The original text of the literary masterpiece "Li Rui·Houtu·Hefen"|Theme|Appreciation|Summary
About the author Born in Beijing in September 1950, his ancestral home is Zigong, Sichuan. He graduated from Beijing Yangzha Middle School in 1966. Later, in the tide of educated young people going to the mountains and countryside, he went from Beijing to Dijiahe Village in Luliang Mountain District, Shanxi Province in 1969 and settled there. In 1975, he was assigned to work as a laborer in Shanxi Linfen Iron and Steel Company. In 1977, he was transferred to the editorial department of "Shanxi Literature" (the title of the magazine at that time was still called "Fenshui") to do editorial work. From 1980 to 1984, he studied on his own and graduated from the Correspondence Department of the Chinese Department of Liaoning University. Published his first novel in 1974, and has published nearly one million words of short stories and novels so far. He has published novel collections such as "The Lost Lock of Life" and "The Red House". He has won the "Shanxi Literature" Outstanding Novel Award, "Zhao Shuli Literature Award". Since 1986, he has devoted himself to the creation of a series of short stories "Thick Earth - Impressions of Luliang Mountain". His published works such as "Hoeing", "Eye Stone" and "He Tomb" have been widely praised. One of them, "He Grave", also won the "1985-1986 National Outstanding Short Story Award". He once served as deputy editor of "Shanxi Literature" and has now been transferred to Zhao Shuli College of Liberal Arts to engage in professional creation. "Thick Soil" is the collective name of several works, or "Impressions of Luliang Mountain", each of which is very short. The nine published articles were published in "People's Literature", Issue 11, 1986 ("Hoe Grain", "Guyu"), "Shanxi Literature", Issue 11, 1986 ("Choose Thieves", "Eye Stone", "Looking" "Mountain"), "Shanghai Literature" No. 11 in 1986 ("Joining Graves", "Fake Marriage"), "Youth Literature" No. 12 in 1987 ("Large Charcoal" ""Drink Water——!"").
Summary of Contents This summary is only of the "He Tomb" chapter. In front of the courtyard gate, a finely ground jujube wood spindle was spinning dexterously in a pair of old hands. The afternoon sun was crushed by the loess all over the mountains and plains, and the sinking sun fell into her dim old eyes. Not far away, my wife was leading a few people to dig up the grave. My wife used to be the old branch secretary of the village, but now he is no longer, but what happened in the grave has always been a worry for him. The grave stood there alone for 14 years. The Beijing girl in the grave has long since turned into dust. Today is the girl's happy day, and today she is worthy of mourning. After hesitating and deliberation, the villagers finally pooled their money to find a "man" and then decided to find a home for the girl who had been alone for 14 years. Two painted coffins have been placed in front of the grave. One contains the bones of the man who paid for it; the other is empty, waiting for the girl to take it out and put it in, and then close the grave. Then, if one person from each household in the village goes to the village chief's house to eat buckwheat noodles, glutinous rice and other food, the expenses will naturally be borne by the village. This girl was so lonely that it was heartbreaking. Her parents were thousands of miles away in Beijing, and all the classmates who came with her had already left. She was the only one who could not leave. When she was alive in the upper world, she left alone. When she came to the underworld, she had to arrange this marriage and it had to be done properly. While digging the grave, someone mentioned the weather. Without some rain, the rice seedlings would be dry. Some people said: If it had not rained heavily that year, Yuxiang would not have died. Some people say that the rain that year was caused by the hair of a black snake. The old party secretary said sternly: "Superstitious!" But the other party gave a reason: the children in the school have been getting sick these days, all because Yuxiang's showroom was converted into a school. This man also said to the old party secretary: If I had not followed you to build the Dazhai farmland, Yuxiang might not have died! The old party secretary was suddenly stunned and stopped talking. Someone came out to smooth things over: "You can't say that. Life and death are all destined. That time, if it hadn't been for the black snake, Yuxiang wouldn't have died. The black snake was a monster..." That year, the old party secretary led everyone The villagers and the students from Beijing worked hard all winter and spring to build three Dazhai fields, for which they even received a red flag from the county. Unexpectedly, the first flash flood in the summer washed away two pieces of Dazhai farmland. When the second flood occurred, the students took out the red flag from the old party secretary's house and planted it on the ground to fight the flood and protect the farmland. They jumped into the water hand in hand as they did in the movie. The old party secretary knelt in the rain and broke his forehead, begging the children to come up. When others were pulled ashore, the newly collapsed weir wrapped Yuxiang into the water. She fluttered in the water and grabbed the hemp rope that people threw to her. When people were pulling hard on the rope, she suddenly saw a big black snake as thick as an arm rushing towards Yuxiang. Later, the mountains and rivers brought her ashore, naked, with scars on her waist from snake bites. Later, Yuxiang was in the newspapers. Later, the secretary of the county party committee came to hold a meeting of thousands of people. Later, the row of deeds exhibition rooms was built. Later, there was that tomb and the monument in front of the tomb. On the front of the monument is engraved: Model of educated youth, hero of Lu Liang. On the reverse side is engraved: Chen Yuxiang, female, was born on May 5, 1953 in a family of Beijing railway workers. She graduated from Beijing No. 37 Middle School in 1968. In 1969, she went to Shenyu Village, Tuyao Brigade, Chashang Commune, Luliang Mountains and settled in Shenyu Village, August 1972. On the 17th, in order to defend Dazhaitian, he died heroically in the fight against floods. It was not published in the newspapers anymore, and the conference was not held again after it was held. Although the lone grave standing at the entrance of the village made the villagers uneasy, it hindered the decisions of Yuxiang classmates and the county committee and it was not moved. The black snake was not mentioned in the newspapers or on the stone tablets, only the villagers remembered it. The coffin was dug out, the rotten coffin boards were removed, and everyone stood stunned in front of a pair of bones. Everyone still remembers the lively girl who was supported by these bones.
The old party secretary asked people to quickly move the jade incense into the funeral box, but suddenly a burst of laughter burst out from the grave pit, cold and then stopped like a knife. Suddenly someone shouted: "Ah, this business is still there!" It turned out to be the "Quotations of Chairman Mao" that Yuxiang used every day. The book was rotten, but Pippi was still fine. An unknown emotion, whether it was surprise, admiration or fear, surged through the walls of the tomb. It's so horrifying to see the past being dug up alive. Someone asked suspiciously if he should also put the quotation book next to Yuxiang, and the old party secretary yelled "Move it". The dug grave was closed again. The silica originally used to wrap the tomb was not used again. The new tomb piled with loess stood plainly, looking quiet and peaceful amidst the loess all over the sky and the kind sunset, as if there was really no trace of sadness at all. The old party secretary gave each person two cigarettes and shook the wine bottle with only the bottom remaining, so a group of people sat in front of the grave and started drinking. After drinking for a while, people felt warm in their hearts, and some people asked what to do with the monument. This is a difficult question. Everyone looked at the old party secretary, who said: "He (the assigned godfather) should be aggrieved. Yuxiang paid for this monument with her life. It's nonsense whether other people remember it. People in our village must remember it." !" The people in front of the grave dispersed when the old party secretary said, "Go back!" The old party secretary went home and finished eating the glutinous rice with his wife. The wife handed her husband a prepared basket of thorns, which contained cigarettes and wine. , steamed buns, vegetables, as well as incense and other things, she said to her husband: "Go and tell Yuxiang that he was born in the year of snake, and his birth date and horoscope are all suitable. We people in the upper world are all flesh and blood, and we can't withstand them in the underworld." People, they are relatives through bones, and a relationship through bones is a serious relationship!" The old party secretary said: "It's superstition again!" But my wife said: "If you are not superstitious, why are you hiding in the middle of the night?" "I don't agree with you. Same!" "What's the difference? Anyway, I know that Yuxiang Xuan is in a state of panic. She has lived in our kiln for two years. It's almost the same if she's not her biological daughter..." A woman's tears always flow faster than her words. The man was impatient with the woman's tears and turned away. There were no stars or moon and it was dark. The maroon spindle of the party secretary's wife started spinning again under the oil lamp, and strands of hemp were added one after another. Suddenly, a violent cough came from the grave, and she turned her head worriedly. The sound of "Hang-Hang" suddenly rose in the depths of the cold night, as if a decayed old tree came from the hole of the tree. It sounded like crying and laughing. In the earthen kiln in the village, someone was awakened again. Their stiff bodies were buried deep in the darkness, and their ears were raised in fear.
Appreciation of Works The "Thick Soil" series of novels immediately aroused strong response when they came out. People praised these novels for "revealing the accumulation of Chinese culture in the subconscious of farmers through the daily life and mentality of farmers in the Luliang Mountains." . We see signs of our national temperament. "Praise to Li Rui for "examining themselves and discovering the roots of national culture in the lives of contemporary farmers". . On the surface, this novel contains two short stories, a larger story nested within a smaller story. The big story is about the old party secretary and the villagers in a mountain village in Luliang Mountain making the decision for a man who died more than ten years ago. The story of a Beijing female educated youth "fitting for mourning"; the story is about the female educated youth who heroically sacrificed her life to fight floods and protect land during the special period of "learning from Dazhai". In this way, novels are extremely common, because no matter which story they are, we are familiar with them. Don’t we often read some novels that reflect the ignorance, backwardness, and superstition of a remote village or a mountain village? Don’t we often read some novels that reflect the "Cultural Revolution" "Is it "like in the movie" when young people became fanatical during this period? However, these two stories are put together, and narrated by Li Rui's heavy, condensed, extremely simple, and at the same time extremely complex pen, they become We take the surface of the story deeper and we see something special. The two characters, the old party secretary and the girl Yuxiang, are both very representative. But the authors differ in their approach. From Yuxiang, we see the shadow of an entire generation, although the novel only briefly explains her queue-jumping and death in a few strokes. Writing this character has two functions, one is to explain the character itself; the other is to explain that the death of Yuxiang actually does not need to bear any responsibility, and it is not his fault, so as to pave the way for shaping the image of the old party secretary. . When the author wrote the character of Yuxiang, he fully mobilized the subjective initiative of every reader - because everyone is very familiar with the disaster years and the character traits of people in that era, so there is no need to More description will be given at this point. The real story to be written in this novel is "He Grave", and the real character to be written about is naturally the old branch secretary. This image is very complex and very deep. Like other farmers in Luliang Mountain, he is very simple, so he works hard and doesn't like to talk much. When someone accuses him, he is dull and will not refute with reason. He was not a piece of wood or indifferent, but very affectionate, so the girl's grave was buried at the entrance of the village and "has been his heartache" for 14 years. He is an old Communist Party member who used to be the branch secretary and is a grassroots cadre of the party. So when people speculated that Yuxiang's death was related to the black snake, he immediately said seriously: "Superstitious!", but he himself said As he said this, the grave-closing thing he was doing was exactly a solemn and absurd superstitious activity. A "student kid" from Beijing died in a flash flood. He was not guilty of any crime, but he was always worried, as if he was always feeling guilty and repenting.
He is obviously exactly the same as those farmers, but he always seems to be different... It is the complexity of the old party secretary that makes the whole work dignified and profound. "In people's minds, especially in their subconscious minds, responsibility and conscience are not so clearly separated. Whether the author realizes this or not, in fact, he has successfully grasped certain tricks of psychological description and conveyed the psychological crux of the old party secretary Between responsibility and conscience. More importantly, a person's death is connected with a period of confusion and confusion that people have experienced together. "What seems to cause people's hearts to tremble." That specific incident was that of the undead 14 years ago, and the real cause was that entire period of history. Of course, it was impossible for the old party secretary to realize what responsibility he had for that period of history, but the mistakes of history and the fact that people are still poor today. The current situation may torture his conscience. In his hazy perception, the past becomes increasingly unbearable and even unspeakable. He only clearly remembers that one day 14 years ago, a female educated youth died in vain. He was in a perverse mental state and tilted unconsciously. Yes, he himself was not clearly aware of this. Likewise, driven by his subconscious, he was trying his best to restore his psychological balance. Paying homage to the dead actually became a way for him to save his soul. Even when he showed his power to the villagers and called others "superstitious," they all had the same psychological content, but they were expressed in a rebellious way." In short, it can be said that "Hefen" "writes history as well as reality, writes traditional things, and also writes modern abnormal and perverted things. It has a large capacity."