This is a very interesting novel. It is interesting because it actually uses real history and Buddhist knowledge to form clues, forming a suspenseful story.In the boom of suspense novels that is currently developing and maturing in China, such stories are rare. Since 2005, there has been a wave of suspense novels all over the world, and a number of suspense novel authors have emerged in China.Over the past two years, this kind of creation has gradually formed several modes such as "psychological suspense", "secret agent suspense" and "death suspense".Patterning is an inevitable stage in the development of anything, but it also tends to impose inherent limitations on development, especially for writing, which requires imagination and creativity, the appearance of patterning may not be a good thing.

In many cases, suspense novels have formed a certain pattern in the reader's mind, and these patterns exist in the form of characteristic elements, such as conspiracy, murder, deceit, sharing weal and woe, and the truth, etc. It seems that these characteristics are missing. It cannot be included in the ranks of suspense novels.However, in order to satisfy such characteristics, many stories have to add elements such as gods and monsters, spells, etc., and secretly replace the suspense of the plot itself with the mystery of the writing. And this story does not inherently have such "advantages", that is to say, there are very few foundations that it can use to create suspense.In a chat with the author, he said that this is a novel involving Buddhist content. In such a story, elements such as deception, murder, death, and gods and monsters should be avoided as much as possible, because these are incompatible with Buddhist ideas of.

Death, and the fear of death, are actually the greatest psychological thriller factor for human beings. Using it to create suspense stories can be directly used as the main line of the plot, without having to find another driving force for the development of the story.It's hard to imagine that a story without death can produce suspenseful effects, a tense atmosphere, worries about the fate of the characters, and expectations for relief from predicaments, which are difficult to exist in stories that lack the factor of death. However, at the beginning of writing, the author automatically gave up the most suspenseful element in human psychology. He can only use historical knowledge and Buddhist knowledge to form clues and complete the "mystery solving" process of the story. These plots, It must also have suspenseful features.

This is somewhat similar to the "knowledge-based suspense" novels that are currently emerging.The characteristic of this type of novel is to use humanistic knowledge such as history, religion, music, art, etc. to set up a dilemma, to find clues in the bewilderment, until a shocking answer is found, and this clue and answer must be based on humanistic knowledge. of. That is, all the elements that make up the story are true, only the story itself is false. This kind of novels are loved by readers. On the one hand, readers have disliked those stories that pretend to be ghosts and have to add magical elements in order to create suspense. As briefly described in textbooks, "knowledge-based suspense novels" often give readers a sense of freshness in their reinterpretation of history and humanistic knowledge, and make people feel familiar but unbelievable in the joy of reading.

This novel is a representative of "knowledge-based suspense novels".The history, literature, and art knowledge used by the author is almost all learned in high school. In order to shorten the distance with readers, he also painstakingly combines real life with those so-called "advanced" academic conclusions.This is a difficult point in the writing of "knowledge-based suspense novels". Among some foreign novels translated and introduced in the market, many works involve foreign history and artistic knowledge that are not well-known to domestic readers, thus causing obstacles to reading.On the other hand, in domestic creations, fantasy culture is used more. Those miraculous "knowledge" are still untrustworthy in reality, and when used in novels, they add more magical colors rather than intellectual content.

Another feature of this novel is the use of religion, more precisely Buddhist common sense.However, we must see that the author is unique in the use of this kind of knowledge.What he uses is not the mystery of religion, but the humanistic knowledge of religious history and religious art. In terms of doctrine, Buddhism is a very complicated religious system. Even experts and scholars find it difficult to clearly explain the connotation of Buddhist doctrine, let alone how the author uses it in the story.In fact, the only piece of knowledge that the author touches on Buddhist teachings in the novel is the concept of the "Four Great Factors".If you talk about it in detail, this concept is quite complicated, but the author only chose its original meaning - the concept of the world in Buddhism, that is, the world is composed of the "four major" elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. It is common sense that almost every Buddhist believer knows, and it is not difficult for readers outside the Buddhist faith to understand.

Except for this only teaching content, the Buddhist materials used by the author are almost all the knowledge of Buddhist history, Buddhist culture and Buddhist art. They are not Buddhist teachings that are difficult to explain and easy to misunderstand. Learned in textbooks, or generally understood in daily life. This Buddhist knowledge is mixed with too many vague psychological factors in many people's concepts. In real life, many people directly equate historical knowledge with teachings, resulting in many misunderstandings, misunderstandings and even superstitions about Buddhism. The phenomenon.

The author is a Buddhist believer. After taking refuge, he has been learning about Buddhism. This kind of learning usually includes two aspects: one is the learning of Buddhism itself, that is, the teachings, such as studying classics, practicing Zen meditation, etc.; On the other hand, it is the study of Buddhist culture. This kind of study is relatively easy for beginners to start and is easy to be interested in. It is more like a branch of Buddhism specially developed from history, art and culture.Obviously, the materials used by the author in the novel belong to the latter category. Buddhism has been circulating in China for two thousand years. During such a long period of time, it has left too many traces on Chinese architecture, art, music, literature, folk culture and even the political concepts of various dynasties. It is obviously difficult to select materials and form the plot of the novel.The difficulty is that one has to read a large amount of relevant materials, and the other is to ensure that the materials used are accurate and well-founded.

This is also a difficult point in the author's writing process.Often for a few words with few words, or even seemingly dispensable dialogues, he has to carefully consult a large amount of information.This is undoubtedly a waste of time and energy for the writing process.However, the result of this is that all Chinese history, art, literature, and Buddhist common sense in the novel have exact sources and sources. This seems to have gone beyond the scope of writing a popular story, and it is more like the author chose such a method to express some ideas, concepts, and some of his experiences in learning Buddhism.In other words, the author did not collect Buddhist history and cultural knowledge for the purpose of writing a story or creating suspense. He designed such a story to let readers understand this knowledge, and told the knowledge in the most popular way. to the reader.

This is a completely different way of writing, and it is also the difference between high and low writing concepts.At least, in this novel, we can learn a lot of Buddhist knowledge, which is not as magical as folklore, let alone the superstition that exists in many people's minds.The author restores Buddhist figures, Buddhist rituals, Buddhist activities, and some fundamental teachings to their original appearance from the perspective of history and culture. Buddhist knowledge is also of great benefit to more people's understanding of Buddhism and Buddhism. Perhaps, this is the biggest feature of this novel: it does not simply use Buddhist knowledge to write stories, but uses stories to popularize Buddhist knowledge. The author is actually summarizing his perception of Buddhism in the form of novels.This is the essential difference between this book and current suspense novels. The materials used in many novels have nothing to do with the theme, but are only set for the tension of the plot and the development of the story. In this novel, all the materials are Part of the theme of the novel - that is to bring readers into the temple of Buddhism, to know and feel it in the simplest way.

From this point of view, we can understand why the author avoids murder, conspiracy and other suspenseful elements in the plot design. He not only wants to write the Buddha he understands, but also writes this story with the heart of the Buddha. . We can see that the background of this story is war and political conspiracy, as well as a catastrophic history that neither nation can escape psychologically.For this period of history, different stories will have different writing methods and themes, and even the same theme will be expressed differently because of the different ideas of the authors.As a Buddhist believer, the way the author of this book treats this period of history with Buddhist concepts.In his stories, there are no plots, crimes, or injuries, but he has written an attitude towards them, which is the Buddhist idea of ​​equality and love for all beings. Buddhism is a complex and huge system with a long history, profound and implicit teachings, and a vast ocean of classics. It is difficult to summarize its fundamental ideas in concise and general terms. However, equality of all beings and "all evils The idea of ​​"doing nothing and doing good" is the basic concept for understanding the essence of Buddhism.We can simply use one word to replace the Buddhist thought, that is "love". "Love" is the theme that this novel wants to express. The author tries to use the Buddhist "love" to resolve the harmful behavior and the narrow concept of hatred. Without "love", there will be no harmony between man and nature. Harmony with society, not to mention harmony between people and their hearts. In fact, love is the expression of harmony in the human heart, and peace, whether it means eliminating wars, living as equals, or eliminating hatred and achieving common development, is the result of love. Although we think this book is a real "knowledge-based suspense novel", it is obviously not as simple as a good-looking story, it expresses the most simple and core thoughts of Buddhism , and this idea makes it no longer a popular novel, but a book that popularizes Buddhist knowledge and conveys Buddhist ideas.