On the characteristics and external influence of avant-garde literature with high scores for help

What is "Pioneer"? Its original meaning comes from the famous French La Ruse Dictionary-the so-called vanguard refers to the vanguard of an armed force, whose task is to prepare for this armed force to enter the operation (military terminology). The history of the word "pioneer" began with the French Revolution, and then turned to cultural and literary terms (beginning with 19 th century); No matter military pioneers, political pioneers or cultural pioneers, they all have a common feature: "Originated from romantic utopia and its messianic fanaticism, the development route it follows is essentially similar to the earlier and broader concept of modernity." To put it bluntly, modernism is "avant-garde"! It includes "symbolism, futurism, dadaism, imagism, surrealism, abstraction, schools of consciousness, absurdity and so on." Its tendency is to reflect the abnormal alienation relationship between individuals and society, people and people, people and nature, and individuals and themselves in modern western society, and the resulting mental trauma, abnormal psychology, pessimism and nihilism.

The artistic feature of "avant-garde" is that it opposes traditional culture and deliberately violates established creative principles and appreciation habits. One-sided pursuit of novelty in artistic form and style; Adhere to art above all else and do not undertake any obligations; Pay attention to exploring the inner world, describe dreams and mysterious and abstract instantaneous world in detail, and extensively use hints, metaphors, symbols, associations, images, synaesthesia and perceptual skills to explore the inner mystery and the flow of consciousness of characters, so that irrelevant events can form a multi-level structure and go hand in hand, which is difficult for everyone to understand!

In the middle and late 1980s, young writers such as Ma Yuan, Hong Feng, Yu Hua, Su Tong and Ye appeared in the literary world one after another. They tried the stylistic form of novels in a unique way, and were called "avant-garde" by critics. Undoubtedly, avant-garde literature is an important literary phenomenon in the history of contemporary literature in China. From the initial "avant-garde experimental novels" to the so-called "returning to nature", avant-garde writers have embarked on a meaningful road of literary creation. ? The Goddess of the Lhasa River published by Ma Yuan 1984 puts narrative above stories for the first time, collages several events with no causal connection, breaks through the paradigm and dilemma of traditional novels focusing on "what to write", and turns to show enthusiasm for the novel narrative technique-"how to write", so avant-garde literature slowly begins. Later, a group of writers followed closely, giving full play to the skills and talents of text experiments and walking freely in the maze of narration. Their creative achievements make avant-garde works a dazzling landscape in the literary world. The common narrative characteristics of avant-garde writers are metafiction (that is, narrating the narrative itself with narrative discourse itself), paying attention to adjusting the distance between narrative discourse and stories, and pursuing the instability of historical life forms in stories. The personalized characteristics of narrative discourse, such as the setting of narrator's role, the symbolization of story characters, narrative traps, narrative speculation and so on. , making their works look different and swaying. It is this exploration of the narrative space of the text form and its structure that not only won these writers the title of pioneers and the attention of critics, but more importantly, the emergence of avant-garde novels put forward new theoretical propositions for the development direction and future of China's novels. ?

"Avant-garde literature has created new novel concepts, narrative methods and language experiences. It is no exaggeration to say that they have rewritten a series of basic propositions of contemporary China novels and the definition of the novel itself." ? "Avant-garde text is a challenge to traditional stylistic theories and concepts, because it is neither a stylistic variation nor a stylistic evolution of traditional novel stylistic patterns, but a stylistic deconstruction." ? It is true that avant-garde writers realize their "meaningful forms" about literature with a rebellious and radical attitude. Avant-garde novels, while abandoning all kinds of old narrative conventions, have become pure technical operations, complex narrative experiments-creating alienation effects after pieced together bits and pieces, and so on. , set a complex reading barrier for readers. However, since the language came into being, it has two connotations: form and meaning. Swiss structural linguist Saussure said: "Language can be compared to a piece of paper. Thought is positive, voice is negative. We can't cut the positives without cutting the negatives. Similarly, in language, we can't make the sound leave the thought, nor can we make the thought leave the sound. " ? (3) How to write a novel and what to write are two sides of an inseparable whole, and innovation in form inevitably requires innovation in content. Avant-garde writers have been focusing on "how to write" from the day they first entered the literary world, which will inevitably lead to the carnival of language, which not only makes the creators get the pleasure of language, but also pays a heavy price for the loss of the meaning of the text. ?

In the 1990s, Su Tong and Yu Hua successively published novels such as Rice, Wives and Concubines, Living, and Xu Sanguan Selling Blood, which indicated that avant-garde writers weakened formal experiments and text games, began to pay attention to the fate of characters, realized their understanding of human existence and soul in relatively plain language, and returned to the text with realistic depth and humanistic care. Many commentators believe that this is the popularization of avant-garde writers in order to cater to the public, and this turn marks the return of avant-garde literature to the realistic tradition. ?

The change of avant-garde writers' creation-from attaching importance to form to significance-is not a simple return. There are many realistic factors in their works, but the treatment of themes and themes is quite different from the realistic method. If we say that from the very beginning, the avant-garde writers' subversion and deconstruction of traditional literary forms are inherently deficient, which is rooted in the realistic soil where avant-garde literature germinates. After 1970s, in China, with the disappearance of divine aura and the migration of ethnic consciousness to individual consciousness, "man" is not only facing the challenge of real economic trends, but also being impacted by various foreign cultural trends, and the ideals and values that people have always believed in and advocated are inevitably questioned. The external historical situation has provided a new turning point for the history of literature. Coupled with the conscious power of artistic form change that has always existed in the history of literature, the avant-garde has absorbed spiritual energy from existential philosophy and the works of masters such as Borges and embarked on a journey of exploration. They are by no means lacking the traditional practical ability or trying to keep up with the fashion, but an inner spiritual need drives them. The radical gesture made by the avant-garde actually shows by actions that only by subverting the old tradition can we open up a new battlefield, which has its inevitable rationality. In the 1990s, with the reform of economic and political system and the establishment of market economy, China completed the 200-year industrialization process in the West in a short time. Oval industrial expansion makes the society full of ridiculous human feelings, but the spiritual temperament in life is poor and powerless, and external conditions once again provide an opportunity for literature to turn. How to look at ordinary or abnormal life forms and reflect people's real pain and various possibilities of human existence in a more appropriate way has become a problem that avant-garde writers must face. ? Furthermore, the exploration and innovation of art forms show the self-realization and freedom improvement of the creative subject, but the loss of the subject discourse, the disappearance of human nature and the narrative of history make the avant-garde writers lost in the subject spirit. Avant-garde writers play a rebellious game against the deep pattern of social history in the form of narration and win the name of "pioneer" The avant-garde works reveal the lack of center, depth, uncertainty, fragmentation and other styles, which make them show postmodern symptoms. However, the emergence of postmodern narrative theory and its practice in China is not the natural result of the local social and cultural development in China, but the foreign acceptance of China avant-garde writers in the sense of intertextuality. From the works of Borges, Faulkner and Heller, they suddenly realized that the original novel could be written in another way, so to some extent, avant-garde writers first imitated its narrative level. The timely turn of avant-garde literature is not an accidental return, migration or even confluence from postmodernism to modernism. They finally walked out of Borges' territory and "showed the characteristics of China's avant-garde literature as a whole"? ④ The exploration of narrative space has gradually shifted from non-empirical abstraction to adaptation to specific context.

Therefore, the transformation of avant-garde literature after 1990s is due to changes in social life, aesthetic objects and aesthetic feelings, and new adjustment is inevitable. The transformation or spiritual change of avant-garde literature is not only the result of individualization of literary creation, but also the requirement of history. Since this period, with the gradual deepening of exploration, avant-garde writers have tried to get out of the dilemma they set for themselves, make timely adjustments, and re-understand and solve the contradiction between "how to write" and "what to write" in literary creation. In a word, the turn of avant-garde literature is neither to cater to the popularization of the masses nor the decline or retreat of avant-garde spirit, but to keep pace with the times and become a symbol of maturity. The avant-garde spirit of avant-garde literature is far from "ending", and avant-garde writers have been "on the road". ? Taking Yu Hua as an example, his creation can be said to be synchronized with the development of avant-garde literature. Yu Hua's early works "April 3 Incident" and "Things in Smoke" show his deep doubts about man and his ecology and humanity. April 3rd itself is a metaphor and symbol. Smoke shows a more avant-garde posture in the narrative space. Absurd events such as fortune-telling, weddings and funerals were forcibly pieced together, and the names of characters were abandoned and replaced by abstract Arabic numeral symbols. Characters and their personalities are all submerged in the sequence of digital symbols, showing complete disregard for human suffering and cruelty of life, but the rhythm of language operation is smooth and moderate. No matter the "April 3" incident or things like smoke, doubts about people's living environment and living conditions, and thoughts on people's suffering do not directly come from the experience world, but the essential truth that hangs over the world, and the metaphysical theme has been fully revealed. Since Living, Yu Hua has alienated the complicated language experiments and stopped setting reading obstacles for readers. The narrative of the story is simple, simple and straightforward, as if returning to the horizon of realism. However, the artistic contrast before and after the creation does not mean that the avant-garde leaders have returned to the old tradition of realism. In Zhang Qinghua's Literary Subtraction, the difference between Yu Hua's writing before and after is only: "In the early stage, he may pay more attention to making experience close to humanity and philosophy, while in the later stage, he pays more attention to making experience close to history and survival." ? ⑤ Alive and Xu Sanguan's Blood Selling Story have complete stories, clear plot clues and philosophical attitudes towards life. Both Fu Gui and Xu Sanguan live in realistic contexts, but Yu Hua basically "removes" the thinking ability of the characters in the novels and makes them "simplify" the symbols driven by life instinct ... They can't grasp their own destiny, so they can only let fate drive them away. It is precisely because of this that Yu Hua can grasp his characters in the sense of "anthropology" rather than "sociology" and construct his exploration of human nature and philosophical theme. "He is not a writer who simply faces history and blood and tears in the moral sense, but a writer who understands human nature and history in the sense of tragedy and survival despair." ? The aesthetic dimension of avant-garde literature should be the organic unity of discourse form and spiritual connotation, and history or reality is only an appropriate narrative carrier for excellent novelists. Man, humanity, human destiny and the existence and nothingness of this world are the ultimate goals to be expressed. "The pioneer's character should be reflected in its spiritual height, and it should be reflected in an endless questioning and innovation of reality, but this questioning and innovation is by no means limited to narrative forms, while openly banishing meaning and value. Conversely, it must be based on the concern and embodiment of real life. " ? In this sense, narration is a re-creation of reality and history. Yu Hua's avant-garde literary creation has reached a new height in both narrative space and spiritual dimension. ?

China's avant-garde novels have been explored and practiced for more than twenty years. Although some writers have passed the peak of their own creation or entered a state of "ready to go" or stagnation, the exploration of the avant-garde metaphysical theme and narrative space has not ended. Su Tong, Ye, Bei Cun, Pan Jun ... These avant-garde writers are still writing, and new works are constantly coming out. The road of artistic exploration is not straight forward, but tortuous. Picasso periodically returns to neoclassicism, while Woolf periodically returns to traditional novel form, which is not only the process of "gaining momentum" before the writer brewing a breakthrough, but also his attempt to combine comprehensive art forms. In fact, in today's field of literary creation, realism, modernism and post-modernism are parallel to each other, but also cross and overlap with each other. Novelists can give full play to their originality, freely carry out various forms of experiments and create their own unique world. "To a great extent, the reason why our literature today presents an aesthetic pattern of pluralistic coexistence and a hundred flowers blooming is precisely the result of countless avant-garde writers constantly subverting the traditional creative mode and exploring various new forms of expression and aesthetic ideals." ? It is in this sense that "as long as literature is alive, pioneers will not die." As long as literature is developing, pioneers will always exist "? ⑨。