For the author's brief introduction, see the article White Boat.
A great event happened in a secluded station on the Kazakh prairie. Ye Jigai's wife, a railway worker on duty, told him in a hurry in the middle of the night that their old colleague and good friend, the earliest worker on the station, Kazanga Pu, was going to die. This late summer night is very restless. In the evening, a hungry fox followed the little vole to the railway. Ye Jigai suddenly thought of the idea of soul transfer after death. When the bad news came, an unimpeded military train had just entered the restricted area of Sare-ogier Card 1, that is, it went straight to the launch site of the spacecraft. Several trains entered Bougle-Bourgne station, but they met and missed. Wait until someone takes over. When Ye Jigai ran back to prepare for Kazangapu's burial, he saw the other side of the grassland for the first time. There was something like a raging tornado flying over the space rocket launch site, and a rocket flew into the sky. It turned out that this was an emergency launch of a manned spacecraft. As part of the space program jointly carried out by the Soviet Union and the United States, the "Equilibrium" space station had an accident, and now it is on the other side of the earth. In Nevada, USA, an American spaceship also took off. It also flew to the "Equilibrium" space station with the same mission. Both spacecraft took off according to the instructions of the scientific research aircraft carrier "Agreement". The "agreement" is the base of the joint command center of the Soviet Union and the United States to "create" the space program. The fixed anchorage of the aircraft carrier "Convention" is in the south of the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, equidistant from Vladivostok and San Francisco. At this moment, the joint command center is keeping a close eye on the two spacecraft entering the "springboard" orbit. "Equivalence" did not respond to the signal sent by the Joint Command Center of the Convention. What happened in "equalization" is related to the fate of the earth and mankind. In order to find out the situation of the two astronauts on the "Equilibrium", the joint command center decided to send two manned spacecraft according to the "convention". The docking with the space station was successful, but the two astronauts on board searched all the cabins and laboratories, searched all the corners, and found no one on the "Equality". Finally, I found a letter in the duty diary. This letter is written in English and Russian. They described how they received the mysterious radio pulse. Out of curiosity, they sent an answer message, and the signal was immediately received. They found another habitable space, another birthplace of wisdom, that is Lin Haixing. After exchanging signals, they decided to accept the invitation to visit Lin Haixing. Soon, they sent back information from Lin Haixing, describing in detail the physiological, intellectual and social characteristics of Lin Hai people. Obviously, people from Linhai are more civilized than people from the earth. They have sky-blue hair, are about 2 meters tall and have a high level of science and technology. Their society has no state machinery, no knowledge of weapons, and no knowledge of what war is. Their linguists studied English and Russian words intercepted in space, classified them, and compiled a vocabulary of earth language, which can be used to communicate with people on earth. They are full of hope to establish contact with people on earth to show their extraordinary intellectual victory, exchange experiences of different social civilizations, and open up a new era of human thought and spiritual development among the planets in the universe. At the end of the diary, it says that they will return to Earth in 28 hours. The highest authorities in the United States and the Soviet Union were alarmed by this information. They agreed on an "iron ring" space plan, which aims to prevent aliens from approaching the earth in rockets that orbit the earth all the year round, and at the same time prevent people who boarded aliens from returning to ensure the stability of the existing order on the earth. The information sent back is absolutely blocked. At the same time, Ye Jigai decided to hold a grand funeral for his old friend Kazangap. He informed the children of the deceased and his own children to form a funeral procession, and buried Kazanga in Annabeth, the holy land where his ancestors rested. It is more than 30 kilometers one way from Huirang Station. Sabette, the precious son of the deceased, worked in a big city, read a lot of books, graduated from college, and had a glib tongue, but he didn't know how to respect the elderly. After squeezing out his father's property, he left his father to die alone. He didn't want to delay the burial, so he came empty-handed. He planned to dig a hole anywhere nearby and bury his father before going back. But he was opposed by everyone. So everything went according to Ye Jigai's plan. In the middle of the night, Ye Jigai, with the help of Erebai, made an oiling ceremony and a big prayer for Kazangap. Ye Jigai recalled the process of their acquaintance while doing it: Ye Jigai was injured by the earthquake after the war. Although his limbs are intact, he is mentally ill, dizzy and tinnitus. When they got home, their wives cried that their first child had died of rubella. Their hometown is so poor that they met Kazanga Pu on their way out to find a job. The latter took them to the small concession station, from where the grassland and camel milk healed his earthquake injury. Kazanga himself had to leave his hometown and come here because his father was wrongly classified as a rich farmer. Ye Jigai dressed his white camel in gorgeous camel clothes in the early morning. This camel was a calf raised by Kazangap's mother, Bailuo, and was given to Ye Jigai as the basis for settling down and starting a career. This camel is a descendant of Akmaya, a precious camel species in the Sare-Otka prairie. Later, it became famous. Journalists and scientists came to interview and take photos in succession, but Kazanga Pu not only didn't regret it, but also calmly thought it was an act of God. Karanall and Ye Jigai are predestined friends. The funeral procession finally set out: Ye Jigai took the lead on Caranall, followed by a tractor, and Kazanga Pu's body was lying there wrapped up, accompanied by his son Sabette and his daughter-in-law. Behind the house is an excavator, in addition to the driver, sitting in Ajiri worship. The most surprising thing is that Zoba, the yellow dog, followed. Ye Jigai had a lot of thoughts and imagination in the process of riding a camel to Annabeth. 195 1 over, a family of four came. Both husband and wife are teachers and have two sons. Abutalip was drafted into the army in the summer of April1and was captured soon. After that, he fled from the prison camp to the Yugoslav guerrillas and fought in a foreign country, almost halfway across Europe. After the war, he got married and still worked as a teacher. Once in a geography class, he couldn't help but talk about being betrayed by a student in the guerrillas. The superior thinks that the ex-prisoner is not worthy of educating teenagers, so he has to settle in another place. By 1948, the relationship between South Jiangsu deteriorated, and Abutalip was forced to resign as a suspicious person who had stayed in Yugoslavia for a long time. When they came to Huirang Station, Kazanga Pu and his wife gave sincere help. Ye Jigai also gets along well with their family. Abutalip also suggested that Ye Jigai send his two daughters and two sons to study together. In order to leave a spiritual legacy for the children, Abutalip collected folklore and myths, and also wrote a memoir-the fighting life of the guerrillas in Yugoslavia. In this way, he was betrayed, arrested and imprisoned. Ye Jigai sympathized with and respected his wife, Charlie Ba, and fell in love with her unconsciously. Kazanga pulled him back from the brink again. When he went to find the camel, he quietly helped Charlie and the children leave the canteen. Not far from Annabel's cemetery. Ye Jigai remembered another story about the cemetery. According to legend, after Rouran people invaded Sarei-ogier Card, they shaved off the hair of the captured young man, then cut the neck skin of the freshly slaughtered camel into small pieces and stuck it on the bare head while it was hot, like a swimming cap. His name is Dai Xili. After being tortured, he was tied up and left in the wasteland for days and nights. Either he died, or he lost his memory forever and became Mankut. A Naiman mother was shot to save her son. Her white turban turned into a bird and shouted, "Think about it, whose child are you?" What's your name? Your father's name is Du Nianbai! The place where Naiman-Anna was buried was later called Annabeth, which means mother's grave. And the camel she rode, Akmaya, left many descendants. Along the way, Ye Jigai thought most about the fate of the Abutalip family. He recalled with special sadness the New Year's Day they spent in 1953: pine trees, snowman, singing and dancing. However, on October 5th, 65438/KLOC-0, Abutalip was arrested, calling the folklore he collected about the singer Lai Marei falling in love with a girl of 19 "morally corrupt" and describing the Yugoslav guerrillas as "counter-revolutionary". Early March. When Chariba went to the station to get the official letter informing Abutalip of his death in prison due to myocardial infarction, there was a sad voice on the radio, and someone was crying, "I lost my dear father! "Finally, the funeral procession arrived in Annabeth, but the cemetery was surrounded by barbed wire and occupied as a rocket launching site. Ye Jigai asked the guards and the captain to explain the situation. Who knows this captain is the son of Don Sekbayev, a detective who framed Abutalip. Abutalip case was completely rehabilitated after 1956 beria's crime was exposed. Now the new problem comes again. The cemetery was occupied, so Kazanga Pu could only be buried on the cliff halfway. Ye Jigai will run to defend Annabeth again.
Appreciation of Works "A Day is Longer than a Hundred Years" is Aitmatov's first novel, and it is also an excellent novel "Miniaturization Epic" that appeared in the 1970s and 1980s in the Soviet Union. The biggest feature of this kind of novels is to limit the large-capacity historical content to a small space, dilute the plot and strengthen the subjectivity of narrative. The time and space of art is mainly manifested in the micro-world of the hero who shoulders the historical responsibility. Aitmatov pays attention to the time connection of human history in his novels. The novel only describes what happened day and night, that is, from Ye Jigai's news of the death of his old friend Kazangap to his burial. The location is more than 30 kilometers from the Bukinje station where they work to the holy land Annabert. On the day of the funeral, Ye Ji rode on a hunchback instead, facing the vast grassland and galloping in memories with deep sorrow. He reviewed the ups and downs he experienced in the 30 years after the war, and the care and support of the deceased at every critical moment of his life; He thinks about the bumpy fate of people around him and the historical road his country has taken. He also remembered the love legend about the singer Lai Marei, which is closely related to the grassland. Especially fairy tales about Annabeth and the holy land of Mankut. The reality of roaring, flashing and occupying the holy land interspersed throughout the process leads to the sci-fi clues of the Soviet Union and the United States for hegemony, controlling the earth and preventing the influence of aliens. In this way, the subjective world of the protagonist has many levels of time: in addition to the past and present time levels, there are also levels of legends and myths; The alien story in the sci-fi clue shows the future time level. As for space, it naturally goes far beyond the limit of 30 kilometers, expands infinitely, and even breaks through the scope of the earth. Aitmatov walks in the long river of time, and he deeply feels that human beings can only gradually improve in the long-term historical process, and once people lose their historical memory, disasters will destroy human nature. He himself explained the intention of creating the image of Mankut: "When a person loses his national and historical attributes and all the characteristics of his personality, he becomes a submissive slave and a tame robot. People gave such a stupid slave a contemptuous name-Mankut. But it is not enough to just quote these historical materials. I must elevate these materials to a higher level and give them philosophical significance. It is because of my concern for people and my aversion to everything that prevents people from becoming perfect, rich in heart and distinctive in personality that I created the tradition about Mankut. " The legend of Mankut is the structural center of the novel and the basis of explaining the theme. Mankut, bound by Healy, shot his mother because he lost his historical memory. Her white headscarf became a bird worshipped by Dunne, because it kept calling Dunne worship, reminding Mankut that he was the son worshipped by Dunne. The place where my mother was buried is called Annabeth. These legends were told by Kazanga Pope and later recorded in Abutalip, which was blown here by the political storm. He cherishes these spiritual heritages. He also described his experience in the Yugoslav guerrillas and recalled things that politics forced him to forget, for which he suffered many misfortunes and caused a lifelong tragedy. Why did Mankut come up again in that ignorant and backward era? Because of the appearance of modern Mankut, and it has not aroused enough vigilance, it is the son of the deceased, Sabette, who makes it flow. Father tried his best to support him in his studies, and as a result, he learned a lot, but lost his humanity. He spurned and despised all historical, ethnic and humanitarian traditions in the name of modern scientific and technological achievements. I look forward to the day when "biological microwave" can manipulate everyone's words and deeds and dominate everyone's consciousness and even lust. He didn't want to send his father's body to the holy land for burial, and he didn't care that the rocket launch site occupied the Annabert grassland. In the sci-fi clues, the Soviet Union and the United States are nervously preparing to launch rockets around the earth according to the "hoop" universe plan, in order to prevent Linhai people who are more civilized than human beings and Soviet-American astronauts who entered Lin Haixing from coming to the earth. This "hoop" action was invented by Healy in the 20th century. It wants to hold the earth that looks like a baby's head in the universe, hold the thoughts of the people on the earth, and forbid them to accept Lin Hairen's concept of "no army, no war". When the light and roar from the rocket shook the earth and all kinds of creatures, the Dunnian bird shouted to people again, "Whose descendants are you?" What's your name? Remember your name! Your father is Du Nianbai, Du Nianbai ... "Writers also appeal to people that people who forget the past will no longer face the future, and the past still exists indirectly." It is necessary to have a dialogue yesterday and today.