Liu Xinglong Novel Theory

In Chinese contemporary literary world, we should not overlook such a name--- Liu Xinglong, a writer who has left certain influence. He gained his wide reputation primly in novellas and short stories. Most of his works objectively describes the reality of the society in the shifting period. Written by the technique of realism, with intense social responsibility, these novels pay close attention to the hard situation of the bottom estate, reveal the terrible phenomenon, and disclose the conflict of the society. In a word, they show off a kind of realistic spirit which dare to confront the very many social problems at present.From the later period of 1990s, Liu Xinglong began to turn to long novels. His novels are quite far away from the whole situation that the literary world at that time was in, which mainly indulged in fabricating history pieces, body-writing, and constructing narrative traps. By inheriting the skills of Realism, his works return to the rural life, thus display a different posture and pursuit, and as a result, show off their uniqueness.Up till now, the study on Liu Xinglong's works mainly concentrated on the novellas and short stories. Few articles concerned his long novels, showed a lack of systematic research as well. In this respect, this thesis wants to make a systematic research on Liu Xinglong's long novels, with attempt to get a comprehensive and thorough analysis so as to minutely dissect his literary creating thoughts and artistic style. This, I must say, also is, where the meaning of this paper lies.This paper will be carried out in three aspects: firstly, to explain the historical development of Liu Xinglong's long novels and seek his creative characteristics; secondly, to explore the connotations of emotions and themes through textual interpretation; thirdly, to obtain conceptual knowledge of Liu Xinglong's long novels by putting them against the background of contemporary literary world.Actually, there are most spheres of transition in Liu Xinglong's long novels: in terms of themes, there is a transition from placing extra emphasis on realistic present social life to paying close attention to widespread public concerns in the historical progress; in terms of characters, there is a shift from the patriarchal characters to the maternal side; in terms of narrative art, there is a change from"twig-like"to"web-like"on narration, so they embody the portraits of variation and sophistication, thus refract the artistic pursuits of the author.On the aspect of his novels'emotional connotation, it has also showed some outstanding features: one is the author's emotional paradox, including the aspiration of social moral salvation, the misgivings of the unknowable factors which influence human destiny, and the shock at the metaphor of natural wonders. Two, the author tries to put"great goodness"above the realistic viciousness, in which includes the abomination of wickedness and the faith in"love". Three, a kind of intense anti-modernization classical human concernment has been showed in these novels.Meanwhile, we should not ignore the flaws in some Liu Xinglong's long novels. To be specific, the materials lack of profound thinking and deep mining, and somewhat the novels follow a patterned approach, neglecting the art expression techniques, and so on. But in general, it should be noticed that Liu Xinglong's long novels have revealed a kind of uniqueness in contemporary literary world, especially his recent works, which have made a fairly good treatment on the relationship between deconstruction and construction of"Epic"narration. Thus, these novels provide us some useful and valuable reference.