The afternoon with howling north wind

Author: Zhao Dahai
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-01-01
Features: The Afternoon with Howling Wind: This novel encompasses elements such as the passage of time, the transformation of a village, the deaths of successive criminals, and more. Three teenagers attempt to steal something by climbing over the fence but encounter the homeowner. They lie, claiming they had shot a bird that landed in the yard and that they were there to retrieve it. A similar scene had occurred a decade earlier, thus connecting reality with history and presenting the village in three dimensions. This is the core of the novel. The village has produced many criminals, but it has also given rise to a police officer, a diligent and ambitious young man. Driven by loyalty, he becomes a police officer and does only one thing—turns himself from a lawman into a criminal. Another witness to the village's history is a former grave-digger, saved by his own redemption, who warns the delinquent teenagers but only earns humiliation in return. While collecting trash, he finds a baby girl and, unable to give her away, raises her himself, living with her ever since. Additionally, a madwoman and her chaotic family, like an unhealing wound or shadow in the village, are also a reflection of the village. A writer records everything about the village, so real it’s terrifying—every word comes from life, every phrase carries the scent of the earth. The theme of the novel is the fate of people and the village. It unfolds through conversations between father and son on a day when the wind howls fiercely, capturing the content of their talk and the imaginations and associations it sparks. Despite its grand theme, the narrative is light yet powerful, with clear internal logic, making it a profound work with immense emotional force. The novel offers a truthful portrayal of the current state of rural life and extends deep sympathy to farmers.
M’s Marriage: A girl, beautiful, kind, and gentle, from an intellectual family, like a flower grown in a greenhouse, has never seen hardship. When she meets a handsome rogue, she believes she has found love and, like a heroine in a romance novel, defies her entire family’s opposition, even showing a rare spirit of rebellion, to marry him despite all obstacles. However, her “happiness” lasts less than three days. On the third day of her marriage, her husband starts drinking excessively, and the furniture in the new house is cleared out. This is just the beginning of her nightmare. Debt collectors flood in, and soon after, she becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, her husband frequents brothels and is arrested. It is her brother who has to bail him out. She believes life can still go on, driven by vanity, but reality is different: her husband uses deceptive means to sell the house she owns and disappears; she and her daughter are left on the streets. Even then, she does not lose hope, wanting to support her family on her own. Yet her husband always takes the last bit of money she has—even her daughter’s tuition—to party and drink. Worse still, he and his cronies stay over at her house, humiliating and beating her. Family and friends urge her to divorce, but she refuses. She chooses to fall into debauchery, sleeping with other men at will. The novel offers a believable interpretation of a seemingly inexplicable yet all-too-common marriage. It does not merely depict the hopelessness of marriage but reveals the tragedy of human nature in character, expressing sorrow for her misfortune and anger at her lack of struggle.
Purple Grapes: A simple novel exploring human nature. A fourteen-year-old boy falls in love with a beautiful woman. Her husband is arrested and sent to the army on their wedding night. The boy knows this love cannot bear fruit and even refuses to acknowledge it himself, let alone confess it to her. This is the boy’s innocent, untainted first love. But reality is cruel. The woman ends up having an affair with her father-in-law, and after becoming pregnant, her father-in-law finds her a fake husband to hide the truth. Almost everyone knows the deception, yet no one cares. Later, her real husband returns, and the two men fight violently, with the real husband killing the fake one. Yet her life does not improve; it only becomes more terrifying. The boy observes her life and feels pity for this weak woman. He cannot find a way out and, in the end, destroys the woman he loves and those who are evil. The novel is narrated from the boy’s perspective, detailing his innocent feelings and suppressed impulses, while treating the horrifying events as a subtle undercurrent. The story unfolds naturally, making it convincing. Unbelievable events in the novel seem to happen effortlessly, leaving no sense of strangeness. Human nature transcends time, and the boy’s character is representative, making him a typical figure.
Bitter Artemisia: A 40,000-character novel was revised several times but never satisfied, so it was completely rewritten, shrinking to one-fifth of its original length. This is one of the few works I feel truly satisfied with in my writing. The trade of human traffickers is full of stories, each stained with the tears of the weak, filled with cries and struggles in the dark night. Among them, there is a category known as “flying eagles,” who deceive men into giving them money through tricks. They are equally hateful. This novel tells the story of a failed “flying eagle.” The narrator is the man who failed to “fly an eagle,” having sent his wife out but failed to bring her back. She dies from abuse and childbirth, and in the end, he kills the friend who urged him to “fly an eagle” and deceived him. It is an undeniably tragic story. The reason the novel is titled after a character who never appears is to remind readers to focus on the central figure of the tragedy and her suffering. In the novel, it is clear that the “flying eagle” man still retains some conscience, which is why he is still considered a “human” and not just an animal.
Crossing the Line: An old man from outside the village falls into a lime pit and suffers severe burns. The villagers feel sympathy for him, but no one wants him to die at their doorstep. This is a novel that probes the soul, as a reader’s letter said: “Think carefully, where have they all crossed the line? The line of ignorance? The line of conscience? The line of humanity? The line of officials? The line of filial piety? They have crossed them all, and yet none of them have.” I once titled this novel Compassion, hoping to instill a little more compassion and less indifference in people’s hearts. That is all.
A Heavy Rain in the Evening: Reflects the impact of the labor migration wave on remote mountainous areas. “The South” is no longer just a word or a geographical concept but becomes a symbol of a different way of life. The shock this wave brings to those living in the mountains, the changes in their way of life, and more are all immense. A teenager, with his two older brothers having gone south to work, depends on his father. Yet one day, he sells his flock of sheep and leaves his father behind to follow them south.
A Flight Over Wangfujing, The Elephant, Getting Off Halfway, and The Great Magician are a series of exploratory novels, each with its own writing style and charm, and have been well-received by readers and friends to varying degrees…