A brief analysis of "Gourmet"

The author of "Gourmet", Lu Wenfu, was born in 1928 in Taixing, Jiangsu. He began literary creation in the early 1950s. In 1956, he published his first collection of short stories, "Honor," and in the same year, he published the short story "Deep in the Alley," which was well received. After returning to the literary world in 1977, he continued to explore and make breakthroughs in creation, and published a series of influential "alley literature" works. He has published novel collections "Honor", "Second Encounter with Zhou Tai", "Deep in the Alley", "Special Court", "Alley Characters" (volumes 1 and 2) and the four-volume "Selected Works of Lu Wenfu". Lu Wenfu pays attention to the critical function of the novel, but always criticizes the long-standing shortcomings with a smile; he insists on drawing materials from daily life, describing ordinary people and things in a broad social and cultural background, pursuing rich meaning and "multi-theme" Unite". The novel is good at conception, and intentionally draws on the expression methods of the storybook and Suzhou Pingtan, and the theme is unified." The novel is good at conception, and intentionally draws on the expression method of the storybook and Suzhou Pingtan. It is full of national characteristics and local flavor, just like each exquisitely constructed piece. The "Suzhou Garden" is gorgeous and unique among contemporary Chinese novels.

"The Gourmet" can be regarded as the masterpiece of Lu Wenfu's "alley literature". The novel cleverly portrays Gao Xiaoting, a simple and upright revolutionary cadre. It is intertwined with the ups and downs of Zhu Ziye, a capitalist who has been obsessed with eating and drinking all his life, for more than 40 years, forming a tortuous and complicated contradiction and entanglement. It dissects nearly half a century of social life from a special perspective, and cleverly uses Gao Xiaoting to Let's examine the behavior and psychology of "gourmet" Zhu Ziye in various periods. Zhu Ziye is a real estate capitalist who has made eating his whole life, and even became "good at eating" after entering the era of reform and opening up. He was honored as a "gourmet" and became the president of the Culinary Society. Zhu Ziye's ups and downs reflected the changes of the times and changes in people's values. This change corrected a prejudice; don't just follow life. From a perspective of perspective, we should despise this kind of person, but also see the rich food culture he accumulated from eating to become "e;" this is a valuable spiritual wealth that should be loved and respected. The discovery of Zhu Ziye's value. , is affirmed, which reflects the depth and development of reform and opening up from one side. The changeability of history is vividly and profoundly revealed from the invariance of this character.

Gao Xiaoting is examining Zhu Ziye. In the process, he also saw himself. He was extremely disgusted with the lifestyle of Zhu Ziye. Under the influence of ultra-leftist trends, he issued an "anti-eating and drinking manifesto" and did not cook famous dishes, but practiced "popularization" of dishes. Monotonous and poor, he puts himself on the opposite side of Suzhou's food culture. He only sees the delicious and enjoyable side of parasites like Zhu Ziye, but fails to see that eating well is also the desire of the people. After twists and turns, he finally understood that "eating culture" should be preserved and developed. The twists and turns of Gao Xiaoting's thoughts reflected the dangers and lessons of "Left" leanings in several historical stages since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and are a true mirror of history.

The work takes the tortuous development of the characters' fate as the main line, interweaving Zhu Ziye's repeated process of eating and not eating and Gao Xiaoting's process of opposing food to paying attention to food, and communicates history with reality. The novel uses Suzhou's customs, garden scenery, famous dishes, historical monuments, etc. to create a unique landscape, creating the unique mood, artistic conception and charm of the work, coupled with the smooth use of Wu dialect. , adding a strong local color to the work.