Appreciation of Mu Shiying's work "Five People in the Nightclub"

1. Central idea and influence:

(1) Reading "Five People in the Nightclub" is like being there. The whole novel is decadent and glitzy in the urban night. In the ballroom atmosphere, through the description of the crazy and neurotic behaviors of five frustrated people, it expresses the decadence and numbness of Chinese urbanites in the 1930s, their lustful living conditions regardless of the safety of the country, and their confusion and frustration in the city. People's sighs and sentiments.

(2) Historically, society and literary circles have had mixed evaluations of Mu Shiying, with some attacking his character and others praising his literature. Mu Shiying's real social appearance can no longer be verified. In my opinion, there is no need to judge the rights and wrongs of predecessors. At least there are still people who like his works, his style, and the "new feeling" he brings to the world.

2. Writing features:

(1) Editing of life fragments at a fast pace, using a "spatial juxtaposition" structure. In order to be suitable for expressing the bustling, noisy, complex and fast-paced modern urban life, Mu Shiying also used a large number of film montage techniques in the novel to combine pictures and plots, so as to create coherence and echo between different pictures and plots. , foil, contrast, hint and other artistic effects.

(2) The impressionistic description uses simple colors to express the bizarre urban night, giving readers a great space for imagination.

(3) The repeated sentence patterns and a dull writing style show the numbness and emptiness of urban people, which is highly contagious. The novel's form and structure are novel and orderly. Such as "When the lip is bitten...", "Like a burst balloon", "The sound of time..." These sentences, uttered from different people, reach an extraordinary level. expressive effect.

(4) Psychologically analyze the character’s consciousness and unconsciousness, focusing on expressing dual personality. There is a special chapter in "Five People in the Nightclub" about "Five Happy People". These five frustrated people came to the dance hall on Saturday to party, laugh wildly and enjoy themselves in the dance hall. The author uses black and white to describe the scene that constitutes the dance space. Simplifying the dance space into two contrasting colors also implicitly reflects this feature.

Extended information:

Mu Shiying (March 14, 1912 - June 28, 1940) Introduction:

1. Mu Shiying ( March 14, 1912 - June 28, 1940), originally from Zhuangqiao Town, Cixi County, Zhejiang Province. Chinese modern novelist, one of the representatives of the New Sensation School (Mu Shiying, Liu Naou, Shi Zhecun), with pen names such as Fa Yang and Anonymous Zi.

2. Mu Shiying already showed literary talent in middle school. In 1929, when he was 17 years old, he was admitted to the Department of Western Literature of Guanghua University (according to the Department of Western Literature, Gu Yuntian wrote an article "Mourning for Mr. Mu Shiying" after Mu Shiying was killed, see "National News" on July 6, 1940. ).

3. Mu Shiying began to engage in literary creation in 1929, and published her first novel "Our World" the following year; around 1933, Mu Shiying published four collections of novels: "North and South Pole", "Cemetery", "Platinum Female Statue", "Emotions of the Holy Virgin".

4. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he went to Hong Kong to serve as editor of "Sing Tao Daily". In 1939, he returned to Shanghai and successively served as president of "National News" under the leadership of Wang Jingwei's government, and worked in "China Daily" 》Preside over literary and artistic publicity work.

5. At 6:40 pm on June 28, 1940, Mu Shiying was taking a rickshaw after work and passing near No. 195 Fujian Road, Sanma Road, Shanghai. He was suddenly shot by a sniper and was hit once in the right shoulder and right lower abdomen. The bullet hit his vital part, and he died of excessive blood loss. At that time, it was generally believed that he was shot and killed by the "anti-rape" organization lurking in Shanghai. He was only 28 years old at the time.

6. Mu Shiying is known as the "Master of Chinese New Sensationism" in the history of modern literature. A representative writer of literature; most of his works describe the short-lived urban civilization of Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s, revealing the inequality between the rich and the poor in society.