"Flowers" interprets a real Shanghai for us, and also takes us to understand the heart-wrenching history in the 60s of the last century. Through the portrayal of small people and the description of the details of life, the author restores the original appearance of "city and people" for us.
The author of this book, Jin Yucheng, is the deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine "Shanghai Literature" and is known as the "lurker" in the world. In 2012, he published a long story "Flowers", which received an enthusiastic response and won the first place in the annual ** list in one fell swoop. In 2015, "Flowers" won the Contradictory Literature Award, and Jin Yucheng became a representative of Shanghai-style literature.
The golden sentence that appears in "Flowers":
1.God does not speak, as all things are determined by me.
2.The past can only be silent, what is the use of ringing, finally the old house is knocked out, and the past is already dust.
3.Bao said that on the water surface of heaven, the sun is shining, the water is deep, deep into hell, cold to the extreme, dark to the extreme, one by one lotus roots, all the way down, stretched to hell, the roots, all hung full of people, desperately climbed up, everyone wanted to come up, climb to heaven to see the lotus.
4.The upper class will be false, and the lower class will be vanity.
5.In the face of this society, everyone can only smile, and there will be no miracles.
"Flowers" focuses on the following three core contents:
1. The three brothers who knew each other by chance suddenly broke up because of a woman.
In the 60s of the last century, Ah Bao, who was born in a wealthy family, met Ah Bao's aunt, Teacher Song, who was teaching in a private primary school, on the way out to play with the neighbor girl Betty, so he met Teacher Song's student Husheng. When Husheng went to buy movie tickets, he met Xiao Mao, who was also queuing. The relationship between Xiao Mao and Hu Sheng became more and more familiar, and on Xiao Mao's birthday, Hu Sheng took Ah Bao to celebrate his birthday together, and the three of them became good friends since then.
During the Cultural Revolution, Ah Bao's house was raided because he was a bourgeoisie. Husheng is a military family, and Xiao Mao is a working class, so the two survived, but the three still kept in touch often. Xiao Mao, who is in adolescence, can't help it**, and begins to marry Yinfeng** on the second floor. They thought they didn't know the ghosts, but they didn't expect that all of this was seen by the uncle on the second floor of the old pervert who lived next door to Yinfeng.
The uncle on the second floor had always held a grudge against her because he couldn't take advantage of Yinfeng before, so he told Yinfeng's husband Hyde about it. Hyde asked Yinfeng to cut off relations with Xiao Mao, and told Xiao Mao's mother about it, and Xiao Mao's mother immediately forced Xiao Mao to marry a divorced woman. When Xiao Mao, who didn't know it, was depressed, he saw Ah Bao, Hu Sheng and Yinfeng talking and laughing, and the words were still very ambiguous, and he broke off his friendship with them on the spur of the moment.
Second, Ah Bao, who has a successful career many years later but is not confident in his feelings, finally missed his confidante Li Li.
In the nineties, Ah Bao has become a successful "Bao Zong", because he has always remembered the little girl Betty in his heart, so he did not get married. Later, when I was doing business, I met the beautiful boss Li Li, and Li Li slowly fell in love with Ah Bao in getting along, but Ah Bao always had a vague attitude. Once at a dinner in Changshu, Li Li's friend Miss Wang got drunk and cheated on Mr. Xu, the boss from Changshu, and became pregnant.
Ah Bao and Li Li learned under questioning that it turned out that Miss Wang had a fake marriage with someone else for the sake of her children, and the object of her fake marriage was actually Xiao Mao. Li Li was deeply touched by Miss Wang's incident, so he decided to tell Ah Bao his story. Li Li originally had a happy family, and after his younger brother was beaten by his father because he wanted to become a monk, he committed suicide, Li Li went to Guangzhou to become a *** model in a fit of anger, but he was betrayed by his little sister and sold to Macau, and later the boss of Macau saved her and gave her a sum of money so that she could return to the mainland. After listening to the story, Bao felt pity for Li Li very much, and was moved by Li Li's confession.
A few days later, Ah Bao and Hu Sheng went to find Xiao Mao, Xiao Mao was very happy to see them, and the three of them chatted for a long time to release their suspicions. But at that time, Xiao Mao's body had already had problems, and in the end, Xiao Mao died in the hospital because of his serious illness. And Ah Bao also learned from others that there was a Singaporean man with good conditions chasing Li Li, Ah Bao felt that Li Li would have a better life if he married a Singaporean man, so he retreated, Li Li saw Ah Bao's attitude, was disheartened, and finally saw through the red dust and left home.
3. The various lives of Shanghainese in the last century, as well as the changes experienced by the city of Shanghai.
There is a very important reason why "Flowers" can be recognized by the majority of readers, that is, it is true. Jin Yucheng shows us a precious picture of Shanghai life through three details in the book.
1.Specific toponymic descriptions.
In the 60s, Ah Bao lived on Gaolan Road, Husheng lived on Maoming Road, and Xiao Mao lived on Xikang Road. The Cathay Pacific Cinema that Po and Betty often go to, the "Wei Min" philatelic store, and the No. 24 tram that often appears in the book, as well as some place names and routes that are not so closely related to the story or do not need to be explained, Jin Yucheng wrote them out, and these specific place names make the city of Shanghai more three-dimensional, and also make the characters in the book more real and have a sense of substitution.
2.A depiction of the living environment of the characters.
Born into a wealthy family, Po had mahogany furniture, teak coffee tables, and few Soviet televisions in Shanghai at the time. Betty Husheng and Po come from similar backgrounds, so their pastimes are usually watching movies, collecting stamps, and playing the piano. Xiao Mao, who was born in a working family, has to earn a little pocket money by helping people buy train tickets.
3.Depictions of objects and songs that are characteristic of the culture of the time.
In the sixties, Betty liked to listen to "Carmen" with a gramophone**, and the poetry of Mudan and "Harmony Collection" by Ramaldine liked to read by literary youth. And Xiaomao's neighbor, the eldest sister and Lan Lan, are fashionable young people who like to listen to Wang Pansheng's Shanghai opera "Biluo Yellow Spring" on the electric record player. In the 90s, when Miss Wang and Li Li chatted, they would talk about stars such as Guan Zhilin and Li Jiaxin, and Bao's friend Mr. Lu would go to KTV to order Chen Sheng's "One Night in Beijing". After Xiao Mao's death, Hu Sheng thought of the lyrics of Anita Mui's "Cherish the Reunion", Ah Bao finally walked on the street, and what came from the supermarket was Huang An's "New Mandarin Duck Butterfly Dream".
The Shanghai in "Flowers" is turbulent, but rich and real. What is recorded in the book is not only the growth history of Bao, Husheng, and Xiaomao, but also the growth history of the city of Shanghai. Jin Yucheng uses words to restore the original appearance of "city and people" for us, and also reproduces the changes of the times in Shanghai.
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