Though Lu Yao's Ordinary World (Pingfan de Shijie) has enjoyed considerable sales volume and reading quantity similar to his other novel Life (Rensheng), it is not accepted by the literary circle as Life and failed to spark the kind of nationwide discussion once created by Life. One explanation for this is the sweeping desire for innovation that was present in literary circles in the 1980s, but the creation method of the Ordinary World was too conservative to stimulate the interpretive impulse of the new critics; another reason is that the incredible length and sheer complexity of Ordinary World prevented scholars from recognizing how difficult it was conceived and what innovation it made. This paper embarks on an intensive reading of Ordinary World in terms of its characterization, the character groups of urban and rural youths, senior cadres, and rural grassroots cadres, and a re-elucidation of its "overlapping areas," in an attempt to extensively analyze the content of the panoramic chronicle of Chinese society at the beginning of reform and opening up, and the writer's profound thinking and artistic innovation in his description, trying to clarify the many vague understandings of this masterpiece in the literary circle.

Builders of a New Life (Chuangyeshi) is a novel that takes a deep dive into the essence of historical materialism and dialectical materialism. The novel creates a literary form of political metanarrative and presents the literary narrative of the rural cooperative movement in China within the framework of socialist revolution, through a plot with the connotation of documentary political economy. At the literary narrative level, Builders of a New Life develops the narrative through the subjective perspectives of numerous characters, which pushes the development of the plot forward and bridges the text world with external reality. The result is the creation of a world of general literature unifying thought, emotion and action, along with the development of a distinctive epic narrative form.

Realist literature and art is a prominent example of a path of literature and art that combines Marxism and Chinese cultural traditions. Marxist literary realism values the role of literature and art in vividly reproducing human social activities. In China, realism has evolved into local forms such as enlightenment realism, revolutionary realism, “scar realism,” and “new realism.” The latter two have been influenced by literary trends such as modernism, as well as the classical Chinese tradition of mind-nature wisdom. A Lifelong Journey represents the maturation of the Chinese mind-nature realism paradigm. Mind-nature realism is a new Chinese aesthetic paradigm originating from the combination of Chinese mind-nature wisdom and the principles of Marxist realist aesthetics. The field of contemporary Chinese literature and art contains literary and artistic production mechanisms and aesthetic power structures that allowed A Lifelong Journey to exert an effect: national orientation, prioritized industry investment, lived experience, the desire of the audience, artistic creativity, and omnimedia support. A Lifelong Journey presents several aspects of the aesthetic paradigm of Chinese mind nature realism: the blending of truth and goodness, evocative archetypes, formation of personality through geography and contemporary trends, simultaneous praise and criticism, and a “flow-back” style. It serves as a model for current and future literary narratives in various genres.

A Lifelong Journey (Renshijian) is a novel about the fate of common people, especially of the workers, in China’s practice of changing reality from the 1950s to the present. It inherits the legacy of the realistic novels in the 19th century and endows them with contemporary features. In the humanitarian-based “stories of good men,” Liang Xiaosheng highlights the general thinking of the common people’s happy life as a goal, and gives expressive to the epic nature of contemporary novels.

The birth of an outstanding literature is closely related to a writer's creation motive, thought and expression. Lu Yao's masterpiece Ordinary World (Pingfan de Shijie) spans a period of ten years and reflects panoramically the myriad of social formations, lifestyles and patterns of thought during China's social transformations between 1975 and 1985. Via an analysis of first-hand materials such as the memoirs and correspondences of Lu Yao, his relatives and editors, this essay systematically unravels the writer's main motive for composing the novel Ordinary World, in a renewed effort to unravel the mystery behind the creation of this literary classic.

This paper aims to interpret Liang Xiaosheng’s novel A Lifelong Journey. It argues that the novel reproduces life from the 1970s till now. The people from various social strata including workers, urban civilians, intellectuals, and officials who are nurtured on the soil of civilians constitute the current Chinese society. Liang Xiaosheng takes workers back to the center of social analysis by portraying the life and spirits of the working class. With “good people” as the keynote in characterization, Liang Xiaosheng, in the debate about goodness, reaffirms the value of goodness in the novel which shines with the radiance of idealism. The narration of epic nature evokes people’s memory of the socialist era, and also presents a historical picture of the world.

Poverty alleviation is a critical battlefield of this era and this historic event has been timely and powerfully reflected and expressed in literary creations. In recent years, many influential literary works with the theme of poverty alleviation have emerged, which focus on telling the story of China’s system, shaping new characters in the New Era, and depicting a realistic view of rural transformation, so as to inject fresh content into contemporary literature and form a beautiful landscape of current Chinese literature.

Liang Xiaosheng’s A Lifelong Journey depicts a panoramic picture of Chinese society and the changes it undergoes through the times. The novel unfolds around the life stories of the Zhou family, articulates the relationships among people, society and times, and presents the toughness and tenacity of ordinary people in the face of reality. The novel develops its storyline around the romance narratives of the three siblings of the Zhou family. The realistic demands, value positions, ideal forms, and spiritual trends presented in the process of romance narration echo the development of social mentality over the past 50 years of social reform and changes in China, depicting a picture of social life since then.

I came to know the works of Ouyang Qiansen for the first time through the TV series Madame Shexiang (Shexiang Furen) and Unbreakable Pass (Xiongguan Mandao), and his screenwriting skills immediately struck me. Later, I read many of his full-length and medium-length novels as well as his short stories. The short stories of his works certainly display the most devotion and exemplify his highest achievement. There is no doubt that the short story is a very difficult literary form. As Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Wang Zengqi, Sun Li, Su Tong and many other great writers have made remarkable artistic achievements, the art of the short story has been pushed to the extreme, thus making it even more challenging to achieve success in the genre. Ouyang Qiansen, however, has done it by immersing himself in the art of the short story. This paper explores the artistic achievements within Ouyang Qiansen’s short stories, providing some reference for enriching the artistic landscape of the short story.

Ouyang Qiansen is a writer from Guizhou who is quite influential in the Chinese literary circles of the new century. He has worked hard to rejuvenate the Chinese nation’s literary tradition with modern thinking. This is reflected in the fact that he includes modern geological expertise in his novels, portraying geographical scenery with poetic language, thereby forming a unique narrative style based on modern knowledge and renewing the “natural science” narrative tradition of China’s ancient novels. Moreover, he pays special attention to myriad unusual events and people throughout Guizhou’s history and in reality, and creates typical literary Guizhou characters of all types whereby he revives the “legend” narrative tradition based on historical records or biographies and is typical of ancient Chinese novels. Both the geography-based “natural science” narrative and the people-based “legend” narrative are merged into Ouyang’s local chroniclestyled novel pedigree of Guizhou. By creatively transforming the narrative tradition of local chronicles and local chronicle-style novels of ancient China, in his literary creations, Ouyang manages to revive and reconstruct the Guizhou spirit, which serves as the local expertise and culture.

In a time that advocates critical rationality and knowledge based culture, Liang Xiaosheng’s full-length novel A Lifelong Journey places equal emphasis on social and historical perception and the exploration of human nature. Merging “what is” and “what ought to be” in the real world, the novel reconstructs the warmth and nobility of morality oriented culture in several aspects—the significance of literature, the creation of personae, and the condensation of historical and philosophical consciousness. It provides cognitive values by portraying “history outside history,” and explores “what makes humans human.” With a strong pertinence to the modern time, it perfectly demonstrates the profundity and integrity of realistic literature that not only enlightens the mind, but also shows the way forward.

Among the series of characters created in Seventeen-Year Literature (1949-66), Liang Shengbao is a unique figure particularly worth studying. In Builders of a New Life (Chuangyeshi), Liu Qing attempts to presents his understanding of the realization of the agricultural cooperative movement through the narration of Liang Shengbao's traits and personality. As a consequence, the creation of Liang Shengbao, an ideal character,has both historical and literary meanings. Based on the analysis of Liu Qing's "writing method," this paper reveal is the historical and literary creation mechanism of Liang Shengbao by comparing and interpreting the relationship, the writing method, and the differences between Liang Shengbao and other characters close to him, thus unfolding the research significance of this ideal character.

It is an important proposition of contemporary realist literature creation to be close to the mundane lifestyles in reality and write about the Chinese experience. From the far-reaching heroic narration of the early years, to the Chinese stories since the 21st century, the realist literature creation deals with the mundane daily life, showing a turn towards worldly feelings. Liang Xiaosheng’s novel A Lifelong Journey extends the perspective to the living space of ordinary people in the cities. Unlike the epic depiction of “regretless heroes” in the zhiqing novels from his earlier years, Liang makes a shift to the writing of worldly feelings about the warmth in reality. While writing about the hardships in reality, this novel continues to construct stories of good people and adheres to the ethical positioning of good people culture. The two generate a conflict with each other throughout the text, forming the narrative tension. However, governed by the emotional structure of the good people culture, the novel lacks the expression of complex human nature while putting a focus on the mundane existence.

The great social changes since China’s reform and opening up have facilitated the revival and development of reportage. Life in the New Era has provided infinitely rich and valuable themes and materials for the creation of reportage. Among them, the theme of targeted poverty reduction and poverty alleviation has become the focus of reportage writing in recent years. The “Poverty Alleviation Trilogy”: In Leaf and Bloom, Listening to the Voices of the Blooming Flowers (Huafan Yemao, Qingting Huakai de Shengyin), The Sunshine of the Blissful Spring (Baode Sanchunhui), and A New Lease of Life: The Story of Wanshan (Kan Wanshan Hongbian), written by famous writer Ouyang Qiansen, is not only a self-evident breakthrough of Guizhou-themed reportage and its status within national literary circles, but is also strong evidence of the reflection on major themes and the spirit of the times through reportage, which, in this sense, is of irreplaceable significance.

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Academic News

Since its publication in 2016, Paper Hawk has been studied by literary critics from different angles, such as its inheritance of the Chinese classical literature tradition, its conception of language and structure form, and even its usage of imagery. The historical imagination in the novel has also attracted great attention in academic circles. As one of the clues in the novel, Chinese cuisine enables the writer to outline the setting of the era and human nature, and reflect on traditional culture with a keen insight. Taking food as a starting point, I explores the path of historical evolution, its development as well as its ups and downs. A warm thanks also goes out to Dr. Xu Shiying for her interview on historical writing (Appendix follows), which represents the historical depth of Paper Hawk in a dialogue format.

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