Reading Shen Congwen's Collection of Snow Clear: How to Be a Good Author

Shen Congwen's writing style comes from vulgarity, but it is beautiful and refined, and his basic skills are natural. His writing is very coherent and fluent, and there is no obstacle to the transition. It seems that a mountain stream flows naturally around the bend, and there are no superfluous words, so he is thin. There is a faint sense of humor and wildness in the speech, but it is not blunt, as if it were a real snapshot of the scene, without any treatment.

In the article Qiao Xiu and Dongsheng, it is written that Aunt Yang sells chickens, saying that she is reluctant to sell the fat hens as decent as this family. Teacher Shen seldom makes psychological characterization, but only focuses on describing Aunt Yang's tone, expression and dialogue, bringing this reluctant ambivalence to life, as if she were there. Look:

Teacher Shen seldom uses unnecessary adverbs in his composition, and his words are compact and powerful. In the modern literary world, there are not many traces of westernization in vernacular Chinese, and Shen Congwen is a maverick. Look at the paragraphs listed above and count how many "yes" and "no", almost none! Although Mr. Shen often says that he can't even use punctuation, watching him break sentences is like staring at the flowing joints of momentum. What a wonderful thing.

Mr. Wang's moving scene is extremely vivid, just like a movie. Let's take a look at the clip describing hunting in Red Nightmare:

Reading such words, because it is a moving scene that happened in a hurry, we hardly have time to think or pause. It seems that words have a kind of magic, which can make us stare at words with wide eyes, and without blinking, vivid scenes flash in front of us, just like watching a performance on the screen of a movie.

Looking at these two paragraphs, in addition to omitting unnecessary adverbs, powerful verbs and several appropriate adjectives support the real dynamics of the scene. After careful aftertaste, you can still feel the charm of the water margin, but it washes away the tone of the storyteller and is more refined.

Shen Congwen's landscape writing also has its uniqueness. He doesn't necessarily use colorful words, on the contrary, he is extremely simple. Just a few words outline the beautiful scenery, just like freehand brushwork:

Character sketch is quite basic, grasping the identity, status, function and age of the character, and depicting the portrait of the character in compact and straightforward language, which is vivid and accurate, showing an exact personality. Reading the text, you can see the image of the characters and hear their voices, which are different. For example, the old lady:

Girl pretty show:

How vivid! Although it is so straightforward and emotionless, there is a vivid and life-threatening love for this country! The scenery of these characters is Border Town. Shen Congwen's ideal world based on reality is ideal, but not perfect. At least, it laments the ignorance of the villagers, but the author is always full of yearning for simplicity.