The Urban Writing In Guo Wenbin’s Novels

Xihaigu’s native countryside and the western cities in China constitute the world in Guo Wenbin’s novels.The poetic expression and serene life in his countryside works have attracted more attention from critics.But as an important area of Guo Wenbin’s fiction writing,his urban writing has not yet attracted sufficient attention in academic circles.Only a few urban works,such as Water Goes with the Sky and Accompanying Muzi Li to Pingliang,have entered the critics’ field of vision as a contrast to the rural creation.This paper will take Guo Wenbin’s three short story collections,"The Big Year," "Auspicious as a Wish," and "Yoga," as the main textual material,and select 27 urban novels,including "Small Town Story" and "Accompanying Muzi Li to Pingliang," as research texts,to systematically study Guo Wenbin’s urban writing from the following four aspects,drawing on the relevant theories of urban and cultural studies.The first chapter explores the qualities of Guo Wenbin’s urban writing,namely,the construction of a serene city.By combing Guo Wenbin’s creative history and turn in urban writing,it introduces the literary concept of serene doctrine and explains the connotation of the city of serene from two aspects: returning to the serene of the mind and writing about human beauty.Chapter 2 analyzes the construction of space in Guo Wenbin’s urban writing.He analyzes the imagery of urban material space in his writing from three dimensions: traditional living space,emerging third space,and urban spiritual space.Then enters into the exploration of the uniqueness of the spiritual space of western cities,exploring the art of slow and sorrowful urban undertones.Chapter 3 explores the artistic style and techniques of Guo Wenbin’s urban writing,examining his textual characteristics and artistic interests from three aspects: poetic narrative style,summoning structure,and Zen connotations,and further discovering the aesthetic values embedded in Guo Wenbin’s works and the creative qualities that distinguish him from other writers.Chapter 4 discusses the limitations of Guo Wenbin’s urban writing.Based on Guo Wenbin’s creative experience and the facts of the development of contemporary urban literature,three specific aspects are discussed: the homogenized representation of the city and the lack of "my city",the lack of representational urban characters,and the lack of urban imagination.