"Nine Stories of Flower Street" is a collection of novels, which wrote nine stories that took place in Flower Street. The nine stories that seem to be unrelated to each other, but because the flower street is linked together, the respective destinies of the characters in the book are also linked together. Xu said in the preface that not all the so-called Nine Chapters of Flower Street happened here, as long as they were thought, read and rooted in Flower Street, they could all be counted as Flower Street Story. As for why he chose these nine stories from his many novels, he said, "When I closed my eyes and saw the novel coming out of the dark street of Huajie, these nine stories were at the forefront."
Xu's Flower Street is an ordinary old street: "There are doors in front and windows in the back. Outside the door is the Flower Street, a tall, thin gray tile house with an oblique roof like the wings of a bird. There is a locust tree in almost every yard. " There are also a group of ordinary little people living in Huajie: pigeon people, courier brothers, shoemakers, prostitutes and river workers in the square ... which constitute the overall scene of Xu's novel collection "Nine Stories of Huajie".
Xu's writing style is ordinary, and there is nothing too amazing, but the ordinary people described in these ordinary words left a deep impression on me. They live in a difficult situation and suffer their own tragic fate. They have different pains and humiliations in their hearts, but they are tough and forbearing, trying to survive in adversity.
In these novels, the protagonist of many stories is a teenager named Muyu. Xu sees the world through the eyes of teenagers, examines the world and tells the world. There are some things that teenagers seem to understand in the story of Huajie, and some things that teenagers feel intuitively. Teenagers are both participants and bystanders in the story.
Flower Street is not a paradise. It has a traditional and conservative atmosphere. Most people who live there live in poverty. In that special era, individuals were powerless to resist in the torrent of the times. The story of Huajie magnifies the evil in human nature, and also breeds a lot of violence and many tragedies that could not have happened. But the goodness in human nature will never die out. This kind of warmth between people runs through every story, which has cured young Muyu and readers to some extent.
Of the nine stories, I like two novellas best, Fireworks on Earth and Pale Voice. Perhaps because these two articles are long enough, Xu's writing can be fully exerted.
Su embroidery in Fireworks on Earth makes me sigh and hate her tragic life. This story is similar to Yu Hua's To Be Alive to some extent. At the end of the novel, Su Xiu is "white-haired, with a calm face, as if decades have not passed, but it is today in a blink of an eye."
The Voice of the Pale describes the growth of young wooden fish. This growth not only refers to the physical growth of wooden fish, but also refers to the psychological growth after witnessing tragedy and suffering.
Reading Xu's Nine Chapters of Flower Street always reminds me of Pi. These two books give me similar feelings. The protagonists are all small-town teenagers (youths), and their stories are all around their hometown, family and friends. There are sufferings that they can't earn, and warmth between people. It describes the fate that ordinary people can't get rid of suffering, but they are still struggling to survive under suffering. Just like Xu, who was born in the 1970s, compared with those born in the 1980s, his works have touched the evil in human nature more deeply, and there are also more puzzles and anxieties.
After reading this collection of novels, I feel that I can borrow Xu's Going North, which won the Mao Dun Literature Award on 20 14, and Jerusalem, which won the Lao She Literature Award.