Mind and Matter Wander

Author: Shen Congwen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-03-01
Features: Unyielding yet yielding, kind yet accommodating; his writing is like stars, his person like an innocent child. Reflect on me, and you will understand me; reflect on me, and you will recognize humanity. Shen Congwen (1902-1988), a representative figure of the Beijing School of fiction, originally named Shen Yuehuan, was of mixed ethnic descent (Miao, Han, and Tujia) from Fenghuang County, a remote and mysterious region in Western Hunan. After graduating from lower secondary school at the age of 14, he joined the army and witnessed the darkness of the world, which fostered a sense of disillusionment. Upon encountering modern literature, he moved to Beijing in 1923, hoping to attend university but failing to do so. In hardship, he began using the pen name "Xiu Yunyun" for his creative work. Starting in the 1930s, he began constructing his "Xiangxi world" through novels, completing a series of representative works such as Border Town and The Long River. He examined the then-existing urban-rural divide from the perspective of an "outsider," critiquing the ugliness of modern civilization as it entered China. This idea, which stood in contrast to the views of the main figures of modern literature, greatly enriched the expressive scope of modern fiction.
Shen Congwen's collected works span over 80 volumes, making him one of the most prolific modern writers. His early short story collections, such as Citrus, After the Rain and Other Stories, and Love Between a God and a Demon, already hinted at his central themes, but the urban-rural dichotomy was not yet clear, and his portrayals of gender relationships were superficial, with a lesser degree of literary purity. After the 1930s, his creative work matured significantly. His major collected novels include Dragon Zhu, Inns and Other Stories, The Stone Boat, The Tiger Cub, The Little History of Ah Hei, Scenes Under the Moon, The Eight Horses, Like a Wreath, Selected Works of Shen Congwen's Fiction, New and Old, The Housewife Collection, The Lantern Collection, and The Black Phoenix Collection. His middle and long include Alice's Journey to China, Border Town, and The Long River. His essays include My Autobiography, On Ding Ling, Journey to Western Hunan, and Western Hunan. His literary theories include Letters from a Wasted Post Office and its sequel, Wasting the Candle, Seeing Yunnan in the Clouds, and The World of the Blindfolded.
From his works to his theories, Shen Congwen later completed his Xiangxi series, synthesizing the beauty of rural life forms with the critical structure of urban life forms. He proposed a philosophy of "harmonious coexistence between humans and nature," rooted in nature and returning to nature. The healthy and complete humanity that "Xiangxi" represents—an "excellent, healthy, natural, yet not contradictory to human nature" way of life—is the very essence that his entire creative work carries.