In 1984, Jia Pingwa's novella "Wax Moon, New Year's Moon" won the 3rd National Excellent Novella Award. This novel is the first Jia Pingwa novel I read. I had just entered high school at the time, and I had only a vague fondness for literature. When I was in elementary school, I loved to read novels, and "The Biography of Yue Fei", "Yang Jiajiang", "Speaking of Tang", "Ming Yinglie" and other commentaries and novels were circulated among my playmates. The year I graduated from elementary school, during the summer vacation, I overheard Lu Yao's novel radio drama "Life", which was the first contemporary novel I came into contact with. Although I didn't understand the true meaning of the novel at that time, I was moved by the tragedy of life in that era reflected in the novel. A year later, my father and his family moved to the Pubai Mining Bureau mining area, 100 kilometers away. And "Wax Moon, New Year's Moon" is the first time I have read that there are no twists and turns in the storyline, there are only contradictions and conflicts between the individual circumstances of each character in real life, between people, and between new and old ideas. This novel is refreshing to me, it turns out that the novel can still be fascinating and fascinating to read without a twisty and moving story. After that, I read Mr. Jia Pingwa's novel "Shangzhou", the novellas "Bai Lang" and "Wukui", and the movie "Wild Mountain" adapted from the novel.
Time soon entered the 90s, I gave up going to a technical school and enlisted in the army to Lintong. In the army, I used my limited allowance to buy many books, such as "War and Peace", "Ordinary World", "Morning Starts at Noon", "White Deer Plain", and "Waste Capital" and "White Night" by Mr. Jia Pingwa. At that time, the literary "Shaanxi Army's Eastern Crusade" had the momentum of Shaanxi literature and Chinese literature. Seeing the postscript of Mr. Jia Pingwa's "Waste Capital", the creation of "Waste Capital" was originally created on a reservoir in Yaozhou, Tongchuan. In the middle of summer, the reservoir where people drown every year is a swimming pool for Mr. Jia to get rid of the hot heat. In the winter, Mr. Jia took the thick first draft of "Waste Capital" from Huxian County to my hometown of Dali, a small village named Dengzhuang in the northern suburbs of Weibei County, where a friend (Ma Jiantao) reworked the draft. And my family's ancestral house is also in Dengying Village, which is closely connected to Dengzhuang. In the afterword, Mr. Jia concentrated on revising the draft in a room on the second floor of the farmhouse courtyard. In the early morning, chickens and dogs bark in the smoky village alleys, and the cries of small traders constantly enter the room. In the evening, the hazy mist gradually rose on the Weibei Plain, the dogs barked in the village alleys, and the chickens raised by the neighbors fluttered and flew into the trees. Every time I see this, I am proud that Mr. Jia once created this masterpiece in Dali. The days when he wrote the novel "Waste Capital" were the most depressing time in Mr. Jia Pingwa's life. Teacher Jia said that this book is a work that soothes his soul. "Waste Capital" was published, Luoyang paper was expensive for a while, comments and readers' praise and slander were blazing, and Mr. Jia's life fell into a low point in his life. In a text, Mr. Jia Pingwa wrote that he and his lover broke up after completing the divorce procedures, he pushed his bicycle and left, and turned back to his former lover who saw him cross the bridge and look across the river and shouted: "Go back and cook for the baby." At that moment, how can we not feel the state of life that an intellectual is looking for and sticking to in the face of the change of social values and the dazed life in the face of the rapid development of social and economic construction. Throughout the history of world literature, all writers who have made great achievements in their literary careers have often been born when their lives are in great tribulation. In the same way, if in an era, a work is released and causes a sensation, but in the end it is banned and destroyed, then, after a few years, this work will definitely be reborn after the experience of time, and will be recognized and praised by the public. Such works must have vitality and can be passed on to future generations and will never be extinguished. Our hometown Dali is famous for Chinese literature and world literature because of "Waste Capital". At the end of my three-year military service, I went home with two boxes full of books. In my youth, I also tried to write a novella and several short stories. After joining the work, I have been silently paying attention to literature, which has become a dream buried deep in my heart, a secret that is rarely revealed. In recent years, Mr. Jia Pingwa has a long work every year. I have been paying close attention to Mr. Jia Pingwa's literary dynamics. "Missing the Wolf", "Happy", "Qin Cavity", "Gao Laozhuang", "Yamamoto", "With the Light", "Ancient Furnace", "The Story of the Qin Mountains", "Temporary Sitting" and the newly published work "The Legend of the River and Mountain". The novel "Waste Capital" won the French Femina Literary Award, and "Qin Dialect" won the 7th Mao Dun Literature Award. "Temporary Sitting" won the "Novel of the Year" in the 22nd "Contemporary" Literary Rally. "The Legend of the Qinling Mountains" is a novel written in the style of ancient novels and won the 2022 People's Literature Novel Award. After reading it, I was deeply moved. The first sentence of the opening sentence of "The Legend of the Qinling Mountains", "Write every sentence of Chinese literature well", seems to be the most basic requirement that Mr. Jia Pingwa has made for himself to focus on literary creation for half a century, and how to treat Chinese culture and Chinese literature. It also seems to have put forward an initiative in the Chinese literary circles to respect the profound and inclusive excellent qualities of the traditional culture of our Chinese nation that has been uninterrupted for thousands of years. "The Story of the Qinling Mountains", the writer relied on his own birth and growth in Si, his life is intertwined with the Qinling Mountains, the dragon vein of China, and the blood flowing in the veins is related to the Qinling Mountains and will never be separated. In the second section of the novel, the writer writes: "China is mountainous, and Kunlun is the ancestor of the mountains, and the god of heaven dwells. The Jade Emperor, the Queen Mother, Taishang, Zhu Rong, Aunt Feng, Lei Bo, and the beasts and spirits, the fairy of ten thousand flowers, and the gods are full of them, and they have to go to the sea to bathe in the first day of spring, summer, autumn and winter. The sea moves for seven days. The road passed through is the ridge of the earth, that is, the Qinling Mountains. At the beginning of the novel, it is pointed out that the roots of traditional Chinese culture are integrated with the Kunlun Mountains and the Qinling Mountains. Writers have great ambitions, require that every sentence of their own words be worthy of traditional Chinese culture, and strive to explore the initial state of generation of traditional Chinese culture and explore the original and most primitive appearance of traditional Chinese culture in the spirit of writing every sentence of Chinese literature. In the 80s, with the deepening of the mainland's reform and opening up, European and American literature, and the Nobel Prize in Literature with the world's highest achievements were widely promoted in China. At that time, in the field of literature and art, there was a popular understanding that "the more national, the more global." "I think Mr. Jia Pingwa's original intention in writing "The Legend of the Qinling Mountains" is to use the simplest, most simple, and most intuitive form of notes in the embryonic period of ancient novels in the mainland, and draw on the most localized characteristics of the mainland's gods, ghosts, legends, absurdity, mysteries, etc. Strive to make the text of the novel shrouded in a situation full of life, fireworks, and steaming fog. In a word, Mr. Jia Pingwa is very dedicated to restoring the most primitive and fundamental background of the emergence and existence of traditional Chinese culture. The novel "The Legend of the Qinling Mountains" is another innovation in Mr. Jia Pingwa's literary creation, and "The Legend of the Qinling Mountains" should be his representative work of literary creation in this period. At the beginning of 2024, Mr. Jia Pingwa's new novel "The Legend of Rivers and Mountains" won the 2023 "Harvest" Magazine's Annual Outstanding Novel Award. I have been reading novels very slowly, and it took me about a month to concentrate on reading "The Legend of Rivers and Mountains", and I felt a lot of feelings.
The protagonist of the novel "The Legend of Rivers and Mountains", Xihe, lives in Yadi Village, 200 miles north of Xi'an. He has a stubborn heart, does not lose his innocence, has a natural vision (has 12 toes), looks strange and ugly, and has the wisdom of never forgetting. Washing the river always causes trouble, and if my father doesn't fight for three days, he will go to the house to uncover the tiles. My father was working in Xi'an and fell to his death in an accident. His mother worked hard for him and died of illness. Xihe, who lost his parents, accidentally met Lou Shengmao, who made popcorn as a business and went to the countryside and villages, but in fact took the opportunity to visit his abducted and trafficked daughter. Xihe ran away from his hometown for the first time and followed Lou Shengmao to wander around. After separating from Lou Shengmao, Xihe returned to the village with a popcorn machine, and mixed up with Xiao Wanlin, always doing something that was not famous and caused trouble. Xihe won the care of the village and became a forest ranger. However, he couldn't bear the loneliness and privately handed over the forest protection work to Wan Lin. Wan Lin was not responsible for the forest protection work, resulting in a fire, the forest was seriously burned, and Xihe was afraid of taking responsibility and going to prison, so he ran away from home and came to Xi'an City to work. When he first arrived in the big city, Xihe worked in the labor market and picked up a business card of Luoshan. Luo Shan's name is very big, and Xihe wants to follow Luo Shan to break into the world, and he has the heart to find Luo Shan. The novel is very dramatic in the interpretation of washing the river and pulling the banner to find Luoshan, and since then the river and Luoshan have been washed, and the "rivers and mountains" meet. Originally, the two people who couldn't beat the eight poles have been entangled in fate since then: one is the CEO of a private enterprise who calls for wind and rain in front of people, and faces the wind freely and casually; One is a stubborn heart, without losing his innocence, and following the big boss before and after the saddle. The writer writes about a migrant worker and a big boss who have been together for more than 20 years, and in the context of the rapid development of social and economic construction, the two of them have not lost their authenticity, homeopathic adaptation, sharing weal and woe, and "reflecting each other's interesting" real-life experience. However, the glimpse of prosperity and the smoke are scattered, leaving only a sighing and embarrassing fateful ending. At the end of the novel, Luo Shan, who runs a coal mine, a winery, a printing house, a hotel, and a real estate business, is accidentally hit and killed by a woman who committed suicide by jumping off a building. Xihe managed the villa built by Luo Shan in the Qinling Mountains, and Mei Qing, who was hired by Luo Shan to be a nanny for his father, fell in love for a long time, got married, and had a female pigeon. In the end, the pigeon became a model and married Luo Yang, who accompanied his mother back from Canada and inherited his father Luo Shan's career. Xihe and Luoshan eventually became a family. Teacher Jia Pingwa washes the river with a small person, and the different living circumstances of the big boss Luoshan, reflecting the changes in social life and people's ideology in the mainland (the names of the two protagonists form "Heshan") in the past 40 years of reform and opening up. The writer uses the language of perfection to tell the story. In a language situation that is not mixed with personal emotional tendencies, the reader can observe and judge the beauty and ugliness, good and evil of people's behavior in real life. In the trivial narrative of ordinary life, readers can feel the real life of contemporary times and the real humanity. "The Legend of Rivers and Mountains" is an excellent work for Mr. Jia Pingwa's unremitting pen work, and has created an excellent work with a witty and interesting storyline, reflecting the real real life of the mainland for more than 40 years of reform and opening up.
Yang Lijia, a native of Dali County, Shaanxi Province, is a member of the Weinan Writers Association and a director of the Dali County Writers Association. Member of the editorial board of the official account of "Lumao Literature". Novels, essays, poems, and reviews have been published in magazines and newspapers. (This article comes from Lu Mao Literature)
[Qingfeng Shaanxi] submission mailbox [email protected]