A Study On Liu Zhenyun’s Talking Series Novels

As an ambitious and aspiring writer,Liu Zhenyun tries to go beyond his previous works at every writing stage.After the “Hometown” series,his masterpieces Cellphone,My Name Is Liu Yuejin(official English name: The Cook,the Crook,and the Real Estate Tycoon),One Sentence Tops Ten Thousand Ones(official English name: Someone to Talk To)and I Am Not Pan Jinlian(official English name: I Did Not Kill My Husband)all describe a world in which people talk and communicate to varying degrees.This world presents a lot of “speaking” forms,confusion in the ways of talking and nowhere-to-talk mist.Liu Zhenyun focuses on the loneliness caused by the people-to-people society and the spatial dislocation between the speakers.From this perspective,Liu digs deep into the spiritual state of the lower-class people,explores the specific dimension of their living dilemma,that is,the inner distress,and shows the disintegration of secular ethics and the absurd struggles of the ordinary.It can be said that the greatest significance of "talking and communication" series lies in the in-depth exploration of the spiritual loneliness of the common people,which is embodied especially by One Sentence Tops Ten Thousand Ones.However,the TV adaptations of the other three novels damages the seriousness of the novels,so they are not regarded as successful works.The thesis is divided into four chapters.The first chapter mainly analyzes the“talking and communication” world described by Liu Zhenyun.In the “talking and communication” type novels,there are many “speaking” forms including the chattering type and the taciturn type.The chaos of characters’ speaking is combined with the hard life.This kind of chaos also caused the “circumlocution” of the narrative.The second chapter mainly analyses the reasons behind the speaker’s loneliness.“talking and communication” series show the characteristics of the people-to-people society,that is,when Chinese people encounter extreme pain,they speak to specific persons,but the private relationship maintained by morality is no longer reliable when the external environment deteriorates,revealing the characteristics of Chinese cultural ecology.In addition,the speakers and the listeners are often in the trap of spatialdislocation,“can’t speak” becomes an inevitable result.Faced with such a dilemma,the protagonists start to get out of the dilemma.The third chapter explores the theme of Liu Zhenyun’s novels at that stage.Liu goes beyond his previous works and reveals another aspect of the survival dilemma of the underclass--the inner dilemma.The traditional secular ethics has been on the verge of collapse,and the ethical relations are divided into "what is said" and "what is not said".Liu Zhenyun’s characters inevitably degenerate into absurd farce,which is manifested as the irreducible fate of individuals deviating from daily life.The fourth chapter summarizes the meaning and shortage of “talking and communication” series.Liu explores the spiritual loneliness of the common people with a series of novels,which is rare in the Chinese contemporary literary world.However,the adaptations for films and TV series with the overdramatic plot,the symbolization of characters and the direct expression of sexual desire have injured its depth and made it slightly impetuous and simple.