market". The duality of the national bourgeoisie is reflected in him. More is its reactionary backwardness and greedy side.The author's description of this main character is not limited to simple exposure and criticism, but a multi-faceted display through various methods.It not only writes about his economic activities—taking Xu Yide as the chairman of Hujiang Spinning Mill, and describes this character in his relationship with the factory and workers; he also writes about his political activities—in order to resist reform, he created "three stops" to destroy " "Five Evils", planning "private-private partnership" to hinder "public-private partnership"; both writing about his social life - using Xu Yide as a member of the "Star Two Dinner Party" and describing him by placing him in the relationship with the government and other capitalists ; and write about his family life - put Xu Yide in the family life, and shape this image through the relationship with other family members.In addition, the author also tried to show the other side of his "two-faced nature": under the education of the party and the government, in front of the vast number of workers who are increasingly conscious, Xu Yide can often feel the tremor of the soul, showing a certain awakening after being under strong pressure; During the "Five Evils" movement, he confessed his crimes and offered himself several guarantees of patriotism and law-abiding; he also decided to apply for a public-private partnership and accept socialist transformation; and so on.The anxiety in his heart and the contradictions in his personality can be seen from time to time.It can be seen that the writer is trying to use the artistic experience of new literature since the "May Fourth Movement" to shape this image on multiple levels and from multiple sides, trying to shape him from a "flat character" to a "round character".In addition to Xu Yide, "Shanghai Morning" also portrays other flesh-and-blood and representative capitalist images: Zhu Yannian, who is rampant, vicious, hypocritical, and speculative; Ma Muhan, who is young and aggressive, and pursues light; Pan Xincheng et al.These capitalists are the center, left and right of the bourgeoisie.The author's successful shaping of these national capitalists has accumulated rich creative experience for the creation of latercomers, and at the same time enriched the character gallery of "Seventeen Years of Literature".

Compared with the vividly portrayed capitalists, the image of party members and cadres in the works is generally considered unsuccessful in the academic circles, with simple and weak portrayals and a lack of individuality in the language of the characters.General commentators believe that the main reason is that the author is not as familiar with government officials and workers as he is with capitalists.But this kind of inference is obviously untenable - the author has worked in the United Front and cultural departments for a long time, and is a government employee; in addition, as a special correspondent of "Xinhua Daily" and Xinhua News Agency, he has been engaged in grassroots interview work , should be relatively familiar with the lives of the workers and the masses.So that's clearly not a reason.Investigating the reason, some commentators believe: "The narrator basically adopts an ideological perspective when describing the lives and struggles of workers. Since the ideological perspective must propagate, guide and promote political admonitions for plots and characters everywhere, so , the life of workers filtered through ideological vision is composed of keywords such as class, oppression, struggle, and resistance. The trivialities of daily life, the fluctuations in the emotions of characters, and other factors that have nothing to do with political admonitions are excluded from the text.” , "Stories under the perspective of ideology are simple and patterned, the narrative rhythm lacks change, and the tone is single and pure", "The narrator basically adopts a life-oriented vision when describing capitalists' production, management and daily activities. Vision does not assume the function of ideological instruction... There is no fixed framework, and the narrative rhythm is full of changes, and the colors are diverse and mottled” [Guo Bingru, "Narrative Tension in Seventeen Years (1949-1966) Novels", Yuelu Publishing House, 2007].This is why the part of the work about capitalists is more vivid than the part about workers.

When "Shanghai Morning" was published, although it also had a sensational effect, many publications and magazines published articles to comment on the work, and the central leaders at that time also paid attention to this work: Vice Premier Chen Yi recommended this work at the Party Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs As for the novel, Premier Zhou Enlai also cared about this novel at that time, asked about the writing plan of the whole book, and encouraged the author to write it as soon as possible. [Song Wenyao, "From Night Shadow to Dawn——Comparison between "Midnight" and "Shanghai Morning", Journal of Wenzhou Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 4, 1991] However, unlike those who have shaped tall, brilliant, and distinctive characters Compared with the heroic characters and grand narrative works with touching heroic deeds, critics do not pay enough attention to it.Since the new era, people's evaluation of this work has been mixed, and many of the various literary history textbooks published have not analyzed and introduced it as a key text.Only when critics talk about urban literature, will they invariably think of this work, which is quite unique in both subject matter (urban subject matter) and achievement (great success in vividly portraying the image of capitalists).

Like many "red classic" works and authors, "Shanghai Morning" and Zhou Erfu suffered bad luck during the "Cultural Revolution": after the first and second novels were published, they were once criticized as standing on the "rightist" position, " Singing praises for capitalists"; at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the author who worked in the Foreign Cultural Liaison Committee at that time was the first to bear the brunt of being labeled a "literary black line figure", and "Shanghai Morning" was also regarded as a big poisonous weed. In 1968, "Wen Wei Po" publicly named and criticized "Shanghai Morning", and the author himself was isolated and censored. In 1969, "People's Daily" published a critical article signed by Ding Xuelei, "The Great Poisonous Weed That Cleared the Way for Liu Shaoqi's Restoration of Capitalism-Comment on "Shanghai Morning"", which was characterized as "anti-Party, anti-socialism, and anti-Mao Zedong Thought "Great poisonous weed", and listed three major crimes: promoting the bourgeoisie in a new-democratic society is opposing socialism; vilifying the working class is denying the leading role of the working class; reversing history is vainly attempting to subvert the dictatorship of the proletariat.As a result, the author lost his freedom and was sentenced to labor reform and dictatorship for seven years.It was not until the end of the Cultural Revolution that Zhou Erfu regained his freedom and picked up his pen to continue the unfinished creation of "Shanghai Morning".

After the new era, critics’ analysis and research on "Shanghai Morning" is more comprehensive, profound and diversified: some commentators explore its writing skills from the perspective of the relationship between the work and the traditional Chinese literature, such as Zhang Zhouzi Leaning on Tradition: Shaping the Image of Capitalists in "Shanghai Morning"; "The Morning of Shanghai"; some commentators re-evaluated the work from the negative writing of urban literature and urban desire, such as Wang Hongyue's "Urban Literature and Negative Writing of "City Desire" - Rereading "Shanghai Morning""; Some interpret this work from the perspective of spatial narrative, such as Guo Chuanmei’s Juxtaposition of Revolution and Vanity——On the Spatial Narrative of "Shanghai Morning"; others analyze this work from the perspective of narrative tension, such as Guo Bingru: "Narrative Tension in the Seventeen Years (1949-1966) Novels", etc.In various discourses, most people like to compare this work with Mao Dun's, and found many similarities: both are based on the theme of the city, and the stories both take place in Shanghai, which is known as the "Ten Miles Foreign Market"; Both are works of the "Yangtze River" style; both writers deliberately pursue the epic character and boldness of their works; they both use realistic writing techniques and a complex structure with many clues; The fate and mentality of the bourgeoisie at the historical turning point; while describing the urban society, they all extended their brushstrokes to the rural areas closely connected with the city; ...Even in terms of character genealogy, there is a fairly consistent correspondence between the two: Wu Sunfu, the protagonist of "Shanghai Morning", corresponds to Xu Yide, the protagonist of "Shanghai Morning", Mo Gancheng, Wu Sunfu's assistant, corresponds to Mei Zuoxian, and Tu Weiyue corresponds to Tao Amao, the heroine Lin Peiyao corresponds to Lin Wanzhi, Lei Ming corresponds to Feng Yongxiang, and so on. "Shanghai Morning" is therefore considered a "continuation" of the novel, which objectively records to a certain extent the situation encountered by the "Wu Sunfu" in the 1930s in the 1950s.Some critics even think: "It is a monument in the history of literature, and "Shanghai Morning" is another masterpiece reflecting the destiny of the Chinese national bourgeoisie." Whether this evaluation is appropriate is open to question, but the value of Zhou Erfu's works is It goes without saying that the reviewers will not stop their research on "Shanghai Morning".

(Written by Yang Peng) "Zhou Erfu Research Collection", Culture and Art Publishing House, 2002 edition Guo Bingru: The Narrative Tension of the Seventeen Years (1949-1966) Novels, Yuelu Publishing House, 2007 Edition "The Great Wall of Miles" (six volumes), People's Literature Publishing House, 1987 edition "Looking Back on the Past——Collected Works of Zhou Erfu" (Volume 1 and Volume 2), Culture and Art Publishing House, 2004 Edition