Text/Ye Danying
When I was reading, I seemed to be almost out of touch with the world. The sun is about to go down, the golden light is shining brightly, and the air is fresh and cool. The winter in December will be late tomorrow. A touch of warmth, a touch of sadness.
It’s like watching a road movie, and you can’t help but sigh with emotion at the end of the play. On the road, there is no end, just like a bus heading out of the city with no destination. After each farewell, during the long journey on the groggy highway back to the city, the scenery outside the window remained unchanged and desolate. The road runs through childhood and adulthood, villages and cities...
But it is far different from the film - everything is determined, including everyone's appearance, expression, and when and what kind of music should sound. The background music leaves no room for imagination. When you sink into a novel, your mind is free, allowing your imagination and memories to spread boundlessly. When you are immersed in sadness, you don't want to come out. It seems that sadness itself is a particularly comfortable enjoyment.
Although I don’t have such a vigorous, twists and turns life as in Dean’s novel, every scene in “Western Judgment” is so familiar, and it seems that many fragments can be fished out from memories. Broken shadows, pictures of the past keep reappearing...the refreshing cool breeze and evening, the basketball court and lights of Taohuashan. We were also the children who celebrated the teacher's birthday and surprised the teacher with heart. The boys in the next class were arrogant and rebellious like Toni, who wanted to oust the teacher in public. "When I was as old as them, I was just like them. I didn't know that what I was holding in my hands was the best and most unbridled time." Suddenly, I was extremely moved because of the ringing of my breasts. Including banquets, receiving gift money, hospitals, funerals, deaths, quarrels, newborn babies... I discovered that no one is without stories, but many stories have been dusted and forgotten, and words have picked up the kindness again, although Kind doesn't necessarily mean nice.
Fortunately, the one-child policy only started in our generation, and my family also has family relationships similar to those in "Western Judgment", so I can still think about it when the uncle is mentioned in the novel. My uncle, when talking about brother, think of my brother... It seems that every protagonist can find that familiar face in reality. When I have no memory, my uncle died in a car accident on a stormy night. To this day, I can only see the dusty photo on the tribute table every time I go back to my grandma's house, knowing that it is my uncle. My aunt later went to Taiwan. I don’t know how my uncle’s two children, my cousin and my cousin, grew up without a father, because in my impression, they are already what they are now. . I heard that my sister was still young and naive at the time, so she wasn’t hit too hard. My brother was already sensible by then, and I could see that he was much more reserved than my sister. Although their father and uncle also care about them, the love from their uncles is far different from that of their father.
The hospital scene in the novel seems familiar. During the winter vacation of the first year of junior high school - the second day of the first lunar month in 2007, the whole family went back to visit their grandparents, with children at one table and adults at one table. After dinner, my father drove a few relatives back. My sister and I were in a stuffy room watching funny movies played by my brother for us. But I didn't find it funny at all, and my brother looked serious from beginning to end. A long time passed, and I began to feel uneasy for no reason. Why didn't dad come back? A vague irritability filled my chest. The youngest cousin suddenly burst into the room and shouted: "Uncle's head was hit!" My brother's report broke the dead silence, and I realized that all the uneasy premonitions were actually so effective.
On a gray day, I was crowded in the car of a relative who I had forgotten and rushed to the hospital. The car quickly reached the intersection, and my mother and I were stunned. The little green Alto we are all familiar with was smashed into pieces and lay on the ground beyond recognition. Mom cried, and so did I, including now... We thought that Dad was going to die. I don’t want to think about the specific scene of ferociousness anymore. Later, after cleaning the sores, my father woke up, but his eyes became numb. The father we were familiar with suddenly felt strange. Through a door, I heard adults discussing things about memory, and I suddenly realized with horror, could my father have lost his memory? I asked my dad what score I got in the final exam. Do you still remember? He was at a loss. I asked my dad what my name was? He couldn't answer. I asked my father, do you still recognize my sister and me? Fortunately, Dad still remembers our faces.
That night, my sister and I slept in the same bed. It was the first time we were alone at home without our parents. We didn't fall asleep, the winter was bone-chilling, our heads were dizzy, and the fear was piercing our bones. As soon as it dawned the next day, we held hands and went to hail a taxi. Fortunately, Dad only suffered from temporary amnesia. What happened day by day in the hospital took up the rest of our winter vacation. On Valentine's Day, my father left the hospital with a box of heart-shaped chocolates for my mother. What a great Valentine's Day. Later, my father bought a new car, and the license plate said "Have a safe journey." Every time dad goes out, we have to run to the door and say the same thing like a little maple, "Dad, drive carefully on the road!"
In the spring of my sophomore year in high school, I forgot which month it was in 2010. We My grandfather was dying, and his father took him from the hospital to his aunt's house for recuperation.
Although he has no filial son before his long illness, his father still sticks to his son's responsibilities year after year. One day, my father came home and said to us: "Go see grandpa. It may be the last time." We suddenly realized that grandpa's departure might happen soon. Although I had little contact with my grandfather since I was a child, when I went home every New Year, I would see the dull old man slumped in a wheelchair year after year, and I knew he was my grandfather. We greeted him warmly and joyfully said blessings such as "Happy New Year and good health to grandpa". Grandpa was smiling slightly there, but these smiles were more like moans. I seemed to have never heard him speak.
Grandpa’s funeral, to me, was more like a farce. Seeing the funny looks of my father, uncles and uncles wearing bath towels, belts and towels on their heads, my sister and I really wanted to laugh, really, really wanted to laugh, but we knew that laughing at this time was inappropriate and inappropriate. To be damned, we can only hide in the toilet and secretly suppress our laughter. It was the first time I saw a mourner singing an opera with tears and tears on his face, which was extremely exaggerated. For the first time, I walked past the coffin in a circle with a group of relatives I knew or didn't know, and each held two incense sticks and knelt down "devoutly" in the prearranged order. It was the first time to climb an extremely steep dirt mountain, and the ground was still wet from the rain. Finally, we reached the pit that belonged to Grandpa, and people set off firecrackers. These first times actually turned me on so much.
Arriving at the cremation workshop of the funeral home, the cool breeze blew all the way through the hall. When the staff pushed the grandfather's body wrapped in white cloth into the incinerator, the flames filled the air, just like what was described in "Western Jue" - "The blast furnace in the uncle's workshop, a pot of liquid sun, a murderous, passionate Overflowing fire and silver flowers. If a person falls into the molten iron, he will turn into nothingness and unrestrained blood." Grandpa was just thrown into the thrilling "fire trees and silver flowers", and then turned into nothing, leaving only a box of ashes. I carefully looked into my father's eyes and watched the tears he shed.
Shortly after my grandfather died, my aunt was also diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer. The aunt who was so afraid of death also died soon after. The last time I saw my aunt, I also realized in advance that the meeting would be unusual. At her aunt's house, she said she was in pain every day. My uncle went downstairs to get the newspaper, and the days continued. The aunt in my memory was skinny and always quick-tongued. Every time she came to our house, she would go to the supermarket and buy a dozen vegetables on sale as a "meeting gift." When we were young, my sister and I were still talking about how my aunt was like Mrs. Xianglin in Lu Xun's novels.
Unconsciously, I was reminded of a classic line in "The End of Time" - "Children only distinguish between right and wrong, adults only look at the pros and cons." Similarly, only children will pester adults to ask whether a certain character in the story is a good guy or a bad guy? Children will also be very frank about who they like and who they hate. So the person who bluntly said that "bad people succeeded in doing bad things, so everyone stopped talking" was Nanyin. Only when you grow up slowly do you understand that liking or hating a person is not that simple, and that good people and bad people are not clearly defined. Ambiguity is the complexity of human nature.
A dialogue between Dong Ni and Xi Jue in the novel left a deep impression on me:
"Xi Jue, am I a good person?"
"You are not." I Definitely.
"Compared to you, no one is a good person." Her fingers gently swept my cheek, "You have to promise me that you will never become a bad person. If one day, I If I find that even you have become a bad person, then I really don’t have the strength to live.”
This dialogue is like a warm reconciliation near the end of the story, and the object of reconciliation is Dong Ni and her. Own. In fact, I have never thought that Toni is a bad person. Deep down, like her uncle, she actually longs for reconciliation. It's just that the ice-breaking journey is not easy. It requires letting go of all unwillingness and hatred and mustering great courage. Unfortunately, in the end, the uncle left before they could reach a tacit understanding with each other.
"The feeling that the whole person is turned into a flaming bomb by hatred or pain. At the moment it explodes, I realize that the power that turns out to be so huge and drives people crazy is not hot. It's cold; it's not hatred or pain, it's fate." I was very happy to see this passage, and attributed the reason to "fate", which was satisfying. All "heinous crimes" are not without reason, and all unreasonable madness has its origin and context.
Unlike Nanyin, Dongni is a miserable woman. Nanyin is a happy "rabbit" who grew up in a sunny world, and Dongni is a rebellious girl who has traveled across the ocean since she was a child. Nanyin has a warm home with a pair of parents who are full of life. In Dongni's memory, her father was not her father, and the house was filled with smoke. Every person who ends up depraved or crazy, tracing the history of her fall, will always wonder whether every step is really the only way to go. Or maybe it’s because it’s her, Zheng Dongni, so she’s destined to go this way. People often say that character determines destiny, which is not unreasonable, and destiny naturally becomes the invisible force that drives people crazy.
Xi Jue said: "She is too willful, too selfish, too confused, and too reckless. In fact, she is beautiful and enchanting because of all this willfulness, selfishness, confusion and recklessness. That's why I have to go through all the hardships for her." Because I have no choice, because she deserves someone to do this for her.
"I was very moved by Xi Jue's words, which made Dong Ni's image plump, real and not hateful. Family love is between the lines, and blood is thicker than water. "Beautiful and enchanting" are four charming words, because With this "beautiful and enchanting" that is deeply rooted in people's hearts, she has the right to be forgiven. She is a beautiful woman who can smoke and drink. She is born with an irresistible femininity, not to mention such a willful, selfish and confused woman. , a rambunctious woman. Her occasional timidity and childishness make her even more worthy of being pitied.
I always feel that the ending of "Happy Reunion" is a little rushed, but the happy ending makes the reader feel happy after all. It's a bit far-fetched that Nanyin pursues Su Zhiyuan again, but I have to admire the chicness of every character in the story. These are a group of people who dare to love and hate enough to give up what ordinary people call "reason", just like the saying "fighting for youth." Blood's famous saying - "Go crazy and waste when you love, chase your dreams and regret." Although growing up is a "mistake", Zheng Chenggong is an irony.