Text: Jin Chunping.
It is generally believed that place, history and time often act as narrative devices for the growth of characters, and they not only give literary characters and their actions a sense of reality, aesthetics and depth of scenery in a public and long-term way, but also restrict, generate or stimulate a variety of possible aspects of human existence in the interaction and mutual shaping with people, so as to complete the discovery, speculation, examination and defense of human beings.
Among them, the local installations present the emotional textures between people and land, people and homes, and people and their hometowns, while historical installations are responsible for showing individual people's actions and postures such as obedience, resistance, or alienation from the common name of history. The temporal installation focuses on the philosophy of life such as perseverance, transformation, weakness and establishment of human beings in the process of self-growth. And the vast majority of ** only use a certain device as a narrative space, so as to present the one-dimensional light and shadow of the characters in this space.
Huang Ning's novella "In the South" (Huacheng Magazine, Issue 6, 2023) creatively "juxtaposes" the locality, historicity, and temporality of Fujian and Guangdong in a compact and exquisite narrative structure, so as to excavate the overall life texture and existence of local people, historical people, and time people.
"In the South" is based on the flow of Chaoshan refugees to Fujian during the Anti-Japanese War.
*The tide city is a metaphor for the homeland and a symbol of the hometown, and it is also a geographical carrier of the identity of the emotional community.
The dialect identification between Li Aiying and Ah Xiu, the return of Lin Wanhua and Li Aiying, and the stubborn homeland of Li Bo and Li Zhou Xiuying and their families show the pious call of the "sacred homeland", or the deep spiritual unity between the homeland and the diaspora. However, ** focuses more on the dispersion of the local spirit in the space of others (Hangzhou) after the characters "leave their hometown" from the southern geography of Chaocheng, and kindness, compassion, forbearance, diligence, simplicity, and resilience are the collective character labels of the discrete characters of Chaocheng.
The diffusion and intervention of the local spirit of Chaocheng has changed the humanistic value ecology of the local space of others (Hangzhou), such as Qiu Kaiyuan's emotional love for Li Aiying, the parting of the owner's wife to Li Aiying, and the generous support of Li Aiying and Lin Wanhua from Hang Lung to Li Aiying, and the generous support of Mr. Bookkeeper to Li Aiying and Lin Wanhua. It generates a new humanistic value form that blends the other with the local, and even shows the value ecological innovation of the other to transform and reconstruct the local, such as Li Aiying and Lin Wanhua's hardships in Hangzhou.
For Hangcheng, whether it is Qiu Kaiyuan or the wife of the owner, they once again started to roam the life of "leaving their hometown". That is to say, whether it is for Li Aiying, A Xiu, Lin Wanhua, or Qiu Kaiyuan, Mrs. Dongjia, Huang Changtian, etc., "leaving the hometown" or "on the road" has become the tone of action of ** and its characters, thus capturing the existential paradox between people's daily actions and people's spiritual hometown, and carving out the universal texture of people's spiritual conversion landscape.
In the South takes the history of the Anti-Japanese War as a harsh and extreme device of life, thus unfolding the literary shaping of individual existence, individual choice, and individual destiny under the common name of history.
On the one hand, it follows the typical law of "history-people", that is, the life situation, life action, and life emotions of individual characters are all microscopic projections of the common name of history, such as the departure of Li Aiying and Ah Xiu, the difficult operation of Li Kee's tailor shop, Qiu Kaiyuan's generous donation, Lin Wanhua's wandering life, and the misery of Huang Changtian and Douzai, all of which originated from the historical field of the Anti-Japanese War of Japanese Aggression, social turmoil, and people's misery.
When "survival" becomes the first priority of human beings, traditional morality, ethics, emotions, values, order, ideals, beliefs, conventions, etc., will suffer huge challenges and crises, which is the author's touch and bare of the universal and inner "mental trauma" and "desolation of the world" of individual people under the historical landscape of war and its regulations.
On the other hand, the powerful historical co-name in "In the South" also provides a diverse and broad life fork in the life of individual value choices, action choices, and spiritual choices, and individual appeals and historical norms are in the confrontation, showing a rich and profound emotion, spirituality, morality, belief and value or echo, or resistance, or **, or collapse of the life texture.
* Excavate the unique historical and humanistic spirit of the south, such as Qiu Kaiyuan's generous relief and active anti-Japanese resistance, which contains the feelings of family and country and national integrity of sacrificing one's life for righteousness, Li Aiying and Ah Xiu's hardships of life contain tenacious and optimistic life aspirations and emotional watch, Lin Wanhua's upheaval and displacement contains open-minded and positive life beliefs and forbearance, and Li Bo's hard work and life contains the compassion and responsibility of the bottom of the peace.
In particular, the folk moral character and its practice such as mutual affection, generosity and chivalry, and benevolence between the life detainees, wanderers, and the **, such as the mutual help between Li Aiying and A Xiu, Li Bo's rescue of Huang Changtian and Lin Wanhua in distress, Lin Wanhua's generous assistance to his friends, Qiu Kaiyuan's relief of war refugees until the final heroic sacrifice, etc.
That is to say, in the historical device of the war, the collective life choice from the individual to the group is to consciously and firmly practice folk morality, which is the "southern historical spirit" or "southern humanistic spirit" given by the author to the first character, which is to wash away the hustle and bustle of history, ** and miscellaneous, and clear out the noble, firm and eternal greatness of human nature and human justice.
Under the super transformation of the flow of time on the direction of history, individual action, philosophy of life, and profound human heart, the "existence" of human beings shows many aspects of life, such as flow and ephemerality or constant perseverance, and many aspects of life are not only the individual's rational cognition of self-limitations, but also the conscious reconciliation between the individual and historical memory, and the positive reconstruction of the individual and the present life.
On the one hand, it shows the tragedy of life that the characters are unable to escape from in the flow of time, and they are imprisoned and shaped at the same frequency as the flow of time and finally defeated by the flow of time.
Such as the decline of Hang Lung Xing, the tragic death of Ah Xiu, the departure of Huang Changtian, the death of Li Aijing, the death of Li Zhou Xiuying, etc., the departure, death or death of many characters in ** have their own social causes, but in "In the South", the author shows more in the turbulent and turbulent times, as the impermanence, weakness and finitude of individual life, etc., which is the existential distress that people are clearly aware of but are unable to escape or save, and it is also the discovery of modernist people contained in **.
On the other hand, ** also shows that even if the characters are in the invasion, transformation or disintegration of the flow of time, even if they continue to experience the transformation of time discourse, they still adhere to, believe, defend, practice and hope for the philosophy of life - Li Aiying's kindness and forbearance, A Xiu's responsibility and great love, Lin Wanhua's generosity and optimism, Qiu Kaiyuan's morality and sacrifice, Huang Changtian's responsibility and scrupulousness, Li Bo's benevolence and perseverance, etc., all have the "eternity" of morality, human nature, human heart and personality that passes through the obstacle of time and penetrates the curtain of time. It is this kind of "eternity" that not only serves as the essence and soul of the text, characters and aesthetics, but also the exploration, stripping and restoration of the humanistic spirit and the essence of the southern folk.
Therefore, Huang Ning's ingenious design and three-dimensional requisition of place, history and time in "In the South" breaks through the limitations of human existence presented by many current single-dimensional examinations or multi-dimensional perspectives that cannot form an organic and comprehensive perspective with each other, and conveys one's own experience, thoughts and imagination from the dimensions of local homeland, historical return, and time mirroring, so as to construct a kind of local epic, flowing aesthetics, folk benevolence, life legend, and other local epics, flowing aesthetics, folk benevolence, and life legends that express the overall China with the locality of the south. There is a new ** narrative form of philosophical thinking.
About author:Jin Chunping, male, is a professor and vice dean of the School of Culture, Tourism and Journalism, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics.