The answer given by writer Yu Hua is concise and full of philosophical connotation:

"People live for living itself, not for anything other than living."

It seems a very simple thing for people to live for themselves, but it is extremely heavy when you think about it, because living itself is a heavy topic.

Yu Hua's novels are very infectious and penetrating, among which Living is the most typical one. The word "alive" itself is full of power. The novel Alive depicts the truest and cruelest world about Alive in the simplest local language.

In China, regarding the theory of "image", the Book of Changes says that "image does its best". In the west, American poet Pound said, "Image is a synthesis of thoughts and feelings in an instant."

"Death" and "absurdity" constitute images, which are emotional narratives of individuals' feelings about life and death. The novel "To Be Alive" takes the wealth of the protagonist as a clue and tells readers an absurd story of life suffering.

Suffering writing

Fu Gui is a gentleman of a landlord family, but he lost all his family property because of gambling. His father died of depression, and so did his mother, wife and children. When the hedonistic life of drunkenness ceases to exist, the punishment faced by wealth is approaching step by step. In the face of suffering, he began to gradually realize and take on the heavy responsibility of the family, but even though he had known repentance, the punishment of life still did not fade, and even intensified.

After decades of poverty, Fu Gui watched the people closest to him leave him. When he was the only one alive, he still chose "forbearance".

Life is a process of constant loss, a process of gradual decline and death, but how much courage and perseverance does it take to live so firmly on this lost road?

"Richness", a meaningful name, an ordinary word "alive", a rich life, did not live as rich as his name, but lived tragically. Rich, on the tragic road of life, I gradually realized that it was not easy to live, so I struggled to live even more. In him, people saw the image of a great farmer in the hard years of the old society.

Narrative perspective

The novel to be alive is written from the perspective of first-person narration, and tells life through the protagonist's self-report tone. It can be said that this novel is not only a personal monologue about life, but also a cry for cruel life. Of course, this cry is not like the forceful and passionate statements written by Lu Xun. The narrative in To Be Alive is as calm as a stream, but there is a great tension behind its simple local language, a tension complaint that makes people cry.

An absurd image

Martin heidegger once said: "Death, as the end of this existence, is the most fundamental, irrelevant and definite possibility, but as itself, it is uncertain and insurmountable."

The death of the novel To Be Alive is extraordinary absurdity, which transcends sadness. If absurdity is the deepest contradiction between man and society and between man and nature, then the absurd image in Living is an irresistible highlight and display, similar to the absurdity in Waiting for Godot.

Living is an absurd death. (1) In the novel, the rich boy was bled to death by the county magistrate's wife. (2) The rich grandson was killed for eating too many beans. It can be said that these deaths are unnatural and absurd.

Death from excessive blood drawing reflects an "official standard" society. In such an absurd environment, it is a thought-provoking question how ordinary individuals should survive and live.

Eating too many beans and being crushed to death sounds ridiculous, but it is so real. In those famine years, people were seriously short of material resources. Because people are in a state of not having enough to eat for a long time, people gobble up food at the sight of it, which is an instinctive desire for survival. Although gluttony seems ridiculous, in those days, countless people were doing the same thing.

At the end of the novel, Fu Gui bought a cow and named it "Fu Gui". Since then, Fu Gui has lived alone with a cow named "Fu Gui", which is a ridiculous thing.

Fu Gui's philosophy of life

The protagonist's rich life in Alive is ups and downs, and fate seems to have played a big joke on him. From being rich when I was young, to the decline of my family after marriage, and then to my father's death, my mother became ill; Finally, my son bled to death, my daughter died in childbirth, and my wife died of a serious illness ... Wealth has experienced countless joys and sorrows, and where will you go? After a series of family changes, he understands the meaning of suffering itself and the meaning of living. At the end of the novel, it says:

The old man and the cow are drifting away. The old man sang, teenagers wander, middle-aged people dig and hide, and old people become monks. I know that dusk is fleeting and the night is falling from the sky. I saw the vast land and bare solid chest, which was a gesture of calling, just like a woman calling her children and the land calling the night.

Judging from his rich life experience, absurdity and loneliness accompanied his life, but the ending of the novel brought some warmth to people. The old man sang meaningful words, and through the words themselves, the readers saw a powerful image of the old farmer.

Death is a fate that everyone can't escape. It's only a matter of time. In addition, death is unpredictable, and no one knows when, where and how he will leave this world. In this world, the only thing we can choose is how to live.

If death is eternal to the dead, it is a sad loss to the living. Fu Gui witnessed all kinds of absurd deaths and experienced countless scenes in which white-haired people sent black-haired people. He stood firm in the face of repeated blows.

In fact, wealth is not a hero, not an iron knight, he is just an ordinary and ordinary poor man. In the face of grief, his heart must be painful, but he knows that there are two irreplaceable things in life, that is, "life" and "death". Fu Gui can't die for anyone, he can only live in silence, maybe this is "born to die"!

Yu Hua's novel Alive tells an absurd life story. Behind this absurdity, the great wisdom of China people in the face of suffering is reflected. In fact, the cow symbolizes a rich life, quietly cultivated all his life and silently carried forward.