Appreciation of Yu Hua's A Kind of Reality

The book contains three novellas, all of which describe death, blood and violence in a calm style, and on this basis, reveal the cruelty of human nature and the absurdity of existence. One of them, Reality One, tells the story of a relative killing each other in an unusually calm, rational and orderly manner under the intervention of pure zero emotion. Yu Hua believes that these works "record the madness, violence and blood I once had, surging like waves between the lines, and are narratives from nightmares to nightmares." For this reason, at that time, some people thought that ice was flowing in my veins instead of blood. "

"A Truth" The novel written by Yu Hua in 1986- 1987 is an fable. He tried to construct a closed world of personal novels, through which he gave the outside world an image model that he thought was true. This shows a strong impulse to explain the world, as if a young man suddenly found himself mastering the secrets of the world and couldn't wait to spread them everywhere. His superficial imitation of age is mixed with a kind of consternation: in fact, it is the latter, not the former, that has produced a new perspective of observing the world, and has indeed discovered the other side of the world. However, the narrative effect of "no self" he deliberately pursued during this period forced him to create a mask: an indifferent narrator. Therefore, his indifference rather than his shock left a deep impression on the readers at that time. There is no conceptual discussion in A Reality 12. However, from the title and plot layout of the novel, we can see the intention of an explanatory concept. As critics say, this intention "is a complex mixture of conceptual impulse to explain the world and artistic ideal to create disposable image models for the world." This image pattern of 13 can first be found in his novel layout. This is an hourglass novel layout, showing a deliberate symmetry: Pippi, the son of Xiaoshan, killed Pippi, Xiaoshan killed Xiaoshan, and Xiaoshan's wife killed Xiaoshan with the help of public security organs. Even the names of "mountain" and "peak" are deliberately symmetrical. If we only discuss it from the perspective of "special research", what we are talking about here is not a new story. In fact, this serial story is widely circulated in folk stories. It is worth noting that all the explanations of these stories provide a reason, and these reasons are very trivial, showing that the civilized side of human nature is far from being able to resist its barbaric and stupid side, while the latter is on the verge of being slightly tempted. In fact, there is another perspective of human nature in folk stories, which is only covered by a traditional story form. Judging from the plot, Yu Hua's contribution lies in canceling the cause of the story and designing this vendetta as a blind impulse. At the same time, he designed the object of brothers killing each other in the traditional five-ethics relationship, which made this vendetta story shocking, and further innovation in narrative made him adapt an old story into a new one. Yu Hua said, "I'm looking for a narrative way without me", and in the narrative process, "I try to avoid direct narration and let the gloomy sky show sunshine" 15. Different from the traditional way of telling stories, Yu Hua designed an indifferent narrator. With the help of this narrator, he provided another perspective to observe the world, which made people see another picture of the world and human animals very directly. The narrator asked him to tell the cruel story seemingly calmly. This is also reflected in the narrative attitude of the novel. In the novel, the use of the narrator's privilege is reduced as much as possible, without too much discussion, psychological analysis of the characters and value judgment, as if overlooking the ignorance and cruelty of the world from the sky. But the narrator's role is still very important, and his indifference enables the characters to go to the front desk and fully perform. He is like a flexible camera, constantly changing the perspective, connecting all the fragments through transformation, and showing the bloody process of vendetta. This narrative has produced a strong effect, and the scene of vendetta is creepy. For example, in the novel, the scene where a hill crushed a brother's mountain was described as a deliberate calculation, but this calculation was not shown in detail psychologically, only describing his external activities. The dull narrative took us to the top of the mountain and tied us to a tree. Hill filled the soles of his feet with bone soup, and then a puppy licked it, and we understood his purpose. Even in this extreme scene, the narrator never describes the conscious activities of the characters, but only shows their feelings and direct reactions. In the novel, the scene of the mountain being tortured is described as follows: however, at this moment, a strange feeling slowly rises from the soles of the feet, climbs up again, climbs faster and faster, and soon climbs to the chest. Before coming out for the third time, he couldn't help shrinking his head and laughing hard. He tried to retract his leg, but it couldn't bend, so he had to swing up and down. Although his body was twisted, it didn't move at all. At the moment, his head is dazzling. The laughter of the mountain peak is like two pieces of aluminum. The hill looked very happy at this moment. He said to the peak,' You are so happy.' Then he turned to his wife and said,' I'm a little jealous of being so happy. His wife didn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the dog. The dog greedily licked the bare soles on the top of the mountain with its tongue. He found his wife as greedy as a dog. Then he went to see his sister-in-law, who was still sitting on the ground, confused by the strange smile of the mountain peak. She looked blankly at the mountain peak, and she was a little delirious because of confusion. "This kind of indifference and conciseness in narrative has profound conceptual strategies. Yu Hua, a writer, claims to pursue "truth", but this kind of truth is not "the experience of being trapped by daily life", but a kind of "truth in the eyes of writers". In order to be different from the former truth, he adopted different strategies in his narrative, and this simplicity is also an important factor. It is this simplicity, rather than the narration, evaluation and rationalization of daily life experience, that shows the dark side of the world and human nature. Narration only describes the characters' external actions, simple feelings and direct physiological reactions, while ignoring the rational and conscious activities of the characters, that is, consciously describing them as irrational species, which is in line with the plot of blind revenge in the novel and his concept of the world and human nature. As the critic pointed out: "He seemed to jump out of this world and calmly look back at how people lived. A kind of truth is to reveal a life scene to you: what is the truth of life? From unintentional injuries between small towns to the killing of adults, everyone seems to commit crimes by accident or instinct, just like games. "16, short narrative strategy is undoubtedly suitable for this intention. So, what is the "truth" that Yu Hua pursues? He himself said: "Until One Reality, my thoughts on truth were only doubts about common sense. That is to say, when I no longer believe in common sense about real life, this doubt leads me to pay attention to another part of truth, which directly induces me to think directly about chaos and violence. 17 a kind of violence in reality can be said to be a metaphor of "the other part is real": from the slave fighting in ancient times to boxing and even cricket fighting now, Yu Hua saw "the quiet concession of civilization to barbarism" and realized that "violence is deeply rooted in people's hearts". "Facing violence and chaos, civilization is just a slogan, and order has become a decoration." Most organs on the hill have not been transplanted successfully, but genitals. The form of Reality One is artificial, or in the words of Yu Hua, it is a "hypocritical form". However, with the help of this "hypocritical form" 19, Yu Hua has successfully expressed this "another part of truth" he found. Perhaps it is because his artistic ideal of making image models for the world is too strong, and the way of thinking in this period is "mature and fixed" in reality and tends to be rigid. Stereotype means death, which forced him to make new changes in his later creation.