1980 My literary era

If someone looks back on the content of the first issue of "Contemporary" in 1983 a few years later, there is a high probability that they will use words such as "fairies fighting" to describe it.

He Yunlu's "New Star" and Ma Yuan's "The Temptation of Gangdise" are certainly amazing, but their subsequent development lacked stamina.

The remaining authors in this issue performed equally well and became more stable in future development, becoming prominent figures in contemporary Chinese literary circles.

Yu Hua is an author discovered by Lin Weimin. At first, he could not even publish his works. Now, more than a year later, he has managed to publish two novellas at the same time in the top literary journal "Contemporary".

The two works "Going Away at the Age of Eighteen" and "The Noon of the Howling Northwest Wind" are very characteristic of his early works.

His two works are similar to Ma Yuan's. They both belong to the avant-garde of this era. The works focus on showing the experimental and playful nature of text, as well as various reversals of the narrative logic of novels, and their techniques are more inclined to film. The montage technique in creation.

But unlike Ma Yuan, Yu Hua maintained a certain degree of restraint in the narrative structure and did not go to extremes. This resulted in his novels being superior in content.

At the same time, he pays more attention to the description of consciousness, thinking and psychology when writing. He has an absolutely objective and calm narrative, and does not shy away from describing bloody violence.

This writing technique formed his unique style, which is unforgettable.

If He Yunlu's "New Star" is to some extent influenced by reform literature, Ma Yuan's "LS River Goddess" and "The Temptation of Gangdise" are better than the novelty of the narrative.

Yu Hua's victory lies more in his unique and calm style. Some readers used the word "mature" to describe Yu Hua's creative style in their letters, and Lin Weimin fully agreed with this.

After reading these two works by Yu Hua, Xie Mingqing from the front building ridiculed Lin Weimin, saying that the kind of editors will produce the kind of authors they want.

Lin Weimin has almost no specific style in his creations. If he were to classify it rigidly, it would probably be stable.

He seldom goes astray, but he always writes something that is eye-catching.

And Yu Hua, who was brought out by him, is now gradually approaching in this direction.

For an author, this is a sign of creative maturity.

As a result, many readers and critics have placed high hopes on Yu Hua, believing that he is a writer who is likely to surpass Lin Weimin in a few years.

Among all the authors in the first issue, Mo Yan's work received the worst evaluation. This is not because his works are not good enough, but because the comparison object left such an amazing impression on readers, which directly led to Mo Yan's Two of his works, "Folk Music" and "The Transparent Carrot", have become, to some extent, what some critical readers call "mediocre works."

"Mediocre work" also comes from readers' letters.

Mo Yan is now working in the army, and the style of his works is basically moving in the direction of Wei Guangzheng.

Lin Weimin also chatted with Mo Yan when he was in the army guest house. Unlike the "darkness" in his later works, Mo Yan now believes in truth, goodness, and beauty.

He believes that "goodness" can transform human beings, and "goodness" is the soul of beauty, so it can create sparks of "beauty".

Any literary creation, once it falls into the trap of praising truth, goodness and beauty, will inevitably suffer from the drawbacks of stereotypes.

A murderer has a hundred ways to kill people, but there is only one way to save people.

However, despite being evaluated as "realistic in technique, European in language, and single in plot," the beautiful vision of society and life revealed in Ke Moyan's novels still makes most readers feel like a refreshing breeze.

Lin Weimin doesn't think Mo Yan's works are much worse than other people's works. If he has to find a problem, he can only blame it on the unpleasant creation style of this "main theme".

Among all the authors and works in the first issue, Cheng Zhongshi's "Kang Family Courtyard" and "Early Summer" are somewhat out of place.

Perhaps because of his many years of deep experience in rural life, Cheng Zhongshi’s works can always see the collision of personal value choices, thoughts, feelings, and moral concepts during the period of rural reform.

This style is very similar to that of Lu Yao, who is already famous and also belongs to Shaanxi.

The advantage of Cheng Zhongshi is that he does not hesitate to use pen and ink to structure the structure and layout of the novel and the changes in characters, thoughts and feelings, sometimes even to the point of tediousness.

These meticulous descriptions are very skillful and very popular with mature middle-aged readers.

It was also praised by Meng Wanfu, a well-known domestic literary critic, who wrote a special article "A solemn and profound song of hope in the fields - a review of the novella "Early Summer"", which Cheng Zhongshi fully affirmed in " The creative ability in "Early Summer".

At the same time, Meng Wanfu also praised highly at the end of the review, "The first issue of "Contemporary" in 1983 brought a fresh force to the Chinese literary world, with a hundred flowers blooming and competing for beauty."

Meng Wanfu is not familiar to everyone, but many of his students should know him, named Jia Pingwa.

As Meng Wanfu commented, in this issue, there are masterpieces of reform literature such as "New Star", extreme avant-garde literature such as Ma Yuan, and Yu Hua, whose style is mature from the moment he writes. Authors with high hopes include Mo Yan, who has a fresh style that praises truth and goodness, and Cheng Zhongshi, an orthodox author who comes from the countryside...

This issue fully demonstrates the support and encouragement of "Contemporary" to various creative styles in the domestic literary world. It not only received rave reviews from readers, but also triggered great discussions among critics and authors.

Since the buzz in previous years has created a certain vacuum in the literary world, in recent years the literary world has not only seen an explosion of creative output, but also a flourishing of creative styles.

There is a buzzword nowadays called "not a novel".

In what context is it used?

Some authors took their manuscripts to the editorial office to submit. The editors read it with reading glasses, frowning, and a hint of regret in their tone.

"This is not a novel!"

What does it mean that it is not a novel? It just does not conform to the reading habits of the older generation of editors. Even the classification of the work has been changed for you.

Among the works published in this issue of "Contemporary", if judged according to the standard of "not novels", the works of Ma Yuan and Yu Hua are included in this list, and the styles of their works happen to have a avant-garde flavor.

“Literary creation has just been liberated from a huge shadow, and we don’t want it to fall into another shadow.

Nowadays, the new generation of author friends are no longer satisfied with the single narrative form of novels, and have begun to pursue diversity and multiple possibilities of narrative.

Colleagues in the editorial department unanimously believe that we should face up to the new changes, new requirements, and new directions of literary creation in the new era.

This issue of "Contemporary" was born under such a backdrop..."

At the moment, Lin Weimin is crouching on the desk and writing nonsense. To sum it up in two words, he is bragging.

The first issue of "Contemporary" was published in 1983. In recent months, it has caused a huge response across the country, and has therefore received a lot of media comments and attention.

"Literary News" was founded on September 25, 1949, the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China. It is a newspaper sponsored by the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Association.

All the previous editors-in-chief are cultural giants, literary masters and accomplished literary theorists. It can be said that the literary and artistic situation of New China is closely related to "Literary News".

Many great people gave important instructions to the work of "Literary Newspaper" during their lifetime.

The response caused by the first issue of "Contemporary" in 1983 attracted the attention of "Literary News", and a special invitation was sent to the editorial department of "Contemporary" to ask the editorial department to talk about the preparation of articles for this first issue. Behind the Scenes.

Two old comrades, Meng Weizai and Qin Chaoyang, conveniently handed over this matter to Lin Weimin, saying that they could not take away Lin Weimin's credit.

It was indeed Lin Weimin's idea to feature new artists and new works in the first spring issue of 1983, and the two of them were right to say so.

Lin Weimin spent the whole morning writing furiously and finally finished the manuscript.

Liu Yin came over with a teapot in her hand, blew on the tea foam floating on the water and took a sip, "Weimin is really a leader now. Look at this manuscript, I can almost catch up with the speech for the conference. ”

Rong Shihui joked: "Editor Lin has done a great job in hosting this issue. You can't hide the results if you have them. How else can the leader see them?"

Lin Weimin fastened the cap of his pen, stood up and moved his shoulders.

"Old comrade, if you complain too much, you may break your heart."

Rong Shihui said with a smile: "I am an old comrade, no problem. Xiaoliu is only in his thirties. Isn't the word 'old' for you inappropriate?"

Liu Yin glared at Lin Weimin cooperatively.

Lin Weimin gave Rong Shihui a thumbs up, "If you want to be able to speak, you must have good hands."

The first issue of "Contemporary" in 1983 has withstood the test of readers more than 20 days after it was launched, and has been widely praised by many critics and media. The discussion and influence it caused are worthy of the editorial department's attention to this issue. High hopes.

In addition, the Spring Festival is approaching, and the atmosphere in the editorial office is joyful and peaceful.

A few people talked and talked about the sales situation of the first issue.

Since "Contemporary" was first published in 1979, its sales have been steadily increasing.

After Lin Weimin joined in the past two years, the sales growth has been even stronger. Now the overall sales volume has stabilized at more than 800,000 or 900,000 copies. Whenever a work with excellent reputation is published in a certain issue, the sales volume can easily exceed one million.

And for example, the issue that published the popular works "Life" and "My Distant Qingping Bay" was able to achieve sales of hundreds of thousands in a single issue.

Therefore, out of confidence in the quality of the works published in the first issue, the editorial department set a very bold number for the print run of this issue - one million copies.

It has not been a month since the first issue was released, but demand for additional printing from bookstores and post offices has been increasing. According to estimates, the first one million copies will be sold out within a few days. , the next printing number has become an issue that the editorial department needs to consider.

Liu Yin sighed and said: "If this trend continues, why do you feel that even 1.5 million copies can't stop it?"

Yao Shuzhi was sorting out the manuscripts. She put a thick stack of manuscripts on the corner of her desk, "Did the last issue of Yao's "Life" almost reach 1.5 million copies?"

"No, it just reached 1.4 million copies. I don't dare to print any more. If it really fails to sell tens of thousands of copies, it won't be enough to compensate."

Zhu Changsheng said: "I think it will not be a problem to reach 1.5 million copies in this issue. Haven't you noticed? Now that we are sitting together, if we don't talk about our first issue this time, we all feel that we are not keeping up with the trend. Yes, this seems to be a trend.”

Yao Shuzhi nodded and said: "It's true. There are many literature lovers among the college students in my sister's school. She came back and told me that this first issue was liked by a lot of students. This is not only due to the content, but also More important reasons.”

Zhu Changsheng asked: "What's the reason?"

"Probably those college students feel that our "Contemporary" is open to all rivers and inclusive, which fits their image of a widely influential literary journal. By the way, here is a letter from a reader. Let me read it to you. …”

Yao Shuzhi pulled out a letter from a pile of readers' letters in the corner of her desk, and everyone couldn't help but look a little curious.

“… Your initiative to bring forth new things this time requires great courage, and I would like to praise you without hesitation.

"Contemporary" plays an important role in the Chinese literary world. As long as a novel can be published in "Contemporary", it will attract widespread attention.

Just like American authors are proud to have their novels published in The New Yorker, more and more classmates and friends around me are starting to feel the same way. The authors who can publish their novels in Contemporary are all Literary darling.

…”

"The New Yorker" is a symbol of American cultural circles.

In 1975, John Leonard once commented on The New Yorker: "Well-educated Americans have grown up with this weekly magazine."

To put it in a layman's terms, reading "The New Yorker" is a symbol of American elite culture.

Now that China has just opened its arms to the world, being able to mention The New Yorker in a letter will instantly defeat most Chinese people in terms of knowledge.

The letter Yao Shuzhi read was from a student at Yanda University, and it was full of praise for "Contemporary"'s bold move this time.

"It is really pleasant to hear young people's praise for us." Yao Shuzhi finished reading the letter with a smile on her face.

Rong Shihui suddenly looked at Lin Weimin, "Weimin, is this what you call influence, right?"

Lin Weimin was standing by the window, his back to everyone.

"good."

Everyone looked at Lin Weimin standing by the window, and scenes couldn't help flashing through their minds.

At the beginning, I persuaded the leader to return the manuscript to the writers despite all arguments in the conference room;

He worked tirelessly and traveled thousands of kilometers to compile the manuscript;

It took more than a month to complete the proofreading, typesetting, and binding design work of "Contemporary Series"...

At this moment, many colleagues in the editorial department understood why the agency and the editorial department chose Lin Weimin as the deputy editor.

Because he is the one who can lead "Contemporary" to a higher level!

First update. The second update is around 11 o'clock, and the third update is around 5 pm.