1980 My literary era

Chapter 795: Comparing with George Orwell

New York, Chinatown, old apartment buildings.

Cheng Danqing hung up the call from his friend in China, with some doubts in his heart and some confusion on his face.

"Danqing, what's wrong with you in China?" Li Quanwu asked.

Today is another gathering day for the international student circle in New York. Everyone is gathered together, with a few old faces missing and a few new ones added.

"Yanjing Youth Daily is looking for me."

"Yenjing Youth Daily" is well-known. Those who come to study in the United States are all students from well-known domestic universities. Many of them studied in Yanjing. Of course, everyone is familiar with this name.

"I'm asking you to make an appointment for a manuscript?"

In the past few years, some domestic publications have popularly asked international students studying abroad to write travel notes and other articles, which are very popular among domestic readers. Wang Xiaobo once wrote some such articles.

Cheng Danqing hesitated and said, "I can't tell."

"Can't tell? What do you mean?" Li Quanwu asked.

Others also looked curious.

Cheng Danqing replied: "They asked me to help collect reviews and reports on Lin Weimin's novels in the United States. If there are other domestic writers and works, they also want them."

Hearing this, everyone also showed expressions similar to Cheng Danqing's.

Li Quanwu thought for a moment and asked, "Are they going to reprint these articles?"

"probably."

“Why are they reprinting these articles?”

"Isn't this nonsense you're asking? Of course we should let Chinese people see what foreigners say about these writers and works!"

“To do this kind of thing, it’s better to reprint more of the latest foreign works.”

"Don't you understand this? "Flower City" has often reprinted some foreign literature information in the past, but reprinting foreigners' feedback on domestic writers and works will definitely attract the attention of Chinese people!"

"is that so?"

"certainly."

While everyone was chatting, Cheng Danqing walked to the corner of the living room of the apartment, where there were many magazines. He rummaged through the various reports and comments about Lin Weimin and his works that he had read before.

He never expected that these publications that were gathering dust would have such a wonderful use.

In the early years, Cheng Danqing's contact with China was relatively close, but in recent years, the frequency of contact has become increasingly sparse.

Investigating the reason, apart from the fact that he has been in the United States for too long, the main reason is his own unsatisfactory life.

When he first came to the United States, he could still write letters to his relatives, friends, classmates and colleagues in China to brag about his experiences in the United States. But as time went by, he always talked about these things, not talking about others, and even he felt boring.

Moreover, it was understandable that he had not been in the United States for a long time and had not made a name for himself. But after all these years, he is still like this. It would be so embarrassing if someone asked him this question when we contacted him!

Cheng Danqing looked through those magazines, many of which contained reports and comments about Lin Weimin.

His acquaintance with Lin Weimin was accidental, and their friendship was not deep, but Cheng Danqing had a very good impression of Lin Weimin.

When he met Lin Weimin in New York in 1986, Lin Weimin was not well-known in the United States. Now ten years have passed, and Lin Weimin's reputation in the United States is not the same as it was back then.

But Cheng Danqing always believed that he and Lin Weimin were the same kind of people.

This kind of person refers to talent, not anything else.

Because of this mutual sympathy, Cheng Danqing paid special attention to various Lin Weimin reports and comments published in the American media.

He counted the newspapers and magazines he picked out. Over the years, so many American newspapers and magazines had reported on Lin Weimin without realizing it.

This is called a great writer with international status, Cheng Danqing sighed in his heart.

After the salon ended, he came to his desk and first translated a recent review article about "God Bless the United States."

This review article took him more than a day. After completing the translation, Cheng Danqing stood up and rested for a while, then picked up the translation and looked at it. He felt that he was not satisfied and wanted to revise it.

Halfway through the revision, he stopped writing, feeling that it was almost boring.

Doing this without any thought of his own, he decided to change his mind.

After thinking for a moment, he picked up a pen and wrote a line of title on the paper. Cheng Danqing decided to write down his experience of meeting Lin Weimin.

The "Yanjing Youth Daily" reprinted an interview with Lin Weimin from "News Weekly", which spread throughout the domestic literary circles and readers in a short period of time, causing a fierce debate in the domestic literary circles and literary circles about Lin Weimin and "God Bless the United States". There was an imbalance in time.

Faced with the sudden backstab from America’s father, the pro-rice faction who had been clamoring before collectively lost their voices, and a big debate that had been going back and forth unexpectedly ended in an anticlimax.

Fortunately, these people responded quickly and found a new angle.

——Without the open social atmosphere and humanistic environment of the United States, Lin Weimin's "God Bless the United States" would not be able to create such outstanding results - "The openness of the United States has achieved the success of "God Bless the United States"", "Wenhui Po" December 8, 1995 Journal.

It has to be said that the pro-rice faction came up with a very tricky angle. Their argument was indeed recognized by many readers, and it suddenly seemed to have a tendency to bring the originally tilted balance of public opinion back.

But just when this group of people thought they could sit back and relax, the Yanjing Youth Daily published two articles again.

One article is "The Writer and the Painter's First Encounter in New York" written by Cheng Danqing, a painter living in rice. It tells the story of the acquaintance of the author Cheng Danqing and the writer Lin Weimin. The article is written in a delicate style and describes the two talented young people in a foreign country. The acquaintance and mutual sympathy made many readers feel envious and longing after reading it.

The other article is a translation, the original text comes from the famous American literary magazine "The Atlantic Monthly", the article is called "Looking at the Gains and Losses of American Political Politics from "God Bless the United States"".

At the beginning of the translation, the origin of the author is introduced in detail.

Harold Bloom, born in New York on July 11, 1930, is a "Yale School" critic and literary theorist. He graduated from Cornell University in the United States in 1951 and received his PhD from Yale University in 1955. Bloom has taught at Yale University, New York University and other well-known universities, published many literary criticism works, and is one of the four major Yale critics along with de Man, Hartman and Miller.

The article "Looking at the Gains and Losses of American Politics from "God Bless the United States"" is quite long, with more than 15,000 words in translation alone. In terms of the length of the review article, it can be described as a magnificent article. As a well-known literary critic in the United States, Harold Bloom used such a length to comment on Lin Weimin and his works. This fact in itself has proved Lin Weimin's influence.

What's more, Harold Bloom spoke highly of Lin Weimin, the author, and the novel in his article, which made many readers feel relaxed and happy after reading this imported review article.

After the two articles were published in Yanjing Youth Daily, they quickly attracted the attention of the literary world and readers.

No one thought that Cheng Danqing, a painter who once dominated the domestic painting scene but left the United States, would return to the attention of the Chinese people and the cultural world in this way. What is even more unexpected is that "Yanjing Youth Daily" would continue to After reprinting the exclusive interview article of "Newsweek", it reprinted again the commentary article about "God Bless the United States".

No shame!

Suddenly, the already balanced public opinion once again turned against the pro-rice faction.

These people didn't even have time to take a breath. In the next half month, the Yanjing Youth Daily successively reprinted a number of commentaries on "God Bless the United States" by heavyweight American literary critics.

Every time Yanjing Youth Daily reprints these articles, it will introduce the popularity and influence of the publication as well as the academic status and achievements of the authors of these articles at the beginning of the article.

The articles are all from the top literary critics and literary magazines in the United States, and the contents of the articles are all very high evaluations of "God Bless the United States". Many critics use very explicit words.

"Book Page" magazine, "On the Hidden Nazism of "God Bless the United States"" commented: Lin Weimin is a writer destined to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The New York Review of Books commented in the article "A Brief Analysis of the Political Figures in "God Bless the United States": He is a great writer from the East and has contributed to us an unparalleled masterpiece.

The New Yorker Magazine, “Is the End of Western Politics? Evaluation of the article: An undisputed masterpiece, a pearl among political satirical novels, his achievements can be compared with those of George Orwell...

Several comment articles completely crushed the domestic pro-rice faction's attempt to slander Lin Weimin, making them completely defeated in this public opinion war, and also gave Lin Weimin a leapfrog promotion in domestic reputation. .

China has always had the habit of "foreign monks chanting sutras". Chen Yong praised Lin Weimin as "the person closest to the master", and a group of people caught him and scolded him.

However, many American critics called Lin Weimin a "great writer" and "comparable to George Orwell", but this group of people was silent and no one commented.

The domestic cultural and literary circles have been encircling and condemning Lin Weimin and "God Bless the United States" for four months, but they have failed completely in the "chanting" of many "foreign monks".

Not only did it not have any negative impact on Lin Weimin, but it also created a golden body for Lin Weimin.

This incident allowed many Chinese people to see Lin Weimin's influence in the United States and even the world. In the Chinese literary world, no writer has yet been able to achieve such a level.

When many people look at Chen Yong's praise of Lin Weimin, it seems that it is not so exaggerated. Not only is it not exaggerated, it also feels appropriate.

The debate that lasted for more than four months finally came to an end at Christmas this year. The pro-rice faction who had failed were dejected, but Lin Weimin, who was involved, was not happy at all.

Firstly, he didn't take this matter seriously in the first place, and secondly, he was busy with work and couldn't take care of these things at all.

December 24th is Christmas in the West. In recent years, the habit of celebrating foreign festivals has gradually emerged in China. Lin Weimin has no objection to celebrating foreign festivals. For the working people, it doesn’t matter what festival they celebrate. What matters is whether there are any You get double salary, and you can take any days off.

But today is also of some significance to the Chinese Literature Society. The movie "Party A and Party B" invested by Wenhua Film and Television, directed by Feng Xiaogang and written by Wang Shuo was officially released today.

Two days ago, Yu Dong went to the Chinese Literature Society and handed out movie tickets to everyone he saw. He said that he was asking the leaders of the society to check the work results of Wenhua Film and Television this year. Several people in the society, including Cheng Wuchun, The leader spoke highly of the young general manager Lin Weimin found for Wenhua.

After work that evening, Lin Weimin returned home, picked up his wife and children, and took them to watch a movie.

The movie tickets that Yu Dong gave to the people in the club were all in the screening room of the Capital Cinema, and there was also the premiere of the crew here today.

Everyone came very early today, half an hour before the premiere, and colleagues chatted with each other.

"Hey, Teacher Lin, have you read the newspaper I gave you?" Yu Hua asked.

A few days ago, Yu Hua went to Lin Weimin's office and picked up some copies of the Yanjing Youth Daily, which contained articles by Cheng Danqing and many American commentators.

Lin Weimin said: "I read some."

"Cheng Danqing really has such a good relationship with you?"

Lin Weimin glanced at Yu Hua, "Does it have anything to do with you?"

"I'll just ask."

"Stop prying!"

Raising his eyebrows, Yu Hua was a little depressed, but he was still curious. According to his memories, Teacher Lin had never publicly mentioned that he met Cheng Danqing in the United States. His relationship with him could never be that good. The bigger problem Maybe Cheng Danqing was just trying to put money on his face.

Lin Weimin would naturally not understand things that Yu Hua could think of.

The relationship between him and Cheng Danqing is not as familiar and tacit as described in the article, but they are acquaintances after all, and Cheng Danqing has a good relationship with Acheng, Huang Anyi and others, so it is difficult for him to come forward and say anything.

While everyone was chatting, the premiere of "Party A and Party B" began. This movie can be said to be "smart", with only one actor, Ge You.

There was nothing fancy about the premiere, it was mainly for publicity and gave reporters something to write about, which was part of the promotion.

After the premiere, the movie was officially screened, and Ge Youna's iconic voice appeared along with the black screen at the beginning of the film.

In the opening chapter, Yao Yuan, Zhou Beiyan, Qian Kang and others set up a "war" scene in order to fulfill General Patton's dream of opening a bookstore. Qian Kang, played by Feng Xiaogang, sat in a jeep with General Patton, played by Ban'er Ye. When I asked for Coca-Cola, Mr. Banner said, "Let the five-legged building transport it to us by air." This triggered the first laugh in today's movie viewing.

There was a roar of laughter in the screening hall. Hearing the laughter, Feng Xiaogang, who was sitting in the front row, felt relieved.