As we all know, there are three and a half Japanese literary circles, one is an emotional male writer represented by Haruki Murakami, the other is a mystery novel represented by Keigo Higashino, and the third is a female literature that cannot be expressed because of too many characters, among which Yoshimoto Banana and Amy Yamada are the most famous. Yoshimoto Banana is probably no stranger to everyone, because her writing style is peaceful and she has won a lot of praise at home. But in Japan, Amy Yamada can go further.
1959- In 1985, Amy Yamada (1959-) won the 22nd literary prize for her first novel, Eyes on the Bed, and now she has become one of the most popular female writers in modern Japanese literature. So far, she has published more than 100 novels and more than 40 essays and dialogues. From 1987 to 2005, she won the 97th Naoki Award, the 17 Prince Lin Ping Literature Award and the 30th Women's Literature Award for her works such as Soul Music Only Lovers Can Hear, Classroom Buried in the Wind, Garbage, The Logic of the Beast, A2Z and Youwei.
Amy Yamada's bold style and unique theme attracted the attention of Japanese public opinion. Although the theme of her works has always been controversial, it has not affected her becoming a bestseller. Yamada also surpassed Yoshimoto Banana and other female writers in praising beauty, and was named "Queen" in the eyes of Japanese female students.
Let's get down to business.
Postmodernism, if you look it up on the Internet, there are usually many grand explanations. But as far as I know, in layman's terms, it is a resistance to modernism. What is modernism? Is to advocate civilization and the majority. Postmodernism, on the other hand, advocates individuality and emphasizes the pluralistic orientation of value, which blurs the standard of traditional morality.
In order to see clearly the postmodern features in Amy Yamada's works, I will first list some elements in modernist works or ordinary works (please don't take color, see the general situation in the sense of big data):
1. Gay characters are less than bisexual.
2. Blacks rarely become male owners.
3. The center of society is all male characters (which is why so many of Mary Su's works are popular).
4. The good guy must be Gao Fushuai.
A perfect family or two generations should be related by blood.
6. Good love can't tolerate a third party.
However, in Yamada's works praising beauty, 50% of love relationships are between gay men and lesbians, because she thinks that love is love and does not need to care about gender; 95% of the leading men are black, because she thinks that the robustness of black people is the most primitive state of life; Almost all men can't support a family independently. Both men and women should work together, and even girls pay more than boys. Not as popular as boys in Gao Fushuai, the most important thing is a sense of responsibility; In her works, the composition of a family can be in the form of stepmother and stepson, but the blood relationship between father and son will become an obstacle; As long as you are a soul mate, living with your ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend is nothing. ...
Seeing this, do you think it is ridiculous, and you can understand why her works are rare in China. But let's put aside her values first, shall we? Let's look at the concern for human civilization that she wants to express in her works. You may think, maybe she is right, maybe in a hundred years, the mainstream values of our society will be the same, who can say that is impossible.
The work The Logic of Animals is one of the few published works in China. Personally, I feel that this work embodies all the above elements.
The story in the novel takes place in Manhattan, new york, which is called the "Human Zoo". The protagonist is Molly, a black woman, but the real narrator of the story is Brad, an animal in Molly. It tells the joys and sorrows of Molly and her friends in emotional and humorous language, and sometimes walks out of Molly's body to save her when she kisses others and acts as her protector. With a multi-character, multi-center and multi-plot "hodgepodge" narrative style, the novel tells the situation of discriminated blacks, whites discriminated by blacks, AIDS patients, gay couples and abused children. These "vulnerable groups" did not give up because of discrimination, but fought against them through their own efforts and lived their own style.
However, in the end, everyone died of heart disease (the story refers to the civilization advocated by human beings), but the animal Brad survived. This work reconsiders and interprets many cultural symbols such as men, women, whites and blacks. From the perspective of animals, it shows that the civilization advocated by human beings has not eliminated discrimination, but has become the source of discrimination and difference, and human beings can't get rid of the logic of animals in the end.
Amy Yamada used parody, pluralism, parallel structure and other postmodern narrative methods in the creation of this work, which fully expressed her concern about social issues such as race relations, homosexuality, AIDS and crime. Parody, in short, is the imitation of the style and language of classic works, and The Logic of the Beast is the imitation of Natsume Soseki's I am a cat. Look at people from animal perspective and animal logic, so the language is very humorous and interesting.
Diversification is actually an open ending. In traditional narrative works, the ending is the ending. But in this work, all human beings are dead, and it is reasonable to say that Brad in the human body will die, but Brad's ending story is not explained, but Brad's son appears. Our son chose to keep it on a black child. We don't know what the chances are that he will survive. Some writers have commented on the ending of this work, which makes people confused and completely meaningless, but uncertainty is a manifestation of postmodernism subverting tradition and can also stimulate readers' imagination.
The parallel structure is to break the original time sequence of the story (as Xiao Bing said, to break the timeline), not to highlight who is the protagonist, but to show the facts at multiple levels and arouse readers' deep thinking. Actually, it's similar to the montage technique in the movie.
As mentioned above, this work expresses concern for the black and gay groups, and actually wants to rebel against the traditional society in this extreme way and try to achieve the ultimate goal of "freedom, finally". She places all her hopes on Brad. In the whole work, Brad's efforts are actually a struggle on the spiritual level of human beings, as Yongmei Yamada himself said: Saving is actually meaningless. It is impossible for one person to save lives. Even if he saved his body, he couldn't save his soul. To realize the true equality of human beings, we must first defeat the devil in everyone's heart.
In this sense, this work will be a classic of postmodernism, with profound practical and social significance.