Chapter 19 1961 "Snow Waves"

Genre: Prose Author: Yang Shuo Original publication: "Red Flag" Published: Issue 20, 1961 Looking through the three volumes of "Collected Works of Yang Shuo", I noticed that prose only occupies a small part of Yang Shuo's works, and novels account for the majority; moreover, Yang Shuo's original ambition was not in prose, but in novels. , has published novels such as "Three Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", as well as a large number of news reports, which had considerable influence at that time.However, it is his prose that is more favored by the times. This kind of situation of "planting flowers intentionally but not blooming, but unintentionally planting willows and willows to make shade" has a special taste.However, what really makes Yang Shuo's prose extraordinary is his "poetry".Yang Shuo is a poet, a naive poet.

Once upon a time, Yang Shuo's prose was popular all over the country. At the same time, Yang Shuo's style of prose was also widely popular and lasted for a long time. A spectacular "Yang's style group gymnastics" was staged in China.According to the statistics of the manuscripts submitted on a certain day in the article "Current Situation of Prose" published in the 10th issue of "Prose" in 1984, "Eleven out of 100 pieces were about the creek, eight were about the sunrise, and five were about the sunrise." It is written about shells. These authors are located in different regions and have different occupational ages, but they coincide so much. What is more noteworthy is that the number of ways they associate and extend is roughly the same, and the number of ways of "sublimation" in the end is also the same. From this we can get a glimpse of the influence of Yang Shuo's prose.

"Snow Waves" is the masterpiece of Yang Shuo's prose. It tells the story of "I" meeting a mysterious old fisherman called "Lao Taishan" when "I" was recuperating at the seaside. Nests, pits and ridges, shaped like dough.Just when several curious girls were discussing and feeling puzzled, a joyful voice came from behind: "It was bitten by the waves." The voice came from an old fisherman who had just returned from fishing at sea. Tall and strong, with a pale beard, his brows look like the sky in autumn, clear and deep.The old fisherman then enlightened the girls in this way: "Don't look at the small waves, countless waves gather together, with one heart and patience, just bite like this, for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of years, even if the iron is hit You can also make it look different." These witty words full of human feelings attracted "I" and made "I" understand the life experience of "Lao Taishan" and the origin of its name: Seeing widely, he is the wisdom star and the backbone of the production team. Over time, he has become a mountain that everyone relies on.A few days later, after the first rain, "I" saw Lao Taishan again, this time pushing a wheelbarrow, and came out to sharpen scissors for others. There is a deep hatred for US imperialism, which is fully manifested.Inadvertently, the scissors were sharpened, and Lao Taishan said to "me" loudly: "Look at how fast I sharpen the scissors. If you want to cut the clouds in the sky and make a quilt as big as the sky, you can still cut them." Afterwards, the old man packed up his belongings, said goodbye to me, pushed up the cart and walked a few steps, stopped again, bent down and picked a branch of wild chrysanthemum from the side of the road and put it in the cart, and then "walked into the fiery red sun".After writing this, "I" initiated a discussion: "I think that the old Mount Tai is like a little wave, which gathers with countless waves to form a big wave of this era, arousing splashes, and has already changed the old country. We are diligently shaping the country of the people." The author still felt that it was not enough, so he started a new line and continued to write: "Old Taishan's surname is Ren. When asked what his name was, he smiled and said: 'People in the mountains are not worthy of leaving a name. .' He refused to tell me."

Today's readers will inevitably feel a sense of weirdness when they read "Snow Waves".Say it is prose, but also like poetry; say it is poetry, but also like fable;Especially the character of Lao Taishan, who always makes people feel that he is pretending, his speech and behavior are not in line with his identity, and he has a halo on his head.Anyone with a discerning eye knows that it is not Lao Taishan who is pretending, but the author Yang Shuo.However, in the era of revolutionary romanticism, when art was "higher than life", it was all natural and no one would be surprised; it became a problem later.

Yang Shuo's prose has experienced two ups and downs in the history of Chinese contemporary literature evaluation. In 1961, Yang Shuo's representative collection of essays "The First Branch of the East Wind" was published shortly after it received rave reviews. People's Daily, Guangming Daily, Literature and Art News, China Youth Daily and other newspapers successively published review articles, Old writers Bing Xin, Cao Yu, and Zhou Libo wrote articles to affirm it; Gao Gejin believed that Yang Shuo's prose "the most valuable feature is that it profoundly expresses the poetic flavor of our times and life through beautiful art forms." ("Guangming Daily" March 1, 1962) Lin Zhihao believed that "his prose is very similar to poetry, exquisite and exquisite, giving readers beautiful emotions and enjoyment of beauty." (People's Daily, March 14, 1962) Jiemin published a ten-thousand-character long article in Literary Review, giving a comprehensive discussion of Yang Shuo's prose, and believed that: Yang Shuo's works in recent years, "emerged a kind of The rare artistic conception of poetry, the article shines with new brilliance", "finally formed its own unique style in art". ("Talking about Yang Shuo's Essays", "Literary Review" No. 2, 1962)

It was not without reason that Yang Shuo's prose gained a reputation at the time.At that time, Chinese society was in a relatively relaxed moment. After the toss of "anti-rightist" and "Great Leap Forward", China's vitality was seriously injured and it was in urgent need of recuperation. At this time, the CCP adjusted its policies on intellectuals and literature and art. The enthusiasm of readers has been mobilized, giving birth to a long-lost "literary Xiaoyangchun".It is against this background that Yang Shuo's prose came into being.However, Yang Shuo was able to become the artistic peak of prose in that era, and there were also personal reasons: the temperament of a poet, the good cultivation of Chinese classical literature, and the continuous exploration over the years; the secret of his success lies in: Yang Shuo's poetry The metaphorical technique is integrated into the prose, creating a mythical world of bliss on earth that seems real and unreal, and concocts a delicious "chicken soup for the soul" for Chinese people who have suffered a lot, long for happiness and stability, and have a deep-rooted sense of "reunion".

However, the good times did not last long.Soon after the "Cultural Revolution" came, Yang Shuo's works were branded as "revisionist poisonous weeds" and swept into the dustbin of history. He himself was brutally persecuted and died soon after. The end of the "Cultural Revolution" was a blessing in disguise. After ten years of suppression, Yang Shuo's prose ushered in a round of strong rebound, and his artistic reputation reached its peak at this time.The "Overview of Contemporary Chinese Literature" (Peking University Press, 1980) compiled by Zhang Zhong, Hong Zicheng, She Shusen, Zhao Zumo, and Wang Jingshou of the Chinese Department of Peking University commented: "In the development of contemporary Chinese prose, Yang Shuo has made great pioneering and contributions. He is a writer. He consciously combined poetry with prose, greatly improving the aesthetic value of prose. Its influence is very profound and extensive." In the compilation by 18 experts from ten colleges and universities across the country, as a national college of higher learning In the "First Draft of Chinese Contemporary Literary History" (People's Literature Publishing House, 1984), Yang Shuo has been regarded as the first person in contemporary Chinese prose. In the chapter arrangement of the book, Wei Wei, Liu Baiyu, Qin Mu, Ba Jin and Bing Xin , Wu Boxiao and Cao Jinghua are in the same chapter, each occupying only one section, and only Yang Shuo independently writes a chapter, occupying three sections in total. Such a special "treatment" shows that Yang Shuo's prose is second to none in the "Seventeen Years" literary history.The book holds that among Yang Shuo's various literary creations, prose has achieved the highest achievement. "He is recognized as the first-class prose writer since the founding of the People's Republic of China." In the mature period, he formed a personal style with strong poetic flavor as the main feature, which greatly opened up the new world of lyrical prose creation.

The comeback of Yang Shuo's prose has the background of "putting order out of chaos" after the "Cultural Revolution".The so-called ordering out of chaos is to liquidate the mistakes of the "Cultural Revolution"; anyway, it is to return to the correctness of the "Seventeen Years".However, this view of completely separating the "Seventeen Years" from the "Cultural Revolution" cannot be established either in fact or in logic.History has proven that the "Seventeen Years" has fully paved the way for the "Cultural Revolution", and the "Cultural Revolution" is a logical and extreme development of the "Seventeen Years"; Being eradicated as a poisonous weed of "feudalism, capitalism, and revisionism" is the result of self-eating by the cultural radicalism of the "permanent revolution."Only in this way, with the progress of "putting order out of chaos", doubts about "Seventeen Years" have also begun. It is against this background that Yang Shuo's prose has been re-examined and evaluated.

Liang Heng was one of the first to question Yang Shuo's prose. His article "On the Negative Influence of the "Yang Shuo Model" on Prose Creation" ("The Critic" No. 2, 1987) did a good job of Yang Shuo's model. Comprehensive research and criticism, explaining the form and background of Yang Shuo's model; summarizing two characteristics of Yang Shuo's model: illusory and symbolic in content, and stable in structure, that is, "things-people- - the three-stage structure of "Li"; pointing out that the essence of Yang Shuo's model is false, it is a false model that makes people "forget themselves and serve empty politics", and the disadvantages caused by it are stereotyped and rigid, which makes the art of prose more difficult. The road gets narrower and narrower.With the passage of time, the criticism of Yang Shuo's prose has also gradually escalated. Under the background of the paradox of the development of literature and new culture, he made a fierce criticism of Yang Shuo's prose, and believed that Yang Shuo's prose was not a modern prose in the strict sense, but a "myth" and a new stereotyped contemporary prose. Prose is the product of the metamorphosis of modern and contemporary Chinese literature and the impersonalization of creative psychology. What it expresses is not a personal experience, but a group or "beautiful" fantasy.Ma Wen’s criticism of Yang Shuo’s prose based on the western theoretical concepts of “modernity” and western individualist aesthetics should be said to be very sharp and irrefutable, but it is a pity that he lacks a kind of “understanding of sympathy and criticism of understanding” and falls into the trap of “ Western centrism".

By the end of the last century, with the dust of a new round of "rewriting the history of literature" settled, Yang Shuo's prose fell from the clouds to the ground.In Chen Sihe's editor-in-chief (Fudan University Press, 1999), the discussion about Yang Shuo's prose is just a brief explanation of "Yang Shuo's model" in a few sentences outlined in "Lyricism of the Times".Hong Zicheng wrote in "History of Contemporary Chinese Literature" (Peking University Press, 1999): "In Yang Shuo's time, ordinary things and daily life no longer had independent value in writing, only to embody or find grand meanings from them. , have the value of expression. This kind of "symbolization" is actually an artistic representation of the "emptiness" of individual life and emotion. Naturally, Yang Shuo's prose is implementing this kind of "poetic flavor" that extracts grand political themes from everything. "In the model, it relies on certain materials with 'personal' characteristics, and also relies on the connection with classical prose to add some 'elasticity', so that the expression of concepts is not so direct and simple. This 'elasticity', in At that time, it gave people a 'refreshing' feeling, and he was widely praised." This is a pertinent evaluation of Yang Shuo's prose.The "New Draft of Chinese Contemporary Literary History" (People's Literature Publishing House, 2005), edited by Dong Jian, Ding Fan, and Wang Binbin, after affirming Yang Shuo's prose to a certain extent, focuses on analyzing the ideological and artistic differences of Yang Shuo's prose. It is a pity that Yang Shuo's prose has the limitation of "poetry for the sake of poetry", that is, in order to pursue poetry, the author often brandes his own very simple "poet" color on daily language and scenes, so it gives people a feeling of affectation; Similarly, the author's management of artistic conception also tends to be modeled and even rigid, which is worthy of reflection: "Yang Shuo's so-called 'ideal' is basically a set of established and rigid 'concepts of the times' or the line, principles, and policies of the time, 'environment' ' is the so-called new people, new things, new changes, new looks, etc. that the author intercepted in the superficial light, and the so-called 'artistic conception' is a blunt combination of the above two." Zhuang Zhou believes: "Report thoughts and express ideas in an artistic way. Loyalty, although it cannot be said that Yang Shuo created it first, but when it comes to influence, Yang Shuo is indeed second to none." ("Qi Characters", Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2004)

The ups and downs of Yang Shuo's prose in the history of contemporary Chinese literature reflect the completely different aesthetic tastes and value standards of the two eras, which shows the chaos and disorder of modern Chinese literature and cultural history.The special significance and value of Yang Shuo's prose can only be seen clearly by returning to the context in which it was produced. The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. China ended its humiliating semi-colonial and semi-feudal history and became an independent sovereign country for the first time. The century-old haze was swept away, and the national spirit was unprecedentedly high.This is an era that needs to be praised and is worthy of praise. Even a maverick and critical person like Hu Feng has written a long poem like "Time Has Begun".However, many essays in the early 1950s followed the path of literature in the Liberated Areas, simple and vulgar, with serious slogans and slogans. Although they were very revolutionary, they could not meet the needs of the new era.Therefore, how to praise this new era and inspire people's revolutionary will has become a topic that must be solved in literary creation.Yang Shuo's prose eulogized that era in a bright, delicate, implicit form, seamlessly catering to the aesthetic needs of the era, and it was a matter of course that he was the best at that time. However, success is also Xiao He, and failure is also Xiao He. Yang Shuo's prose is most criticized by later generations for its falsehood.While reading Yang Shuo's works of Ying Ge Yan Wu from 1956 to 1962, while reminiscing about the natural and man-made disasters caused by the "anti-rightist" and "Great Leap Forward", I really feel uncomfortable.The problem is that people didn't think Yang Shuo's prose was fake at that time, but they were intoxicated by it. What's the reason?The reason is simple: when the fake is true, it is also fake. When the whole party, the whole country, and the whole society are in a frenzy, believing that the promise of gold will be fulfilled, and rushing towards the communist paradise, who would think it is fake?Looking through the literary works at that time, how many of them can get rid of the stereotype of "falseness"?Who at the time doubted its authenticity?This is the trend of history, a historical trend that is irresistible, otherwise so many unimaginable and absurd things would not happen.From this perspective, excessively accusing Yang Shuo of being "false" does not make much sense and is not fair. It is better to understand the world, restore history, and reveal the root cause of "falseness".The deep-rooted Chinese psychology of emphasizing the group over the individual, and the inherent weakness of Chinese intellectuals, determine that they must be attached politically.Since modern times, in the turbulent and intricate vortex of historical change, many people have given up independence and subjective consciousness while choosing revolution and progress.All these are expressed in Yang Shuo's "My Transformation" (1949).This article truly records the author's consciousness of subjectivity, the loss of independent personality step by step, and the mental journey of returning to the collective. At the end, he wrote: "Power comes from the masses. When I leave the masses, I am so small and lonely. The people have transformed me (although I have not transformed enough), and I know that I will never be able to leave them." ("Selected Essays of Yang Shuo", People's Literature Publishing House, 1978) What's more, Yang Shuo is a Naive poets, pure idealists, the dangers of the world, the complexity of history, and the richness of human nature are hardly under his scrutiny.As Shi Xingze discussed: "Yang Shuo does not have the quality of a thinker, he is a poet, a pure and kind poet. He is good at discovering poetic flavor but short at revealing the essence. What is even worse is that he often uses the poet's good intentions to understand Reality, and poetic treatment in the creation. Not to mention the "flowers" that can't be seen, even if he sees it, it may not necessarily arouse his interest; even if it attracts his attention, he may not necessarily write it. Because the dark side was not allowed to be exposed at that time; to take a step back, even if it was allowed to write, Yang Shuo did not necessarily write. The experience and lessons of the revolutionary education and political struggle he received in the past 20 years convinced him that writing about the dark side was to discredit socialism. He loves the new society so much, and praises it for fear of not being enough, how can he discredit it?" ("People" No. 11, 1998) In his own way, Yang Shuo's prose truly interprets the simplicity, optimism, fanaticism and exaggeration of that era.As a new era dawns, its fading is preordained.This is not only the regret of Yang Shuo, but also the regret of that era. (written by Li Zhaozhong) Yang Shuo: "My Transformation", "Selected Essays of Yang Shuo", People's Literature Publishing House, 1978 Edition Yang Shuo: "The First Branch of the East Wind" Postscript, "Selected Essays of Yang Shuo", People's Literature Publishing House, 1978 Edition Jiemin: "On Yang Shuo's Essays", "Literary Review", No. 2, 1962 Liang Heng: "On the Negative Influence of "Yang Shuo Model" on Prose Creation", "The Critic", No. 2, 1987 Ma Junshan: "On the Mythology and Contemporary Nature of Yang Shuo's Prose", "Research on Literary Theory", Issue 1, 1998