Basic Aspects of Narrative Thinking

The cognitive nature of literature has long been known. When talking about literature, people do not forget to talk about cognitive, educational, and aesthetic functions. Today's literary theory has correctly placed aesthetics at the top, but the cognitive nature of literature is still affirmed. Literary images as a product of artistic cognition are a vivid unity between the general and the particular, the individual. Therefore, when studying the cognitive nature of literature, it is necessary to point out the specific object of literature, to explain the logic of why cognition in literature allows writers to fictionalize and is associated with aesthetic ideals about life as well as subjective feelings of cognitive and creative subjects, things that scientific cognition in general does not accept. So to understand what the writer wants to say, there is no other way than for the reader to find out the writer's thinking, to find out the hidden meanings behind the linguistic shell of the work.

1.1.2. Concept of narrative thinking

The scope of narrative works is very broad and can be classified from many different perspectives. Based on the form of writing, we can talk about basic genres such as epic, narrative poem, long poem (rhymed prose), novel, novella, short story (prose), fable (often using both verse and prose forms). Based on the content of the genre, we can divide works into works with themes of nation, world affairs, ethics, private life... In this thesis, we mention the thinking of the most typical genre in the type of narrative work, which is the thinking of the novel.

Novel thinking, first of all, is a concept used in literature, used within the scope of the novel genre. Because of this specificity, we often see the appearance of the name: short story with novel quality or short story with novel thinking. This concept used in novels mainly focuses on the characteristic: length. The concept of novel thinking is not only used in

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The scope of the novel as a genre has produced the concept (narrow sense) which is also understood as the paradigm (paradigm, the understanding and application of Tran Dinh Su) of thinking (in the broad sense). According to Milan Kundera, this concept was born in modern times and talking about novel thinking is talking about the mindset before existing reality, it is a view that eliminates the distance (not only understood in the physical sense as space) between the subject and the object. To put it simply, if epic thinking expresses an ideal distance between the subject and the object, which according to M, Bakhtin is the " epic distance " [4], expressing the mindset of the descendant before the grandfather, father, and superior, then novel thinking replaces it with an equal, multi-dimensional view, thereby bringing a completely new way of thinking.

Novel thinking originates from the philosophy of life, that is, when there is awareness of people, of life. The changes of life, of the outside world, especially the changes in people's hearts, typically the transformations taking place in existential life are things that people cannot foresee. Novel thinking is a reflection of what is happening, the unfinished reality. It perceives things and people as relative to countless values and moments, therefore novel thinking leads to personal enlightenment, awakening the sense of equality and democracy; novel thinking does not affirm the distance between subject and thing, acknowledging the value seen as relative value, with the contribution of personal color, of personal perception. This has led to the consequence of the richness of personality, which is most clearly reflected in literature: many ways of writing by many people, can write about an object but in each pen is a different discovery, not overlapping.

The characteristic of novel thinking is the narration without distance, in other words, the narration from the present point of view, from the unfinished. Voice

The rhythm and language are interwoven, the shift is without rules, is the voice of everyday language which is lively and rich in nuances. The uncertainty, the author's premonition about life (according to Milan Kundera, it is the manifestation of hesitation ), of the author's experimental self in the journey of the work; can encounter in the work the uncertainties, the unpredictability, the truths of the existential heart. By affirming the multi-truth, eliminating distance, affirming the individual as mentioned above, novel thinking has made literature expand its topics and themes, avoiding monotony and boredom, and the work becomes rich.

1.1.3. Basic aspects of narrative thinking

Looking at the progress of modern Vietnamese prose, we can see the richness and complexity of narrative poetics, of narrative art in all its genres: both as a form and as a constant movement and change. Especially the novel genre, with the rotation of narrators and the interweaving of viewpoints; with the richness and diversity of narrative voices and the unexpected mixing and transformation of the narrator's words, has created a newness in the structure of the novel genre.

A problem that has arisen for our country's literature since 1975 is the need to innovate the way of thinking, the way of writing, to innovate in order to survive and develop. When the resistance war against the US ended, returning to the orbit of peacetime life, prose seemed to follow the old flow, making the reading public indifferent, the efforts of writers were not very effective, literature seemed to be at a standstill. The 6th Party Congress truly brought confidence and strength to the entire people, creating a fulcrum for literature to transform strongly and in a new way. The Party recognized that innovation was needed, first of all, innovation in thinking, innovation in thinking, and innovation in doing. Extensive exchanges with Western countries were a

favorable for artists to explore and create in their works. As a result, aspects of thinking have also changed significantly.

Since the early 80s, Vietnamese prose has shifted to inspiration from world affairs and private life (in fact, works written with epic inspiration still exist but are quite faint and do not cause much resonance). Worldly inspiration gives prose more novelistic qualities, first of all in the ability to capture people from a personal perspective. If epic inspiration refers all life issues to historical reality, then worldly inspiration seeks human reality, referring to human fate with the relationships surrounding its existence. With a worldly perspective, individual life, personal experience is considered the main object of exploration, because each individual is a private, unique, individual world. According to M. Bakhtin, individuals distinguish themselves not by different "positions" and "destinies" but by different "truths" and "rights" [4]. Individual beliefs determine all aspects of themselves, the epic perspective does not cover this.

The second aspect of narrative thinking is that the thematic structure has also changed. Before 1975, the themes of family, love, happiness, and personal destiny were not many, and even if there were, the realistic treatment in these works was still dominated by community criteria. After 1975, peacetime life with the need to rebalance the state of people after the war, the interest of both readers and writers shifted more to the topic of private life. Researcher Nguyen Thi Binh commented: " Never before in our country's literature has the face of happiness and love been expressed in such a rich way, and the tragedies caused by love have never been mentioned so much, so closely " [5]. That is the result of writers no longer being dominated by "thematicism". Now literature takes people as the center of reference, so all other elements obey the requirement of exploration.

destroys the human being. Even when writing about the subject of soldiers, writers are influenced by this concept. As heroic characters, the image of soldiers as worthy representatives of community justice will exude a noble beauty in epic inspiration. But when looking at them from the inspiration of worldly affairs, they become more complex, real and vivid.

The change in inspiration also entails a change in artistic space and time. The vast historical space where community activities took place in the years 1945 - 1975 was replaced by a space for everyday life, a space of a private nature. That is an authentic space that forces people to always reveal their true nature, with no opportunity to avoid personal responsibility. That space participates in each person's life, associated with joys and sorrows, with human life's senses. A space that appears a lot in literature during this period is the space of spirituality, however, it is worth noting that the gods no longer carry the authority of a superior being, but writers have brought them closer to the human world, placing all values in a humanistic frame of reference to resolve the relationship between personality and circumstances. The writer seems to create an illusory, paranoid atmosphere of spirituality and religious feeling, awakening the reader when coming into contact with this space of mysterious belief.

Like the change of space, time also has a clear transformation. It is no longer a linear time but instead a time that depends on the individual's experience and is governed by the individual's psychological and emotional state. Time with a historical sense still exists, but it is seen through personal experience, so the timelines often no longer have objective meaning. Also due to the tendency to capture the depth of human psychology, many works limit the time of events to a very short time, but the time of reminiscence can open up to its full amplitude. Therefore, the past coexists with

Reality and the future, layers of time overlapping, sometimes blurred, sometimes chaotically disconnected, have broken the traditional story structure, bringing the psychological plot to the forefront, pushing the event plot to the secondary position, allowing prose to accommodate the "interlacing" and "cut-and-paste" techniques of cinema. Along with the spatial element, artistic time plays an indispensable role in revealing people's private lives.

Literary characters are the expression of the writer's artistic conception of people. In addition to the ability to recreate the panoramic picture of social life, novels also have the ability to deeply explore human destiny. Prose characters after 1975 are people with many experiences, their inner lives contain tragic conflicts, and are less inclined towards external actions. The inner struggles and motivations lead to the need to confess and repent. This type of character raises many issues surrounding the desire for self-improvement, the ability to question and experience oneself, making the story complex and full of surprises. These characters also show a new poetic characteristic, which is the importance of "problems" and "thoughts" over personality. Therefore, characters become a means for writers to convey their conceptions of life.

The handling of realistic materials is not simply a matter of current affairs and politics as before. Writers have paid more attention to ideological issues, the focus of which is the depth of the human soul, the ideological, ethical, and human issues in everyday life. The initiative in ideology gives rise to the ability to dialogue, which makes philosophical thought develop, the need for philosophy is also popular, and the proportion of thesis works also increases. It is these works that emerge the introverted narrative voice, the contemplative, and confessional voice. It is not difficult to see that literature in the previous period avoided "tragedy" because of the epic inspiration and the orientation of encouragement and support. But when literature takes the individual as the center, the system of humanistic values

Only when the “tragedy” is established can it truly have a place. The positive changes in life still carry within them tragedies, and individual fates do not always coincide with the fate of the community. In the inspiration of tragedy are the many shades of human sadness, the perception of the finiteness and smallness of human life. When talking about tragedy, writers do not only explain the cause and seek responsibility, but also protect and nurture humanity. Through this aspect, the narrative work appears with a deep, sorrowful tone. Through “tragedy,” readers adjust their way of life and reorient their lives. This is a miraculous ability of literature.

In the process of innovation, individual consciousness is liberated, personal values are promoted, and conflicts between individuals and the community appear. The approach to life from the perspective of ethics and world affairs has revealed the negative aspects of life and people, thereby creating conditions for laughter and it has become an important sign of change in prose in this period, it has a strong democratic nuance, dominates the literary tone, and creates new humanistic values. At the same time, laughter is also an aspect that shows the social positivity of literature when it is associated with the power of criticism. One proof of democratization is the tendency to narrate through many points of view. Each point of view carries a personal mark, the prose will become richer and more multi-layered. The theme of the work and the author's thoughts are not revealed, difficult to grasp, requiring readers to think more when approaching, the story will stop at a flexible open ending, creating an interesting dialogue after it ends. Changing the narrative point of view creates many opportunities for the writer to innovate the plot, paying more attention to the structure of the work.

Considered the shell of thinking - literary language also moves constantly according to the changes of life and the development of the language of the times also contributes to dominating literary thinking. Artistic language is reduced a lot.

The solemn and melodious appearance is replaced by colloquial language, casual in tone and sharp in words, prose of this period puts itself in opposition to poetry because of the need to express personality, the need for information in the condition of strongly aroused personal consciousness. Never before in literature have there been so many swear words with vulgar, dusty, and rustic speech. Besides male writers such as Nguyen Huy Thiep, Ta Duy Anh, Ma Van Khang.... there are also female writers who boldly experiment with the chaotic language of life in literature. In the era of information explosion, the need to increase speed and amount of information is a legitimate need. Speed is expressed in fast storytelling, rapid story lines, simplified listing of comments, evaluations, and the widely used techniques of interweaving and cutting and pasting of cinema, so although the flow of writing is slow, the compression of information is very large. The emergence of mini, extremely short stories is welcomed because it fits the limited amount of time readers have.

There have been many controversies surrounding the changes in literature in general and the thinking of the narrative genre in particular in the literature after 1975. There are optimistic opinions, but there are also many harsh and indignant reactions. But we cannot deny that the changes have helped literature to bring more breath of life. In this thesis, we delve into the themes, inspirations, characters and artistic aspects: point of view, language and tone in three novels by Nguyen Xuan Khanh to see the writer's innovations and creations in narrative thinking.

1.2. Introduction to historical novels

1.2.1. Concept of historical novel

Historical novel is a genre of writing about historical subjects, including characters, events, periods or historical processes. Therefore, it has a fundamental difference

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