"Out of the Mountain Col" takes the fate of the three brothers of the Chen family in southern Jiangxi over the past forty years as the axis, and outlines the history of spiritual migration under the collision of farming civilization and the wave of urbanization. In the 1980s, the umbilical cord of the clan was tight: Chen Yuanshan grasped Zhou tightly and clenched the pencil, which constituted a fateful conflict with his father's roar of "four generations living under the same roof"; Chen Jinshui was punished by a ruler for talking about "textbooks", and the blood drops of his family tree condensed into birthmarks of inferiority in local languages. In the 1990s, the labor craze swept across the country. When Chen Jinshui changed his academic qualifications and squeezed into a state-owned enterprise, his eldest brother was ridiculed on the assembly line because of his dialect. The wave of layoffs and the meat-breaking ceremony in the ancestral hall intertwined into the spiritual weaning history of the "second generation of farmers".
Post-millennium nostalgia encounters capital co-optation: Mother's ashes are rejected due to new homestead regulations, the old house renovation dispute and the Qingming live broadcast conflict are mirror images of each other - ancestor worship incense and Internet celebrity fill-in lights interweave into a cybernuo drama. In the 2010s, new technologies such as the Metaverse further deconstructed traditional foundations: NFT ancestral property transactions impacted the patriarchal system, VR ancestor worship eliminated the physical meaning of "fallen leaves returning to their roots", and the electronic signatures of the three brothers on the blockchain agreement and their father's cement palm prints finally formed a closed loop of time and space.
The work uses "foundation bones" and "silver bracelets and broken silver" as running images, melting land policy changes and identity crisis into annual rings of civilization evolution. When the old house turns into a data afterimage of the server matrix, the memory of the ancestral hall floating in the cloud is like electronic moss, silently imprinting the password of the entire family's tearing and rebirth on the blockchain. From scratching pencils to virtual flesh, from dialect shame to metaverse nostalgia, each era slice hides the symbiotic genes of tradition and technology, witnessing the lives of those who have left their hometowns in rebuilding the root system of nostalgia in the torrent of the times.
Reader comments
"Out of the Col" really writes the contradiction between human nature and power brilliantly! The protagonist wants to change his destiny through knowledge, but is repeatedly challenged by the power relations in the village. After finally saving some money, he is deceived by various secret operations and loses all his money. Power has become the private weapon of some people in small places, and it has brought out all the selfishness and greed of human nature. But the protagonist was not completely swallowed up by the darkness, and was still struggling to resist in the end. This book is like a mirror, showing how difficult it is for people at the bottom to escape from their predicament. It is heart-wrenching and enjoyable to read!
When writing "Out of the Col", I couldn't help but think: If fate is a relay race, these three brothers are simply receiving batons from different tracks! The eldest brother, Chen Yuanshan, went out to study medicine in the mountains, but encountered an undercurrent of power and interests in the hospital; the second child, Chen Jinshui, guarded the mountain village and family ties, but was trapped by land, human relationships and backward concepts; the third child, Chen Wangchuan, wandered into the city after college, lost and awakened under the neon lights.
In the past few decades, urban and rural areas have changed so fast that it is difficult to catch them. Some people are pushed by the times, some are desperately trying to catch up, and some are left behind. The story of the three brothers is actually the epitome of countless ordinary people - have you seen the shadow of yourself or the people around you in them? Their choices, struggles and persistence may give us a little more understanding of life and a little more courage to compete with fate! Come and talk to me, which character do you feel most distressed about?
"Out of the Col" really writes the contradiction between human nature and power brilliantly! The protagonist wants to change his destiny through knowledge, but is repeatedly challenged by the power relations in the village. After finally saving some money, he is deceived by various secret operations and loses all his money. Power has become the private weapon of some people in small places, and it has brought out all the selfishness and greed of human nature. But the protagonist was not completely swallowed up by the darkness, and was still struggling to resist in the end. This book is like a mirror, showing how difficult it is for people at the bottom to escape from their predicament. It is heart-wrenching and enjoyable to read! When writing "Out of the Col", I couldn't help but think: If fate is a relay race, these three brothers are simply receiving batons from different tracks! The eldest brother, Chen Yuanshan, went out to study medicine in the mountains, but encountered an undercurrent of power and interests in the hospital; the second child, Chen Jinshui, guarded the mountain village and family ties, but was trapped by land, human relationships and backward concepts; the third child, Chen Wangchuan, wandered into the city after college, lost and awakened under the neon lights. In the past few decades, urban and rural areas have changed so fast that it is difficult to catch them. Some people are pushed by the times, some are desperately trying to catch up, and some are left behind. The story of the three brothers is actually the epitome of countless ordinary people - have you seen the shadow of yourself or the people around you in them? Their choices, struggles and persistence may give us a little more understanding of life and a little more courage to compete with fate! Come and talk to me, which character do you feel most distressed about?