Canglang's Water

Author: Yan Zhen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The author writes with a conversational style and a fluid narrative, depicting the struggles of Chi Dawei, a medical graduate student, who harbors grand ambitions but lacks power and status. The story also explores the challenges of sudden success and fame. While vividly portraying his life journey, the author also unravels the life dilemmas that trouble him. Readers are unintentionally deeply drawn in, as if they are enjoying a novel while simultaneously experiencing reality. "The water of the is clear, it can wash my scarf; the water of the is muddy, it can wash my feet." — Qu Yuan, Fisherman. In the work, Chi Dawei loses his spiritual anchor in the traditional "nation and state," but the author's concept of the "vacuum of meaning" clearly extends beyond this. At this moment of social transformation, the original spiritual anchors such as "the nation," "the ethnicity," "the people," and "freedom" all appear to be floating and unstable. When Chi Dawei, like all of us, faces the "vacuum of meaning," I cannot help but recall the "nothingness" faced by Wei Lianhu, the solitary figure in Lu Xun's writing. The vacuum of meaning is a tragic plight for humanity, but it is also the confusion and suffering faced by intellectuals when making choices. For Chi Dawei and others, however, they no longer find the desperate, self-destructive resistance of Wei Lianhu. Where Wei Lianhu could "step into the thorns and walk for now" in the absence of a path, Chi Dawei and others face not even the "thorns"—they are lost and bewildered after the road disappears. In the continuous compromises of Chi Dawei and others, what we see more is the insignificance of the individual and the helplessness of life, for they were born without a powerful weapon to combat the void. Their alienation becomes natural, robbing them of their rightful tragic quality. Thus, when reading The Water of the, we feel a strange sympathy for Chi Dawei and others, as if we are sympathizing with ourselves. Understanding their "fall" is to understand our own lives. This is the peculiar charm of The Water of the—it does not give readers the opportunity to look down upon others' souls from a height, but instead constantly compels them to reflect on themselves: When faced with the vacuum of meaning, what should we do?