In his later years, Sun Li's novel style changed greatly, and it was simple and dignified, and its length was extremely short. With the discussion of Master Zhai Yun, it contained the author's lifelong thinking and wisdom. This persistent watcher of spiritual pastoral formed his own aesthetic thought of advocating the way of nature in his later years.
Let's talk about Sun Li's masterpiece Lotus Lake. It was written in Yan 'an and published in the supplement of Liberation Daily in May 1945. The main content of the work is: During his stay in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, seven young people from a village in Baiyangdian, central Hebei signed up to join the army in the county seat. They were afraid that their family would drag their feet, so they recommended a guerrilla leader named Shui Sheng from the factory to go back and explain to their family. Shui Sheng rushed home overnight, went to other people's homes to do some persuasion work, bid farewell to his wife, and left in a hurry the next day. Two days later, these young women wanted to see their husbands who joined the army and bring them some clothes. They secretly sat in a small boat and rowed to the opposite Mazhuang. But the army just left the night before. So they went home and met a big Japanese ship on the way. They ran as fast as they could, with the Japanese chasing after them. When they rowed the boat into Lotus Lake, an army ambushed in the lake gave the devil a head-on blow, sank the enemy ship and destroyed the devil. Only then did they find out that it was the new husband they wanted to see who ambushed the devils at a critical moment and saved their lives. The soldiers completed the task, met their lovers again, and happily moved to other places with trophies. This autumn, this group of women also learned to shoot and fight with their children in winter.
The works affirmed the people's war and enthusiastically praised the heroic, optimistic and conscious spirit of the people in the base areas. However, the artistic expression is unique and interesting, which can be said to achieve the perfect combination of ideological content and artistic form, marking the maturity of Sun Li's short story creation and embodying the distinctive characteristics of Sun Li's novels.
First, be good at showing the times with pictures of daily life. In the space of more than 5,000 words, only one tenth of the words are used to write the ambush, and all the important words are used to write the scenes of husband and wife saying goodbye, visiting relatives and meeting their husbands, but these ordinary scenes have special significance. For example, couples bid farewell and sign up for the war of resistance, but the author did not put pen and ink on the scene of how they signed up for the war of resistance. Instead, she wrote the noble character and revolutionary consciousness of the people in the base areas, especially young women, during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period through the actions of Shuisao who knew the overall situation, took care of the overall situation, bravely shouldered the family burden and supported her husband to join the army. A few days after her husband left, aquatic sister-in-law and girlfriends missed her husband and went to see them the next day, showing the depth of love. And love so deeply and can send her husband to join the army without complaint, which is more important to the nation. After seeing her husband's ambush, they said, "We will form a team when we go back" and "They will fight with their children". This "love for children" is a hymn to the heroic sons and daughters of the new era. The sequel to Lotus Lake, Charge (1946), tells the story of going home after eight years away from home and leaving his wife in a hurry after staying for only one night. The farewell entrustment of aquatic sister-in-law seems to be a daily picture of husband and wife's farewell, but it is the entrustment of the broad masses of the people and the entrustment of history, which embodies the full support and ardent hope of the people in the liberated areas for the liberation war. Sun Li's novels are devoted to excavating the new features and noble qualities of working people, especially women, in the liberated areas in their daily lives. "As for those young women, I have said many times that their understanding, optimism and dedication during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period made me sincerely admire them and left a deep impression on them." Sun Li captured the most shining point of the spirit of the times, showing the keenness and profundity of his novels.
Second, he is good at using line drawing to combine realism and romanticism perfectly. This is inseparable from Sun Li's artistic pursuit. Sun Li has said more than once that he likes the works of Pushkin, Merimee, Nikolai Nikolai Gogol, Chekhov and Gorky. "I like the romantic atmosphere, poetic tone and pursuit of beauty in their works" ("study hard and practice hard"), and I want to "show the perfection of truth, goodness and beauty". At the beginning of Lotus Lake, a few strokes show us a poetic landscape painting, which is also a genre painting. "The moon rises, the yard is very cool and clean, and the reed eyebrows are moist during the day, just to fill the seats. The woman sat in the middle of the yard, her fingers twisted with silky and slender reed eyebrows. Lu Mei is sparse and jumps in her arms. " In this beautiful painting, the heroine is more and more ingenious, hardworking and capable. Labor life is not as boring as usual, but the pleasure of labor is expressed implicitly and beautifully in a poetic description. The author's praise and nostalgia for the countryside and people are all in this painting. This is a sketch, but there is clearly a poem in it, a "lyric poem" without any trace, so romantic. Another example is the following text: "They paddled the boat gently, and the water on both sides of the boat was screaming, screaming, screaming. I fished a water chestnut out of the water. Water chestnut is still very tender and small, milky white. Thrown into the water. The water chestnut will float on the water and grow. " The description is neat, but full of romantic poetry everywhere, showing a picture of a peaceful and beautiful life in the liberated areas and inspiring people's hatred for the devils who destroy this life.
Third, be good at describing characters with dialogue and details. For example, I wrote the paragraph where Mrs. Shui Sheng and four young women miss her husband but make excuses: "I don't want to drag my tail, but I forgot a dress", "I have something important to talk to him", "I didn't want to go, but my mother-in-law insisted that I visit him again. What's the point? " Although everyone has only one sentence, they vividly drew a group of lively and lovely young women in the war environment. The same is true of those comments about the way back after seeing my husband. Sun Li is not only good at shaping characters through external manners, but also good at capturing typical details in daily life. For example, when Shui Sheng said "I'm going to the big army tomorrow", "a woman's fingers trembled and thought that Mei Wei had cut her hand", and her intense psychological activity was conveyed through the trembling of her fingers. After listening to her husband's explanation, she lowered her head and said, "You are always positive". Saying this with your head down is different from holding your head back, tilting your head, smiling and curled your mouth. It vividly shows the wife's complex feelings and ambivalence about her husband's love at this time. This is mainly because the author is familiar with the words and deeds of the people in his hometown, which is the embodiment of the author's profound life, thought and artistic accomplishment.
Fourth, the language is concise, beautiful and poetic. People often like to use "the language of poetry" to summarize the language of Sun Li's works. Sun Li is good at discovering poetry in life and expressing it with poetic brushstrokes. Whether it is dialogue, narration or description, even the most popular spoken language can be as elegant as poetry. For example, when several women see that their husbands don't come back, there is such a sentence: "I am more afraid than anything, more afraid than getting married in the New Year-I have never seen him so afraid!" The word "panic" vividly shows the high spirits and impatience of young women and sees the fiery hearts of young people. As soon as the woman said "marry a new woman", she felt ashamed, blushed, and had a brainwave and rolled her tongue. She swallowed the word "daughter-in-law" on her lips, and her poems generally showed a flash of light in the hearts of the characters.
Sun Li's novels have their unique contributions. Although the literary creation in the Liberated Areas in the 1940s was different in theme and style, the theme and melody were basically the same, that is, patriotism, revolutionary heroism and national spirit were promoted, and a narrative mode of "political utilitarianism" was formed. Sun Li's novels broke through this popular mode to some extent and made special contributions to the nationalization and modernization of modern literature. Different from Zhao Shuli's focus on exploring how farmers grow up in the revolutionary struggle, Sun Li's poetry focuses on praising the "newness" and "beauty" of the people after the "change", instead of expressing them in a popular mode, but focusing on their inner spiritual world, which brought a "fragrant fragrance" to Yan' an readers who were used to sandstorms in that turbulent era. Under the influence of Sun Li, a group of writers, such as, Cong, Han Yingshan, Yuan Zhen, appeared, forming a far-reaching "Lotus School".