| Since middle 1990s, it has become an important phenomenon that the fictions whose themes are focused on the official corruption take up a prominent position in literature. This type of fiction is called"counter-corruption fiction"by readers and critics. Apparently, it seems reasonable to give it this general name because these fictions expose the official corruption by different means and express the authors'evident counter-corruption standpoint. However, if we take a close look at these works, we will find that they are greatly different from one another. Therefore, it is not scientific to generally call them counter-corruption fiction and it is also not beneficial for us to judge the value of the works and perceive the life reflected by the works. This paper tends to define the counter-corruption fiction as the one whose theme is focused on the exposure and opposition of corruption, whose text structure is based on the entire and winding stories, whose key tone is that Good prevails over Evil in the end. While the fictions are called"officialdom fiction", which mainly describe the natural state of the corruption and take it as a kind of background, reveal the intellects'ups and downs in life and the spiritual pilgrim by describing their experiences in the officialdom.I. Reconsidering on the counter-fiction We should give our praise to the author of counter-fiction, who treats his writing seriously, pays close attention to the power corruption with sense of responsibility and the artist conscience. The upright officials created in the fiction symbolize the hope in this fierce and complicated fighting as well as have a positive effect on readers'confidence. But after the rational consideration and calm perception, it is not difficult to figure out the paleness in the colorful circle. The weakness is as the following:A. The opinions are plain and common, and the expression is dull and pale. During the process of writing, some authors have to subdue to the mainstream ideology in order to get rid of the limitation of life and social experience. Just because the political ideology takes place of writers'personal thinking, it leads to the works'lack of characteristics so that it is natural for the fiction to run short of the unique discovery of life and for the author to degenerate into the product of the pop ideology. It is this ideology and the writing tendency that result in the artistic simplicity so that the dual conflict between corruption and counter-corruption turns into the only alternative.B. Notions are timeworn and filled with stereotypes. As the"counter-corruption"becomes a trendy word, more and more writers join in this group, which causes the increasing number of counter-corruption fictions. With this going on, it is increasingly prominent that these fictions are lacking in creative spirit, which involves them into a fixed pattern featured in: fixed plot pattern, fixed character pattern and the fixed structure pattern.C. Fictions tend to cater for the public and lose the aesthetic power. Nowadays corruption has become a hot topic in China which demands sever treatment. It has achieved a unanimous agreement that we must fight corruption and build a clean government. Thus starting from the counter-corruption theme, the fiction practically meets the imminent demands of the mainstream ideology and satisfies the public's general wishes. A writer who has conscience is supposed to take the time's demand and public's aspiration into consideration but it does not mean he should get himself lost. But the fact is that counter-corruption fictions are prone to cater for the vulgar more or less both politically and artistically, which directly leads to the lack of aesthetic power that is featured in the repetition of themes (similar stories and plots), artistic coarseness and irresponsibility for language structure.II Officialdom fiction is the development and improvement of counter-corruption fictionSame corruption themes as they have, officialdom fiction has a deeper and broader critical point of view than counter-corruption fiction. This paper will analyze the reasons from the following three aspects: A. The change of critical point of view—from the corrupt officials to the nature of corruption. While counter-corruption fictions are focused on the corrupt officials and hope to solve the problem by punishing one or two corrupt officials, officialdom fictions emphasize on the exploration of the nature of corruption. Actually, everyone whose character is shaped by the environment can't and shouldn't be responsible for his quality. Surviving in the officialdom, everyone has his own developing course of his quality and personality. Therefore, in the officialdom fiction will we see clearly that how biologically reasonable the emergence and growth of those corrupt officials is.B. The conversion of the text support—from the duality conflict to the unitary anxiety. Counter-corruption fiction is formed by the conflict between corrupt officials and the counter-corruption heroes therefore it chooses the duality structure as its text support with the view to satisfy the political and public reading expectation. However, this""pattern"tendency makes it impossible for the fiction to contain richer and deeper social, historical, cultural and humanity connotation. As far as the literature mode is concerned, the pattern is just like a scissor which rudely cuts out the colorful and wonderful reality unable to provide us with fresh literary narration experience. On the contrary, officialdom fiction totally does away with the bondage of duality structure. What upholds the text is no longer the duality of criticism and praise but the awareness of anxiety from the beginning to the end. Reading officialdom fiction, we can perceive the profound awareness that is deeply contained in the works.C. Change of attitude toward life—from criticizing reality to sympathizing real life. Officialdom never spares its sympathy for the people who are struggling in the corruption nature and seldom describes the all-round anti-corruption heroes as well as the flagitious corrupt officials. Same hatred as they have, officialdom fiction never aims at any person but at the hideous environment that forces people to go corrupt. As for the corrupt people, it no longer tries every effort to deny them but let them return to the original state as human being and hopes them to free from the condition of slavery. Consequently, as for those people who have lost himself in the shadow of corruption, the fiction is more a sympathetic elegy than a criticism.For the recent decades, there are hundreds of long fictions focused on counter-corruption which have an important supporting effect on the increasing creation and appreciation of long fictions. But so far there is still no magnificent and outstanding works coming out in a real sense let alone the so-called"classics". At the turning point of history, the complicated social reality applies literature abundant resources, and the unprecedented and relatively relaxed social environment also offers the free production of works an advantageous condition. This should be a time for a great number of excellent works and writers to come forth, but the flying time doesn't turn the"should"into reality, which makes us feel sorry and demands Chinese literature to have a good reconsideration and study. |
