The first time I heard about Li Juan was when I read a comment in a publication a few years ago, calling her a "genius of writing" and a "miracle of literary world". Li Juan, this name is too common. Around each of us, there is one or several Li Juan. Out of curiosity, I bought my Altay. After reading the opening, I can't stand it. I feel like a little girl who hasn't grown up talking, with a lot of ellipsis and modal particles. This is not the mature writing and standard writing in my understanding. Put it down.
Let it go in the past few years. I cleaned the bookcase the other day and saw this book again. I picked it up and reread it. This reading is amazing, amazing. I laughed at myself for being too frivolous in the past and only knew how to measure an unpretentious author by dogma.
What's so good about Li Juan's writing? Actually, I really can't say it. Her words are Achnatherum splendens growing in the depths of Gobi, nameless wild flowers blooming on the grassland and flowing white clouds on the pasture. At first glance, they are common and exciting.
Li Juan is a Shan Ye girl who didn't finish high school. She lives in a corner of Altay. She is a small tailor and lives in selling groceries with her mother. She wrote these words on the packaging box of the goods on days when no guests came to her house. You can feel that everything in her works is flowing, flowing wind, flowing clouds, flowing water, flowing words and flowing thoughts. Even when describing a quiet lake, she can write a unique sense of movement. The flow of everything is intertwined, which makes her words show amazing imagination. Every word is so fresh and beautiful, and every word has its own picture. This is not what we wrote down after careful selection and repeated scrutiny in the past, but the heartfelt words of a Shan Ye girl. They only belong to Altay and Li Juan.
Harmless sadness
My Altay is not a book devoted to Altay customs. Although, you can see this custom in every chapter and paragraph. Here in Li Juan, there is no topic, and trivial housework, such as keeping a dog, sleeping, selling groceries and mending shoes, can be easily described. What impressed me most in this narrative is the dull pain throughout.
At the beginning of what can I bring you, the author wrote that he brought various small animals as gifts to his mother and grandmother, including rabbits and mice, with a faint tone from beginning to end. But in the end, she wrote about her grandmother's "temporary joy, which made her feel so sad because of this" temporary ". This sadness came to an abrupt end.
This kind of pain can make readers feel the same, but it is never excessive. Sorrow without injury, resentment without anger. Li Juan's writing is wild in thought, but restrained in emotion. She said in an interview: "There are many people who suffer in the world, but most of them are silent. About the more miserable life, the more optimistic and strong you are. Self-pity is really shameful and cowardly. "
Relatives leave, don't cry for the land, don't sell sadness, just "spit out your tongue" with open mind. But the unspeakable and inescapable sadness is more acute because of this openness.
03 ? Humor in the bones
She mentioned a miserable life in the interview. After reading this book, you will understand that living in Altay, an extremely cold place, is definitely not as beautiful as in fairy tales.
She wrote about riding a motorcycle across the Gobi desert and riding it for four or five hours in the strong wind. People froze, ate black sand, got lost and ran out of gas. She wrote about going to Tu Tu, where she was huddled with ten Kazakh villagers in a broken jeep that was about to fall apart. She wrote that in order to earn more money, she went up the mountain with the herdsmen and got off at a swamp. The driver unloaded the goods and bedding on the muddy grass, leaving three women in the twilight wilderness.
I'm so sleepy, I still can't erase the humor in her bones. The family lives in a plastic tent. During the rainy season, rain leaks everywhere in the tent. We are all smart people, she wrote. We can think of a good way to hang the odds and ends of plastic bags under the ceiling and hang a bag where it leaks. She proudly said, unlike Bianmu and Jiajia's shop, it is a disaster to catch the rain with a big pot and a small pot as soon as you enter the door and kick the pot over. Only one day, one of the plastic bags cracked, and I stood below and smiled at the customer. ...
I almost laughed when I read this, as if I could see the sly, self-deprecating and helpless expression on her face.
This kind of humor is not unique to her. Three generations of her grandparents and grandchildren have this temperament.
Li Juan wrote that her mother, by virtue of her cleverness, translated the chemical fiber fabric into "plastic", the fungus into "Kara (black) mushroom", the peacock into "beautiful big-tailed bird", the goldfish into "fish made of gold" and, even better, the wine in a Grenade-shaped bottle into "bang". These translations are simple, vivid and, most importantly, effective, which greatly promoted the border trade between the two peoples.
Even my grandmother in her nineties is an old urchin. "(Grandma) usually does something wrong and hides something. If she breaks a sugar jar, she will quietly sweep away the pieces, leaving a handful of sugar and putting it in the same jar. Until you ask her: Why is the sugar suddenly missing half a can? She spat out her tongue and confessed with a smile. "
From these narratives, we can vaguely see the background of Li Juan's growth. Why her life is miserable, but she can be optimistic and strong; Why she grew up in Shan Ye, but she has amazing observation and imagination; Why she can write talented words without systematic education; Why can her nagging parents be so fascinating and interesting? I think, because she is really alive, she lives hard and practically, recording her life with the most primitive instinct and curiosity. Moreover, she lives in a corner of Altay, away from the noise. Only this pure soil can breed such an open-minded soul. For such a girl, the word "writer" is a shame to her. She is her, a wild life recorder.
If I am lucky enough to meet her one day, I will definitely ask, hey, girl, can you take me to your Altay?