Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism
No.2, 2025
“Daily Legends” in Multiple “Articulations” — On Zhang Chu’s Novel Yunluo
(Abstract)
Guo Baoliang
The main plot of Zhang Chu’s novel Yunluo, or Falling Cloud, adopts a synchronic folding approach. Each chapter tells the stories of different characters, and within each story, the stories of others are “articulated” and connected. This allows the characters to observe and recognize each other, thus completing the characterization and advancing the plot. The time of the subplot is multi-faceted. Zhang Chu uses an alternating method of diachronic large-scale parallel connection and diachronic small-scale parallel connection to link up the characters’ growth histories and spiritual histories, thereby creating a sense of legend and historical depth in the novel. Through the “articulation” of synchronic folding and diachronic parallelism, a network-like polyphonic structure of Yunluo is constructed. This structure is both the artistic form of the novel and part of its content. Zhang Chu’s discovery of the county as a more typical “urban-rural intermediacy,” that is, “articulation,” is actually a way of understanding and expressing the world. The infinite cycle of multiple “articulations” and “disarticulations” is a mirror-like representation of Chinese social reality and culture since the reform and opening up.