A Study Of The Historical Narrative Of Li Jieren’s “The River Novel Trilogy”

Li Jieren’s “the River Novel Trilogy” is a landmark work of historical narrative in modern Chinese fiction.It takes Chengdu,Sichuan Province,in the southwest of China,as a window of view.On the one hand,it truly reflects and reproduces the turbulent changes in China’s social history of political organism,customs,implements,spirituality and morality from the Sino-Japanese War to the Xinhai Revolution.On the other hand,it also shows Li Jieren’s unique historical writing strategy and dispassionate narrative mentality,which is different from the writers of the Left Wing,the Shanghai and the Beijing School in a situation of tripartite confrontation of modern literature.First and most obviously,the historical narrative of “the River Novel Trilogy” is manifested in the panoramic depiction of the decline and decay of political ecology from central to local in late Qing Dynasty.Compared with traditional historical novels,It no longer makes history into the intense and extraordinary hero of war,but on the basis of realism and naturalism,supplemented by the traditional novel pattern,to highlight the "true face" of history,not only detailed describes the decline of the late Qing dynasty imperial forces,also lets the foreign religions invading alien forces into the interior and its causes,from all walks of life,such as the rise of Pao Ge etc,more vividly demonstrated.f the organizational and structural politics constitute the internal skeleton of history,then the materialized customs and implements are the external flesh and blood of history.The second unique feature of Li Jieren’s historical narration in his "the River Novel Trilogy" is the writing of the local Chronicles of the customs and implements that constitute the historical flesh and blood.Li jieren gets the best of classic traditional culture,the naturalism of France culture and regional culture of bashu,to look behind the bashu customs,daily utensils and dialect proverb,both shows the unique style of western Sichuan and describes the chaos along with the combination of western culture and ancient culture,leaving a vivid picture for a particular age of history.The third and more noteworthy aspect of the historical narration in Li Jieren’s "the River Novel Trilogy" is the modernity perspective of the inner spiritual upheaval of human beings as the subject of history in the midst of changes unseen in a thousa nd years.Based on the perspective of desire,the novel not only describes the "slight waves" in the heart that the erotic spirit gradually breaks through the traditional natura l principles in the late Qing dynasty,but also describes the moral decline before the storm.Under the framework of rationality,it also illuminates how individual liberation integrates into the great waves of national salvation.It looks at the weakness and variation of human heart in history from the perspective of non-moral judgment,which is quite different from the works of contemporary writers.Li Jieren’s "the River Novel Trilogy",based on the midst of changes unseen in a thousand years of social history in the late Qing Dynasty,earlier makes up for the blank of modern literature in reflecting and writing the history from 1894 to 1911.Its panoramic description of political history,local writing of the history of scenery and modern perspective of the history of spirit,is not only unique in the historical narrative of modern Chinese literature,but also has a profound influence on the historical narrative of contemporary Chinese literature.