-Take Red Sorghum and Sandalwood Punishment as examples.
Mo Yan's hometown is Gaomi County, Shandong Province, where he has lived for more than twenty years. Since the concept of "Gaomi Northeast Township" first appeared in the novel Baigou 'an, he has created a series of novels with the background of "Gaomi Northeast Township", among which the novella Red Sorghum and the novel Sandalwood Punishment have the greatest influence and the highest ideological and artistic achievements. These two novels spy, show and examine the cultural and psychological world of our nation from the review of the past tense. The characters in the novel are divided into good and evil, officials and bandits, noble and despicable, with clear love and hate, and dare to do things, which fully shows the richness and complexity of folk characters. Chen Sihe described the folk in Mo Yan's works as "hiding evil and tolerating evil". In art, Mo Yan gives people a brand-new sense of strangeness and surprise with his treacherous and changeable style and indifferent, rough, delicate and gorgeous description, and gives people a shocking tragic beauty.
A new field of folk expression
Folk is a rich and complex concept. Folk customs in this paper mainly refer to local folk customs. The folk expressions of China writers in the 20th century have gone through such a development process: Lu Xun's criticism, enlightenment and reflection in the early 20th century, Shen Congwen's praise and return, Xiao Hong's sadness and concern in the northeast, Zhao Shuli's description and display of folk popularization in the middle 20th century, and writers' examination, interpretation and reconstruction of critical themes in the new period. Among them, Mo Yan has made fruitful efforts and explorations in developing the depth and breadth of folk expression.
In a dialogue with Kenzaburo Oe entitled "Looking for the Hometown of Red Sorghum", Mo Yan declared: "I think my' Gaomi Northeast Township' should be an open concept, not a closed concept; It should be a literary concept, not a geographical concept. " Mo Yan's novels construct a rural world full of vitality and wildness-Gaomi Northeast Township, and express and criticize the people aesthetically, so as to explore the essence and true meaning of life. After Lu Xun, Shen Congwen is undoubtedly a master of folk expression. The "Xiangxi World" written by him is full of the beauty of human nature and human feelings, and contains the poetic development of a sound and harmonious realm in which human life forms are different from modern civilization. Xiangxi World is a poem and painting in folk expression. The idyllic Xiangxi world is completely different from the local literary tradition formed since the May 4th Movement, either expressing oppression and injustice, or criticizing ignorance and backwardness, and excavating the national spiritual trauma. It compares the literary picture composed of "dream" and "truth" with real life, and guides people to understand "the greatness of this nation in the past and the degeneration of the present" from the comparison. This is Shen Congwen's unique contribution to new literature.
The author thinks that Shen Congwen and Mo Yan have re-examined, recognized and reconstructed the culture, psychology, life and spirit of our nation with the help of the two geographical/cultural concepts of "Xiangxi World" and "Gaomi Northeast Township" respectively. In terms of purpose, they have the same side; In artistic expression, they are quite different, and even have the opposite side. In the choice of subject matter, Shen Congwen doesn't want to write a story like "a pool of blood and a handful of tears", but prefers to express pain and sadness with a smile, downplaying the plot and having a fresh and long style. Mo Yan's "Red Sorghum" and "Sandalwood Punishment" are full of violence and blood, writing shocking tragedies, with strong style, exaggerated language and rich imagination.
The artistic styles of Shen Congwen and Mo Yan can be summarized by a set of words: pastoral/cat cavity.
The Cat's Voice is a unique local opera in Gaomi Northeast described in Sandalwood Punishment. Its songs are complex and harmonious, mixed with sadness and joy, and contain primitive vitality and passion from the people.
Mo Yan's novels fully demonstrate the subversion of traditional aesthetic methods, expressions and tragic aesthetic principles, and use a lot of irony, black humor and other techniques to give people novel and rich aesthetic implications. Yu Zhanao in Red Sorghum and Sun Bing in Sandalwood Punishment are not typical "anti-Japanese heroes" and "anti-German heroes", such as the bandit habit of Yu Zhanao, who is "the most beautiful and ugly, the most detached and secular, the most holy and filthy, the most heroic and the most bastard"; Another example is Sun Bing, whose initial anti-German motive was that German railway construction would destroy Feng Shui. When the peasant army was formed, it claimed that Yue Fei was reincarnated and enfeoffed as a general. When fighting, he recited a spell and pretended to be mysterious. Mo Yan deliberately deviated from the traditional methods and aesthetic principles of shaping typical positive characters, but let them stay in the real peasant mentality, full of the primary colors of life, so that they present a seemingly uncut character prototype.
Red Sorghum and Sandalwood Punishment are both tragedies, but they are different from the traditional tragic aesthetic principles, not to arouse people's sense of compassion and sublimity, but to introduce readers into a fresh and broad tragic aesthetic space with the help of irony and black humor. "Black humor" is a modernist novel genre popular in the United States in the 1960s. It is a literary method to express tragic content in the form of comedy, with the structure of "anti-hero" and "anti-novel", which is called "humor under the gallows" by western critics. It is appropriate to use the word "humor under the gallows" to summarize the humorous features of Mo Yan's two novels. For example, Sun Bing sang "Cat Talk" to all villagers in front of the tortured prison car:
I'm wearing a python robe and a golden hat ~ ~ I'm wobbly, too, and I have a jade belt around my waist ~ ~ Look at that small group of pigs and dogs. Who dares to kick my grandson's foot ~ ~
This is a bit like when Ah Q wanted to sing "Hit you with Strafe" when he was beheaded. However, in Mo Yan's folk narrative, whether Sun died in ignorance or generosity contains more complicated connotations, because Mo Yan's folk narrative itself is diversified.
Another example is that Jim, the county magistrate, worried about mistakes in execution, ordered Zhao Jia and his son to demonstrate sandalwood punishment with a black pig in front of Yuan Shikai and German commander Claude. Sun Bing's daughter Mei Niang witnessed this scene and imagined her father's tortured cat cavity:
The gongs and drums are beating in the sharp wind, and the cat is pulling away from Ge Dong. There are ebony pegs on the black pig hair, and the father-in-law and Xiao Jia chase the pig into a whirlwind. Yuan Shikai, governor of Shandong Province, was bitten by a black pig and his leg was broken, and his blood was dripping on the ground. German commander Claude was bitten by a black pig and fell to the ground moaning. This is really a great pleasure, except for two catastrophes. Suddenly, thunder changed from the sky to the ground. Yuan Shikai's legs are fine, Claude's legs are all fat, and they are sitting in a chair. In the middle of the stage, the black pig suddenly became my father, Lao Sunbing, and was punished for the pile on the ground. ...
Demonstrating a very serious execution on a black pig is ridiculous in itself. Coupled with the lyrics of Mei Niang, it is true, empty, sad and hateful, which makes people laugh and cry and achieves the effect of "tearful irony".
Satire and ridicule are also one of Mo Yan's most commonly used techniques. Written in the worst place, the pen often turns to a peak, bringing the reader into a seemingly "embarrassing" situation, giving people a broader imagination world and a more complicated feeling space. For example, it was written that Zhao Jialing was behind the prisoner: "When his wrist shook, the small knife flashed silver, and the piece of meat stuck on the tip of the knife flew like a shell, flew to a very high place, and then fell, like a heavy bird droppings, on the head of a black-faced soldier. The soldier screamed as if a brick had hit his head and his body was shaking. " Another example is Sun Wu's description in Red Sorghum when he skinned uncle Lohan, "A brown urine spurted from between his legs" and "My father saw uncle's ears pale and beautiful, and the noise of the porcelain plate was louder". In a word, Mo Yan's tragedy broke the aesthetic concept of unified tragedy, opened up a new realm of folk expression, and promoted the evolution and development of folk expression.
Unique narrative style
Fiction is the art of narration, and in this respect, Mo Yan is an active explorer. His novels are influenced by Faulkner's stream of consciousness and Marquez's narrative mode. In the postscript of Sandalwood Punishment, Mo Yan said: "Sandalwood Punishment was a conscious retreat in my creative process, but unfortunately I didn't retreat enough." It can be seen from this sentence that Mo Yan made great efforts to get rid of the influence of western modernism in his early years and give full play to the narrative specialty of China's traditional novels, thus forming his own narrative characteristics. Sandalwood Punishment has incorporated folk rap art into its narrative, organically integrated modern western literature techniques with Chinese folk literature techniques, and made a big step forward on the road of nationalization.
Mo Yan's narrative pays special attention to feeling, and develops experience and expression in the form of three-dimensional feeling, which constitutes the whole time and space experience. Red Sorghum and Sandalwood Punishment are basically described from the subjective perspective of "I". Red Sorghum tells the story of my grandfather Yu Zhanao's love affair with my grandmother when he ambushed the Japanese aggressors. Sandalwood punishment consists of three parts: phoenix head, pig belly and leopard tail. "Phoenix Head" unfolds the plot in the way of narrator's self-narration, such as Mei Girl's words, Zhao Jia's wild words, Jia's silly words, Jim's hate voice and so on. The Leopard's Tail is also narrated in the form of telling the truth, telling stories, singing and singing farewell songs. The pork belly in the middle seems to be written from an objective and omniscient point of view, but it is actually telling a legend by oral or monologue. This kind of narration from the subjective perspective of "I" is convenient for narration and description, opens up time and space, freely expresses experience and forms a pouring effect. In the concrete narration, the author intends to strengthen the feelings of the characters in the works and let the people and things in the works exist and act in their own feelings; Or deliberately create a special atmosphere to release feelings. Mo Yan also combined the feelings and imagination of light, color, shape, sound, taste, touch and taste, organically combined time and space, reality and fantasy, and accurately expressed the inner world of the characters. For example, in Red Sorghum, my father saw the blood on Wang's face on the way to ambush:
On his cheek, there is something dark blue flowing. Father reached out and touched the sticky and hot liquid. Father smelled a fishy smell similar to the mud of the Mohe River, but it was much fresher than the mud of the Mohe River. It overwhelms the fragrance of mint and the bitterness of sorghum. It awakens his father's approaching memory, connecting the silt in the ink river, the black soil under the sorghum, the past that never dies and the present that never stays. Sometimes, everything will spit out the smell of human blood.
A smell of blood will trigger multiple feelings of father, connect the ink river, sorghum and black soil in life, organically integrate reality with the past, form a whole experience of time and space, and accurately express a teenager's extremely complicated psychology on the way to ambush before the too heavy test of life and death comes.
Another example is an exaggerated description of "my" grandmother before her death. Under the blue sky, white clouds and red sorghum, she saw "a group of white wild pigeons falling from the sky". Then, with the help of stream of consciousness, the author describes this series of colorful illusions in poetic language, especially the illusion of Red Sorghum. "They groaned, twisted, cried and twisted." The constant transformation of space, time and description perspective accurately described my grandmother's love for life and longing for a better life.
In Sandalwood Punishment, this kind of large-scale description of feelings is no longer common, and it is replaced by a more concise description of feelings. For example, when the doctor examined the injury of Sun Bing who had been sentenced for many days, he wrote: "When his slender fingers shook the two ends of the wooden nail, colorful bubbles emerged, the smell of carrion was suffocating, the flies were more excited, and the buzzing was deafening." This emotional description makes the torture cool and shocking.
"Red Sorghum" and "Sandalwood Punishment" were published more than ten years ago. The latter is more mature and progressive in narrative art than the former. First of all, in narrative structure, the story and plot unfold. Sandalwood Punishment avoids the single-part narrative of Red Sorghum, but is a multi-part ensemble, and various characters such as dog beauty, county magistrate, executioner and troupe master narrate in the form of waves, hate sounds, madness and hate sounds that suit their respective personalities, forming an objective whole. Sandalwood Punishment has a structural division with national characteristics: phoenix head, pig belly and leopard tail. The subjective perspective adopted in the first and third parts and the omniscient perspective adopted in the middle part form an organic integration of subjective perspective and omniscient perspective. In terms of narrative style and skills, because various characters talk to each other and express from multiple angles, the diversity of narrative perspectives and the richness of narrative connotation are formed. Under the premise of unified style, the narrative is more changeable. In addition, Sandalwood Punishment combines dramatic language with novel integration of language, enriching and strengthening the tragic effect.
The application of modernist skills
In the spirit of realism, Red Sorghum and Sandalwood Punishment use a lot of modernist literary techniques such as symbols, metaphors, hints and metonymy, which enhance the expressive force of the works and deepen the connotation of the works. Mo Yan himself said: "A novel without symbols and meanings is a soup without water."
Mo Yan's novels are deeply influenced by Faulkner and Marquez. His "Gaomi Northeast Township" is as full of symbols and implications as York Napafa County in Faulkner and Macondo Town in Marquez. As mentioned earlier, Mo Yan himself said that Gaomi Northeast Township should not be a geographical concept, but a literary concept. It is the hometown of writer's spirit. Mo Yan also said: "The so-called expansion of the territory of Gaomi Northeast Township is not only the enrichment and addition of geography and vegetation, but also the expansion of thinking space. This is a profound philosophical proposition that I put forward a few years ago. I know what it means in my heart, but it is difficult to express it in clear language (Looking for the Hometown of Red Sorghum). It can be seen that when the author uses the concept of "Gaomi Northeast Township", it contains a kind of meaning and philosophical proposition, and contains profound ideological connotation. It can be said that Gaomi Northeast Township is a microcosm of our suffering nation. A song "Red Sorghum" has endless meanings, which can symbolize our tenacious national integrity and endless spiritual core, can refer to the fiery and wild passion for life, and can also symbolize love and so on. " "Red Sorghum" and "Sandalwood Punishment" wrote anti-Japanese and anti-Japanese respectively, and colonial aggression brought disastrous damage to Gaomi Northeast Township. "When the country was destroyed, my compatriots quickly got up, picked up swords and guns, and fought with the devils to protect their hometown ..." Foreign enemies invaded and their homes were destroyed. Even the deaf-mute lame team of forty people "don't know what it's like to ambush" went to fight the Japanese. What the author wants to express here is actually an unyielding national spirit. In sandalwood punishment, the rulers also joined in. They colluded with each other and cruelly squeezed the people. Sandalwood punishment is a concentrated representative and symbol of China's violent culture for thousands of years. Why does the author go to so much trouble to exaggerate a kind of torture? The cooler the punishment, the cooler the rulers and aggressors, the deeper the blood and tears of the people and the stronger the national spirit!
Most of the men and women who live in this black land in Gaomi Township in Northeast China have unrestrained rebellious character. They love life, love their hometown, dare to love and hate, and at the same time, they have retained great indomitable life potential in eliminating violence and resisting foreign aggression. The female surnames in Mo Yan's novels, such as "My Grandma" in Red Sorghum and "Sun Meiniang" in Sandalwood Punishment, are not the traditional images of a good wife and mother. They dare to defy the traditional moral constraints and show great vitality. Even Jim, the county magistrate caught in the whirlpool of money, woke up before the cruel rulers and invaders and personally killed Sun Bing at the last moment, casting a shadow over the German opening ceremony. At the same time, Mo Yan did not shy away from the savage, ugly and ignorant side of these characters. Through these characters, the author has made a powerful examination, criticism and expression of the cultural psychology of our national tradition.
Mo Yan said in the postscript of Sandalwood Punishment that there are two kinds of voices in this book, one is the voice of a train, and the other is the voice of a cat. The roar of the train symbolizes the modern civilization outside the country. At the end of the novel, the roar of the train drowned out the once-flourishing cat-cavity sound with absolute superiority, implying the powerful force of foreign civilization in the feudal society of modern China and showing the unstoppable progress of history. What is worth mentioning is the local opera with cat cavity, which is the representative of folk culture, the emotional and spiritual sustenance of farmers in Gaomi Northeast Township, and the existing way of folk lyric. In the cat-like singing, people's enthusiasm and ideals for life are pinned. It contains folk vitality and primitive passion. In Sandalwood Punishment, Jim, Sun Bing, Mei Niang and many other characters expressed their love for cat cavity. Sun Bing, the master of Cat-cavity Class, was tortured, and the last Cat-cavity Class in Gaomi Northeast Township was completely annihilated at the gunpoint of the Germans. The complete disappearance of cat cavity implies that folk culture is as troubled as the fate of people in this black land, and also implies that everything full of freedom and vitality, including culture and even life, has been ruthlessly strangled under the oppression and destruction of feudal rulers and foreign invaders.
In a word, the application of modernism enriches and deepens the ideological and artistic connotation of the works and enhances the expressive force of the works.
Mo Yan's folk creation is of great significance to the development of contemporary literature. In the postscript of Sandalwood Punishment, Mo Yan wrote: "Today, the reference to western literature has overwhelmed the inheritance of folk literature, Sandalwood Punishment is probably an inappropriate book. Sandalwood Punishment is a conscious retreat in my creative process, but unfortunately I didn't retreat enough. " Mo Yan also claimed that his creation was to fight against the powder-rich pseudo-"middle class" at present. Sandalwood Punishment is very successful in drawing lessons from folk literature. The more national it is, the more cosmopolitan it is. Apart from Sandalwood Punishment, the success of several important novels in recent years, such as White Deer Plain and Dust Settled, all illustrate the important position and role of "folk" in creation.
Undoubtedly, the new generation literature has made great achievements in personality shaping and survival expression, but there are also obvious shortcomings. Most of the new generation literature is based on the current urban life, and the narrative attitude is the present tense. It tries to show its catering to materialism and fashion from the public's eyes, mostly whispering and realistic punishment, full of a lot of desire symbols, and literature is increasingly becoming a consumer demand. The individualization and trivialization of narrative, the deficiency and lack of aesthetic significance and rationality, the tendency of self-repetition and patterning, the petty bourgeoisie sentiment and decadent atmosphere ... At present, literature presents unprecedented lightness and weakness. Chen Xiaoming pointed out: "What do we call literature?"? It is to call for the aesthetic quality of literature. " He further pointed out that this "aesthetic quality" includes four aspects: attention to the fate of characters, hints of thoughts and feelings, exploration of life level and expressive force of language. Mo Yan calls for the return of literary aesthetic quality in Red Sorghum and Sandalwood Punishment, and his successful exploration in thought and art is of great significance to the creation and development of contemporary novels.