Guarding The Last Wild Land

Not only is Zhang Wei a naturalist, but also an idealist and a romanticist. From Ancient Boat to recently published Ode to Hedgehog, all the novels of Zhang Wei demonstrate their vivid natural themes. With his emotional touch of pen, he describes that patch of poetic and natural beauty and tranquility in his memory. Also, with his questioning vision, he criticizes various evils of modern urban civilization and modernization as well as the corruption of humanity and shrinkage of vitality. At the same time he is in a persistent pursuit of that patch of pure wild land in his memory. Zhang Wei creates one ideal poetic kingdom after another: vineyard, seashore, farm and wilderness. Furthermore, he describes an ideal realm in which humans blend themselves with the nature and harmoniously live together with all the other living things on earth. In Zhang Wei's opinion, although the people are an integral part of the nature, they are not a species superior to any other life form of the nature, but merely one kind of thousands of things on earth. The strain of humans is rooted in the nature, so only by relying on nature, seeking refuge from the nature and blending themselves with the nature, can the people live on happily and merrily. Mud and earth give birth to everything, and the wild land breeds thousands of living things. All the living things are created equal. Humans are not the dominators but the children of the nature, and there is an equal fraternal relationship between humans and other creations. Under the influence of the theory of patheism that everything has a spirit, all the grass, trees, white horses, birds, cats, dogs, hedges and fishes under the pen of Zhang Wei have become free living individuals, boasting their dignities as living forms. Beautiful legendary stories, fairy tales and folklores fill the novels of Zhang Wei with poetic style and romantic color. However, in the globalized linguistic environment, the idealism of Zhang Wei can only retreat to the reality step by step, and the last patch of pure oasis will also be swallowed by the world full of desires. Even if all this pursuit and guarding cannot keep back the process of modernization, Zhang Wei still sticks to his value of pursuit and guards his last patch of wild land alone. In the globalization process in which the artistic creations are turning more and more mediocre, and the natural and humanistic environments are increasingly destroyed and degenerated, we need such cultural guardian as Zhang Wei all the more.