Dushan (Lone Mountain)

Name: Dushan (Lone Mountain)
ISBN: 9787540461249

Pu ZiHunan Literature and Art Publishing House2013

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Series: The Wangzhuang Trilogy
ISBN: 9787540461249

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Summary

Dushan is the second installment of Zhejiang writer Pu Zi's Wangzhuang Trilogy, which the author worked on for many years. It was first published by Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House in 2013, and in 2017 was included in the revised and complete edition of the trilogy issued by Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House. Continuing the narrative timeline of Dragon Kiln, the novel centers on the fictional Wangzhuang in Shanhai County in eastern Zhejiang, chronicling the upheavals that sweep this land from around the time of the 1911 Revolution to the final years of the Republic. The story opens on New Year's Day of the third year of the Xuantong reign, in a snowstorm: the widowed Wang Lingdi carries home from the snow a naked man of unknown origin, and this act of rescue becomes the structural and emotional thread of the entire novel, drawing in her entanglement with Zheng Xifeng—first a teacher, later a bandit—and a series of crises between Wangzhuang's public school and the county government. The novel's true protagonist is Wang Chuan-da, son of Wang Shimin: kidnapped by mountain bandits, he is forced to see his family sell its land and house cheaply to his cousin Wang Chuanben; afterward he sacrifices his fortune to save the family, strives tirelessly to restore its prosperity, and time and again holds the line amid the chaos of officials, bandits, and common folk. Cousin Wang Chuanben moves between the world of commerce and the mountain stronghold, driven by a desire for revenge and a vigorous appetite for life, becoming the mirror image of Wang Chuanda. The appearance of the Japanese woman Qianxue entangles individual fates with metaphors of Chinese and Japanese culture. With Lone Mountain—an ordinary yet independent hill—as its spiritual totem, the work uses dialect, customs, temple fairs, clan feuds, and banditry to depict the struggles and endurance of people in a patriarchal society. Critic Lei Da called it the author's "rather successful imagining of the vitality bursting forth among the common people," while Chen Sihe regarded the Wangzhuang Trilogy as an important achievement of persistent folk-oriented writing.

Editor's review

一座不起眼的小山，一群不认命的小人物。《独山》在“王庄三部曲”中承上启下：它承接《龙窑》的晚清余绪，把舞台推进到民国，又不急于交代结论，而是让官、匪、商、学、农各色人等在同一块土地上互相纠缠。浦子写的是浙东山村，能读到的却是百年中国的缩影——宗法秩序的松动、现代制度的下沉、匪患与保甲的荒唐共生，都被写进了人物的日常呼吸里。这本书的力气不在情节的奇诡，而在“人”的写法。王传达温和、隐忍、几近软弱，却始终不倒；王传本精明、凶悍、睚眦必报，反而最有生气。一正一反，恰是同一个生命密码的两半。日本艺伎千雪与王家父子的关系，更把家族恩怨提升为文化隐喻，写得含混、暧昧而耐人寻味。需要提醒的是，这不是一本“好读”的书。方言密集，叙事缠绕，视角在多个家族成员之间往来游移，开头几章可能让人摸不着头脑。但只要沉住气读下去，那种带着土腥气和血腥气的浙东风味就会扑面而来。适合愿意慢慢咀嚼语言、对乡土中国有兴趣的读者。

Who it's for

A good fit for

对现当代中文长篇小说有系统阅读兴趣的读者
喜欢《白鹿原》《活着》一类乡土家族叙事的读者
研究浙江地域文学、民间写作与乡土社会变迁的读者
能接受方言写作、魔幻现实主义笔法与慢节奏叙事的耐心型读者

Not a good fit for

希望阅读情节紧凑、节奏明快的类型小说的读者
对方言密集、句式缠绕的文本缺乏耐心的入门读者
对涉及性、暴力与乱世残酷描写较为敏感的读者

Reading tips

建议先读《龙窑》再读本书，理解王世民到王传达两代人的生命传递
不必强求记住全部人物，先抓住王传达、王传本、玲娣三条线索
遇到方言词句可先跳过，读完一段再回看，体味语感而非逐字考据
可配合陈思和、雷达关于“王庄三部曲”的评论文章一起读，帮助理解隐喻层次

About the publisher

Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1985

Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House is a publisher known for its literary titles, with a catalogue spanning foreign literature, world classics, classical Chinese literature, essays and miscellaneous writings, and mystery and detective fiction. Judging from the more than 1,100 books in the database, the press publishes foreign classics such as Crime and Punishment, Snow Country, The Complete Sherlock Holmes and Letter from an Unknown Woman, as well as Chinese classical and modern literary works including Lu Xun's Wandering and A Madman's Diary and Wu Jingzi's The Scholars. In terms of translators and authors, translations by Cao Guowei and Tan Jinghua appear in its foreign literature titles, and the authors involved include Dostoevsky, Kawabata Yasunari, Conan Doyle and Zweig. Its publishing character lies in introducing Chinese and foreign literary classics side by side, balancing popular and serious works and attending to both readability and literary value. Public information is limited; the above is a brief overview based solely on the books in the database.

FAQ

《独山》是独立的一本书，还是必须成套读？

《独山》是浦子“王庄三部曲”（《龙窑》《独山》《大中》）的第二部。虽是独立的长篇，但人物与情节承接第一部《龙窑》，先读前作理解会更完整。

这本书有多少页、由哪家出版社出版？

2013年湖南文艺出版社版为267页、16开平装，定价28元，ISBN 9787540461249。2017年浙江文艺出版社推出了作者修订的三部曲完整版。

书名“独山”指的是什么地方？

“独山”是小说中浙东山海县王庄边上的一座海拔不高、却独自矗立的山丘，也是全书的精神图腾，象征平凡而不可撼动的坚韧。

这本书适合当作历史读物来读吗？

不太适合。小说虽以辛亥革命到民国末年为背景，但采用的是一种魔幻现实主义与民间叙事混合的写法，人物身份在官与匪之间自由转换，重在象征与隐喻，并非严谨史实叙述。

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About the author

Pu Zi Author

Pu Zi, whose English name is given as Pu Zi, currently has only limited publicly available information; neither his nationality nor his dates of birth and death are clearly recorded. Judging from the two works held in the collection, Dazhong and Dushan, Pu Zi's writing falls mainly within the categories of literature, historical fiction, and fine fiction, indicating a sustained interest in historical subjects and narrative literature. As his representative works, Dazhong and Dushan appear to lean toward historical settings and the unfolding of human affairs, and they should possess the complete form of fictional creation in both language and structure. Because of the scarcity of materials, however, it is difficult to judge his stylistic origins and specific techniques in greater detail. On the whole, Pu Zi is an author mainly engaged in historical fiction, with two works currently visible, and his writing occupies a place within the fields of literature and historical fiction, inviting readers to explore its narrative aims and character portrayal through the original texts.