There are twenty monsters in the book. Each monster has its own warmth, which is as timeless as a stream and as deep as the deep sea. The twenty stories are all satirical and sadistic, for love, righteousness, fame and wealth, and the right path in the world. The writing is permeated with a strong charm of Chinese classical culture, every word is like a painting, and every stroke is a shadow. A beautiful book.
Based on the history of each dynasty, this book depicts bizarre and astonishing stories. Everything in the world has spirituality, and when put into the pen, it can be transformed into a human form, capture the human heart, condense human nature, and transform into a human being between heaven and earth.
Among them are mortals: scholars, officials, martyrs, chivalrous men, capable people and strangers: monks, Taoist priests, Mr. Yin and Yang, spiritual creatures and monsters: fox fairies, wild ghosts, and the spirits of objects. They have flesh and blood, temperament Different.
They are worldly but detached from the world, and they follow their whims and wills. It is difficult for them to judge good and evil, but in the dark, there are two forces that govern their behavior. One is "Emotion" is a certain obsession that transcends the boundaries of life and death; one is "principle", which is a way of life that cannot be violated by all things.
The story involves a wide range of demons: a candle can become a demon, a peach charm can become a demon, a silkworm can become a demon, a cloud can also become a demon, a person can be reincarnated as a phoenix, People can control dragons and fly in the sky, people can die and turn into ghosts with resentment.
The ghost stories in the book are both reasonable and unexpected. My favorite is the story "Lan'er". Lan'er, a female ghost by the Wenjiang Lake, designed to kill the scholar Cheng Sheng in order to be reincarnated. However, she did not want to fall in love with the scholar. The scholar knew that the female ghost just wanted to find someone who could reincarnate. The scapegoat, after returning to the sun, still went into the water to die. The two stayed with each other after experiencing the cycle of life and death, and their love was like a pair of mandarin ducks and butterflies.
The opening chapter of "Candle Red" is also an extremely elegant, poignant and moving story, "I can only shed tears once in my life, and I am willing to do so for you." Although Duan Sheng, who has learned a lot, writes like a wandering dragon, Thoughts of literature surged, but bad luck came and his reputation fell from Sun Mountain. A red candle is considerate, accompanying each other, and relying on each other, but it is no match for Duan Sheng's parents and the sleazy governor who conspired to break up the marriage. After all, the marriage ended in tears and no one left behind. From then on, the red candles in Liaocheng melted instantly once they were lit.
And the cloud in "A Thousand Looks" appears to help the one you love when they need it. When it is hard to find both, it flashes silver and returns to the sky. Compared with Zhu Hong, they are both demons but have different temperaments. One kind of stubbornness, one kind of free and easy; one kind lives for love and dies for love, one kind goes for love and lets go for love.
What I most admire is the author's handling of the ending of each short story. He sees through it but does not explain it thoroughly. Some emotions cannot be expressed in pale words. He leaves blank space for the readers' own imagination. It is not exhaustive but just right. It is better than A thousand words. This kind of plot processing method makes the story more elegant, flexible and thought-provoking.
The writing style of the author of this book is very unique. The text is retro, the writing style is delicate, the outline is drawn in white, and the few words are full of emotions, bringing people a pure sense of beauty. After reading carefully, you become more and more convinced.
In various historical dynasties in China, there are countless strange forces and chaos. There are often records of ghosts, demons and foxes in ancient books. I think they may have really existed in this world a hundred years ago. There are all kinds of things that make us wonder, even though we know nothing about the mysterious world of monsters and monsters.
Although the novels about monsters and monsters are about monsters, foxes and ghosts, are they not also about the various situations in the human world? Things in real life are transformed into ordinary mortals in fantasy novels. They not only have their own personalities, but also represent a kind of representative. "Although it is destiny, it is not human affairs." Although the stories are bizarre and shocking, the prototypes can often be found in reality. In fact, the descriptions in fantasy novels are not as complicated and weird as the people and things in reality. Instead, they are often simpler. Regardless of their "emotion" or their "reason", they can be said to be meaningful and meaningful. Thought provoking.
Strange novels appeared very early in China. The basis for their emergence is as Lu Xun said in "A Brief History of Chinese Novels": "China originally believed in witchcraft. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the theory of gods has been prevalent. At the end of the Han Dynasty, the trend of witchcraft became more popular, and ghost ways became more and more popular; Hinayana Buddhism also entered the Chinese mainland and gradually spread... Therefore, from the Jin Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, there were many books about ghosts, gods, and strange things... At that time, it was thought that although there was a different path to the dark world, However, humans and ghosts are real, so there is no difference between describing strange things and recording ordinary things in the world, and there is no truth to it."
Zhiguai novels first began in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, when novels were the mainstay. It mainly describes gods, ghosts, strange objects, and Buddhist miraculous phenomena. His representative work is Qian Bao's "Sou Shen Ji", among which some excellent stories include "Li Ji", "Han Ping and his wife", and "The Little Girl of the King of Wu". , "Qianjiang Moye", "Dong Yong", etc. have a great influence on the literature of later generations.
After "Sou Shen Ji", the most valuable part of the "Youyang Zazu" written by Duan Chengshi of the Tang Dynasty is the supernatural novels. Lu Xun also believed that this book can be compared with the legends of the Tang Dynasty. The novel "Striving for the First".
After "Youyang Zazu", there are "Jian Deng Xin Hua" written by Qu Youzhi in the Ming Dynasty, "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", "Notes from Yuewei Thatched Cottage", "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" written in the Qing Dynasty. "Surprise at the Case", "Zi Buyu", "The Legend of Sansui Pingyao", "Notes of Youtai Immortal Hall".
Among them, Pu Songling's "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" is the most exciting. Various chapters in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" either reveal the darkness of feudal rule, criticize the decadence of the imperial examination system, or resist the constraints of feudal ethics. They contain rich and profound ideological content. .
After "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", I feel that domestic fantasy novels suddenly stopped being available. Just as Mr. Lu Xun said in "A Brief History of Chinese Novels", "Ghosts and foxes are getting rarer, while fireworks are becoming rarer." The matter of Fendai is flourishing."
From the beginning of "Sou Shen Ji" to the end of "Notes of Youtai Immortal Hall", in the next hundred years, the genre of Zhiguai has basically disappeared in Chinese literature.
In fact, the origin of Chinese novels comes from the idle chats of scholar-bureaucrats after tea. This is the unique source of Chinese novels. They are not very targeted or utilitarian. However, as time goes by With the passage of time, the words of Zhiguai have gradually become utilitarian. The stories of cause and effect cycles in Zhiguai novels actually play a role in moral education. For example, Pu Songling's "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" uses ghosts and demons to satirize corruption and abuse. Of course, its artistic value is needless to say. Ji Yun's "Notes from the Yuewei Cottage" also has the idea of ??persuading people to do good.
In fact, China should have some novels that are as free from hysteria as possible, that don’t express emotions as much as possible, and that don’t need to contain anything. Literature should return to art and reproduce the mysterious Eastern culture. A long-lost artistic beauty.