Divinity and Devilism: A Charming World Constructed by Chi Zijian in the Novel At the Peak

Abstract

Nourished by the natural scenery of the Daxing’anling Mountains when growing up, Chi Zijian has grand literary beliefs and tends to build worlds filled with divinity to bridge ideals and reality in her literary creations. Her novel At the Peak (Qunshan zhi Dian), published in 2015, creates a poetic and distant place with an air of mystery. The most prominent feature of her cogitation on divinity in the novel is the depiction of a charming world where every being has a spirit and this is reflected in the transcendental mood of the language used in the novel. Together, these features constitute the unique aesthetic characteristics of the divinity narrative in Chi’s novels. In her works, active construction and passive deconstruction appear simultaneously, and the contradiction displays her respect for and concern about reality. Nonetheless, the romantic and poetic flavor of literature arises out of the crevices of pain precisely at the point where secularity and fairy tales collide and when despair reaches toward hope. This is the charm of At the Peak.

Keywords

Chi Zijian, At the Peak, cogitation on divinity, charming world

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