1979: My fiancée is a goddess

Chapter 348 Reality and Dreams, Hot Discussions

The twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month.

Seven o'clock in the morning.

The sky was dark and heavy snow was falling from the air.

"Suddenly..."

The roar of the engine broke the tranquility of the early morning, and the black smoke coming out of the hot exhaust pipe was particularly dazzling in the wind and snow.

A transport truck was driving down Central Avenue, leaving a shallow track.

The disturbing roar finally stopped at No. 232 Central Street.

“The book has arrived!”

That is the entrance of Xinhua Bookstore.

"Unloading!"

The driver, who was smoking a cheap loose cigarette, covered his mouth and blew out a breath of hot air, then shouted at the top of his voice.

A moment later, two clerks on duty in the bookstore came out.

"Master, please help me."

One of the men was very sensible and handed over half a pack of cigarettes.

"Row."

The latter took it, squeezed it, and nodded with satisfaction.

It was a carload of new books, literary magazines, national newspapers, and local papers.

After moving the newspapers, seeing the driver off, and putting them on the bookshelf, it was already eight o'clock.

The shop assistant also opened the door and started business.

Although it is snowing today, it is close to New Year's Eve.

There are still many people going to the market on the street to buy New Year's goods, and from time to time you can hear the sound of children lighting incense and setting off firecrackers.

After a while, people slowly poured into the bookstore, and the number of people gradually increased.

"Comrade, give me a copy of the Literary and Art Newspaper."

A young man and woman holding hands approached, and the young and handsome gay man in a long black coat, scarf and gloves called out in a gentle voice.

The Literary Gazette was very popular among the educated youth, so it was placed next to the counter.

The clerk found the Literary and Art Newspaper nearby and handed it to him: "Here, your Literary and Art Newspaper... 20 cents a copy."

"Thank you, comrade."

The handsome young man responded with a smile.

The warm smile made her head dizzy.

But soon her thoughts were interrupted by a female voice as clear and elegant as a guqin.

"Here you go, comrade."

A young lesbian in a soft white mink coat held two coins in front of her eyes with her white jade fingers, and the emphasis of her words was on the word "comrade".

"..."

The female clerk tilted her head and took a closer look at the other person's appearance.

Ok.

She took the coin silently and watched the two of them leave the store.

This appearance and temperament are a perfect match.

The former is gentle and handsome, while the latter is elegant and gentle.

……

"Hum..."

As soon as they left the bookstore, a certain girl couldn't help but puff up her face and hum.

I have to eat this bit of vinegar, but...

Cheng Kaiyan stretched out her finger and poked the girl's puffy cheek, "But she's still so cute..."

"spit!"

Liu Xiaoli spat softly and slapped his fingers away, "What do you think of me as your child?"

"Okay, okay, next time before you laugh, ask for permission from our jealous guy, okay?"

Cheng Kaiyan is a thoughtful person and can guess some of the things.

"I didn't ask you to ask for my opinion..."

When Liu Xiaoli heard this, she muttered softly, but the arms around her chest tightened a little.

The two patted each other on the shoulders, wiped the snow off their heads, put on their hats, and found a breakfast shop to sit down.

"I want a big bowl of wontons..."

After they ordered breakfast, Liu Xiaoli went to the roadside to buy some drinks.

Cheng Kaiyan sat calmly and read the newspaper. A large and bold headline appeared in front of him. He thought:
"Through the blue mosquito net, I see a blue dream. Teacher Xie's writing is still so poetic..."

"I think it should be about the scene in the book where the two sisters watched Totoro's blessing tree seeds grow into towering trees in the mosquito net that night."

Cheng Kaiyan didn't think any more about it. Instead, she calmed down and read the first review article of "My Neighbor Totoro".

……

"I would like to give a definition first. My Neighbor Totoro can be regarded as a classic work that interprets the child-centered approach."

"It holds up the most precious life experience of childhood - fantasy - with the most gentle hands!"

"Or rather a dream, a child's dream."

……

After reading this, Cheng Kaiyan smiled happily, as if she had found a confidant.

As expected of a literary master, he has captured the uniqueness of this work.

He then looked down.

"The article seems to be a simple timeline, describing a father who moved to the countryside near a sanatorium with his two daughters because his wife was ill and needed to recuperate. Here, the daughters began to have a wonderful and dreamlike experience.

But if you think about it carefully, you can find some clues.

Those seemingly wonderful and dreamy experiences are actually closely related to the real life in the story.

My sister Xiaofeng crawled into the grass and fell into a tree hole. She saw the cute, sleeping Totoro for the first time. She pounced on him and lay on him, sleeping soundly.

In fact, this is similar to the situation that morning when my sister Xiaofeng threw herself on her father and tried to wake him up, but ended up being held in his arms and taking a nap.

One day, Dad went to the hospital to visit Mom, and the younger sister couldn't help but follow her sister to school. In class, she drew herself encountering a Totoro. Judging from Comrade Cheng Kaiyan's sloppy drawing, it was probably a picture of Dad sleeping with his mouth open.

On the way home from school, at the station on a rainy day, the two sisters were waiting for their father to go home together. They accidentally met a Totoro wearing a lotus leaf on his head and a cat bus with eight legs.

In fact, it is also the fantasy of the two sisters. The father is Totoro, the lotus leaf is the umbrella held by the father, the cat bus is the cat that was eaten by the monster in the haunted house according to the children’s rumors, and there is also a collection of buses. "

“Now comes the most touching part of this article.

One night, hoping that their mother's condition would improve, the father and his two daughters planted the oak seeds given by Mr. Totoro.

After taking a bath, the two sisters set up a mosquito net with their father. The three of them lay on the floor, looking at the stars and the moon outside the window to enjoy the cool air, while listening to their father telling stories.

What happened next was that the two sisters woke up at the same time from their dreams late at night, and saw the Totoro family praying for the tree seeds outside the window. With their combined efforts, the trees grew into towering trees. The Totoro took them to the top of the tree ten thousand meters high, and when they woke up the next morning, they found that the seeds had really sprouted.

In fact, this fantastic, magnificent, ancient and mysterious prayer scene corresponds to the father and his two daughters reclaiming the grass and forming a flower bed that morning.

The seeds grew because of my father's daily irrigation and growth records, which are all recorded in his notebook.

Reality is the soil of dreams.

But Comrade Cheng Kaiyan did not crudely superimpose fantasy on reality, but let dreams grow naturally from the cracks of reality like vines.

This approach breaks the traditional binary opposition and creates a realistic third space, allowing readers to move freely between reality and dreams.

That is, through the blue mosquito net, you see a blue, illusory dream.

Finally, I would like to ask Comrade Cheng Kaiyan on behalf of our readers.

1. Do these three chinchillas correspond to the father and his two daughters?
Second, the younger sister Xiaofeng and the older sister Xiaofei, they are actually the same person at different ages, right? "...

"Is Teacher Bing Xin's guess true?"

Liu Xiaoli asked curiously from behind. She has been particularly fond of this story ever since she finished watching "My Neighbor Totoro".

Not only because it is Cheng Kaiyan's work, but also because of the warmth and naturalness of the story.

The bigger reason is that the main characters of this story are her and Comrade Xiao Cheng, and even their future children...

Liu Xiaoli feels that such a harmonious, peaceful, warm and happy life is really wonderful!

She has now begun to look forward to such a future life.

Of course, this does not include the setting of being hospitalized due to illness.

"Maybe, maybe not. Who can tell about children's affairs?"

Cheng Kaiyan laughed and didn't answer.

"So you're a kid?!"

Liu Xiaoli grabbed his ear and rubbed it in dissatisfaction.

"Who can tell?"

"what?!"

The two of them played around and the atmosphere was quite peaceful and harmonious.

However, in addition to this, the literary review written by Teacher Xie Bingxin in the "Wenyi Bao" has indeed attracted more people's attention to "My Neighbor Totoro" which was published in "Children's Literature" two days ago.

Wangfujing Bookstore, Beijing.

"Comrade, please give me a copy of Children's Literature and another copy of Literary Gazette."

“Children’s literature?”

Before the clerk could even begin to wonder, a few more young men came in and shouted, "Comrade, I want a children's literature issue that has My Neighbor Totoro."

After seeing off these customers, a few middle-aged people in their forties or fifties came in and asked, "Comrade, a book of children's literature."

Through Ms. Xie's literary review, many people learned that Comrade Cheng Kaiyan, a talented writer who has been very successful in the past two years, has published a new children's literature work called "My Neighbor Totoro".

People who like children's literature are very happy, and even those who don't like children's literature or don't read it often come to buy it.

In just a few days, bookstores across the country announced that their stocks of children's literature were running low and called to request more prints.

For a while, readers were discussing it enthusiastically.

"Teacher Bing Xin's article provides a really good and profound analysis.

I also feel that the Totoro family is actually a father and his daughter, but are Xiaofeng and Xiaofei really the same person? "

"Yes."

"In fact, it is meaningless to analyze so complicatedly and meticulously. For children, there is no need to distinguish between reality and dreams so clearly. The most important thing is not to escape from reality, nor to indulge in dreams. We must learn..."

"Learn what?"

Others asked him further, but he couldn't answer.

But the question soon had an answer.

The next day was the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month.

The famous writer Chen Bochui commented in the Literary Gazette:

“Comrade Cheng Kaiyan did not let the chinchilla cure her mother’s illness, nor did she let the cat bus take them away from reality.

On the contrary, it allows reality and fantasy to intertwine and influence each other.

My mother was still lying on the hospital bed, but there was a corn on the windowsill, representing hope and vitality.

Dad still has to work late at night, but the children know that there is a furry guardian angel in a tree hole.

This approach tells us:

Fairy tales are not an escape from reality, but a soft coating of sugar on the cold and hard reality, giving us the courage to move forward.

Just like when looking for the lost sister, the old neighbor lady always believed that she must have "sleepwalked" and ran away, rather than being lost, and she would definitely come back by herself when she woke up.

Therefore, like the children, we must always keep the secret of encountering the furry spirit on that rainy night.

Don't make too clear a distinction between reality and dreams.

……

Soon after, Zhejiang Daily published a review of My Neighbor Totoro by Jiang Feng, a well-known scholar of children's literature theory.

"My Neighbor Totoro is a Gentle Shelter for Children"

Professor Jiang Feng commented in the article:
In "My Neighbor Totoro", Cheng Kaiyan transforms the complex real-life dilemma into a fantasy adventure through a fairy tale filter, and uses children's true nature to perceive the world, making this story a common spiritual habitat for adults and children.

It fully embodies the idea of ​​child-centeredness.

The story strictly follows the perspective of the two sisters Xiaofeng and Xiaofei:
For example, the rolling track of the acorn, the high steps of the attic, and the touch of the coal briquettes in the closet are all presented from a child's unique microscopic perspective.

The father's perspective is not the traditional, old-fashioned adult perspective, but he bends down and observes the world with his children.

……

Secondly, the "non-dangerous" fantasy creature Chinchilla not only satisfies children's readers' yearning for mystery, but also ensures their sense of psychological security.

Comrade Cheng Kaiyan, this is very thoughtful.

The existence of chinchillas makes nature no longer a strange wilderness, but a playground with a gentle guardian angel.

Finally, I would like to say that the greatness of "My Neighbor Totoro" lies in the fact that it does not try to "educate" children, but squats down to share a beautiful fairy tale with them.

When I saw Xiaofeng sleeping soundly on the belly of the chinchilla, I hoped that this was the beautiful childhood that all children deserve, gently supported by love.

……

Several well-known figures in the literary and academic circles have expressed their opinions and comments on Cheng Kaiyan's "My Neighbor Totoro".

So much so that more and more readers, writers, and critics are getting involved.

Some analyzed whether the two sisters were the same person, while others analyzed the prototype of the magical creature called Totoro, saying it was a combination of rabbit, mouse, cat and dragon.

Some analyzed whether the mother's illness would be cured, and some analyzed whether the father in the article would lose his dignity and not conform to the image of a traditional father...

All of a sudden, many comments were published like mushrooms after rain.

……

BJ Chaoyang Bookstore.

“As Professor Jiang Feng said, My Neighbor Totoro is a really good work. It made me, a person who doesn’t like children’s literature, fall in love with it.

The sincere family affection in the article is very touching, especially the father in the article, who really put himself in his daughters' shoes and described the chinchilla as the guardian of the forest in a childlike manner. "

"Yeah, Dad is so gentle. I wish I had a dad like him."

At the desk in the bookstore, a little girl of about twelve or thirteen couldn't help but sigh.

A pair of sisters passed by.

They were the pair of sisters from the welfare home, Xiao He and Xiao Li Yu.

Xiao He, who was holding her sister's hand, heard this and tugged at her hand: "Sister...are they talking about my Neighbor Totoro written by big brother?"

That afternoon, the older brother told her the story of My Neighbor Totoro. The two sisters in the story were very similar to her and her sister, so it left a deep impression on her.

It was such a wonderful life, she really wanted to live it with her sister.

"Yeah...it seems like Brother Cheng is as gentle as my father."

The little carp quietly remembered that day when Brother Cheng learned about his sister's illness and said that she could come to him if she had any problems.

That voice was really gentle and beautiful.

"Sister...I miss my dad..."

Xiao He tilted her little face up and pursed her lips as she spoke, crystal tears welling up in her pink eyes.

"I thought about it, too."

The little carp bit his lips and said in a hoarse voice.

(End of this chapter)