Abstract: Shen Congwen started a dialogue with the mainstream ideology from the perspective of regional culture. On the surface, it seems to be incompatible with the radical wave of modernity in China society, but his text involves a reasonable promotion of the connotation of modernity. While reflecting on modernity, his works have repeatedly shown us that "beautiful, not incompatible with human nature" life forms meet the requirements of modernity for human survival. At this point, he has reached a plan with modernity.
1998 in his thesis "Aestheticism and Modernity in Modern China Literature", Professor Wu Xiaodong of Peking University took Shen Congwen's novel "New and Old" as an example and thought that this work should be re-examined from the fable of China's modern culture: "It reveals a mixed era of old and new, which is of great significance for dispelling a single linear historical time, dispelling the whole picture of modernity about' progress' and establishing multiple horizons of aestheticism. This important article leaves the possibility of theoretical exploration for future academic research, and the most important proposition undoubtedly points to the entanglement between Shen Congwen's creation and literary modernity. In recent years, people have been arguing about this issue, but they are always unable to agree. Some scholars think that Shen Congwen's modernity is self-evident, while others write an article to demonstrate the modernity factors of Xiangxi series from the internal logic of the text. Of course, some people insist that Shen Congwen has always appeared as an "anti-modernity". The collision of various viewpoints seems to be somewhat theoretical self-justification, but this self-justification is often naive and fragile, and even a kind of theoretical self-entertainment. The author believes that on this key issue, traditional research undoubtedly ignores two important dimensions: first, the full complexity of modernity itself; Secondly, the occurrence of modernity in China has its own characteristics. The above two points may make our research deeper and deeper, and then clarify the problem itself to some extent.
First, complexity and fuzziness: many aspects of modernity.
The value basis of modernity lies in its universalism, and as far as the subject's spiritual character is concerned, it lies in its reflection; As far as the historical existence of its object externalization is concerned, it lies in its fracture. The word "fracture" is of great significance here, which makes us clearly realize the great tension that may arise when modernity and literariness touch each other. On the one hand, literature and art, as a radical ideology, directly expresses the significance of modernity, and it expresses the urgent historical desire of modernity. It opened the way for those historical changes, and of course strengthened the gap of historical fracture. On the other hand, literature and art are a conservative emotional force, constantly questioning and reflecting on the historical changes of modernity. It always cherishes the continuity of history, while resisting historical fracture, it also shields and smoothes the gap of historical fracture. These characteristics of modernity make it full of entanglements, and frequent paradoxes make modernity in constant adjustment and reconstruction. Because of these different characteristics, modernity has never been a simple object, and there are always interesting dialogues in it, showing complexity and fuzziness. Shen Congwen's creation undoubtedly participated in this dialogue and played a very important role in it. His text is vivid or ambiguous, so it is absorbed into the multidimensional context of modernity. People often compare the works of Shen Congwen and Fei Ming (Feng Wenbing). In fact, if the angle of consideration is limited to the relationship with modernity, then the latter is obviously more decisive and pure than the former. Fei Ming's view is the divinity of human beings, which has a strong religious meaning, so it has little relationship with the reflection or criticism of modernity, and both material modernization and spiritual modernity are excluded from his vision; Shen Congwen's view is human nature. Although human nature is often expressed by religion, even in his seemingly pure Xiangxi novels, we can feel a relatively heterogeneous world, which permeates a little noise outside Taoyuan, not to mention the poor urban novels he wrote. This feature of self-reflection establishes a dialogue between Shen Congwen's creation and China's social/literary modernization, that is, in the break of the modernization of the external material world, he "attaches to the continuity of history" and even intends to sort out this "continuity" effectively by tracing back to history. Touching the "Taoyuan World" or the past history is an echo of the ongoing "modernization".
This is obviously an interesting proposition: why Shen Congwen, as a writer, used such a strategy in his reflection on modernity, that is, to sew up the "crack" of modernity with the help of Xiangxi's marginal cultural viewpoint. This is related to the second question mentioned above, that is, the occurrence of modernity factors in China is quite special. Not long ago, Mr. Qian Liqun, a famous professor in Peking University, mentioned this point in his article: "I often say that contemporary China is a strange country where pre-modern society, modern society and post-modern society coexist." In fact, the construction of E23, a single model, did not start today. As early as the 1920s and 1930s, due to the comprehensive effect of various complex factors, this happened in China. In the specific context of China society, it is necessary for us to divide modernity into two different categories, namely, material modernity and spiritual modernity. This seemingly arbitrary division is undoubtedly effective in the study of China's modernity, because from the beginning, the two were not synchronized and parallel in China, and there was a long-term relationship. The occurrence of material modernity in China is obviously passive. After the international market order dominated by western countries was gradually formed, it was finally unable to resist the invasion of ships and guns, all of which were directed at economic interests. The requirements of the current world structure make China unwilling to get involved in this storm of material modernization. However, due to the lag of its social and economic structure, China is bound to be an accessory or even a victim in the torrent of economic modernization. Spiritual modernity came into being a little later, and it has a very unique character: "China's modernity originated from the national salvation movement, and China people's desire for social modernization is greater than their exploration of human existence itself in the context of modernization, and they lack the questioning and criticism of modernity itself. Therefore, the concept of' modernity' represents both' ideal' and strong ideological color in China. " At the same time, because the juxtaposition of pre-modern society and modern society has gradually become a very obvious cultural ecology, the reflection of modernity is carried out with the help of their confrontation. On the other hand, this opposition is obviously directly related to regional culture. Not only the mainstream culture forms (that is, the culture with modern characteristics) started the dialogue under the banner of regional characteristics (represented by "Beijing School" and "Shanghai School" in literature), but also the non-mainstream culture forms actively participated in the dialogue, or provided a realistic basis for the radical social revolution-for example, the works of writers such as Sha Ding exposed the rural society in Sichuan; Or provide a tragic basis for the national revolution-such as the creation of Northeast writers and so on. Shen Congwen also started a dialogue with the mainstream ideology from the perspective of regional culture, but it showed uniqueness: on the surface, he was incompatible with the radical wave of modernity in China society, and confronted it with the description of Xiangxi, a marginal culture; But on the other hand, his works also involve a reasonable promotion of the connotation of modernity. While reflecting on modernity, his works repeatedly show us a "beautiful, non-contradictory" lifestyle, which is exactly in line with modernity's concern for human survival. At this point, he has reached a reconciliation with modernity.
Second, the closed loop: the reflexive characteristics of modernity in Sasha Vujacic.
We take the concrete text as an example to put the above proposition about Shen Congwen's struggle against modernity. In practical research, scholars often ignore the patient interpretation of the literature, but simply list some works with preset propositions everywhere. In fact, the behavior against modernity or intrigue can only be externalized through vivid texts. A good writer always expresses his thoughts on problems through the ingenious arrangement of text rhetoric. This paper selects two novels, Sasha Vujacic and Border Town, and tries to take care of the modernity in Shen Congwen's works by interpreting the complex picture presented in the text.
For rustling, Shen Congwen set up a circular structure. At the beginning of the hour, the sound of suona and the smooth sedan chair propped up the whole picture, which made people feel fresh. At the end of the novel, the suona sound comes again, and people who are "busy between the elm fences in front of the door" finally look forward to a stable sedan chair. The narrative is self-enclosed at this time, showing a sense of loneliness. At the same time, the novelist sets an orderly linear time dimension for this self-sufficient narrative space, so although there are some twists and turns inevitably in the process of time advancement, such as the impression of hazy female students, the appearance of flower dogs and the birth of babies, they are quickly smoothed by the orderly time flow, just like a breeze passing over the water surface of El in sunny summer, leaving some whiskers, but they soon disappear. It is necessary to analyze this elimination process. Flower dogs are to rustling, just as Nuo is to Cui Cui. The novelist obviously didn't show any criticism, because for Xiao Xiao, the appearance of Hua Gouda clearly indicates that she is about to face a new life ceremony, just like she just got married not long ago. The difference is that this ceremony has a certain degree of naturalness.
Shen Congwen showed us all the subtle processes of this ceremony in detail, and the ceremony itself is actually a silhouette of people's living conditions. The original color of the ceremony is more vivid because of the folk songs: "There are clouds in the sky, graves are buried underground, dishes are washed beautifully, and people are heavy in bed." "There is a heavy slope in front of Jiaojia, others are getting less and less, and iron sandals are worn out, not for you?" The attraction of Flower Dog and Sasha Vujacic goes both ways. "Healthy, beautiful and not against humanity" is the natural form of human existence. More interestingly, when she had a wild relationship with Huahou and got pregnant, the subtle relationship between life situation and time sequence came into being:
"This matter has been made very clear, according to the national rules, but it doesn't matter much, just wait for the punishment, but everyone is relieved. ..... The following February, meet in October, sit on the grass and have children, big head and big eyes, loud and powerful. Everyone took good care of the mother and son, ate steamed chicken with glutinous rice to replenish blood and burned paper to thank God. The whole family likes that son. Since she gave birth to a son, Xiaoxiao will not marry elsewhere. " This is a fable about the relationship between human existence and time, which itself contains an important dimension of modernity and thinking about people themselves. As mentioned above, the modernity of China's literature lost some elements due to the particularity of China society at that time, such as the reasonable questioning of people themselves. Shen Congwen only starts from the dimension of relative stability of modernity, and pays attention to the constant in change, that is, the noumenon of human nature, which seems to be incompatible with natural cultural ecology.
From the description of female students in this paper, we can see the other side of modernity in Shen Congwen's novels, that is, the above-mentioned introspective characteristics of modernity. Shen Congwen showed this reflection through elaborate rhetorical skills. The female student is obviously a signifier with extensive connotation in the text, which connects a world completely different from the living environment of Sasha Vujacic children, that is, the world of modern form in the usual sense. Female students are the key elements to communicate the first half and the second half of the text. This element has been accompanied by Mix's growing process and has become a complex in her heart. At first, Xiao Xiao's attitude towards female students was ambiguous. "Rustling when I heard that, the in the mind suddenly have a vague desire, thinking about if he is a female student, will do those things like grandpa said? No matter good or bad, female students are not terrible, so for this country girl, they realized it for the first time. "After pregnant with the child of Flower Dog, Xiao Xiao once regarded female students as some kind of spiritual pillar, and even discussed with Flower Dog to go to the city to find freedom. "One day, I heard that many female students passed by. Hearing this rustling, I had a dream with my eyes open, waited for a while and fell in love with the source of the sun for a long time. _3j(n It is worth noting that at the end of the article, Xiaoxiao hugged Mao Mao, the baby born by her young husband, and generally coaxed him with songs: "Hey, Mao Mao, look, the sedan chair is coming. Look, the bride is wearing a flowered skirt. How respectable she is. Stop it, it won't be unreasonable! I will be angry if I don't make sense! Look, here comes the schoolgirl! When we grow up tomorrow, we will have a female student's wife! " At the end of this circular and closed narrative, Shen Congwen also closed the story about female students. In the narrative time of ten years, Mix's view of female students finally returned to the original understanding. This ironic rhetorical skill actually inserts the novelist's reflection on modernity: What does modernity mean to most people in a country with seriously unbalanced regional development?
Third, the breakthrough of reincarnation: the self-subversion of Border Town and Pastoral
Different from the simple closed structure in Rustling, Border Town still tries to describe a distant world, but it opens a gap in the circular story. As a result, the "other" appeared in the quiet life of the western Hunan world-a nameless but heterogeneous factor that everyone can feel. An interesting analysis strategy is to simply sort out the key images in Border Town, so that we can clearly see the self-subversion of rural life in Xiangxi world in Border Town.
It should be said that the most noteworthy image in the novel is the "square head ferry". If the scenery like Cui Cui, Grandpa, Yellow Dog and Taoyuan is naturally fixed into an ink painting, then the ferry is the intermediary for readers to get in and out of this strange picture. It naturally connects this shore with the other shore, so that the presentation of time is no longer like in the rustling. In the first half of the novel, the writer's technique, like other works in Xiangxi series, is to make this landscape painting complete with all static carvings. Time swings back and forth on the "square-headed ferry", with calves, sheep and sedan chairs carrying the bride in eastern Sichuan. Cui Cui always watched these things go away, then turned back to the boat and pulled it to the shore. In a world as calm as water, even the yellow dog has no name, and everything is on the other side. However, the appearance of "Dragon Boat Festival" and "Mid-Autumn Festival" suddenly cut off the time flow of huanhuan. Obviously, their significance has gone beyond the simple folklore significance. In the novel, the protagonist's self-consciousness has been hidden, and he has been summoned by himself at these nodes of linear time: Cui Cui went to see the dragon boat race on the Dragon Boat Festival, and met a handsome young sailor by chance, which left a deep impression on Cui Cui's heart. The appearance of the images of "Dragon Boat Festival" and "Mid-Autumn Festival" provided concrete life scenes for Cui Cui, and the novel entered the historical time from the eternal folk time. At the end of the story, the screenwriter will sit back and watch this time dimension. Grandpa's death on a rainy night, the fall of Baita, especially the uncertainty of whether his parents can return after they leave, are all for the future.
From another point of view, if the modernity of Sasha Vujacic is realized by criticizing the ignorance within the cycle time, then Border Town emphasizes the self-subversion of "Border Town Pastoral". The above-mentioned image of "the ferryman" opened a gap in the world of Border Town, and the external heterogeneous factors quickly broke through the gap with some strength, and the pastoral order was questioned, thus, Border Town Pastoral began the road of self-subversion. If Border Town still shows us an idyllic world that looks the same as other Xiangxi series, then the text behind it is actually related to the "self-division" of the idyllic world itself, showing great instability. It is the infiltration of so-called "modernity" that causes this "self-subversion". Wang Dewei, an overseas sinologist, believes that Shen Congwen's description of Xiangxi is not only a manifestation of the pastoral environment itself, but also a factor that makes it fall apart. This just shows that Border Town has reached a state of "self-subversion" after breaking through the narrative cycle of Sasha Vujacic.
Four. conclusion
If we make a more detailed text analysis, we will find that almost every work of Shen Congwen's Xiangxi series is classified into two categories: the fable of human existence or the reflection on modernity to varying degrees. Such as Guisheng, Huiming, Leopard, Meijin, Niu, etc. , are typical fables about human existence, while novels such as Husband contain some reflections on modernity, while Border Town has both. I think the modern world written by Shen Congwen has never been single. At that time, the particularity of China's cultural ecology only gave birth to the radical modernity based on a single linear thinking mode, and Shen Congwen showed disdain for it. In his text, what we read is the interpretation of all the complex connotations of modernity: including the reflexive characteristics of modernity (that is, reflection) and the serious attitude towards human nature. In fact, Shen Congwen was not unaware that his stubbornness might cause misunderstanding, but he still insisted on his own judgment. As he said in Alice's Adventure: "Do I care about an apricot flower or a few people? Is it that a few people have an impact on life, or are there more future lifestyles? " He chose the latter and paid a price for it, but such a choice is exactly what a truly excellent writer should do.