The picture shows Lu Xinhua's novel Scar, which was first published in Wen Wei Po. The "scar literature" that caused an early response among readers was The Head Teacher published by Beijing writer Liu in People's LiteratureNo. 1977 andNo. 1 1. At that time, critics believed that the main value of this short story was to expose the "mental internal injuries" caused by the "distortion" of a considerable number of teenagers' souls during the Cultural Revolution. Some people think that the call of the times to "save children besieged by the Gang of Four" echoes Lu Xun's call to save children poisoned by feudal ethics in Diary of a Madman, which makes the novel have a profound sense of history.
However, the name of "Scar Literature" comes from Lu Xinhua's short story Scar published in Wen Wei Po on August 1978+0. In the sense of "reflecting the seriousness of people's internal injuries" and "calling for healing wounds", it was recognized by people who promoted the new changes in literature at that time. Subsequently, novels that exposed the historical trauma of the Cultural Revolution emerged one after another, among which the works of educated youth, such as Holy Mission, Noble Pine Tree, Struggle of the Soul, Dedication and Marriage, the large-wall literature of Cong, such as Red Magnolia under the Wall, and Feng Jicai's early "Wounded Literature" all had high artistic achievements. The rural "scar literature" represented by Zhou Keqin's Xu Mao and his daughters.
Lu Xinhua used the word "scar" to summarize the literary trend of thought in academic circles. It can be seen from the article "Speech at the Symposium on Communist Literature in China, San Francisco State University, California" written by Xu Jieyu, a China scholar studying in the United States. Xu Jieyu thinks that Chinese mainland's short stories are the most active after 1976+00 months, and says, "The most popular content is called' generation mourning for the dead', that is' scar literature', because there is a novel called' scar', which is very popular." Some people have raised objections to this general term, thinking that "exposed literature" is more in line with the literary essence of this stage, but since this word has been accepted by most researchers in academic circles, we extend it here.
There are many contents involved in "scar literature", but most of them reveal the scars caused by the Cultural Revolution in a true, simple and even rough form, thus venting the great pain and hatred accumulated in the heart in the past ten years, which coincides with the most primitive function of literature: "venting". [Edit this paragraph] Art evaluation From the artistic content, most of the early "scar novels" regarded going to the countryside as an unbearable nightmare. The works are full of bitter and tragic life turning points in the past years, ugliness, mutual deception, feud and mutual utilization of human good feelings, and their tone is basically the venting of resentment and injustice, all of which show the strong left-wing line and policy in the past. This kind of sentimental mood was deepened in the later "reflective literature" and became a conscious pursuit and endeavor for deep thinking about individuals, society, life and the future. It not only blamed society and politics for a movement that mixed sacredness and absurdity, but also began to explore the relationship between personal tragedy or fate and the whole social background.
From the perspective of artistic aesthetics, the early "scar literature" did not achieve high artistic achievements. People who just woke up from a nightmare can't wait to tell. They are too emotional, too emotional, too eager to tell, too utilitarian to expose ugliness, too preaching, too naive and artificial in art, and the axe chisel marks are obvious.
From the appearance of "scar literature" to the present, the debate on its comments has never stopped, and even triggered several famous literary debates in the history of contemporary literature. "Scar literature" was originally a derogatory term, which was regarded by some critics as the repetition of "exposing literature" and "writing the dark side" in the 1950s and 1960s. 1from the summer of 1978 to the autumn of the following year, there was a heated debate on works such as Scar. The social functions of literature and art, ideology and literature and art have been debated and contested again. 1979 65438+ 10 Chen published Instrumentalism or Reflection Theory-On the Relationship between Literature and Politics in Drama Art, and in April of the same year, Shanghai literature critic wrote an article "Innovating literature and art-refuting the theory that literature and art are tools of class struggle", both of which strongly refuted the statement that literature and art are purely functional political vassals.
But what is meaningful is that when people re-examine these works of "scar literature" today, they will find that no matter how the original debate turned between affirmation and negation, in the social and cultural system of unified aesthetic ideology, "although trying to break free, it still inevitably bears an old historical imprint." In the past, no matter in the writer's creative subject, or in the theme of the text, narrative mode and the image rhetoric of the characters, they all reflected stubborn historical influence. "From the form of political aesthetics," scar literature "undoubtedly inherited the political will of that era.
The debate about realism has always revolved around the "authenticity" of realism, and gradually deepened in the concrete analysis of related works. The fact that realism returned was the way of aesthetic "speech" at that time, which was highly consistent with the political speech at that time in the aspects of "history" (Cultural Revolution), self-exploration (reflection) and pursuit and progress in the future (reforming literature). Obviously, we deny the subordinate position of literature as a political mouthpiece, but we also understand that literature and art can not completely get rid of the shackles of politics and power discourse at the moment when they are in line with reality. Even if "scar literature" exists as a trend of thought without political factors, it is not only inexplicable, but also meaningless. It is also an indisputable fact that the cultural value and political choice of "scar literature" are highly consistent with people's expectations, and that literary speech is consistent with political speech.
At the same time, the later mature works of "scar literature", such as Life in the Bamboo Forest, Ye Xin's Wasted Years, Our Generation of Young People and Feng Jicai's works, generally show concern for human nature, and their profound exploration and discussion triggered the largest discussion on human nature, human feelings and humanitarian issues in the early 1980s.
As a "witness" of an era, "scar literature" undoubtedly recorded the blood and tears of that era. With the reflection of the times, Xu Wenxue has been further sublimated. The theme of "Cultural Revolution" to a great extent gave the writer a space to explore human nature and soul. The cost of an era cannot be one-dimensional. It costs us a lot in one respect and may compensate us in another.
As a literary pioneer of the dead-dead creation mode just emerging during the Cultural Revolution, the limitations of "scar literature" are very obvious.
first
In the social sense, "scar literature" is not deep enough to deny the Cultural Revolution. Only from the perspective of politics, society and interpersonal relationship, the causes of the disaster were investigated, but the analysis of traditional cultural psychology and feudal consciousness was lacking. The condemnation of crimes in works is often attributed to "bad people doing bad things", which shows a kind of unfairness and injustice that is honest but not understood. It is a condemnation of careerists on the premise of affirming "personality worship".
then
In artistic expression, "scar literature" is naive. We can find that the language of many novels was obviously left-leaning during the Cultural Revolution. For example, in The Head Teacher, the author described Mr. Zhang Junshi as "like a seeder that never rusts, constantly sowing the seeds of revolutionary ideas and knowledge in students' hearts." In addition, due to the strong sense of responsibility of the writers of "scar literature" who pay attention to reality, they often jump out to talk about a plot directly and express their views on saving time, which makes the emotional expression of their works inevitably superficial.
third
Although the tragic consciousness is reproduced in the works of "scar literature", its tragic spirit has superficial weakness. Mr. Lu Xun once said: "Tragedy destroys all the valuable things in life for people to see." It can be seen that the deepening of tragedy should have two levels: one is to express disaster; The second is to show sublimity in disasters. However, "scar literature" only stays at the first level of tragedy, and its works focus on the narrative of tragic stories, ignoring the portrayal of personality. In this way, the hero is only a simple victim rather than a manifestation of beauty, and his tragedy is only a manifestation of disaster rather than a "destruction of beauty", which can only arouse people's sympathy in the form of "the rabbit died while the fox was sad" and cannot give people eternal shock and spiritual sublimation.
For example, in Kong Jiesheng's short story The Other Side of the River (1979,2), the author tries to show the tragedy caused by the wrong orientation of the "bloodline theory" in the Cultural Revolution: because their parents were overthrown, the protagonists Yan Liang and Mulan suffered a lot, and they met and fell in love by the river, and happiness seemed to come to them. However, they found that they were actually brother and sister-the tragic color of the novel reached its climax at this time, but while the readers sighed for this "incest" tragedy, they could not help feeling too many accidental factors. This deliberately added tragedy undoubtedly makes the work appear false, and at the same time it can't produce shocking power.
finally
What needs to be pointed out is the comedy ending of the "scar literature" model. Because the political form and ideological environment at that time were still unclear, there were still taboos in the literary and art circles such as "writing exposure" and "writing tragedy". At the same time, most writers still can't get rid of the inertial influence of the previous "Left" creative concept, so they often add a mechanical prediction of "bright future" or a happy comedy ending at the end, even diluting the tragic effect and affecting the profundity of their works.
The most typical example is The Other Side of the River just mentioned. After describing an incest tragedy, the work turned to the news that the Gang of Four was smashed and the two brothers and sisters were rehabilitated by their mother. The bank where their mother works also said that she would be transferred back from the countryside to arrange work. The most surprising thing is that they learned from their mother's suicide note that Mulan was her adopted daughter in the war, and she was with Yan. Eliminate all shadows, just like the titles of the last two sections of the novel: "Fly to the light" and "Meet at the Magpie Bridge". Such a happy ending is undoubtedly full of artificial traces.
For another example, Sun Changning, a young forest boy, broke into the examination room of the Conservatory of Music with the teacher's last wish and flute, and happened to meet the teacher's confidant examiner. The latter listened to the boy's flute, as if seeing the figure of an old friend and feeling the continuation of life. This plot undoubtedly hints at the bright future of teenagers, but it is not true enough because it is too coincidental and fluent.
For another example, in Scar, after Wang Xiaohua read his mother's suicide note, the author described a character's "turning grief into strength":
"Her bitter face suddenly became very angry. She silently clasped Xiao Su's hand, opened her burning eyes wide, and then said slowly and slowly,' Mom, dear mom, don't worry, my daughter will never forget who poked you and my heart. I will never forget the kindness of the party, follow closely the CPC Central Committee and devote my life to the cause of the party!'
The night is quiet. The water in Huangpu River is rolling eastward. Suddenly, the whistle on the distant ship made a loud noise. Xiaohua felt his blood boil at once. So she took Xiao Su's arm down the stone steps and strode to the brightly lit Nanjing Road ... "
These two paragraphs undoubtedly foreshadow the infinite light of the future after telling a tragic story, but this prediction is very empty because it is groundless.
In short, from today's perspective, "scar literature" has obvious limitations. In the development of literature in the new period, its greatest value lies in its transitional role between the "false, big and empty" literature in the Cultural Revolution and the new literature that embodies the authenticity of "people". Feng Jicai's "Ah! Jin He's "Reunion" and other works are very obvious. Although the latter is known as the masterpiece of "scar literature", it has shown the profound power of reflecting on literature.