Making Excellent Traditional Cultural Resources the "protagonist" of Novels: A Recent Trend in Novel Creation
2024-04-24
The excellent traditional Chinese culture embodies the collective memory and national spirit of the Chinese nation, shaping the Chinese people's worldview, worldview, and outlook on life. Literary creation should not only have the foundation of contemporary life, but also the bloodline of cultural traditions. Activating and transforming excellent traditional cultural resources is the only way to tell a good Chinese story, the source of literary works that are popular among the people, and the necessary path for the new era literature to climb from the "plateau" to the "peak". In recent novel creations, many writers have inherited, transcoded, or developed excellent traditional cultural elements, striving to make excellent traditional cultural resources the "protagonists" of novels. Looking back on the history of our nation with deep affection, and closely integrating it with the vibrant reality of life, it conveys the strong, promising, and self-improvement spirit of China. 1. The radiance shining on "objects". Throughout history, Chinese intellectuals have combined daily life practice with aesthetic practice, gradually forming an aesthetic tradition of seeing people through objects, reflecting people through objects, and embodying beauty through objects. They elevate daily utensils such as pottery, porcelain, pens and ink, paper and inkstones, tables and chairs to an aesthetic level. In the process of collection and appreciation, they not only make these objects art pieces, but also endow them with rich spiritual connotations, making them important spiritual sustenance for traditional Chinese literati. The producers and their production activities of these artifacts go beyond the simple and superficial operational level and have a metaphysical meaning, and are organically integrated into the aesthetic process of artifacts. Wang Zengqi once summarized Shen Congwen's research on material cultural history as "lyrical archaeology", emphasizing that "the things he created, such as ceramics, lacquerware, silk, and clothing, were all 'objects', but what he saw were people, their intelligence, their creativity, their artistic love for beauty, and their persistent labor.". In his article "About Southwest Lacquerware and Others," Shen Congwen admitted that "all art pieces contain the author's struggles in life, as well as the balance of his mind, and my understanding is deep and detailed.". This interest and attention to the "people" behind the objects is not only one of the driving forces for Shen Congwen to shift from literary creation to the study of material cultural history, but also helps us understand a series of long stories related to "objects" and their production, collection, and appreciation that have emerged in recent years. Li Qingyuan's "Kiln Transformation" depicts Jun porcelain, while Xu Feng's "Baojiang" depicts Yixing purple clay teapot. Both "artifact" techniques shine brilliantly in the hands of the writers. From 1895 to the present, "Yaobian" reflects the ups and downs of the fate of a craftsman family over a hundred years, and revolves around the revival and inheritance of Jun porcelain firing techniques, reflecting the ups and downs of China's land for over a century. Folk craftsman Zhai Rixin unintentionally revived the long lost secret technique of Jun porcelain "kiln transformation", but it became a means for feudal bureaucrats to invite credit and accumulate wealth, and a weapon for hidden struggles between wealthy merchants and clans. Until the new century, the popularization of craftsmanship made the "kiln transformation" no longer mysterious, and the downturn in the market brought about a crisis in the inheritance and development of Jun porcelain. The descendants of the Zhai family were in a dilemma between "seeking change" and "remaining unchanged"... The author wrote a hundred year family history and Jun porcelain history, while also using small incisions to write a century long Chinese history of great opening and closing.
Edit:GuoGuo Responsible editor:FangZhiYou
Source:gmw.cn
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