Modern Social Science Research

From Pan Hui to Listening to the Leak, Liu Xinglong's novels have transformed the image of Wuhan as a "grand dock"; instead, through the thousand-year echoes of bronze civilization in the ancient lands of Han and Chu, he recasts Wuhan's cultural deposits and historical essence. It is the tracing back to the emphasis on uprightness and righteousness in Chu culture that attests to Liu Xinglong's sobriety and rigor when confronting history. As an "archaeological novel", Listening to the Leak upholds the unity of "historical truth" and "artistic truth". In terms of narration, the novel takes artifacts as carriers, and through the hustle and bustle of daily life, endows them with historical and cultural depth through people's own real life experiences while shuttling between history and reality. Meanwhile, the integration of archaeology and novel art is not a simple direct description of the archaeological process, but an ingenious interweaving of historical mysteries, archaeological knowledge and human activities; we can notice the profound influence of archaeology on the novel's structure from the perspectives of narrative logic and symbolic representation. In addition, the novel takes the conflict of emotional ethics as the entry point, showing the fragmentation of traditional ethics among contemporary intellectuals and the complex tension of human hearts and nature in the collision between history and reality, and explores the profound possibilities of it as the spiritual and cultural foundation of contemporary Chinese intellectuals with a sincere heart of "seeking truth".

Listening to the Leak; Liu Xinglong; History; Archaeology; Narration