Mobile phone

Author: Liu Zhenyun
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: The Phone is a leap in Liu Zhenyun's novel writing. In his early works, Liu Zhenyun, with his keen and delicate observations, exquisite and precise language skills, wrote classic masterpieces such as A Heap of Feathers and subsequent works like Tapo Village, The Official World, and Looking Back on 1942. However, Liu Zhenyun felt that his early creations were fragmented and only focused on people's material lives. He boldly rejected himself and embarked on new explorations. After eight years of arduous writing, he completed the massive two-million-word epic Hometown Noodles and Flowers, whose enigmatic imagination and unrestrained, boundless prose left readers in awe. At the same time, it also left many readers utterly bewildered. Liu Zhenyun once again examined his own writing. In his exploration, Liu Zhenyun ventured into the creation of The Phone, bringing readers joy—excellent ideas, compelling stories, and a superb narrative style. Concise, materialistic, and specific, yet profound, philosophical, and humorous, it embodies the strengths of Liu Zhenyun's writing. The Phone tells a story about "speaking." The protagonist, Yan Shouyi, is a host of a talk show on television. The novel begins by describing Yan Shouyi's childhood in the 1960s, his taciturn father, his cousin, his friend, and his grandmother. It then shifts to the present, where the grown-up Yan Shouyi engages in a career that surprises everyone in the village—a profession that revolves around "speaking," hosting a talk show on television. The novel then returns to the 1920s and 1930s, tracing the origins of Yan Shouyi's words. In the fullyed middle section, the work gives birth to many mouths, all speaking—some lying, some telling the truth, some taciturn, some speaking with hidden meanings, and some speaking from the heart. Through the phone, Liu Zhenyun vividly reveals the relationship between words and the heart. The cover of The Phone adopts the overall design of Hometown Noodles and Flowers, featuring a deep blue, exquisite craft paper with cutouts, printed in black, white, and silver ink. It exudes a solemn and grand atmosphere, intended to reflect the profound depth of the work and the forceful, paper-penetrating power of its words.