Appreciation of Jia Pingwa's Classic Prose Arbitrary

In China, six or seven out of ten people can play chess, no matter when and where. Stealing leisure, people contending with each other, dividing the line between Han and Chu, guarding the city and guarding the handsome face to face, charging horses and chariots, on a small chessboard, everyone became a symbol, and a battle began.

Most people just play chess, and three or four of them are chess fans. One day without addiction, two days without itching, three days without meat, no wine and no taste, four or five days without restlessness. Therefore, most competitions are organized by units, and more are invited in the name of individuals. There are more and more chess friends, tossing and turning in the middle of the night, knocking at the door with their chess bags on their backs. So the interviewee got up in clothes and burned the midnight oil. If that woman is virtuous, she will be so pitiful that she will be alarmed by Dangdang chess pieces all night and smoked by the poison of cigarettes; If the character is fierce, the player will go to the kitchen, or jump or climb, while lighting a cigarette, some will burn a beard, and some will hold the cigarette upside down and put a burning cigarette end in their mouth. According to legend, in the early 1950s, a chess player was classified as a rightist and sent back to his native place because of his reactionary remarks, and since then he has been down and out in the world. Twenty-four years later, A was rehabilitated and returned to the city. Knowing that B was rehabilitated and returned to the city, A took a chess bag and visited B's house. When they met, they played chess all night.

Players are just paying back. The most incomprehensible thing is watching the game. In cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, what a big world, or as remote and narrow as Lhasa in Xining, when night falls and the streets are sparsely populated, there must be chess stalls under the lampposts. Some of them don't go home. It's better to be good to your wife and children than to be good to the chessboard. You can borrow a public street lamp that doesn't pay the electricity bill, and you can play a big play without deducting your salary at night. The onlookers craned their necks (so there are many people with long necks in China! ), open your eyes and shout your own opinions. Every step of the player is wonderful, and the sharp voice cheers; If you make a wrong move, you are depressed and everyone tries to listen to politics. But players often look up and see the big Adam's apple with a long neck, without moving up and down. Big and small red mouths and white teeth are opening and closing, spitting in the rain, laughing but not listening. Scold if you don't listen: players should not be generals, but other players should be. Both sides will hold their own words and deny it. In the end, you will turn pale, swear and fight. There is a middle-aged man in Xi 'an. In the evening, his child fell ill. The woman asked him to go to the hospital to prescribe medicine and pass by the chess stand. She said to herself, if you don't look, your feet will come. You can't help but have a look. Just in trouble. He began to make suggestions, but the suggestions were not accepted and were ridiculed by the players. Both of them fought, and their mouths and noses were bleeding. As a result, he went to the hospital, not his son, but him.

In rural areas, when farmers are tired of working in the fields, they come out barefoot and play games on the ridges of fields. The brilliant red sun is the top, and every head is covered with lotus leaves. If you kill a set, A wins and B loses, and B refuses to accept it. If A wins, and he wants to win again, this chess game will be killed one after another. The women and children at home thought they were still working hard when they saw their father didn't come home. They shouted three times and four times before picking up the rice jar. The woman said, "Eat!" "The man said," you can eat a bird! How to eat with a horse watching? ! "Children are most afraid of their father playing chess. If they win, they will hug their faces with stubble. If you lose, your face will be black, and you will punch easily. Then, there was a joke that a child was doing his homework at home, explaining that "Confucius said … this is justice", so they went to ask their father, "What is justice?" Dad lost at chess and waved and said, "Your mother's feet!" " "Confucius said," Your mother's feet! "In the exercise book.

No matter in the city or in the countryside, there is often a professional man with a chess bag hanging on his belt, long white hair and a sharp face, posing in a conspicuous place. Whoever set up the chaos must be the master who came to fight. If the number of roads is wrong after one or two steps, set the main service road: "Go, boy, don't step down!" " If it fails, it is natural to leave a red fingerprint on someone else's white cloth, so the owner will shake out the white cloth full of red fingerprints and publicize it everywhere to show his strength. If the newcomer faces the road number step by step, the host will pull the other person aside with one hand and say, "Master, teach me a few hands!" " "The two men went to the restaurant to drink and became bosom friends.

There are roughly two kinds of people who can become bosom friends with these owners. One is a car driver. China's cars are all officials, and officials don't drive. They often have meetings or make friends. As soon as they went out, they left the car and the driver. Maybe this will be endless. Maybe friends will eat at their friends' home and get drunk for a long time, so the driver has been waiting in the car, so he will have time to concentrate on reading the chess book and watching the chess game. One is a retired cadre. I was proud when I was on stage, but I was left out in the cold after retirement. From then on, I no longer feed traitor cats, coquetry lackeys and like playing chess. This chess skill has made amazing progress.

China is known as a country of etiquette, and people are modest in everything they do. You say he is good, he says "no", but there are two parts that tear away the hypocrisy and reveal the truth. First, when drinking, everyone speaks well. Li Taibai's "Only the drinker leaves his name" has not been forgotten. He is obviously drunk. He also said: "I'm not drunk ... I'm not drunk ..." Did he fall on the wine table or: "Not drunk ... drunk!" The other is playing chess. I have never heard anyone say that he is not good at playing chess. He must be a master: "his smelly chess basket!" " So when the old man loses to the young man, he will say, "how can I win that boy?" ! "The man lost his woman and said," Men don't hit women! " "The person who comes to the door wins, and the host will say," You are a guest! " "People of similar age and equal status are:" Heroes don't win the first three sets! " "

Chess is a national quintessence, but it is not as early as Weiqi, which has gradually become an elegant affair for high-level people. However, it seems a mystery that chess is expensive and cheap in Xian Yi and Xian Yi, old and young, in Xian Yi. Go has no name. A chess piece is a chess piece, and a son is a man. People can occupy the position left and right, as long as they are around. Chess has a handsome chess, a car, a son and a pawn, with distinct grades and clear restrictions. I'm afraid that the reason why China Chess is enduring from generation to generation is because China people love politics too much. They like to be handsome, adjust their horses and chariots, and be noble, so as to once again show their strategy of governing the country and leveling the world, while ordinary people enjoy it spiritually, so that there is a saying in the dictionary, "Look at the overall situation with your eyes and have a strategy in your heart." So there are often "XXX can be an official, and I will be one, better than him"! People in China are impetuous now, which is the fundamental reason. There were people who made it clear in ancient times, and now there are people everywhere who don't do practical things and talk big. Are they the people who have watched the game since ancient times? Therefore, good players have experience: the more viewers, the less they can listen to their instructions; One person is a set of skills, maybe one person is a rough idea, and three people disagree and cancel each other out.

Although people have been addicted to disguised politics on the chessboard, China people are China people after all. They are not as powerful, fierce and arrogant as themselves. So there is often a saying that "I will let you have two horses"! "I killed you with half my strength!" If the opponent doesn't give alms, he won't die immediately if he wins. He will deliberately play, play cat-and-mouse tricks, or eat all the pieces of his opponent as soon as possible, leaving only one handsome boy on the chessboard and becoming a loner. Once you meet a strong hand, you will be "too psychologically stressed", timid, indecisive, confused and lose your level. I really doubt that neither the coach nor the players of China football team can play chess.

In this way, strange phenomena often appear in the chess world: leaders of all sizes are good at playing chess in their own units. They often have the illusion of "punching Shaolin and kicking Wudang". Of course, there are also some newborn calves who use chess to warn their immediate superiors that their tactics are neither cars nor guns, and they specialize in pawn. Although the pawn was subject to many restrictions in the local area, he just crossed the river and bravely advanced, even going straight to the other city to capture the boss's old son alive.

There is a unit in X, and a chess match is held in spring. A brave young man plays chess with several leaders. A hall, where young people sit, is led in four directions, and young people have bright eyes. At the same time, they attacked with four opponents. The four leaders were all embarrassed, and their faces turned from black to red to white, scratching their heads. The young man went to the toilet for a while, poured water for tea for a while, served himself a cup, and gave one to each of the four leaders. Lengding calls out a word and blurts out a step. The result was a total victory. This year, the young man was elected as the NPC deputy of the unit.

Guide reading

The world is like chess.

From the content, the article "Arbitrary" can be divided into two parts. The first part is from the beginning to "two people sitting in a restaurant drinking and becoming good friends from now on". The second part, from "there are roughly two kinds of people who can become close friends with these founders" to the end. If we sum up these two parts in one sentence, the first part can be called "the story of the chess player" and the second part can be called "the culture with China characteristics behind the chess player".

Let's look at the first "The Story of Chess Man". Subdivide it down, write the story of players, the story of spectators, the scene of farmers playing games in the countryside, and the tense game between game setters and game breakers. These stories are very vivid and make people smile. The title of this article is Game Man. The previous Idle Man can be called a companion, and it also focuses on the portrayal of group image.

As far as materials and writing are concerned, the most typical technique in the first half of Arbitrary is "point-to-face combination". Take The Player's Story as an example. In the first half, all the contestants are writing in various forms: "So, most competitions are organized by units, and more are personal invitations. There are more and more chess friends, tossing and turning in the middle of the night, carrying a chess bag to knock on the door. " You think the last sentence is an example, otherwise. It reads as follows: "So the interviewee got up in clothes and burned the midnight oil. If that woman is virtuous, she will be so pitiful that she will be alarmed by Dangdang chess pieces all night and smoked by the poison of cigarettes; If the character is fierce, the player will go to the kitchen, or jump or climb, while lighting a cigarette, some will burn the beard, some will hold the cigarette upside down, and some will put the burning cigarette end in their mouth. " Such a scene of playing chess in the middle of the night is actually divided into many situations, each of which is different and wonderful. Although it is widely read, every case is so vivid that it is combined into a group image of players with * * *. However, if the pen and ink are single so far, then write a story at the end to highlight the player's obsession: "It is said that in the early 1950s, there was a chess player …", which, although not worthy of the name, stood out from the previous group photo background. This treatment is reflected in the following chapters, so you may wish to draw inferences when reading.

The advantage of "point-to-face combination" is the economy of pen and ink (a kind of people write it in several words), and at the same time, the brushwork also focuses on the group image, highlighting personalized stories and details (such as the joke "Your Mom's Feet") in general writing, so as to be sparse and refined.

The first part is about language. I believe that everyone has experienced vivid, humorous, exaggerated and interesting language descriptions and details from the Player's Story just now, and such wonderful performances abound in the first half. In the story of "Looking at the Guest", it is written like this, "But often when players look up, they see the big Adam's apple on their long necks, and they don't move up and down. They all open and close, spit and splash water, so they laugh but don't listen." As a close-up of a movie, it gives people a strong visual impact and vivid feeling on the spot, and the word "resolutely disobedient" is in contrast with the previous one, showing the player's firmness and calmness. Then the story of "it's not his son who saw the doctor, it's him" doesn't need to be revised in many languages, and the story itself makes people laugh.

The "story" is here, and "Game Man" can also be finished. But Jia Pingwa's creative ambition does not stop there. Playing chess is an important recreational activity in China traditional culture. From the autumn story in Mencius to the legend of rotten ke in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio in the Southern Dynasties, and then to the analogy in Du Fu's poems in the Tang Dynasty (it is said that Chang 'an is like playing chess), playing chess is a path, which can be said to be a great success. Jia Pingwa is well aware of this, deliberately avoiding the meaning of "playing chess" in ancient Chinese, and writing more secular and active chess can better show China's secular life. Although the story of "Arbitrary" is drawing to a close, the characteristic culture of China behind Arbitrary has just begun.

There are players who "tear away hypocrisy and expose the truth" in order to criticize the modesty behind the state of etiquette; There are hierarchical social status references here, which become the visual starting point for analyzing China people's self-thought of "seeing the whole situation with eyes and having strategies in their chests"; Another strange phenomenon is that the secular status is inversely proportional to the level of chess, which makes people smile ... Compared with the liveliness, humor and humor in the first half, the second half is suddenly much deeper, much more serious and meaningful.

So, can we form an understanding that playing chess is actually a shrinking and silhouette of China people and China society? The purpose of writing this article is chess, not chess.