Telling Chinese stories and Chinese experience is an important theme of realist literature in the new era. Chinese writers in the new era face the significant challenge of how to understand the “totality of China” and how to construct the totality spirit and aesthetic character of the “Chinese” narrative. Above Baiyangdian Lake by Guan Renshan takes the historical changes that occurred in the typical environment of Baiyangdian New Area as the content of narration, revealing the growth of people and history and its “Chinese” connotation through the story of the growth of “new character” in the new era. The novel depicts the “rediscovery” and rebirth of history and traditions of China in the new era by “telling stories,” and puts them under a profound context of the past and present and in a broad vision of China and foreign countries, thus constructing the overall aesthetics of realism in contemporary China with an epic grand narrative. The novel artistically shows the building and growth process of China in the new era, and demonstrates its leveraging of resources and unique connotation. It is a typical text for understanding the relationship between the image shaping of China in the new era and Chinese realism literature, as well as the connotation, function and form of Chinese realism.
Above Baiyangdian Lake is a novel set against the backdrop of the great changes in rural China in the new era, revolving around the grand theme of China’s contribution to the harmonious development of the world with Chinese wisdom and its solutions. The subject of Above Baiyangdian Lake is grand as it involves politics, culture, economy, and many other aspects. Its publication has reversed the narrowing tendency of Chinese novels in terms of themes and subjects. Above Baiyangdian Lake reconstructs historical time for Chinese modernization with its time consciousness based on a historical perspective. Wang Juexin and Qiao Mai shaped by the writer have contributed to the range of Chinese contemporary literary characters as typical images of the new characters of the era. The value of epic masterpieces like Above Baiyangdian Lake should be fully explored and advocated to provide a useful reference for the development of literature in the new era.
Above Baiyangdian Lake is a meticulously crafted novel by Guan Renshan nearing a million words in length. The novel offers a panoramic view of everyday life in Baiyangdian Lake and the development of the Xiong’an New Area. The novel exemplifies a genuine sense of the scene by presenting readers with a vivid, authentic depiction of our contemporary life. He employs a narrative structure that overlaps the present with the past, blending tradition and modernity to create a truly magnificent epic. Rather than avoiding the contradictions and darkness inherent to humanity, the novel embraces them and strives to accurately depict their complexity, resulting in a more profound reflection on society. Above Baiyangdian Lake expands and innovates the path of local literature by applying a genuinely realistic approach. It not only surpasses Guan’s writing style, but also represents a transcendence of local writing conventions in contemporary literature. It draws upon and elevates the literary tradition of the Hehuadian School, emerging as a notable example of new local writing with distinct regional traits.
Above Baiyangdian Lake is another full-length realistic novel written by Guan Renshan after The Maihe River. In this work, Guan Renshan goes beyond traditional rural writing and artistically narrates the grand landscape of Baiyangdian New Area and the changes of people’s fate during its construction. With Guan’s refined and mature narrative techniques, the novel clearly shows his ambition to present a “regional epic.” This paper delves into the fictional text and analyzes the structuring method of Above Baiyangdian Lake from multiple perspectives such as its character shaping with historical correspondence, and narrative structure, skills, and style, aiming to provide an approach to interpret the ideological schema of Above Baiyangdian Lake.
The Maihe River, a novel by Guan Renshan, can be regarded as a summarizing work of transcendence of the writer’s neo-realism style, showcasing his pursuit and formulation of the “new rural epic” aesthetic, which has major significance for both the writer’s creative process and contemporary Chinese realism writing. In this novel, Guan Renshan not only epically portrays the changing relationship between farmers and their land by using poetic sentiment and rational philosophical thought, but also probes deeply into these new rural areas, new villages, and new farmers developed under the impact of modernity, demonstrating his keen insight and thought.
The Maihe River by Guan Renshan returns to the literary principle of traditional realism and insists on the rural narrative based on daily experience. It is a novel that truly traces rural life, with a focus on the land circulation system and the fate of farmers. In the work, Guan Renshan integrates farmers’ love for the land into a culture of the land and a culture of wheat. Land worship and the trend of modern agricultural development in The Maihe River constitute a profound tension. In this novel, he investigates possibilities for rural modernization as well as reasonable and legitimate means to realize them.
Guan Renshan’s full-length novel Golden Valley and Silver Mountain focuses on the depiction of rural life in an era of profound transformation. Notably, the novel refers to Builders of a New Life, Liu Qing’s representative work five times. This indicates that the conception and writing of Guan Renshan’s Golden Valley and Silver Mountain are significantly influenced and guided by Liu Qing’s Builders of a New Life. This influence is manifested not only in the fact that Fan Shaoshan, the protagonist in Golden Valley and Silver Mountain, regards Builders of a New Life as a sacred existence, and the counterpart relationship between Fan Shaoshan and Liang Shengbao, the protagonist in Builders of a New Life, but also directly in the setting of characters relationships in the two novels.