Wave Landscape

"My friends and I were once in a tropical storm in the 1990s. I took my friends on bicycles and headed straight into the water, pedaling hard.
And then, together, we entered the dry next century.”
——Zhou Jianing※ Four years later, Zhou Jianing’s new collection of novellas follows Basic Beauty, completing the millennial novella trilogy with Goodbye Solar Eclipse, Landscape of Waves, and Tomorrow’s Party. Starting with the three themes of “genius girls,” underground clothing, and radio culture, respectively, with a solid, precise, and restrained narrative, he outlines the inner qualities of a generation of Chinese people who grew up in the context of globalization.
About collective memory and individual dreams, the wind on the crest of the waves and good fortune, the wreckage left in the shallows, friendship and monuments. The resonance from the beginning of the century fills the present moment, until the passion that once existed reshapes itself in an increasingly complete order.
※ From a remote American town to a basement called "Windbreak" somewhere in Nanjing, from a southbound train packed with Luo Dayou fans to the defunct Shanghai Dimei Underground City, Zhou Jianing writes about friendship, love, and dreams in the tide of the times, providing readers with "a clean and bright place" in the form of a novel.
This book includes three novellas written by Zhou Jianing from 2019 to the present: "Goodbye Solar Eclipse" (2019), "Landscape of Waves" (2021), and "Tomorrow's Party" (2022).
"Goodbye Solar Eclipse": Japanese writer Taku Mitsushima returns to the small town of Paonia after twenty years, reuniting with friends from his youth. Meanwhile, the Chinese girl, Quan, with her secret past, has long been lost to the depths of the world, preserved only in Taku's fictional language. Now, in this utopia where lakes, meadows, and forests meet, a funeral has concluded, and a solar eclipse is about to be witnessed.
"The Landscape of Waves": As if to continue an old dream from the end of the century, "I" and Qunqing joined the ranks of the new century's trendsetters, renting a stall in the Dimei Underground City and starting a clothing business. In the tide of the times, friendship, love, money, and dreams were lifted high, then quickly swept away, leaving a trail of foam. Standing before the pyramid on the beach, "I" decided not to be a victim trapped in memories, but to extend my arms and send a signal of courage to the universe.
"Tomorrow's Party": Zhang Zhou, the host of a late-night music show, connects the friendships of "me," Wang Lu, Xiao Xiao, and the "Combat Command" group like a formless wave. We journey through Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, and Taipei at the turn of the century, attempting to build a "Tomorrow's Party" about musical dreams in a virtual space and time, nestled in the Yangtze River Estuary wetlands. However, under the pressure of the times, nothing seems to hold. The survivors drift downstream, grateful, landing on one side of the river and waving to the other.

2022-08-01

上海文艺出版社

232

9787532182244