1980 My literary era

On November 7, 1993, on the first anniversary of the death of American writer Richard Yates, FSG held a press conference in New York to officially publish the "Collected Works of Richard Yates".

The press conference achieved unprecedented success and aroused strong repercussions in the American literary community.

As more and more news media follow up and report on the life and deeds of Richard Yates, this writer who became famous in the 1960s and focused on realist themes is gradually becoming familiar to many people.

Richard Yates and Joseph Heller, who wrote "Catch-22," are similar in age and active in the same period, but their treatment in the United States is completely different.

Even within half a year of Richard Yates's death, his few remaining works in a handful of bookstores in the United States were removed from the shelves.

When some people saw the news media reports, they couldn't help but be moved by the writer's suffering during his life and death.

At the same time, many media outlets have vigorously publicized the touching and great friendship between Chinese writers Lin Weimin and Richard Yates, making the publication of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates" attract the attention of more American people.

In just seven days after the anthology was launched, the first printing of 20,000 sets was snapped up by enthusiastic readers.

This situation caught FSG Publishing House off guard, and it urgently printed an additional 50,000 sets of anthologies.

The best-selling of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates" finally brought Richard Yates, who had been ignored for decades, to the attention and recognition of the mainstream literary circles and reader groups in the United States.

Many literary journals rushed to publish Richard Yates's works during his lifetime. In a short period of time, a "Richard Yates trend" was formed, sweeping the American literary world and reader groups. American readers We finally saw the charm of Richard Yates.

After another autograph session, half of Lin Weimin's shoulders and arms were sore.

The staff on the side handed him a bottle of water, and while he was drinking it, Roger Strauss walked up to Lin Weimin.

"Lin, look!"

Roger Strauss waved the magazine in his hand and said excitedly.

Lin Weimin took the magazine, which was a copy of The New Yorker.

"Any new news?" he asked with a smile.

More than ten days have passed since the release of the anthology of "Richard Yates". In the first week of the anthology, Lin Weimin has been cooperating with FSG Publishing House's various anthology promotion activities, press conferences and speeches. , readings, interviews...

Just like this, a week passed, and there were more and more reports about Richard Yates. Some of the reports focused on the life of Richard Yates, and some focused on Lin Weimin and Li. Chad Yates's friendship aroused strong responses from the American literary circle and the public.

The sales volume of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates" did not live up to such large-scale media coverage, with 20,000 sets sold per week and more than 200,000 copies. All Richard Yates's books taken together have been sold for decades. There aren't that many sales.

Roger Strauss has been particularly excited these days, partly due to the popularity of "The Collected Works of Richard Yates".

What made him even more excited and fulfilled was the fact that Richard Yates, an excellent writer who had almost disappeared from the public eye, was brought back to the public eye and reached the level that Richard Yates had achieved during his lifetime. No visibility and influence.

In the past two days, Roger Strauss would bring Lin Weimin two newspapers or magazines from time to time, which were basically reports or comments about Richard Yates and him. Lin Weimin had become accustomed to this.

"Not coverage, but review. George Steiner published an opinion piece in The New Yorker, "Richard Yates Will Live On," in which he praised what you wrote for The New York Review of Books "That review."

"The Lost World of Richard Yates" is a 25,000-word review written by Lin Weimin over four nights after coming to the United States. It was published in the New York Review of Books a few days ago.

The New York Review of Books, founded in 1963, is one of the most important book review magazines in the American literary world and plays a pivotal role in the minds of senior American intellectuals.

In the review, Lin Weimin generally commented on the nine novels written by Richard Yates and gave them very high praise.

Finally, he did not forget to do a terrible job for Richard Yates at the end.

"While he was alive, his work was long ignored. After his death, nine books to his name were quietly removed from the shelves and completely disappeared from the shelves of American bookstores.

It is heartbreaking and regrettable that such an excellent writer has been forgotten by the American people. "

After the publication of "The Lost World of Richard Yates", it caused a huge response in just a few days.

George Steiner was one of the many high-ranking intellectuals influenced by this review.

He is one of the most famous literary critics in the American literary world in the second half of the twentieth century. He is a Frenchman who became an American citizen in the 1940s and has worked in well-known universities such as Princeton University and Cambridge University.

He is the author of "Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky", "The Death of Tragedy", "After the Tower of Babel", "Martin Heidegger", "What is Comparative Literature" and other works.

He has superb attainments in the fields of literary translation and literary criticism. He has been writing articles for magazines such as "The New Yorker" and "The Times Literary Supplement" for many years. He has been widely praised by the intellectual circles of English-speaking countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and has been praised by many people as " "One of the greatest figures in today's intellectual world" and "a Renaissance giant who came too late."

Lin Weimin was a little surprised when he heard the name of George Steiner. These days, the American media has reported a lot about him, including many people in the literary circle who have written some commentaries. However, the comments of famous critics like George Steiner , the portion sizes are different.

Lin Weimin carefully read the article "Richard Yates Will Continue to Exist" in The New Yorker. It was a long article, mainly composed of comments. Lin Weimin and him were mentioned at the beginning and end. An article for the New York Review of Books.

"...There is no doubt that Lin Weimin is not only an excellent writer, but also an outstanding critic. He keenly discovered the value of many works of Richard Yates, and was the first person in the world to pursue and achieve success. This writer has been buried for many years.

His friendship with Richard Yates will become the most acclaimed story in the American literary world in the 20th century. It will also accompany Richard Yates's literary achievements and exist forever in the American literary world, with dazzling glory. "

After watching George Steiner's rainbow fart, Lin Weimin felt refreshed, and even the pain in his arms and wrists was relieved a lot.

Returning the magazine to Roger Strauss, he then said: "Lin, the article you wrote for the New York Review of Books was very influential. I think if you don't write novels in the future, you should write one." Literary criticism may also become a generation."

Compared with George Steiner's rainbow fart, Roger Strauss's flattery seemed a bit stiff, but Teacher Lin accepted it calmly.

In the evening, Roger Strauss invited Lin Weimin and several staff members to dinner.

Lin Weimin's main work in the first week of coming to the United States was to promote and promote "The Collected Works of Richard Yates", while his main work in the second week was his own book signing.

The sales volume of "Spirited Away" in the United States has gradually approached 2 million copies. Coupled with the readers he has accumulated over the years, readers are almost everywhere he goes.

Lin Weimin lives in China all year round and only rarely appears in the United States. Therefore, many readers cherish his book signings, and some even drive hundreds of kilometers to attend them.

Roger Strauss spoke with pride when talking about the autograph sessions these days.

Author signings test a writer's appeal among readers.

Obviously, Lin Weimin's appeal among American readers is top-notch.

In the past, it was difficult for Roger Strauss to imagine that a foreign, especially a Chinese writer could have such a strong appeal among American readers.

After he sighed, when talking about this matter, Lin Weimin analyzed rationally and said: "I think this has a lot to do with several of my works being put on the Broadway stage."

Roger Strauss nodded in agreement and said: "Indeed. In the United States, the influence of Hollywood is terrifying. But the influence of Broadway is equally huge, and most importantly, the influence of Broadway on intellectuals It is unique in that the Broadway audience and the readership of You are highly overlapped.”

He then asked: "By the way, the movie "Farewell My Concubine" will be released after the awards season, right?"

"That's right."

December is less than half a month away, and Hollywood's awards season is about to start again.

Hollywood's awards season is held from December to February of the following year. During this period, awards such as the Golden Satellite Awards, Annie Awards, Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Screen Actors Guild and other film industry guild awards are held. , as well as three major film critics association awards such as New York and Los Angeles, and even the final Golden Globes and Oscars will be held one by one.

In many film awards events, the judges are highly overlapping and the time is very close. If it can achieve good awards results in the Sentinel Awards, it means that the film has great hope in competing for the Golden Globe Awards and Oscars.

Therefore, even if many frontline awards during the awards season are not very influential, many films that are interested in competing for the Golden Globes and Oscars will spare no effort to participate.

This has also created the miracle of awarding awards in the American film industry for two months every year.

"I bet that the box office of this movie will not be less than 100 million dollars." Roger Strauss said firmly, his expression revealing a strong superstition.

Lin Weimin smiled and said: "$100 million? Roger, you really know how to joke. This movie is different from "The Intouchables". It is a pure Chinese movie. The director and actors are not well-known in the United States. I haven't heard of any Chinese-language film that can generate $100 million in box office in the United States."

"Why not? Lin, don't forget, "Farewell My Concubine" has millions of readers in the United States. It has been on Broadway for four years, right? It also has millions of viewers."

"Come on, a movie ticket costs only 50 million US dollars, and 10 million moviegoers only cost 50 million US dollars."

It's not that Lin Weimin doesn't like "Farewell My Concubine", it's just that he knows the nature of this movie and it's not a commercial film.

Movies are mass entertainment. To put it bluntly, the lower the threshold, the higher the box office. "Farewell My Concubine" has inherent shortcomings in this regard.

However, Lin Weimin is not pessimistic. In his estimation, "Farewell My Concubine" should have no problem getting 30 million yuan.

If he wins the Golden Globe and Academy Awards, maybe fifty million dollars won't be a problem, but he wouldn't dare to think about any more.

Roger Strauss was superstitiously certain that the movie "Farewell My Concubine" would do well at the box office. Regarding his superstition, Lin Weimin could only attribute it to his blind admiration for himself.

Lao Luo is good at everything but bad at this point.

Don’t engage in personality worship!