Author: Shen Congwen
"Border Town" is set in Chadong, a small mountain town in western Hunan and the nearby villages. It describes the life of an old man on a ferry and his granddaughter Cuicui, as well as the relationship between Cuicui and Cuicui. The tortuous love story between Tianbao and Nuosong, the son of the shipowner.
The author endows all the people he writes with a kind of honest and simple humanity, the virtue of obeying ancient etiquette, and a life without desires and disputes.
The author yearns for "a beautiful, healthy, natural life form that is not contrary to human nature", hates the so-called modern civilization, and hates the darkness of reality, so he constructed an ideal world in his works. This is to express his hope of rebuilding the nation and express his persistent pursuit of an ideal life.
The heroine Cuicui in "Border Town" is the embodiment and ultimate of the author's yearning for beautiful humanity and life. Through this image, especially the character's attitude in love life, the author depicts a pure and beautiful emotion in the world, eulogizes human nature and life that symbolize love and beauty, and provides a proper explanation of the word human love.
The author pays attention to the connotation and emotion of the novel, but does not pay attention to the plot and structure. He integrates the writing style of prose and the lyrical elements of poetry into the novel, creating a kind of lyrical and freehand expression.