Why are some of Yu Hua's romantic and tragic novels able to capture the hearts of millions of readers in the postmodern era of electronic picture reading? A novel "Alive" has become the best-selling novel in reading history. What's the reason?
I seem to have found the answer from the narrative strategy of "Wencheng". When the author climbed out of the narrative trap of avant-garde novels, Yu Hua's narrative style began to become peaceful, calm and seemingly popular. Let the majority of non-professional readers obtain the human connotation conveyed by the work without any dyslexia.
In the final analysis, the prerequisite for novel reading must be barrier-free reading, otherwise why would it need to be liberated from the shackles of classical Chinese narrative! As everyone knows, in the scope of world literature, the legendary nature of novels is regarded as a standard. The most important element of the legendary chivalrous literary works like "Don Quixote" has become a world classic is its legendary color. In fact, among the "Four Great Classics" in ancient China, several are not known for their legends.
Then, the narrative style of the novel "Wencheng" has undergone new changes in works such as "Alive" and "Xu Sanguan Sells Blood". Obviously, it has the legendary nature of the work. A lot of effort was put into it, but it is not a legendary popular novel in the general sense, but an exercise in "backdoor listing". My previous doubts about "Wencheng" were - could it be another resurrection of popular novels in the print media era more than a hundred years ago? The answer is obviously no.
Undoubtedly, the legendary nature of novels is a core element of popular novels. This element was blacked out overnight by "modernism" and "avant-garde novels" in the 1980s. However, the novel was abandoned Reading the story makes it clear that the legendary "avant-garde novels" did not go very far before they came back. Su Tong and Yu Hua were the first authors to eliminate reading difficulties and return to the "avant-garde novels" with a legendary narrative style.
Of course, we cannot deny the status of "avant-garde novels" in literary history. Their significance in modifying and transforming novel technology is unquestionable, but we cannot hinder readers from reading. Interests and reading choices, those external novel forms and techniques cannot capture and impress many readers. Readers do not buy the meaning of "how to write". What they want is to first understand the novel, and secondly The story can move people's hearts and make them think.
So, "Wives and Concubines" and "To Live" are excellent examples that break out from formal techniques, especially after Yu Hua came to life in "Shouting in the Drizzle", a heavy " "Alive" allows him to occupy an important position in the century-old literary history of China. However, it is not a "Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School" legendary novel. Its essential feature is that it is popular but not popular.
In other words, it is a truly serious novel, because its historical and tragic "epic" effect determines that it can break through the prison of superficial legends that stagnate in popular novels. The shortcomings of being unable to extricate yourself, and the exploration of the complex and mottled flaws of human nature at a deeper level. In this regard, although "Alive" is not the so-called heavy "epic" work in our impression.
However, its historical and tragic carrying capacity is huge. I have always viewed it as an "epic" that profoundly analyzes human nature, although it is not an epic in our usual sense. "Epic" sample novels like "White Deer Plain" are more easily recognized by literary history. However, if we are bound by the rigid and rigid concept of "epic", our understanding of the sequence of diverse "epics" entering literary history will be the same. kind of distorted thinking.