Cheng Yizhong, 22 August 2005
This year marks the anniversary of Mr. Zhang Henshui's birthday 1 10. Central research institute of culture and history and Anhui Literature and History Research Institute jointly held a seminar on commemorative works, which is very meaningful. I know little about Mr. Zhang Henshui's novels. Two years ago, I edited Selected Works of Librarians in central research institute of culture and history and read his two articles Textual Research on Novels and Comments on Heroes in the Water Margin, only to know that his research on classical novels is very meticulous and original, which is also very enlightening for us to study the history of China's novels. In the history of novels, how to integrate the ancient and modern, refined and popular is a big problem worth studying. Mr. Zhang Henshui's works provide us with a good example. He borrowed a lot from China's classical literature in his creation, and also had his own unique innovations. Here are just a few superficial understandings.
First of all, his novels use palindromes which are popular with the masses, and the title of palindromes has developed from practical title to decorative antithesis, which is also one of the characteristics of China's novel style. His narration is fluent in vernacular Chinese, which is in the same strain as traditional novels, while his return is very neat and elegant, surpassing many ancient Zhang Hui novels. Looking back on Zhang Henshui's novels, he pays attention to the plot rendering, and often uses imaginative writing instead of simply marking the names of characters and plot points, which is very poetic. In ancient Zhang Hui's early novels, the title was changed from single sentence to antithesis, and the general names and places indicated the main points, such as "Zhuge Liang was wise and brilliant, and Guan Yunchang was righteous to release Cao Cao" in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms; "Water Margin" has a record of "Forest Wind Snow Mountain Temple, Lu Burning Grass Yard". In Mr. Zhang Henshui's novels, poetic language is used to describe the scene, such as "at the end of the month, pears are broken and people are bitter." "It's hard to turn back when the soul hangs in the lane. Where is the cold forest buried?" The characteristics of "The Cause of Crying and Laughing" are "lofty words, majestic words, full of dust and drunkenness, and the strings are sad for autumn"; "A moonlit visit to Yongxiang, a feast that makes you tired of your friends' seclusion" in "Golden Powder Family"; News is a fan for poets to mourn for autumn, and an old woman to dream of her career. "We noticed that he used to use the nine-character antithesis, and used the sentence pattern of' up five and down four', which broke through the pattern of three-character endings in old-style poems and was consistent with the nine-character poems advocated by modern poets. This is a new revolution in his Zhang Hui novel.
Secondly, he often interspersed poems in his novels, which is one of his strengths. Mr. Zhang Henshui's poems are well written, and his poems for the characters in the book fully reflect the characters' personalities and are different from each other. For example, Yang Xingyuan and Li sang in the History of Spring and Ming Dynasties, and the poems written for a group of fake literati invited by the poetry club in The Golden Powder Family were so clumsy that people couldn't help laughing. China's ancient novels have always had the tradition of combining poetry and fu, such as The Legend of the Tang Dynasty, which was summarized by predecessors as "writing for many bodies" and "writing poems and discussing when seeing talented people in history". This tradition has also been preserved in Zhang Hui's novel Qingming Festival. For example, Lin Daiyu's funeral poems in A Dream of Red Mansions, poetry lessons in Haitang Society, and Lin Daiyu's couplets in Shi Xiangyun's poems are all works of the novel's tone of voice, which has played a great role in portraying the characters' character, rather than a simple cliche of "poetry as evidence". These poems have increased the literariness of the novel, won the appreciation of some literati and scholars, and also played a literary influence on ordinary readers.
Thirdly, the narrative is euphemistic and meticulous, and the plot is tortuous and vivid. Generally speaking, it inherits and develops the artistic skills of China's classical novels. Mr. Zhang Henshui talked about three techniques of the novel in the preface of "The Cause of Crying and Laughing", one is rendering, the other is interspersed, and the third is cutting. He illustrated the artistic features of rendering and interludes by taking the stories of "Song Wu Beats Tigers", "Walking in Liutang on a Moonlight Night" and "Sandajiazhai" in Water Margin as examples. Regarding tailoring, he took Historical Records of Xiang Yu as an example. It shows that he has a profound cultivation of China's classical literature, so his novels are fascinating and all the rage, and they are still popular today, which makes sense.
As Mr. Mao Dun said: "In the past 30 years, Mr. Zhang Henshui should be the first to use Zhang Huiti to get rid of its good and bad, so that Zhang Huiti can continue its new life." What we are concerned about is the word "renewal". Zhang Hui style is only a style feature, and it is not very important whether it will continue. However, Mr. Zhang Henshui's works are endowed with new life, which is different from previous Zhang Hui novels. It is very important that he wrote some real contents of social life in that era and expressed his love and hate. On the other hand, his novels are constantly changing and developing. Referring to the expression techniques of new-style novels, the brushwork is gradually changed on the basis of the old-style novels. This is an innovation that respects tradition, which is what Mr. Mao Dun said: "Take its essence and discard its dross". Later, when I wrote eighty-one dreams, I gave up the form of quoting classics. Therefore, the position and role of Mr. Zhang Henshui's novels in the history of modern literature is a problem worthy of in-depth discussion.