In Pursuit Of Everyday Principles

Everyday principle constitutes the logical starting point of Liu Zhenyun’s novels. In his novels about officialdom, novels about hometown, and novels about speech, Liu is always in search of everyday principle. In his novel Ground Covered with Chicken Feathers, Liu is not focusing on, as someone observes, the people under the control of power, but focusing on the everyday principle. The whole novel is based on everyday principle. In his hometown series, Liu focuses on the constancy of everyday life in the bottom of society. Worshipping and fighting for power is the ultimate everyday principle, which incites endless struggling for power. In Yiqiang feihua(Bullshit), Liu narrates the principle of everyday politics. In Yiju ding yiwanju, the trust between friends and the innermost feelings between friends become everyday principles. What we can do in this world is to find the everyday principles. In I’m not Pan jinlian, the heroine Li Xuelian is in search of the basic principle all her life from the chaotic things which she encounters. She wants to recovery the truth from the chaotic things. In the search of everyday principles, Liu tries to unlock new imaginary worlds. The problem of losing sincerity can be met in many parts of Liu’s novels. Not only shall we meet the problem of the declining of sincerity, but also the problem of kitsch. In Liu’s novels, there is a strong inclination for kitsch. Many characters in Liu’s novels are kitsch. And, Liu, the author, is to some degree kitsch, too.