Sun Li attaches great importance to the sense of responsibility of prose writers, and thinks that prose creation should actively participate in and promote the progress of real life. Extract a beautiful realm with strong life breath from real life. His early essays, such as Weaving Mats, Picking Reed on the Platform, and Stories of Clothing, are all refinements and reflections on the beautiful artistic conception of real life. For Sun Li, a lotus flower and a reed in the central Hebei plain are deeply infiltrated with the author's feelings. "Reed on the Vegetable Garden Platform" tells a story of the struggle between the people of Baiyangdian and the enemy, which closely combines the "bone" of reed with the struggle of the people. It is water that feeds the reeds in Baiyangdian Lake, and people live on reeds. There are reeds everywhere, and people and reeds are so closely combined. People are like birds parasitic in reeds, walking through them all day long. "I gradually know that reeds also have their own uses, because they are hard, strong and fragile. Among them, the big white skin is white and tall, which is mostly used to weave small lace kang mats; Because the grass is bony, it is mostly used to fill the house with alkali. " Therefore, "when the gunfire of the war is still coming and the people's trauma has not been completely calmed down. About Tang Wei, it is not only a kind of scenery, it is full of gunpowder and countless heroic memories. If it is only a simple reed, if it is simply beautiful, it will not become a scenic spot in central Hebei. "After the author's description," Picking up Pu Tai Lu "has an unusual artistic conception. In The Story of Clothes, the author tells a story on his way from Yan 'an to Jizhong. His task is to drive donkeys for lesbians. "Those babies were packed in two wicker baskets and hung on both sides of their mother. As soon as the donkey walks, the mothers' bodies are shaking, and the children, like swallows, stick their heads out of the basket, screaming and making noise, mixed with the caressing sound of their mothers, shaking their long journey of joy. "This scene, although the journey is tired, also has its own carefree and comfortable fun.
Sun Li also outlined a meaningful rural artistic conception from the memories of the past. The article "Through the Spring Famine", after describing the difficult scene of the villagers in their hometown digging weeds to spend the spring famine, wrote a beautiful scene full of vitality: "In spring, countless children run in the fields driven by hunger and new vitality. They ran all over the sky, looking for traces, laughing and fighting, and catching up with each other. " "The spring breeze blows, the earth wakes up, the river thaws, everything is evil, the land becomes soft, and the children's feet are buried. They are still running happily and have no feeling of trekking. " The old man who experienced the baptism of war and the joys and sorrows of life turned his eyes back to the ordinary things around him and the remote corners of his memory with a deep state of mind, and found some simple and eternal meanings from it. He wrote about flowers, fruits, rivers, his dreams of painting and calligraphy, pens, animals, newspapers, ash trees in late autumn, the old house in his former residence, his illness experience and a piece of luggage that his dead wife cherished very much. He once described an ordinary cabbage flower around him like this:
"... after Tomb-Sweeping Day, some vegetable heads will swell up. As the saying goes, if you eat, you will get pregnant. Slowly peel off the vegetable help, and a pale yellow cauliflower is attached to the root of the vegetable, and the top is covered with stamens like a pile of small grains of rice. It is a kind of spring scenery in my study to flatten the roots, put them in a basin and put them on a book case. ""cauliflower, graceful, beautiful and natural, elegant and clean. It has no fragrance, so it has no peculiar smell. The color is monotonous, so there is no mottling. Usually, it is this yellow. But in addition to cauliflower, the world can no longer see this yellow. " ("cauliflower")
Yang Shuo is essentially a poet. His early study of classical poetry and his enthusiasm for poetry creation are the most authentic and natural manifestations of his personality and temperament. He once said, "I should be a poet!" "But the revolutionary war pushed him into the field of novels and communication. He has been writing these two styles in the first three stages of his creation, which basically suppressed his "poetic soul". From the beginning of the creation of articles such as "Red Leaves in Xiangshan", he found his own poetic gushing mouth, and he brewed one poetic prose after another, which made the harmony between writers and works, people's temperament and style more consistent and relatively unified, and made his creation leap to a new height.
The outstanding contribution of Yang Shuo's prose lies in his creation of a Yang Shuo-style "poetic prose". For the first time, he clearly put forward the artistic idea of "taking poetry as the text", which is unique in prose creation. He said: "Good prose is poetry"; "When I write every article, I always write it as a poem ... I often ask for the artistic conception of poetry." "When I started writing, I didn't think I could write freely because I wrote prose. I always have to cut out the materials, arrange the layout, scrutinize the text, and then write an article like a poem. " This is his brave declaration in the field of prose art! Prose has always been "speak frankly". The so-called "talking directly about Chen Qi" and "expressing one's mind directly" only pay attention to "full of love and writing"; Although Zhu Ziqing, a master of modern prose, wrote many excellent works with mixed situations, paid considerable attention to refining ideas and tempering sentences, and began to make prose poetic, he did not put forward a clear artistic proposition, nor did he make such an inquiry in all his works. Yang Shuo, on the other hand, made great efforts to innovate, boldly went his own way, unveiled the banner of "writing with poetry", and proved its feasibility and success with his rich artistic practice-this is where he is smarter and more innovative than his predecessors.
The most striking artistic feature of Yang Shuo's prose is its beautiful realm and poetry.
He is an expert in creating the environment. Scene, dialogue, scenery and atmosphere, he only needs a few simple strokes to make the artistic conception full and express it perfectly. For example, in Haicheng, he wrote a strange mirage on the sea, which made the mirage look hazy and ethereal, and made people feel like a fairy wind blowing on their faces. In "The Peak of Mount Tai", he wrote that the mountains are "well-defined" and Gu Song is "so thick that it seems to flow down". In his pen, the sky is high and the clouds are light, and the mountains are flowing. "The whole mountains and rivers are rejoicing"; In Snow Waves, the girls play at the seaside and watch the waves hit the rocks. The witty scene of "Old Mount Tai" is so cheerful, shocking and full of realm; In "Litchi Honey", "I" looked at the distance thoughtfully, and the hard-working farmers were bending over to transplant rice seedlings in the rice field. This painting is so open, quiet and logical. Yang Shuo's prose and articles have their own unique artistic world, and it is not easy to start with fascinating stories. Among contemporary essayists, it seems difficult to find an author who has the powerful skill of creating "environment" like him.
Because his prose is like poetry, it is naturally full of poetry. This "poetic" is mainly manifested in the overall conception of the work. For example, in Top of Mount Tai, "an amazing green landscape painting" with "inverted exhibition" as the running clue, when it "reveals the most wonderful part of the picture", the style of writing suddenly drops, pointing out that the theme of "We clearly see another more brilliant sunrise" is round and seamless, and it is full of rich poetry in the rise of thought; The pun writing of "Red Leaf in Xiangshan" makes the "Red Leaf" and "Old Guide" in Xiangshan get closer and closer with the gradual development of the content of the article, and finally communicate with each other and blend into one, overflowing with fresh and clear poetry in the clever use of symbols; The sentence "the boy's face is wide open" in Camellia Fu is like a poetic eye, which solves the "difficult problem" of painting the face of "the motherland" and makes the full text poetic. In sakura rain, my husband couldn't help whispering "Let's go on strike", and the "two sparks" in her soft eyes made me deeply "stunned" by her. "I didn't expect the burning desire of the Japanese people to be hidden in this cowardly heart", which was suppressed and raised. Others, like a bee, a pile of anthills, a jewel, a small lamp, a bunch of waves, a jathyapple, a crane's head and a spring water, are all painted with the color of poetry in Yang Shuo's works. He once said: "In your struggle and work, there is always something that touches your heart, makes you passionate, makes you happy, makes you sad and makes you think deeply. If it is not a poem, what is it? Whenever I encounter such an emotional thing, I have to think about it repeatedly, and later I often form the thoughts and emotions in the article. " Yang Shuo always looks for "poetry" in his life: once he is emotional, he thinks hard about the inside story, and with his temperament and intention of "poetry is like fire", he turns it into the poetic thinking and realm of his works, and naturally "prose is also a good poem". "
In addition to the above characteristics, Yang Shuo's prose is full of twists and turns, and its layout is exquisite. His articles pay attention to "writing", and generally always take the lead, with extraordinary momentum; Then, the waves are ups and downs, full of twists and turns, collecting wonderful "winding paths leading to a secluded place"; Finally, most of them are "pawn Zhang Xianzhi", and their understanding suddenly sublimates, and they dig out new ideas conveniently, calmly "make the finishing point" and implicitly accept the pen. His rigorous writing skills make his prose works like carefully trimmed bonsai art.
In addition, his prose language is fresh, elegant and refined. He is used to writing novels, so "spoken language" is the background color of his articles; He is also proficient in classics and good at foreign languages, so he occasionally mixes some quite elegant written language. In this way, the unique language style of his works has readability and durability.
But Yang Shuo's prose also has its obvious shortcomings. This shortcoming can be recognized from a higher aesthetic level. In addition to the "poetic soul" that people often say, his prose also has the tendency of dissemination and fiction. This is inseparable from his writing of newsletters and novels (and for such a long time) to prose. The theme of artistic prose is mostly memories of the past (or the interweaving of memories and reality), but Yang Shuo is not. The theme of his prose is quite realistic, not "recalling the past", but "pursuing new life", which is a glimpse of the new life without precipitation. This is the case with the primrose and oil city by Dianchi Lake earlier, and it is still the case with the red leaves and snow waves in Xiangshan Mountain later. On the one hand, it certainly enhances the sense of reality of artistic prose, and makes it maintain a "new" look that keeps pace with life (this is very valuable and also a great advantage of Yang Shuo's prose); But on the other hand, it also left traces of reportage. For example, "Sea City" always feels that it reports the great changes of Changshan Islands in ancient and modern times. "Snow Wave" always feels like a record of the fate and temperament of "Old Mount Tai". In this way, the objectivity of the article will squeeze subjectivity, and "it" or "he" will inevitably exclude "self". This residual communication can not but affect the full play of personality and emotion in artistic prose. The same is true of fiction. Snow waves are the most typical. After publication, Cao Yu first commented on this work, saying that it was a "good novel". Articles that depict characters and pay attention to stories like this include Red Leaves in Xiangshan, Haitian, Baihua Mountain and the Origin of the Yellow Sea Sun. Even in "Camellia Fu", "Litchi Honey" and other works, there are figures such as Pu Zhiren and Lao Liang (in fact, they are completely "diluted" and "blurred"). It is almost a feature of his prose that many characters appear and dialogues are used. These, coupled with poetic tendency, are increasingly deviating from the internal track of artistic prose. It can be said that Yang Shuo's prose is unique, novel and creative; However, it does not fully reflect and give play to the aesthetic characteristics of artistic prose. The deficiency of expressing "self" (he hardly has any works about "subject" and "inner universe") is caused by communication: the existence of artificiality in works is the inevitable influence of fiction; The article has a heavy trace of carving and is too "done", which is the result of poetic proposition-it seems that he paid a very expensive price while making bold artistic exploration.
Although prose is adjacent to poetry, it will always be prose rather than poetry. Writing prose into poetry (Yang Shuo's prose is actually a "multi-voice" chorus and symphony dominated by "poetry") is not a smooth road to prose. But after all, Yang Shuo is a big hand, so he still roughly grasped the "temperature" and "measure" of his works, and achieved a unique way and became a whole; Those toddlers also follow this "Tao" (this is not the "right way"). This is "learning from the East", and Yang Shuo cannot be held responsible for nothing. As for accusing Yang Shuo of "whitewashing", it is even more outrageous, lacking "knowing people" and "judging the world". Evaluating such a talented, innovative, courageous and moral artist should be more rigorous, scientific and realistic.
Qin Mu is an outstanding contemporary essayist, and his articles are colorful. The artistic features are distinctive, the style is unique and unique.
One of the characteristics of Qin Mu's prose is profound and philosophical. Praising the new China, the new life and lashing the ugly phenomenon is a main thread running through his prose works. It is never boring to explain his views and reasons.
Qin Mu's prose is elegant in style and profound in conception. It contains the education of production thoughts in gossip, praises the motherland and people, praises socialism, guides his works with noble thoughts and elegant style of writing, and purifies the readers' hearts between the lines. Publicize the truth, goodness and beauty, lash the false, evil and ugly, and be full of hatred for all decadent, filthy and ugly things. His works fully mobilize the artistic means of association and imagination, and expound the theme in telling the past and discussing the present with fresh and fluent language.
Qin Mu's works have a wide range of materials, ranging from human beings to a small seed to a large capacity. They can carefully select materials, all the subjects are full of poetic and colorful, and all kinds of expressions are skillfully used. Qin Mu's prose uses unique techniques of expression, such as lyricism, clever integration of narrative arguments, emotions in scenes, arguments in scenes, sublimation in arguments, arguments in arguments, emotions in emotions and so on. Among them, the metaphors and epigrams are brilliant, many of which are full of knowledge and interest, satisfying readers' thirst for knowledge and gaining fresh aesthetic feeling. His prose gives readers a unique education and influence.
Liu's prose creation is full of rich flavor of the times. He once said: "A reportage writer should be the most contemporary person". (1) He is a writer who pursues the "sense of the times" enthusiastically. He often stood in the perspective of historical development, observed life from the background of China revolution, reflected reality, and tried to clearly outline the footprint of China revolution. In this way, the historic change of the motherland from "darkness" to "dawn", "rise" and "light" has become the main theme of all his works. He said: "From the heroic war to the boiling construction life, my heart beats with the pulse of the times and has been written down. Some articles collected here are only part of what I wrote, but I can also see a little historical context of China's bloody battle and a little flash of fiery construction. " Liu is a tireless soldier. He not only witnessed the process of "the collapse of an old world and the growth of a new world", but also personally participated in the battle of blood and fire that shocked the earth. So he and this era of fighting are connected and integrated. Liu's creation is shaped by the times. All the strengths and weaknesses in his creation are accurate reflections and true records of the times-knowing this is a key to understanding the mystery of Liu's creation.
A prominent feature of his prose is that he always draws materials from the life of struggle and is good at expressing the magnificence of life.
He likes our "revolutionary era" full of old and new, beauty and ugliness, light and darkness, and sharp struggle between survival and death, and thinks that only "courage, struggle and rapid progress are our lives" (angry sea). Therefore, when choosing a writing theme, he always likes to cut out a corner of the "big era" that can inspire people and inspire fighting spirit. In this way, fiery battles, brave marches, boiling construction sites and majestic songs have almost become the main contents of his works. Especially for the revolutionary war, he is full of irresistible intimacy. Many of his works are enthusiastic praises of the revolutionary war, among which Lamp is the most powerful one. Even when he writes about landscapes, he likes to write about mountains, the sea, the sunrise, the dawn, the eternal lights, the rushing river and the boats struggling in the wind and waves. It is no accident that he loves the beauty of masculinity and majesty. He said:
When I accepted the influence of Marxism-Leninism, threw myself into the torrent of revolution and into the battle, I had lofty ideals and beliefs, I was tempered by blood and fire, my emotional thoughts changed, and my views on beauty also changed. Naturally, not all the old things are discarded, but after sublation, what I love and what I write are different. Thus, my experience, my accomplishment, my personality, my spirit and my charm are integrated into one and become my style. There are thousands of people chanting the Yangtze River in ancient and modern times. "The apes on both sides of the strait can't stop crying, and the canoe has passed Chung Shan Man" is one kind of realm, while "river of no return, the waves have washed away all the romantic figures through the ages" is another kind of realm. I dare not compare with others when writing about the Yangtze River, but I wrote about the beauty of the rapids of the Yangtze River. This is the Yangtze River I have harvested, the Yangtze River I love, and the beauty of the Yangtze River. ①
This passage is not only a wonderful interpretation of his masterpiece Three Days on the Yangtze River, but also the best summary of all his prose writing styles-praising the beauty of "rushing forward". -This is the life in his heart and the theme in his writing!
Another outstanding feature of his prose is that his works are full of the revolutionary passion of the author.
He believes: "If the author does not pour blood and feelings into the article, how can the article have burning enthusiasm and brilliance?" This is a very profound creative experience. His prose is not like Yang Shuo's clever use of people and things, and it is not like Qin Mu's eloquent "knowledge-intensive". He attaches importance to the expression of feelings and experiences. His works generally run through the whole text with emotion as the clue, with the association of personal facts as the full text content, and there are heated discussions in the vertical and horizontal opening and closing, thus making it "burn" with a philosophical brilliance. As far as writing is concerned, Liu's prose is true and pure. For example, in his "Pingming Xiaozha", there is a "torrent", which has such a passage:
Today, when I quietly look at the distant night sky and the splendid starry sky, I understand that there is a safe road on the river, which belongs to the warriors. Warriors ride the surging momentum, chasing the wind and electricity, flying freely, flying thousands of miles; Cowards have not yet entered the torrent, but they have already been shocked by the majestic momentum, lost their souls and fears, and hung their heads. As a result, they can only sink with the boat they are driving and smash themselves.
..... Is it forward or backward? Is it to advance despite difficulties, or to retreat despite difficulties? People who live in the waves of revolutionary struggle should be experts in breaking the waves for thousands of miles, because the torrent will always rush forward.
There is only passion and feeling here. The "heat" can be seen from reading. Some critics say that the "political color" in his works is actually the light of thought led by this passion to a great extent, and it is a kind of burning of "blood" and "emotion" injected into factual narrative. Such passionate comments can be found everywhere in his works. His articles are always full of this "warrior's lofty sentiments".
Finally, in line with the above two points, he thinks that the writing style of the article is broad and vigorous, and he is good at creating magnificent momentum with elaborate sentences and showing the glow of literary talent with gorgeous words. When he uses words and sentences, he is often full of ink and unconstrained style, so that he can be unrestrained and incisive. In his view, this magnificent era should be worthy of this magnificent style of writing.
As a "marching horn" and a "resounding battle song", Liu's prose has its own value and status; But it goes without saying that the shortcomings of his prose are quite obvious: the similarity of materials makes the ideological theme of the article monotonous and repetitive; Unrestrained passion makes the work appear straightforward and scattered; Gorgeous writing sometimes brings emptiness and exaggeration to the content. Especially under the influence of the overall atmosphere of serious "Left" deviation at that time, all this became more serious because he failed to distinguish between the situation and the times, empty rhetoric and the scientific spirit of seeking truth.