Xiao Hong is a member of the left-wing cultural movement. She participated in the magnificent national revolution and liberation with her works. Yes, the words "national revolution and liberation" seem a bit trite today, which just shows that we are too far away from that era, not only in time, but also psychologically, although we know more and more about the details of Xiao Hong's personal life. Without the grand goal of national revolution and liberation, the wandering, resistance and struggle of left-wing literary youth will become an empty gesture, although the free and unrestrained vitality-as shown in the film-looks beautiful. In this career, Xiao Hong may not be in the center, but she is undoubtedly a part of it. Even when living in Hong Kong far from the cultural center, she still echoes the rhythm of the times with words. Isn't there a deep concern for the fate of the ancient nation in the long and sad ballad of Hulan River Biography? At the last moment of her life, she wrote articles such as "A Letter to the Northeast Compatriots Exiled in Different Places" and "A Letter to My Brother on September 18th". What she regrets is that she can't continue to write Half of the Red Chamber with friends such as Ding Ling and Nie Gannu, a novel with the theme of the Red Army's Long March. She is by no means a bystander of the times.
Some people say that Xiao Hong's life is more colorful than her words. I can't agree. Xiao Hong's life is indeed a legend, but it is only a personal legend, and her literary world is much broader. People talk about her emotional entanglements with Xiao Jun and Duanmu Hongliang, but they don't seem to notice that apart from March in a Small Town, she has hardly written any works with love as the theme. Appreciating Stone Street is a collection of essays describing her and Jun Xiao's hard life in Harbin. It said nothing about love, but wrote the feelings of hunger, poverty and pain incisively and vividly. Perhaps, it is this bottom experience that makes her sensitive soul open to the wider world and to more oppressed and hurt people. Xiaohong and Xiaojun have a small window in their apartment on Shangcheng Street. "This small window passes through human tunnels: roofs, chimneys, dark days with heavy snow, street lamps, police, trams, vendors and beggars. Everything appears in this small tunnel, and the bustling city streets are ringing "(snowy day). It can be said that her words are just "tunnels through the world", presenting the gloomy, desolate and beating world to us.
When talking about Xiao Hong's achievements, Ge Haowen said that Xiao Hong is an autobiographical writer who is good at describing her personal experience in essence, which is correct to some extent. However, what we need to add is that Xiao Hong's personal experience accommodates her concern for the wider world. Xiao Hong's works seldom tell her own joys and sorrows, and her keen eyes are always on the world around her. Xiao Hong devoted herself to writing an unremarkable essay called Little Life and Soldiers, describing a scene she saw on the Yangtze River Ferry in Wuhan in June 1937+00. A soldier with a knife and a child in his arms hung on the ferry. He shook the child carefully and kept pressing the handle of the knife with his left hand. The ship will dock soon. "The underwater sound aroused by the hull and wharf is banging loudly. I can't hear the soldiers' daggers even louder. I can only imagine: can the child's heartbeat and the soldier's heartbeat hear each other? " This is only a brief moment between wars, but the calm waves, like an inaudible heartbeat, are truly conveyed to readers by the author's meticulous and vivid brushstrokes.
According to the memories of her contemporaries, Xiao Hong is an honest, unsophisticated and somewhat childish person, which may make her less sophisticated in dealing with daily affairs, but it complements her creative talents. She is the kind of writer who has a strong sense of reality at all levels, and her clear literary mind can accommodate almost all colors. On the one hand, she writes about the animal survival and death of farmers who are struggling to die with almost cruel brushstrokes, on the other hand, she writes about their tenacious vitality with calm and powerful brushstrokes; She can not only write about the vitality of the back garden of her hometown from the perspective of children, but also write about people's ignorance and selfishness calmly and unambiguously. She even developed an ironic talent to coldly expose the meanness and boredom of ordinary citizens during the war. Unlike some formulaic left-wing writers, she is not bound by theories and principles, but writes a vivid gesture of social reality more truly. In Xiao Hong's works, the reality is multi-layered and even discordant, which is often disturbing, perhaps because her later works have not been highly valued by left-wing critics. However, her creation is by no means a classic provided by liberal scholars in the art palace. Just to watch and taste, but it can't disturb the reader's heart.
Of all Xiao Hong's novels, the one that impressed me the most was actually Hand, which was not often mentioned. Wang, the hero of the novel, is my middle school classmate. At home, he runs a "dyeing vat room" (dyeing clothes shop) because his hands have turned black for many years. Although she is a kind and hardworking girl, her black hand has made her ridiculed and bullied by the principal, teachers and classmates. "I" just looked on coldly. At the end of the novel, the school had a winter vacation, and Wang's father came to pick her up. "When they walked out of the Mu Cha Gate, they walked towards a distant place and towards the rising sun." "Snow is like broken glass. The farther away, the stronger the flash. I have been seeing the snow in the distance stinging my eyes. " This last sentence seems to "sting" me, and it is still fresh in my memory many years later. This is the power of Xiao Hong's writing, which inspires deep emotions in silence.
These works reflect the life of people in Northeast China and mainland China during the Anti-Japanese War, and describe their desire and hope for survival. Under the clear words, there is a heavy history of the great era. There is a popular view that great works are beyond the times, but my view is just the opposite. Great works can effectively call readers back to their own era, let readers appreciate the vastness and richness of social reality in that era through words, and feel the struggles and struggles of people living in that era, instead of lingering in the scenery woven by words. But this requires readers to have a basic sense of history, otherwise they will be divorced from the works. In the article "Reading Xiao Hong's Works", Sun Li once expressed the feeling that "any literary work has no feelings of * * *, and can only appreciate its fur", which is really insightful and properly criticizes many modern people's interpretations of Xiao Hong.
Lu Xun wrote a well-known passage in the preface to the field of life and death, which might as well be copied below:
Of course, this is only sketch, narrative and scenery description, which is better than character description. However, the people in the north, who are strong in life and struggle in death, often have a deep understanding; The meticulous observation and deviant writing of the female author add a lot of bright eyes and freshness. A sound mind is a person who hates literature, art and utility. If it seems that he is unlucky, he must have got nothing.
Most commentators quoted the first half of this passage, which reread and found that the last sentence was really meaningful. The "utilitarianism" mentioned by Lu Xun is deeper than the literal meaning, which is roughly close to the "national revolution and liberation cause" mentioned by me at the beginning of the article, and the so-called "people who hate literature and art and utilitarianism" can be understood as liberals who stand on the opposite side of the left wing. Lu Xun's article uses words and sentences to make a surprise victory. On the one hand, it praises the perfection of the spirit of life and death, on the other hand, it satirizes the narrowness of liberal literary view. More ironically, today's "people who deeply hate literature and utility" all list Xiao Hong as a fellow. Because of the transfer of discourse power, their humble opinion of Xiao Hong will even be regarded as all of Xiao Hong, which has separated the relationship between Xiao Hong and history. As a result, Xiao Hong was reduced to the existence of some symbols and labels: individualists, humanists, liberals, and even "the goddess of the Republic of China", which is really Xiao Hong's "misfortune". Perhaps, Xiao Hong can't get rid of the lonely fate after all.