Wang Ning.
Xihaigu, a geographical term that was once out of reach, is strange to me. With the rise of Xi Haigu's writers, Shi Shuqing, Guo Wenbin, Ma Jinlian and other writers became famous. That "place where people stick to their spiritual beliefs with words" and that desolate and desolate "Xihaigu" have become a respectable literary concept of mine. It was not until 20 15 that I met Gao Lijun, a writer from Guyuan, that I began to get in touch with the real Xihaigu. From feeling her kind and noble nature, gentle and simple temperament, and then going deep into her words full of sincerity and spirit, I carefully read these distant and affectionate words, which made me more truly enter the soul of a writer in Xihaigu. She is like a bright color in the garden, bright and elegant, straight and quiet. Gao Lijun, sing for the free soul in your hometown! Sing for the poetic persistence of the land of suffering!
From the collection of essays "Let the Mind Shake Like the Wind", "Falling in the Clouds" and "The Painful Desk" to the collection of critical essays "Cut the Lights and Write Words", nearly one million words of words and numerous literary prizes have enabled us to clearly restore Gao Lijun's writing track and spiritual evolution process, that is, from the initial female perspective, we feel for the close-up life, and consciously outline the souls of people in this land, bearing uniqueness for it. There are also reading under the lamp at night, writing down their own spiritual feelings and deeply judging the literary lovers around them; More importantly, as a teacher, he has a profound inquiry into the problems faced by current education and a sacred worry about many life propositions. Singing and crying, writing with a pen. Literature has become a way of life in her works.
Gao Lijun was born pious and reverent for literature. That sensitive poetic heart, that gentle temperament, that kind nature, condensed the wisdom of life and the kindness of teachers. As a female writer, she writes human feelings from all directions and angles, presenting a unique sketch of women's hometown life. Her words, without deliberately marking the region, are the root seedlings nourished by the real "Xihaigu" land, and are her sincere tribute and praise to the people on this land! At the same time, there is no lack of rational and sober understanding, and there is no lack of responsibility and responsibility for the country and the people. It can be said that her writing is from individual to group, from group to society, and deep thinking runs through words and stories. She has always been an explorer and practitioner of style. Her writing is not limited to women's affairs. She can start from the category of great prose, involving reading comprehension, art appreciation and the attempt of note-taking prose mode, until she establishes an American critical style of understanding people, discussing the world and expressing her own style. She works tirelessly to build her own literary palace, which seems to be casual and free, but the fine works are slow, steady and unique. A writer, no matter how rich his writing style is, is always his inner spiritual support. Only by relying on the rich texture of life, bravely meeting the questions of the times and expressing the complex aspects of life can we better reflect the identity significance of a writer. Who to write for, why to write, and how to write are the most basic creative problems, which also test the writer's skill.
Sing for the free soul
Prose, as a style that is easier to write than to do, is also the most authentic style, because the writer's personality cultivation, tolerance, life accumulation, artistic perception and control can be fully and incisively expressed in prose. Prose provides "true feelings" for the "pearl of thought", and its innate endowment determines that it must get rid of all "affectation and affectation" and conquer the readers' characteristics with true beauty.
Gao Lijun's prose follows the path of integrity and peace in prose creation. From "Let the Heart Shake" to "Under the Cloud", it is not difficult to find that the author is good at capturing seemingly casual details in life, and from specific and subtle real feelings, he has a crush on his hometown and gives up constant blood ties. Ordinary life, because of the intervention of literature and art, naturally gives birth to gorgeous colors, conveying the author's over-allocation of ordinary life and the sustenance of spiritual home. Compared with the expression of metaphysical life, the description and understanding of metaphysical life is full of fireworks of human feelings. Recording the transformation of self-mind, telling the story of local accent and homesickness, giving the highest praise to the endless vitality of people in this land, writing about people and people's hearts, shaping the unique "people" in this land, presenting people's inner feelings, and reappearing people's freedom, self-knowledge and self-sufficiency in ordinary life have become the internal pursuit of her prose creation.
Gao Lijun entered the reader's mind in a low-key way with simple, beautiful and sincere words. Whether it's the silhouette and sentiment of literary figures under the influence of a book, the nostalgia of rural areas and the trivial details by the pot, the years of women, or the impressions left by friends and students, seemingly casual scattered life scenes can always produce magical charm in her works, just like a deep spring flowing quietly, which is contained, accumulated and submerged. Everything is about innocence, beauty, reality and ideals, that is, the feelings and thoughts that can be born and reconciled in human daily life, all of which are contained here. It looks a little messy, but it is very concentrated. In fact, the expression of life appearance (or literary appearance) seems very simple in Gao Lijun's works, that is, to have a sincere, compassionate and kind heart, to eliminate all hypocrisy according to the true nature of life, to live, think and speak with the "real me" and to provide my own thinking as a "person".
1983: A broken walls is called "prose with novel style". With the narrative flashback of spring, summer, autumn and winter as the background, I recall "my 1983, a bitter time, covered with joys and sorrows for a year in the name of growing up." (Gao Lijun: Under the Clouds, Sunshine Publishing House, 20 13, p. 284) In a specific time and space, the chronological memory is like a black-and-white movie replay, with the childlike memory of rural life, the hardships of life, and the love strangled by the helplessness of life, which finally led to the decline of her young life and the end of my happy youth ... The joys and sorrows of all sentient beings in the story are conveyed through the eyes of the young "I". People can't control their own destiny, human nature is trampled, dignity is lost, and they are mercilessly trapped in juvenile life. The emotional main line of the article layout runs through, that is, the image of love and sadness in the hearts of teenagers, which adds a different complex experience to the growth and transformation. Aunt and Yi Sima's brother, godmother's family, mother, and I, all of them have completed their destiny in the fleeting time. Under the pressure of time, the lost destiny vaguely calls for the release of human nature, the care for the soul, and the desire for free life. These seem to be forbearing in the author's pen, but they are also revealed.
Gao Lijun's prose based on life, starting from the people and things around him, provides the world with the wisdom and philosophy of life perception. She evokes readers with different experiences with her gentle narrative tone and warm feelings. She started from the nuances, from the triviality and complexity of life, bitter, sweet, sour and mixed, and brewed an old wine of life, which lasted for a long time in Mika.
What I remember most is her life prose, grandmother, mother, father, mother-in-law, daughter, students, vivid and jumping images, unforgettable people, deep feelings that I can't give up, and the interdependence of life; Cooking stove, women's years, unspeakable suffering, the smell of human fireworks; Lively vitality, tenacious and flexible life interest, and various complex situations and interests constitute the complex rhythm and symphony of life. All life is consumed and worn here, and it is also enjoyed and enriched here. Gao Lijun successfully captured these precious scenes and fragments, and she often pondered over the details. These words are the spark between her sensitive heart and her multi-voice life. Because she knows that she is compassionate. Therefore, "who will I think of when I am in pain" has the charm of "back", and "all troubles and disappointments" have been put into my daughter's bag, and there is a sigh of "insipid is permanent"! Life doesn't need too many accessories, it's already too full and heavy.
In writing, she never stays out and looks on coldly. She is an indifferent life recorder, but she participates in her own life and naturally becomes one of them. In his early works, the author did not deliberately write "Xihaigu" in the name of region, but his innate simplicity, kindness and sympathy, his calm and peaceful attitude in the face of the suffering of survival, his gratitude in suffering, his joy in suffering, his dependence on people in suffering and his noble completion of life ceremonies are deeply rooted in his blood, which makes him respect.
It can be said that Gao Lijun is writing with emotion, thought and love, with the overall feeling of a female writer, that is, with life. This kind of writing is destined to be deep and heavy, to the inside of the soul, to the greatest extent to seek the freedom of life, to the beautiful ideals and bright places of mankind. Walking from the place where the heart is like the wind, it is a light and elegant life whisper and whisper at first, and it is the sustenance and talk of women's emotions. But when the author moves from "low place" to "cloud", the artistic conception of life becomes better and better. In the metaphysical life story, there are more songs about free souls, and every sentence she writes has more metaphysical thinking about the exploration of profound human nature. The questioning of the nature of life flowed out under her gentle words. She did not deliberately enlarge the suffering, but reproduced the excellent qualities of perseverance, optimism and perseverance of ordinary people in this land in a gentle way. We can't expect prose to write all kinds of life, such as Gao Lijun's The World, an open window, but it is rich in human nature and cultural connotation, and tells the relationship between man and the world in its own way, which has been well completed.
The pain of the sacred worrier
If Gao Lijun's early prose creation is more about understanding life, then in recent years, her creation has gradually become perfect and mature, and prose has become a way for her to consciously think about profound social problems and speak for the silent majority. Years of teaching career, profound psychological experience from teaching, and heavy or sensitive educational topics related to students and schools forced her to pick up a pen to tell.
In the postscript of the newly published notebook essay collection "The Painful Desk", she wrote: "When I jumped out of romance and self-obsession, I began to look at people and things around me. When I searched for the true meaning of writing in the dirt, I found that the material was around me, but most of the time, I chose to stand in the distance and watch, so sorting out my work experience and past is not only a responsibility, but also a responsibility. ..... I am engaged in teaching, preaching and teaching, which is not only related to technology and training, but also needs warm communication and language tension to resolve inner contradictions and anxiety; Need knowledge nourishment and personality charm to lead the lost deviation in growth; We need humanistic feelings and traditional culture to solve the breadth and depth of spirit. In fact, this is a rather long process. ..... I put pen and ink down, extended to ordinary life and ordinary life, extended to humble corners and deep struggles, showing the living state and mental state of the front line of education and revealing various phenomena in the period of great change. I hope to face up to some facts, think about some problems, awaken some desires, and even hope to improve some disadvantages. Although some Mayflies shake trees, this is a simple and original record; Although it is not a splendid silk, it is a bit embarrassing after all. " (Gao Lijun: A Painful Desk, China Literature and History Publishing House, 20 19, pp. 254 and 255).
As a teacher who preaches, teaches and dispels doubts, Gao Lijun didn't show her displeasure in the face of many perplexed and unsolvable problems. With a high degree of professional ethics and conscience, she wrote down the "shocking" reality of the current front line of education, which made people think deeply and reflect. What is our education?
Education has always been a sensitive topic in China society, which is related to thousands of families and affects the whole body. Everyone is the product of education, and everyone has his own views on education. However, there are not many words that present a real educational picture, especially the struggle road of the bottom students, and reach deep thinking. Gao Lijun is writing the story of the educational scene she experienced, which is an endorsement of the survival of the bottom "Xihaigu" and a microcosm of her whole educational gender problem. This fresh or cruel experience from the direct life level constitutes the intuitive object of Gao Lijun's thinking, and her kindness as a teacher is naturally revealed in the text.
"Pain" is the key word of this essay collection, which consists of 30 short stories in the form of notebooks. What impressed me deeply was a surprising school story: there was a story that a girl in senior three was killed by a netizen out of ignorance; A hopeful but extremely disappointed father hanged himself; Some students have a writer's dream, which conflicts with the current college entrance examination system and has to yield to reality; There are unscrupulous parents who cheat "funding"; There are "invigilating notes" and "cheating notes" that reflect on the examination system and human nature game; Children abandoned by their families are psychologically distorted and want to be the "black boy" of the killer; What's more, under the pressure of unreasonable professional title system and social environment, teachers are at a loss ... Every article touches the "pain" nerve of the ivory tower on campus. Under the reorganization and change of social structure, campus is no longer a pure land in traditional cognition. Many social contradictions, cognitive biases, human weakness and emotional interest entanglements in the reform are bound to be projected into the "small society" of campus, and the relationship among students, parents, teachers, schools and even the whole education becomes a contradictory unity. Teenagers in high school need to find an explosive "balance point" because of the combination of self-cognition, personality awakening, desire for freedom, pressure of study and family expectation. It is precisely by grasping this "balance point" that Gao Lijun almost reproduces the scenes of school life in the original ecology, and draws lessons from the historian's writing style of "not empty beauty, not hiding evil" for these campus stories, and even reveals the cruelty beyond our general stereotypes. More importantly, she is not indifferent to cruelty, but awakens humanity, conscience, justice and reform with deep sympathy and reflection. All the demands for making education and life more reasonable and better are the goals she pursues and explores as a writer and teacher.
"Dropouts" begins with "me" and several teachers who go to the countryside to inform their simple parents about their daughter, a senior three girl who is silent and introverted by netizens. As a teacher's inner entanglement, with the gradual recovery of the plot, we not only learned the inside story of the girl's loss of virginity due to ignorance, but also learned the author's inner "sense of powerlessness and meaninglessness" as a teacher: "I am full of resentment in my classroom and ashamed that I can only sell my knowledge ... What have I taught my students since teaching for decades? ..... Besides the exam, is it meaningful to be specific to a humble life like an ant? " (Gao Lijun: The Painful Desk, China Literature and History Publishing House, 20 18, p. 6) Any teacher with conscience must reflect on the purpose and significance of education after removing his heartache. When the girl's secret was ruthlessly revealed, she was forced to drop out of school and transfer to another school, but she said that she would live a good life, take the college entrance examination and honor her parents, but she didn't know that the quiet country mother had committed suicide by taking poison ... The author used novel narration to advance the story between direct narration and flashback. A large number of inner descriptions of "I" and positive descriptions of events can no longer stay in the reappearance of a criminal case and a simple case of physical and mental injury, but have risen from the delicate emotional experience of women to the heavy questioning of the purpose and significance of educating people. Sad and speechless, people cry for the silent soul in this land!
If students are one subject in educational activities, then teachers as another subject are more dominant. At present, there are many criticisms and negative attacks on teachers in society, and few people look at teachers' behavior from an objective perspective. Throughout the teachers described by Gao Lijun, truth comes first. They are people with ideals, love education, and take teaching and educating people as the highest realm. "Strictly discipline yourself, teach and educate people" is their creed. However, the oppression of the real environment and the measurement of a single value scale in concept often lead to the tragedy of their fate. The most diligent female teacher in the Book of Professional Titles hopes to have a professional title, but her husband can't miss it. Her husband can only fool her with a fake title certificate when she is dying ... The strong emotion, sad narrative and bitterness in her life are tied to that "little red book", and the recognition of the value of life by the title has become the desire of all teachers, and the story vividly reveals the system. However, the record of curriculum reform has shaped the image of Wang Xiaohua, a teacher with lofty ideals and beliefs. The same vigorous curriculum reform is still a mere formality, which makes teachers more confused and helpless. She just calls for humanistic care education in a materialistic atmosphere. (Gao Lijun: The Painful Desk, China Literature and History Publishing House, 20 19, p. 253) Only by realizing one's life dream can one be worthy of teachers' professional ethics.
Gao Lijun wrote "pain" which is closest to the current education, but she wrote "pain" not only for the purpose of writing "pain". She felt the same way and learned from it, and never gave up hope after the "pain". Defending the dignity of education, caring for pure hearts, giving children the best nourishment, hoping that they will thrive and arouse the attention and thinking of the whole society on education are her original intentions in writing. There is also a formal innovation in this collection of essays, which draws lessons from the shell of ancient note novels, making the narrative space more free, and the elements of prose and novels are used alternately. The style of each article is uniform, but slightly different. The opening and ending are decorated with ancient and modern Chinese and foreign poems, which not only conforms to the theme story, but also adds elegance, which can be described as simple and exquisite.
Impression-based review articles
A real writer often has a comprehensive test and practice of her artistic feelings, so that she can gallop freely in the literary space, stretch her personality and realize self-improvement. Gao Lijun, who is both a writer and a critic, has read a lot of poetry books and has a deep understanding of classic works and cutting-edge works at all times and in all countries. He has deep feelings for the contemporary writers and artists of "Xihaigu" and has written many critical articles. Therefore, in her works, criticism has never been a utilitarian tool, but a sincere "heart-to-heart", singing for many unknown "Xihaigu" writers who have been working hard on this land, because "they are the souls of local literature" and "they are a group image with steel bones, humble as mustard seeds, but tireless and hard-working" (Gao Lijun: Cutting the Lights).
If impressionism criticism is mentioned, it is easy to think of "impressionism criticism" advocated by Li Jianwu, a master of modern literary criticism. This criticism, which was called "the adventure of the soul between masterpieces" by French impressionist critic Farouk, was inherited and carried forward by Li Jianwu. He entered the work with all the feelings, enthusiasm and life experience of a critic, embraced the artistic world of the work in an all-round way, formed a "unique impression, and then organized this impression appropriately to form regulations." (Wen Rumin: History of Modern Literary Criticism in China, Peking University Publishing House, 1993, p. 133) Stylistically, he is even more famous for his rambling and lyrical essays, and also regards criticism as an artistic creation. This method of criticism has the same spiritual connection with the way of emphasizing understanding and methods in China's appreciation of ancient literature. However, if it is placed in a more academic and theoretical context of current literary criticism, it will be ignored, and its unique value is often not found, and it is regarded as lacking in theoretical height and not receiving due attention. I think impressionist criticism is only the only way to enter art works. If critics lack basic artistic perception, how can they go deep into the text to make a deeper exploration? Therefore, impression perception is not only necessary in criticism, but also should be deepened or logicalized to achieve good critical articles.
Throughout Gao Lijun's critical anthology The Story of Cutting Lights, it's a pity that every word is well written. No matter the author's spiritual understanding of classic literary works or his criticism of "Xi Gu Hai" prose, poetry, painting, calligraphy, drama and other artistic forms, he respects his unique artistic feelings, or freely communicates with women or confides in letters, and analyzes his works in order to express his feelings and share the joy of his artistic appreciation and experience. The poetic interpretation of women's existence in the works has a strong personal color, prose writing style and fruitful ideas to form a series of fruits. Behind this passage is the main image of a critic who sympathizes with ordinary people, has a sense of responsibility, has feelings of saving the world, is not rigid, unpretentious, sincere and gentle.
Back to You is a typical Gao Lijun-style commentary. Based on personal feelings, this paper selects three female characters from near and far, namely, my old grandmother, Jiang Yang and Akhmatova, and combines reading experience and life experience to project amazing similarities from these three women with different fates, that is, the interpretation of kindness, richness and nobility. Grandma's "kind, quiet and regretless life is like a tenacious flower, blooming on a dead tree full of scars"; Jiang Yang's "extreme beauty, vivid and profound soul"; Akhmatova "Only when the soul is noble can the soul have the most beautiful dance". (Gao Lijun: "The Story of Cutting Lights", Sunshine Publishing House, 20 16, pp. 28-32) The author's insights gained from life and reading have restored the reasons for self-reliance in the ingenious docking without traces. In many of the author's works, it can be clearly seen that impression and emotional intervention are the primary level of expression, but the author did not stop at this level, but further mobilized his own aesthetic experience and academic accumulation, and analyzed the spiritual connotation and value significance behind the writer's works. In this way, the ways and means of impressionism criticism are better practiced, and criticism is placed in the same position as creation to complete creation.
In an article entitled "Sweet Peppers Bloom All over the Mountain —— A Summary of the Creation of Female Writers in Xihaigu", the author is obviously different from the previous expression of personal reading comprehension, and pays more attention to the analysis and interpretation of the phenomenon of regional creative groups. Starting with the literary phenomenon and regional characteristics of Xi Haigu, the author points out the realistic characteristics of Xi Haigu's female writers from two aspects: individual and group, and their works reflect their humiliation and optimism. Finally, the author summarizes their current characteristics from a rational height, that is, "Xi Haigu's female writers' creation with female life as the object of expression has strong regional characteristics and strong times and reality." "It reflects the colorful life of women in Xihaigu, and reflects the fundamental changes in the spiritual life of women in Xihaigu who have the right to speak economically with the increasing social status." (Gao Lijun: summary of Xi Haigu's female writers' creation, quoted from the author's WeChat article) This conclusion shows that Gao Lijun has mastered the creation of many female writers, starting from the perceptual impression of their works, and rising to the analysis of the creation phenomenon of regional groups. Her full understanding of every female writer and empathy for their lives have made her write such an article, which is by no means a cold academic analysis and argumentation, but with rich emotions and love to count their tenacious and brilliant vitality like pepper flowers on the ground, and to outline a better future territory for the flowers of literature to bloom in Xihaigu, in order to better play the role of criticism in promoting literature.
As a critic who is full of * * * and loves this land, Gao Lijun's critical writing shines with his insight and sense of responsibility everywhere. She always speaks for obscure ordinary authors, so that those who make unremitting efforts for literary ideals will not be too lonely. She also feels deep sorrow for those brothers and sisters who are immersed in pulling carts and don't ask about the road ahead, because they are infatuated and loyal to literature, but they don't know how to find a shortcut to fame. They are simple and kind as dirt, working hard on this barren land, but still clinging to the pursuit of ideals and beliefs in life, which is really touching.
The author has always believed that literature is a huge field. After all, there are only a few writers at the top of the pyramid, and most writers below the top of the pyramid are the broader literary places. They haven't become famous, and they haven't exposed the tip of the iceberg under the big concept of literary history. Facing the noisy literary world, they made no sound or only a faint sound, or were making silent preparations for making a sound. In this long process, they are thinking and working hard, judging the meaning of literature from time to time, and occasionally generating sparks to show wisdom. They believe that the power that literature brings to this society is irreplaceable. Although this group will not be perfect for a while, they believe that the real power of literature is also forming a rich fertile soil for contemporary literature. Each of their inner literary strokes actually constructs a picture of contemporary literature. Without Taki, the value of contemporary literature is out of the question. As a critic, if you only stare at the spire and ignore the broader literary power under the spire, it is undoubtedly impossible to avoid the narrow frame. And Gao Lijun's impressionism criticism, just starting from the front line of life, broke through the barrier between creation and criticism. The vivid experience gained from reading comprehension is a living criticism with body temperature and emotional input, which is bound to leave a deep impression on the current literary world.
Stick to "Xihaigu", write "Xihaigu" and sing the soul yearning for freedom in this land. With compassion, stretching the spirit and watering the land of my hometown with the water of my heart will inevitably usher in unpredictable gains. Bless Gao Lijun! I wish "Xihaigu", a brilliant literary flower, will never wither!
Wang Ning, Master of Literature, a first-class writer, is currently the editorial director of Contemporary Writers' Review in Liaoning College of Literature, engaged in literary criticism and editing, and published more than 500,000 words of review articles.