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<\/p>\nUnnamed<\/p>\n
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\"The Island and Hometown\" is a single work that combines two seemingly unrelated novels. The author, Wagu, subtly connects these two seemingly disconnected novels, conveying a profound meaning.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHaidao\u201d refers to Hainan Island. \u201cGuli\u201d refers to a place in a mountainous area of Shaanxi\u2014a transitional zone from Guanzhong to northern Shaanxi.<\/p>\n
Geographically speaking, Hainan Island should belong to maritime culture, while the homeland in Shaanxi is a typical land culture. Logically, maritime culture is the most open culture, and land culture is a quite closed culture. However, in the Chinese cultural sphere, for thousands of years, Hainan Island has been a desolate place for exiles (like Su Shi), while Shaanxi has been one of the centers of land culture. The homeland in Shaanxi in the novel was once a region where the Yellow Emperor frequently roamed.<\/p>\n
The culture of the Chinese land is so profound that the ocean is merely its trim.<\/p>\n
Terran agricultural culture was bound to fall behind in the industrial era. It took nearly one to two hundred years for marine industrial culture to shatter China's terran agricultural culture. Not a single aspect of terran agricultural culture willingly retreated; even Hainan Island, now swept by the waves of marine culture, still has agricultural culture in its very bones.<\/p>\n
Why do you say that?<\/p>\n
Because Hainan Island was developed by a bureaucratic market culture.<\/p>\n
What is a bureaucratic market economy?<\/p>\n
Bureaucratic market economy is a semi-free market economy controlled by the bureaucratic system. It is a half-and-half hybrid of agrarian culture and maritime culture. The bureaucratic part is based on agrarian culture, while the market part is based on maritime culture. In the global field of human activity, only the Chinese agrarian cultural sphere is substantial enough to establish an unprecedented, largest, bureaucratically controlled semi-market economy in human history. No other region can. This is a bizarre human landscape that will be passionately studied by humanity for several hundred years.<\/p>\n
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The invisible hand controls the fully free market economy. This invisible hand was discovered by Austrian economists. If the market decides everything, there is a hand behind the market driving it that no one can control, as if there were a creator behind the universe.<\/p>\n
In fact, the invisible hand behind the market is generated by faith and contract. Faith guides the heart, contract guides behavior, and everything is done according to the rules.<\/p>\n
A bureaucratic semi-market economy has an invisible hand. This invisible hand is certainly not the market itself, but rather the bureaucratic system. The fact that the market can be manipulated by this hand indicates that such a market lacks faith and contracts, and only exists through official decrees and unwritten rules.<\/p>\n
Although Hainan Island could only be a wild and feverish land in the agricultural era, it would show its geographical superiority in the industrial era due to the ocean. It was developed by that hand.<\/p>\n
Thus, gold prospectors from all corners of the country flocked to the area.<\/p>\n
The \"Island\" section of \"Island and Hometown\" records the stories of various mainland literati who came to Hainan. Among them were writers, journalists, lawyers, and film and television professionals...<\/p>\n
Don't forget, in this arena, there are no doctrines or pacts, only decrees and unspoken rules.<\/p>\n
Then why do we say \"The Island\" records the reality of a bureaucratic semi-market economy in a more original and natural way?<\/p>\n
Because \"The Island\" records a group of literary figures.<\/p>\n
This group of literati are not frontline factory workers, nor frontline commercial staff. They only possess words and artistic skills. This forces them to be directly dependent on the bureaucratic system. The group of literati recorded in \"The Island\" best reflects the characteristics of the policies and unwritten rules of the bureaucratic market economy.<\/p>\n
They rose by decree and fell by decree. A single document plunged the protagonist Hua Jie's life into the abyss.<\/p>\n
They rise by unspoken rules, and they fall by unspoken rules. The hidden operation of one rule caused the once glorious Fang Wen, Xiao Yang... to disappear. This is both heaven and hell...<\/p>\n
These examples are so abundant in luxury in \"The Island\" that they don't need to be listed one by one here.<\/p>\n
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Does \"hometown\" really have no relation to \"seaside\"?<\/p>\n
It's a big deal.<\/p>\n
The author links these two novels, which is bound to be because the author discovered the essential connection between the semi-market economy of \"The Island\" and the semi-agrarian nature of \"Hometown\": Because of \"The Island,\" therefore \"Hometown.\"<\/p>\n
\"Hometown's\" defeat stemmed from \"The Island's\" decay.<\/p>\n
They are jointly deflected by that unseen hand with a lever of a thousand pounds.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Island\u201d is semi-marketized. Instead of maximizing natural energy under the fairness of contracts like a full market, aiming to increase the happiness index of every natural person, the system requires a bureaucratic economic market that provides economic support. Thus, drawing a circle, the island must \"roll up a thousand piles of snow.\"<\/p>\n
However, the entire market took hundreds of years of bloody capital accumulation to finally form, and such a fierce bureaucratic market had to be blown into a bubble within a few decades.<\/p>\n
Who's at the bottom?<\/p>\n
Hometown. The elders and folks from my hometown.<\/p>\n
Where have the young people, and even some middle-aged and elderly people, from my hometown gone? They've gone to places like the islands to work in semi-market environments.<\/p>\n
Who farms the land of my hometown? The elderly, weak, sick, and disabled of my hometown.<\/p>\n
Can they support themselves?<\/p>\n
No. If they can support themselves, how can the island market's economic bubble be inflated?<\/p>\n
The entire bureaucratic market's grain is a selfless contribution from farmers in their hometowns. The entire bureaucratic market's industry and commerce are supported by migrant workers with their flesh and blood.<\/p>\n
The neon lights of the island market are like the homeland's land continuously recharging. The old, weak, sick, and disabled in the homeland are pumping air for the island market.<\/p>\n
Some call it capital market manipulation. But who manipulates the capital?<\/p>\n
Why is grain seen as worthless by capital?<\/p>\n
The island is the hometown of the pirates.<\/p>\n
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How does \"The Island and Hometown\" use the novel to document the decay and collapse of a semi-market economy?<\/p>\n
*Island and Hometown*, is neither quite a novel nor entirely unlike one; it is neither quite an essay nor entirely unlike one. You could call it a prose novel, or a novelistic essay.<\/p>\n
Why did the author handle it this way?<\/p>\n
When reading \"The Island and My Hometown,\" readers get a strong feeling: the author doesn't want to write a novel, or at least not the kind of novel people usually expect. It feels like they simply want to record the stories of gold panning on the island and the half-gold-panning, half-sinking-roots life in their hometown.<\/p>\n
Therefore, all novelistic techniques are superfluous here.<\/p>\n
Therefore, in the first part, we must spend some ink analyzing the bureaucratic market economy. This is the root of the original sin.<\/p>\n
The author just wants to record its original sin.<\/p>\n
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The highest artistry is to not deliberately emphasize technique. When confronting the original sin of our times, it is best for writers to be \u201cnon-active.\u201d Because those so-called novelistic techniques will obscure the face of this original sin. Original sin, the primal sin, requires recording in the most primal form. Thus, the novel adopts the note-taking style. As the author states in the postscript: \u201cThe novels I write aim to use new eyes to peer into old scenes, and with the poetic sentiment of personal confession of past events, to expound on the fundamental nature of humanity and moral values within phenomena of real life.\u201d<\/p>\n
All those intentionally well-crafted novels, those urban and rural reform novels, regional novels, and new novels that deliberately ponder their themes... are writing about the bureaucratic market while standing in the square of the bureaucratic semi-market. They are speaking for the bureaucratic system. Future generations are not foolish; they will not believe this. Therefore, for later eras, contemporary Chinese novels will almost all be sorted as \"trash\" by future generations. And \"The Island and the Hometown,\" although currently submerged by their novelistic foam, will prove its value in later eras when that foam is filtered away. Future generations will then discover the value of \"The Island and the Hometown\" and understand that it deliberately avoided the public square, burrowing into the backyard of the bureaucratic market to write about its very bones. If their novels are the fat of this era, \"The Island and the Hometown\" will be the skeleton upon which future generations will reconstruct this era. This era favors fat, but later eras will appreciate the skeleton-like \"The Island and the Hometown\" from an archaeological perspective.<\/p>\n
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\"The Island\" also has a protagonist named Hua Jie. However, if you think about it carefully, this protagonist only serves as a clue, like a skewer, stringing together the stories of countless people.<\/p>\n
There are no good people in Hongtong County. Why is there still half a good person, Huajie, in the Haidao half-market?<\/p>\n
No human realm, without the entry of faith and covenant, will have truly good people. This is human nature. Only cultures with original sin can see through the darkness of human nature. The island market is a market of human darkness, and its unwritten rules are a diagram of human darkness.<\/p>\n
Why can Hua Jie still be considered a half-good person?<\/p>\n
Conscience.<\/p>\n
Is conscience reliable?<\/p>\n
Unreliable.<\/p>\n
But just because someone is unreliable doesn't mean they lack a conscience.<\/p>\n
Some people will act on the little conscience they have left. Like Huajie.<\/p>\n
Hua Jie isn't a good person, but he still has a sliver of conscience.<\/p>\n
Since you want to record original sin, authenticity is naturally the first element.<\/p>\n
\"The Island\" has no positive characters, only a few neutral characters, and millions of not-too-bad and bad people.<\/p>\n
\"The Island,\" which includes \"Hometown,\" does not label characters with the Confucian invented binary opposition of good and evil. The binary concept of good and evil is a value system containing a predetermined conspiracy, which always places opponents on the side of evil, thereby creating a value space to place itself on the side of eternal good. The spiritual awakening of contemporary Chinese writers is generally inferior; they are controlled by traditional values and canned thinking, consciously using the binary opposition of good and evil to speak for their parasitic, massive bodies. Therefore, in facing contemporary Chinese literature, future generations must subvert it. Fortunately, a few novels like \"The Island and Hometown\" maintain a literary conscience, objectively recording the humanity and moral prototypes of people in a deformed era.<\/p>\n
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In \"Hometown,\" there isn't even a protagonist. Whoever is mentioned is remembered. It seems without method, but it has a grand method. This grand method is that the author must record the tragic state of their hometown during the island market era in the most natural way possible for future generations.<\/p>\n
Homeland is not Bailu Yuan, Hamatun, or Shuangshui Village; there is no Bai Jiaxuan, Liang Shengbao, or Sun Shaoping here. This is Weizhuang, the Futuo Village of \"The Beginning with Two Eggs\"; here are A Q, Xiangling Sao, Kong Yiji, Zhao Taiye, the Fake Foreign Devil, the Village Head, Xiao Hu, Xiao D, the Nun, Wu Ma... here are Zhao Beicun, Gaoren... This is the homeland of Lu Xun, Yang Zhengguang, and He Gu, not the homeland of Chen Zhongshi, Liu Qing, or Lu Yao.<\/p>\n
There's always one side faking it.<\/p>\n
Let future generations be the judge.<\/p>\n
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\"Hometown\" silently records the suffering of island farmers during the era of marketization. This generation of farmers lived through the transition from agricultural culture to island market culture. The era's downfall was their misfortune, while officials and bureaucratic capital, external to them, rose. They were flesh and blood ground beneath the teeth of the era's gears.<\/p>\n
The boundaries of language are humanity's helplessness. To write about brutal reality with calm language is to respect suffering, respect literature, and respect language. Suffering doesn't need salt and vinegar to add flavor; suffering is suffering itself. Suffering doesn't need sentimental language.<\/p>\n
Kafka's language at zero degrees is the most warm language.<\/p>\n
Let future generations shed tears.<\/p>\n
These are not the times for tears.<\/p>\n
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Thank you to the author for truthfully documenting this bizarre and grotesque scene of humanity in the form of a novel sacrificing.<\/p>\n
Thank you to the author for not letting the flesh and blood under the gears turn to dust.<\/p>\n
Thank you to the author for recording the original sin of a generation with their original sin consciousness.<\/p>\n
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Baidu Baike Entry: Islands and Homeland
\nBooks published by Writer's House in 2022
\n\"Island and Hometown\" is a book published by Writers Publishing House in 2022, authored by He Gu.
\nSynopsis
\nThis book is a collection of Haikou stories and Northwest stories. The island stories do not epically write about history and the realities of life in their mottled narratives, but rather, through a series of fragmented, legendary tales, allow readers to vaguely glimpse the island's ancient and modern everyday life. In \"Hometown,\" the author uses dialect-infused, yet elegant language like a plowshare to deeply cultivate the land, crisscrossed by ravines for dozens of miles. The earth, transitioning from an agrarian society to the soil of modern rural civilization, exhales a fresh and comfortable, yet also bleak and melancholy, earthy breath. However, the homeland is not old; favorable conditions are heaven-sent, seasons cycle, and people and nature share in honor and disgrace. The annual spring planting and autumn harvest continue endlessly.
\nAuthor Biography
\nHe Gu, born in 1952 in Tongchuan, Shaanxi, graduated from the Chinese Department of Northwest University. He is a first-level literary creator, a member of the China Writers Association, a consultant to the Presidium of the Shaanxi Provincial Writers Association, and the dean of Huangbao Academy. He is also a former deputy inspector of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles. He has won the 4th National Excellent Reportage Award, the New Era National Excellent Essay Collection Award, the Feitian Award for Television Dramas, the \u201cFive-One Project\u201d Award, the China Iron Man Literary Award, the Liu Qing Literary Award, the Bing Xin Prose Award, and the 2019 China Good Book Award. He has published over 60 works, including the 20-volume \"He Gu Collected Works.\" He was the screenwriter for the dance drama \"Bai Lu Yuan.\" His works have been included in textbooks and college entrance examination papers, and have been translated into English, French, and Russian.<\/p>\n
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