Mr. Lao She is the first writer in New China to win the title of "People's Artist". His life left many literary treasures for posterity, such as "Camel Xiangzi", "Four Generations in the Same Hall", "Teahouse" and other popular masterpieces.
This writer who likes to write about civilians and market life is also a cat lover and a competent "shovel officer". Many of his excellent works were born in the company of "cat friends", and even he directly wrote a science fiction article about cats.
In 1933, "Tales of Cat City" was published. Lao She used the first person to tell about his accidental spaceship to Mars and his thrilling adventure in the "cat country".
At this time, China was full of gunsmoke from the "September 18 Incident", the nation suffered humiliation, the fate of the country was in danger, and the society was full of holes. However, ** is still flattering and rotten, but the Chinese people are still insensitive and selfish.
As a Chinese with personality and dignity, Lao She wrote all his grief and resentment in "The Story of Cat City", borrowing this dim and lonely city of death to express the current situation of aggrieved and humiliated China.
This ** made him famous in the world literary circle, and he once missed the Nobel Prize in Literature.
American writer Ryle praised "Cat City" and said, "In addition to its literary value, it asIn terms of social literature in the early years, it is of great value. ”
Next, let's follow Lao She on that bizarre journey to Mars, and feel the author's grief and indignation from the destruction of cat people, homes, and countries.
1. Loss of personalityTragic fateof the beginning
The spaceship that Mr. Lao She and his friend were riding crashed and fell on Mars, and his friend was unfortunately killed, and he was also caught by a man who looked like a cat.
This cat man's name is Scorpion, he is a famous politician in the cat country, powerful and powerful, there is a large area of maze outside the city, there is a luxurious official residence in the city, and he sits in a sedan chair when he goes out, and plunders by slaves and the army.
In the cat country, cat people do not grow other crops, only plant and eat leaves, and do not even take a bath. Therefore, the lost leaf is the most valuable and can be exchanged for currency (national soul).
Cats are bent on eating lost leaves to quench hunger, thirst and anxiety. Single-mindedly trying to compete for the lost leaves, not working, not learning, and not enterprising.
In order to survive, Lao She promised to help the scorpion guard the lost forest, but he didn't know that he was calculated by the scorpion. While he was bathing in the river, the scorpion called a group of cat people to watch and charged a "viewing fee".
So, why do cat people like foreigners so much?
Because foreigners are very popular with them, each landlord has to keep a few foreigners to help them guard the lost forest.
Lao She saidIt is a trait in the nature of cat people to be in awe of foreignersIt's like "a foreigner coughs."ScaredFive hundred soldiers of the Cat Country. ”
If you let your own servants or the army guard the Lost Forest, they will kill each other for the Lost Leaves, and this will not be the case with foreigners.
Once, the scorpion asked his soldiers to pick the lost leaves, and asked Lao She to work as an overseer on the tree. Several soldiers were beaten to death by the scorpion for stealing the lost leaves, but the cat man next to him was indifferent and watched his companion die tragically.
When Lao She offered to help them resist the scorpion, tie up the scorpion, and fight for their freedom and rights, no one responded. However, when he said that they should go and grab the lost leaves, they all became energetic.
That's the cat peopleof the kingdom, one onlyfor the lost leavesLife, only for yourselfGrayworld, suffocating and desperate
Here, the cat country is the symbol of old China, and the big scorpion represents the big bureaucratic bourgeoisie. The leaf symbolizes the opium that once poisoned the Chinese and became the "sick man of East Asia".
In Lao She's eyes, whether it is the mediocre and incompetent cat country or the corrupt China, the feudal backwardness is deeply rooted and deeply poisons the hearts of the Chinese people.
Up to the bureaucratic class, like that big scorpion, greedy and despicable, worshipping foreigners, abiding by the old system and old ideas that have penetrated into the bone marrow, indulging in the psychedelic world after sucking the leaves every day.
Down to the exploited civilians, like those slaves and soldiers, cowardly, cowardly, insensitive, selfish, bent on clinging to the powerful to obtain the leaves, willing to be cattle and horses, but not wanting to rebel against the shackles of fate and social injustice.
The fairy tale of "Three Little Pigs", I'm sure we've all heard it.
The three little pigs built a house, the eldest brother built a grass house, the second brother built a wooden house, and the third brother built a strong stone house. Later, only the stone house was not brought down by the big bad wolf, which kept the three little pigs safe.
If you interpret it from the perspective of a fairy tale, the house built by these three little pigs symbolizes their own concepts and thoughts. Our destiny is controlled by these deep-seated thoughts and consciousnesses.
What we need to do is to break through the encirclement of the inherent mode of thinking, get rid of the shackles of old thinking, have the courage and determination, and start to create a bright world of our own.
The stone house of it is the house that Mr. Lao She wants. Because it is indestructible from the inside out, it cannot be invaded by any foreign force, and it is also the home of the three little pigs who unite to resist external attacks and protect together.
In the land of cats,Both the upper and lower classes are gradually losing their own personalities, as if they have lost their national consciousness and dignityDoomed to miseryRepertoirestaged of the stage
The cat country is like a grass house, and the people who build the houses and houses are physically and mentally rotten, and the day of destruction is not far away.
IIThe family self-destructsof the countryDeadThe days are short
Although Lao She had a fight with the scorpion, he still did things for him obediently, because only the scorpion could feed him, provide him with food, and give him a place to rest.
Later, he had the opportunity to enter the city with the scorpion, but the scorpion was turned away from the official residence, saying that it was inconvenient for him to enter because of the group of wives and concubines in the family.
As a foreigner, Lao She could only stand outside the high wall, guarding the gold-like lost leaves. Later, after being introduced by the big scorpion's son, the little scorpion, he borrowed to live in the minister's wife's house.
In fact, the minister's wife's official residence was an uncovered mud hole, and this wife, who had no husband to support her, had to provide for and supervise the eight concubines that her husband had married during his lifetime.
The minister's wife said, "We don't eat lost leaves!"The husband is a minister, the minister's wife, has been to foreign countries, does not eat lost leaves, and has to watch eight little female cats all day long!”
But people are not as good as the sky, and before Lao She officially moved in, the sky began to thunder and rain. The uncovered cat hole collapsed and crushed the minister's wife and concubine to death.
Lao She called the cat man to help dig up the mud and save people, but the numb cat man just watched and didn't do anything. Lao She had no choice but to throw the five hundred national souls in his pocket to the cat people, but the cat people only took a brick and put it on the wall of their own house.
In the quagmire, the minister's wife was dug out, although she was dying, she was still showing off her family's glorious history to Lao She, and how her husband married a beautiful wife through various means.
Later, Lao She was rescued by the little scorpion, and the two became good friends, and they also learned about some of the little scorpion's family affairs.
The little scorpion is very knowledgeable, has studied abroad, and is a progressive young man with new ideas, but he can't get rid of the inherent family shackles of the cat country.
He has a mind and knows the current situation and future of the cat country, so he is very pessimistic and perfunctory. He has no money, he still has to be a "gnawing old man", although he opposes a group of wives and concubines like his father Scorpion, but he uses the family's money to rent a house to support his lover.
Here, the minister's wife symbolizes the women in the patriarchal and inferior society, who can only rely on men for survival all their lives, have no sense of autonomy, and take care of their property and the reputation of the nostocracy in name only.
The little scorpion, a symbol of the new class thinkers who have returned from studying abroad, has the heart of innovation, but has no power to act, nor does it have the capital and confidence to implement reforms, and at the same time it is inseparable from the old feudal family.
Whether it is the minister's wife's family who was crushed to death by the collapsed mud hole, or the home of the big scorpion and the little scorpion, the family of the cat country is full of tragic characters.
In his memoir "Yesterday's Clouds", writer Wang Dingjun also used cats to criticize the landlord family where he was born.
He said that cats love to be clean, and often use their tongues as a brush to lick the hair off their bodies. However, the appearance of the cat is clean, and all the filthy things are swallowed in the stomach, and if the cat sees that it is too dirty, it will give up on itself and let it be.
Wang Dingjun,It is said that cats have the ability to excrete the filth in their stomachs, but the family cannot excrete these "filth".
At that time, there were thousands of such big feudal families in China, and what would happen in the end when the old and corrupt ideas were accumulated?
Lao She told us in the text that the minister's wife's house collapsed and became a large burial mound.
The self-destruction of traditional and pedantic families also indicates the demise of this cat country.
IIIThe fate of the nationThe strong conquer the weak
Seeing the obsolescence of the cat family, the stubbornness of the thoughts, everyone for the sake of the leaves, for the sake of power and status, you fight for me, do not sacrifice your life, which makes Lao She sad.
Mr. Lu Xun said, "Mourn its misfortune and be angry with it", which is also Lao She's mood at this time. And Lao She was even more sad when he saw the ugliness of the ruling class, politicians, and scholars in the cat country.
In the country of cats, education is child's play, regardless of age, students graduate on their first day of school. The principal sold the various properties of the school in order to make a living.
There was nothing in the Cat Country Museum, and everything that could be sold was sold out by the state, becoming the only means for the state to make money.
After the scholars of the cat country criticized each other, none of them put forward a way to save the country and rejuvenate the country.
The cat country followed the reform of foreign countries, but after drawing a scoop according to the gourd, rolling up his sleeves, and making a few gestures, there was only the "Fusi" verbal language of unknown countries.
In this way, when the dwarf country came to attack, the same officials and politicians only cared about eating lost leaves and hugging prostitutes. The army of the scorpion is crushed, and the country is in danger.
At this time, there are only two people who are worried about the fate of the country, one is a small scorpion and the other is a big eagle. The two of them are good friends, and they both have a pure heart to save the country.
The big eagle never eats the lost leaves, lives in the mountains, and hides from the cat people. This time, in order to allow the little scorpion to take over his father's army and fight against the invaders, he ate an excessive amount of lost leaves and gave his life.
But "the merchant girl does not know the hatred of the country", when the eagle's head hangs on the city gate, the cat people in the city rush to **, instead of defending against foreign invaders with the same hatred. When Scorpion's army went to kill the enemy, the cat people in the city were all on the street watching the high-ranking officials marry wives and daughters.
In the end, the fate of the cat country can be imagined, the cat people were slaughtered by foreign enemies, and hundreds of cat people were buried alive.
Here, Lao She used the big eagle to represent the reformers in China at that time, and reforms that did not conform to the national conditions and reforms without a mass base would not work.
Cat Country is proud of its centuries-old history, proud of its ingenuity, thinks it is a strong man, and even laughs at foreigners.
They stick to the old rules, disdain to learn advanced foreign ideas, disdain to carry out reforms to rejuvenate the country, and lose their national dignity, and the whole country enjoys enjoying the psychedelic life brought by the leaves.
Sweet Cheneysaid, "Only the strong know how to fight."The weak are not even qualified to fail, but are born to be conquered.
The cat country is weak, and if it is backward, it will be beaten, and in the end, it will not escape the fate of being slaughtered.
In **, as a rational bystander, Lao She sees the pathetic, angry and hateful people of the cat country. Back in China in 1930, the current social situation at that time made Lao She even more distressed, because China was a weak person who was often beaten.
As a weak person, even though there have been historical lessons such as the captivity and plundering of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and the disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese First Sino-Japanese War, China's ruling class still does not repent and worships foreigners. The Chinese people have forgotten their sincere unity, shame for the country, and fight for the dignity of the nation.
All this has made the Chinese with conscience and national spirit feel painful and worried about the fate of the country.
Write at the end
"The Story of Cat City" ends with Lao She leaving the ** star.
At the end of the article, he wrote, ".I lived on Mars for another half a year, and then I met a French expedition plane to survive my great bright and free China. ”
Although he was worried about the political situation in China at that time, he still had a glimmer of hope and yearning for the rise of the great motherland.
Through "The Story of the Cat City", Lao She uses the artistic technique of defamiliarization to tell the tragic fate of the people, family and country of the cat country, which is a ruthless satire and criticism of China's stormy times at that time, as well as the warmth and coldness of the real society and human feelings.
Literary critic Wang Shuming: "The Story of Cat City is a success!In the unique style, it contains a sense of humor, giving a profound portrayal of a society that is almost in decline. ”
* The absurdity of the cat people written in the book is full of ugliness, and we read it with laughter and tears, but it is full of emotion. We deeply felt the sad state of mind of the Chinese progressive youth, scholars and other patriots represented by Lao She, and the cry of pain in our hearts.
Fortunately, we were born in a new China where the country is rich and the people are strong, and we can freely embrace the sunshine, enjoy the warmth, love and kindness of the world, and receive advanced ideological education.
And we also wish that the motherland will prosper, and the people will live and work in peace and contentment, become a strong country in the economy, politics and culture, and stand in the forest of the world.
Well, at this point, the essence of the book "Cat City" is finished. If you are interested in this book, you can bring a copy and read it carefully.