First of all, Jin Shengtan affirmed the creative spirit of Outlaws of the Marsh to expose darkness and criticize reality. He said in "The General's Wedge":
For the author of this book, I don't know what kind of grievances he has in his chest. However, being a saint like Mencius is still a mockery of the great alcohol and small defects. Why blame the words? After the gentleman, he also read his book to mourn his heart.
Secondly, Jin Shengtan pointed out that the "offence and insurrection" of Song Jiang and others was driven out by a generation of corrupt officials in Gao Qiu. To this end, he deliberately moved the appearance of Gao Qiu for the first time, and pointed out in this general batch:
70 times of a big book will be written by 180 people. However, if you write Gao Qiu, you will write a book of 180 people, and if you don't write Gao Qiu, you will write 180 people, which will be chaotic. If you don't write 180 people, write Gao Qiu first, which is completely arbitrary.
Thirdly, Jin Shengtan expressed sympathy and praise for the persecuted people and some of their resistance struggles in his specific comments on Water Margin. For example, the tenth time, Lin Chong lamented that he had been framed by Gao Qiu and had to go to Liangshan to become an outlaw. Jin Shengtan criticized: "Crying in one word, crying in one blood, has never stopped." In the fourteenth episode, Ruan Xiaowu said: "Now lawsuits are harming people everywhere. When you get to the countryside, eat all the pigs, sheep, chickens and geese raised by good people before sending them away." Jin Shengtan criticized: "Mourning through the ages is to write the truth of the water margin." This shows that Jin Shengtan has sympathy and affection for this hero who was caught up with Liangshan. "Wedge" criticized that "although there are snakes and tigers in this mountain, it doesn't hurt people": "A Water Margin is always praised by 180 people." Although he is opposed to the people's uprising in a fundamental position, he often can't help but praise the rebellious words and deeds of the heroes of the Water Margin in specific comments. For example, Song Jiang, who hated him very much, wrote an anti-poem in Xunyang Building. In his comment on writing, he praised many times: "How abrupt and dripping!" "A pen that suddenly drips!" Later, Song Jiang was arrested and imprisoned. Li Kui jy said: "Those who chanted anti-poetry, shot birds very badly and rebelled thousands of times have become big officials!" Jin Shengtan criticized: "Horrible words! Quick, quick! " These bold remarks are of great value to a feudal scholar.
Jin Shengtan, based on the understanding that The Water Margin is the method of ten thousand volumes, has the highest evaluation of the artistic achievements of The Water Margin and has made the greatest efforts in commenting on it. First of all, he spoke highly of the characterization of Water Margin. "Reading the Calligraphy of the Fifth Talented Person" said: "If you don't read a book once, you will never get tired of reading it. It is nothing more than writing all the roles of 180 to him. " The Water Margin has 180 characters, which is really 180 characters. "He analyzed the" Water Margin "characterization of personalized characteristics, said:
The Water Margin only describes people's rough brine, so there are many ways to write it: for example, Lu Da's rough brine is impatience, Shi Jin's rough brine is the arrogance of a teenager, jy's rough brine is handsome, your rough brine is the freedom of a hero, Ruan's rough brine is grief and indignation, and Jiao Ting's rough brine is bad temper.
While analyzing the personality characteristics of the characters in Water Margin, Jin Shengtan noticed the * * * characteristics embodied in individual characters. For example, when commenting on the image of Zhang Shun in Bailong Temple, he said: "Write a hero friend directly." It is precisely because many characters in Water Margin not only have their distinctive personalities, but also reflect the * * * nature of a certain kind of people in life, so Jin Shengtan pointed out that the characters in Water Margin have reached the realm of "no matter what they mention, they are familiar with the old days". This statement is very similar to the so-called "familiar stranger" in modern Russian belinsky, which shows that Jin Shengtan has come into contact with typical problems in artistic creation.
Jin Shengtan also analyzed in detail the reasons why the characters in Water Margin can be written as "the same but different". The Twenty-fifth General will be compared with the heroes written by three military commanders, namely, Lu Da, Lin Chong and Yang Zhi, pointing out: "His heart is not like Lu Rulin's heart like Yang, his heart is not like Lu Rulin's heart like Yang, and his shape and ending are not like Lu Rulin's shape like Yang." That is to say, when portraying the characters, the author of the Water Margin comprehensively wrote out the differences between the characters from the inside to the outside, and this difference was caused by the different social status and life experiences of the characters. For example, he said, "If you write Yang Zhi, you will have the body of an old family child, and you will have the body of an official." Comment on the section "Dongguo Tournament" said: "Everyone has a first-class status. If Liang Zhongshu is shocked, it is a civil servant status; All the officials cheered and were all officials; The sergeant said a lot, which is everyone's identity. " These analyses are very enlightening.
When commenting on The Water Margin, Jin Shengtan also emphatically analyzed the superb skills of expressing characters' personalities through personalized characters' language. The preface to The Water Margin by Shi Naian, the fifth gifted scholar, reads: "The Water Margin narrates 180 people. People have their temperament, their temperament, their appearance, their voice. " For example, in the tenth time, Lin Chong asked Wang Lun to allow him to join, and Jin Shengtan criticized: "Lin Chong speaks. It should be noted that this ... is not the dirty human language in the world, but it must be Ruda and Li Kui JY; Therefore, writing Lin Chong is another pen and ink. " On the fifty-fifth session, while I was writing, thief A overheard the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Xu Ning and the maid. Jin commented: "What I heard at the night when I moved was family language, family language, host language, maid language, upstairs language, cold night language, host language and sleepy language. Every sentence has eyes in the middle and edges at both ends, so I don't just write a few words. " It can be seen that Jin Shengtan made a detailed and in-depth study of the characters' language in Water Margin.
Secondly, Jin Shengtan systematically summarized some specific methods and techniques in novel creation for the first time in the history of China's novel theory through his comments on Water Margin. For example, he made a detailed study on the structural layout of Water Margin, and summed up more than a dozen so-called grammars, such as "backward insertion method", "narrative method", "grass snake gray line method", "cotton needle and mud stabbing method", "teasing method" and "otter tail method" and so on. Although these "grammars" summed up by him are inevitably conformist, many of them have won the author's artistic ingenuity and are his outstanding contributions to the aesthetics of China's novels.
While analyzing the artistic achievements of Water Margin, Jin Shengtan also pays attention to the mystery of the creative process. On the basis of affirming the primacy of real life, he put forward the theory of "treating others with sincerity". The preface to The Fifth Talented Man's Book Shi Naian Water Margin says:
There is no better gentleman in the world than Mr. Shi Naian. Scholars can honestly understand things and publish articles, so they are the forest of cultural relics. ..... Shi Naian with one heart, one hundred and eighty people into the wonderful, without him, ten years, once.
The so-called "grid object" here refers to the contact with external things, and the premise of this "grid object" is "clear mind", that is, there is no prejudice and distractions, so as to correctly and objectively "grid object". Jin Shengtan believes that Shi Naian's great success in art lies in his "ten-year style and one-time style". After a long period of observation and pondering on human physics in real life, he finally got a clear understanding, and then he was able to express it freely and incisively.
"Becoming pregnant with Wu Ge" is the basis of creation, but emphasizing "Becoming pregnant with Wu Ge" does not mean asking for copying life. Jin Shengtan pointed out in Reading Wuzi Calligraphy:
A Water Margin is more interesting than Historical Records. No one will believe it, but I don't know if anyone is talking nonsense. In fact, Historical Records is based on documents; The Water Margin is caused by literature. To do things by literature means that something happens first, and then a text comes out. Although he is a scholar, he is also hard-working. Because of the story, so no, just follow the nature of the pen, cut high and make up for low by me.
This passage can be described as a feature of artistic fiction in literary creation. However, Jin Shengtan also pointed out that "doing things because of literature" does not mean fiction, and artistic fiction should also follow the logic of life. This is the so-called "law of karma". The fifty-fifth general comment said:
Cause and effect are inseparable. Since ancient times, prostitutes have stolen Chinese law without printing plates, stolen children without printing plates as thieves, and used people without printing plates as writing methods. Cause and effect give birth to law, and everything is sufficient.
"Karma" is a Buddhist term and a free translation of Sanskrit Hetupratyaya. The sixth volume of "All Houses" said: "The karma is combined, and all laws are born." "Cause" refers to the conditions that play a major and direct role in producing results, and "fate" refers to the conditions that play an auxiliary and indirect role. The word "the combination of the two" refers to the reasons and conditions for the formation of things, the arousal of awareness and the emergence of karma. Jin Shengtan borrows this term here to explain that writers should describe characters and events according to the causal relationship and objective laws of their development, and write the inevitability of their behavior and events. This is enlightening, reminding writers to reasonably imagine and fiction under the premise of artistic truth.
When discussing the mystery of novel creation, Jin Shengtan also pointed out that writers must be "tempted" when shaping characters, that is, they should integrate their own thoughts and emotions into the characters described, put themselves in the position of the characters' spiritual personality, and make the characters in their works jump to the page. Back to the fifty-fifth total batch said:
If you are not an adulteress, you will never know an adulteress. If you are not a thief, you will never know how to steal. It is said that buddhist nun is not an adulterer or a thief, and naturally he has no resistance to buddhist nun. ..... If the husband is lured to be an adulteress and is lured to steal his son, is it just that the adulteress stole his son? However, the anti-temple is between a three-inch pen and a piece of paper. It is really tempting to be an adulteress and to steal things. If you are tempted, you will be fine.
These opinions are still of inspiration and reference value to us today.
(Source: Bloggers Meet Water People)