When reading the novel "The Submarine in the Night," I thought it was a kind of exploration, a glimpse into the utopia in the author's heart, which is the submarine constructed by Chen Chuncheng. The novel begins with a coin thrown into the sea by Borges, but ends with the real life of an unrelated adult. The only connection between the two is that the wealthy businessman, driven by obsession, sends someone to search for the coin and captures a mysterious blue submarine. This submarine is the embodiment of the boy's imagination.
The boy cannot concentrate in real life, but he has an extraordinary imagination that can turn fantasies into reality. He sees the black and white keys of the piano turn into pandas, into penguins. When he hears Mozart, he feels like he is flying into the galaxy on a hot air balloon. He can sleep in a lotus, swim in the clouds, walk on a blackboard, and freely enter and exit countless worlds.
Later, he discovered that his fantasies were not just imagination, but could even establish some connections with reality. As long as the fantasies were created in enough detail, they became another kind of reality. Influenced by his grandfather, the boy invented a submarine. The second floor of the submarine had the exact same internal structure as the second floor of his house. Every night, while his parents were asleep next door, he transformed into a captain and went on adventures with Bulbasaur and Pikachu. These adventures continued until his second year of high school.
After a heavy conversation with his parents one evening after self-study, his parents made him realize that while he had been immersed in exploring the underwater world for these years, he had neglected his aging parents in reality. The reality of college entrance exams, employment, and marriage, which were beyond his consciousness, were pushed to the forefront by his parents, and he tasted the bitterness of anxiety.
In the following three days, he tried to study seriously, but he couldn't help but daydream. The cracks in the classroom walls, erasers, and even the names of the editors on the front pages of textbooks could make the vines in his mind extend. But during these nights, he didn't go into the submarine anymore. On the third night, he made a solemn decision: Imagination had separated from him, so he imagined that his imagination truly turned into a cluster of pale blue light, like the tail flame of a firefly, detached from his body and soared like a comet.
The ending can be imagined. Without excessive imagination, he became a person who could focus on studying and live a normal life. He worked in an advertising company and became a famous painter. However, he left his submarine forever at the bottom of the sea in 1999, paused along with Pikachu and Bulbasaur. He said that his flame had extinguished when he was sixteen, and his so-called career was just a few wisps of smoke rising after the flame went out.
"I have painted the same painting over and over again. In the center of the deep blue background, there is a deeper blue. Some say it looks like a leaf, some say it looks like an eye, like a whale in the sea. People speculate about the hidden meaning. In fact, there is no meaning at all. It is a submarine. My submarine. It travels in the eternal night. It will forever, forever hover in my deep blue dream." In his farewell letter, he left behind these poignant words.
There is also a foreshadowing at the end of the novel. On a summer evening in 2166, a child picked up a small metal lump on the beach, looked at it, and threw it into the sea. Thus, the story comes to an end.
After reading it, I marveled at the author's smooth writing style and abundant imagination. Chen Chuncheng himself said that this novel is a deep reflection of himself. The connection between the coin and the submarine that many people criticized was solid. He said he used an X-shaped writing technique, and the two only have one intersection. The submarine was originally a secret in his heart, but after writing this story, it became something to show to others. Each piece is marked with a date, and every time he sees a date, he recalls what he was doing at that time.
The time of this novel is October 28, 2017. It was my first formal job after graduation, and I was full of infinite enthusiasm for work, not the work itself, but to escape the psychological pain and seek self-worth in work. From 2017 to 2019, those were probably the most challenging two years of my life.
I have never had such a transcendent imagination, nor have I piloted a submarine into the depths of the sea. But in my imaginary world, I am occasionally a person. Occasionally, I am a cat. I have invented a flying device that I can strap to my arm and fly in the sky. I experience various world disasters and, when doomsday comes, I can find a roadside tavern with fellow travelers to have a drink. Perhaps I am a murderer, perhaps being chased by ghosts. I drive a truck and escape, cruising in the air with a flying car.
But sometimes, I am also abandoned by family and loved ones. The me in the imaginary world has strong and keen emotions, but the me in reality does not. Perhaps it has been unconsciously hidden, or perhaps the imaginary world has exhausted my emotions, and it can no longer be consumed in the real world. Just like in this novel, it also cost Chen Chuncheng a lot of imagination. Because sometimes, imagination only exists in the mind. Once it is put into words, it needs precise description to recreate the atmosphere of the imagination.
I believe this is the power that reading brings to me. It is a refuge for my spiritual world and a way for me to find answers to my questions. It allows me to transcend time and have a glimpse of people in distant places. I delve into the thoughts of the past and explore their spiritual worlds. As for this novel, I cannot judge whether it is good or bad because a person's inner world should not be debated.