The Chinese Educated Youth Literature Under The View Of Postmodernism

Yang Jianlong’s novel “Jinniu River” is an important text of thePost-educated youth literature in twenty-first Century and one of theimportant underflows besides the incessant mainstream of educated youthliterature since the twentieth Century sixty or seventy’s. After the novel“drunk into flowers” was force-out and quiet for many years, it hascompleted the connection with it. This is a strange phenomenon on thehistory of the educated youth literature. The writing of “Jinniu River”shows obvious post-modern characteristics and occupies a specialposition on the history of Chinese educated youth literature.After “Jinniu River” published on fourth issue of “grass” magazinein2007, Yang Jianlong and his doctor students discussed it and arrangedto an article entitled “years like song, memories like sail——discussionbetween teacher and student about the novel ‘Jinniu River’”. The ChineseDepartment of Shanghai Normal University, the “grass” magazine andOriental Press Center jointly organized a seminar and gave a positiveevaluation. On29th April2009, Shanghai Writers Association held aseminar and arranged to a research record named “life memory andhistoric writing”. On22th November, Yang Jianlong, Wang Hongsheng,Ge Hong and other scholars held a discussion centering on the topics ofcampaign, experience and literature of the educated youth in ShanghaiNormal University and sorted out a summary entitled “Wasted time of ageneration in the memory of growth” In addition, independent researchpapers are: Qian Wenliang’s “Chinese narration of educated youthstories——on Yang Jianlong’s novel “Jinniu River”, Liu Zhong’s“Narration based on educated youth life experience——Comments onYang Jianlong’s novel ‘Jinniu River’”, Liang Guilian’s “‘Jinniu River’:tension in modesty and passion in abstention”, Peng Jiyuan’s“Warmhearted glance back and deep thinking——on Yang Jianlong’snovel ‘Jinniu River’” and Yan Qingsheng’s “Characterization andaesthetic style in ‘Jinniu River’”, they all dig mainly from themicrocosmic aspects such as subject, memories of the educated youth,ideas, main purpose, overall style, tragic existence, narration,characterization and so on; because of the publishing time and literaryenvironment of “Jinniu River”, there are few articles that put it under themacroscopic view of the whole history of educated youth literature andpostmodernism literature. At present there are Professor Guo Xiaodong’sbook:“Chinese Narration: China educated Youth Literature”, article“Chinese expression: educated Youth Literature—different scanning andwriting on youth deaths” and book “Chinese Youth Literary History”published in October2012. In these books and article he talked about thisissue, so there is still a lot of work to do. We can card the darkundercurrents besides the mainstream of educated youth literature fromanother perspective, explore the changes in transmutation of its writingattitude, have a new understanding of the novel’s unique literary valueand the position in history of Chinese educated youth literature and feel its unique charm.Postmodernism literature is the result of industrialization of westernsociety and reflects the collapsed belief after the Second World War. Itdemonstrated a firm attitude of revolting all and denying everything. Itincludes existentialism literature, absurd theatre, new novel, black humor,the broken generation, met fiction, magic realism literature and so on. Itentered China with the economic globalization and had a great impact onChinese contemporary literature. We should learn from its experience andfocus on the development of Chinese contemporary literature suiting thecurrent historical conditions.“Jinniu River” is Yang Jianlong’sremembrance of his educated youth experience. It decks the differentwriting of educated youth literature in the1990s and opens the newfeature of the educated youth literature in twenty-first Century. It lies on aspecial turning point of transmutation from modernism creation in1990sto postmodernism creation in twenty-first Century.“Jinniu River” shows obvious Post-modern aesthetic characteristicsin the aspects of anti-tradition, human nature, black humor, intertextualityand paradox. First, it looks upon the normal life of mountain people andeducated youth from the view of Xiaosong and adopts the intertextualperspective of “educated youth——farmer”. This has completelyoverthrown the previous dominant perspective of “redguards——educated youth”, its unique bottom narration rushes thetraditional grand narration and represents the poverty and blindness offarmers, wildness and nonsense of the Culture Revolution and ravage ofthe privilege to the normal people vividly and realistically. The authoroverlooked the numerous living beings of Jinniu town with greatcompassion and expressed the sadness in calm and objective way thatman could not get rid of. This makes the novel approach to the literatureitself. The whole novel is full of unpredictable fate and unexpressivefeeling. Second, the human nature is the unity of good and evil, half angel,half devil. Xiaosong has witnessed loyalty, goodness and beauty and alsoset eyes on self-concern, doggeries and cruelty. The performance oftragedies has exceeded the previous hysteria, tends to plain and this isbased on the truth of human nature. The roots of numerous tragedies are:the political power covered and plundered personal rights; the CulturalRevolution dissimilated the individual, tore and distorted the humannature. The author exhibits the contradiction and complexity of humannature, reveals the true face of human nature in the special age and leadpeople to think deeply about human nature. The alienation among people,namely the alienation of others to oneself, represents the dominion asman to man and the alienation of morality and emotion. Despite of manycrimes, some people still shine bright light of the human nature, like thestars in the dark night sky. As for Jiang Meihua and Huang Secretary thatare apparently guilty beyond forgiveness, the author shows their goodnessof human nature, besides exposes their evil side. Third, in the plain style,the Cultural Revolution has become a ridiculous figure from behindslowly away, yet happened truly in the life of bottom people and no one has place to hide. The author has developed a new method “humor” of itsown to resist “absurd”. It dissolves the bitter, highlights the fanaticalabsurdity and then naturally has the ironic strength. Fourth, in the “JinniuRiver”, the quotations and the highest indication of Chairman Mao havebeen also used and they are golden laws and precious rules which thecadres of Jinniu town must have declared, when they deprive the personallegitimate rights. Mutual superimposition of literary and cultural textshighlights the uncertainty of the novel’s significance, adds critical powerand shows a small feeling of parody. Fifth, when the readers look on thetragedies during the Culture Revolution, they may regard them asirregular and absurd. But the author has described all things realisticallyand reasonably. And we find them both funny and annoying. The paradoxof seemingly rights but actually wrong makes the unpredictable feeling offate more serious and raises the critical power in the fade atmosphere.“Jinniu River” has unique literary value in the aspects of structureand style and occupies a special position in the history of Chineseeducated youth literature. It has made a vivid and unique art show on theliving conditions of people living in bottom. Eighty super short chaptershooks a complete story, weaves a broad picture of life and the uniquestructure brings readers fresh reading experience. It uses scatteredperspective writing, shows a complete story plot, clear time character andartistic effect of landscape painting. Some folk songs, folk rhyme andcustoms make the novel present folk color, the whole novel is filled witha fresh local flavor and dilutes the tragic color to a certain extent.Through the research above, we can recognize the literary value of“Jinniu River” and its connection with “drunk into flowers”, furtherunderstand the performance of the educated youth literature intwenty-first Century and taste its special spirit. Only when the literaturemaintains multidimensional imagination, it can have a long life.