I'm not a literary giant

Chapter 69 The Unbearable Lightness of Being

"You are in your hometown? You went back to Xihe? Why didn't you tell me that you came back?" Ning Chunyan couldn't believe it.

"Why should I tell you?" Chen Qingluo walked around barefoot on the ground, the Bluetooth headset on her ear flashing, "I don't want to go out. Every time I come back, there are a lot of people around me. I can't do anything. It's so annoying."

"Indeed." Ning Chunyan felt the same way. "But why did you come back?"

"Why did you come back? That's why I came back."

"Oh, so you also used the excuse of attending teacher Li Tingfang's 70th birthday party to escape back home and avoid the pressure of academic papers and other life, and give yourself a break."

Chen Qingluo said: "That's not the case. I don't have any studies. I go back to Xihe for about half a month every year to see rural China and keep myself from being out of touch with the people."

Ning Chunyan chuckled. Chen Qingluo's words were full of resentment, and she knew the source of the resentment.

Chen Qingluo became famous at a young age. Her earlier books were not accepted by some senior colleagues, who criticized her for her low level of knowledge and shallow thoughts, so she enrolled in Nanjing University as a graduate student and then studied for a doctorate. Now those people dare not criticize her level, after all, that would be tantamount to slandering Nanjing University and her teachers, and then they would criticize her for being out of touch with the people.

Chen Qingluo said: "To be honest, I envy you. At least you still have the weight of your studies. Since I graduated, I have lost all the pressure. Now I feel light and fluttery. To be honest, I am a little confused."

Ning Chunyan said: "'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', right? 'Women always want to bear the weight of a man's body. The heaviest burden also becomes the image of the strongest vitality'."

Chen Qingluo sneered: "Don't listen to Milan Kundera's nonsense. Whether there is another person's weight or not, we are all at the top of the food chain in this world. What I need is not the weight of a man, but the weight of money. I don't have enough money."

Ning Chunyan said: "No wonder they say your novels are too inorganic and lack human emotions. I sincerely hope that The Little Prince can awaken your fantasy of love."

"If you want to awaken my fantasy of love, all you need to do is give me an injection of hormones," Chen Qingluo said. "What love? It's all a trick of the brain and genes."

Ning Chunyan did not answer her, but tapped the keyboard monotonously with his fingers. Chen Qingluo quickly finished reading a "Love Letter from the Little Prince" and said to the person on the other end of the phone:

"I understand why you like the little prince."

"right!"

Ning Chunyan put his hands away and picked up the phone excitedly: "I knew you would appreciate him too! He is really special!"

Chen Qingluo commented: "He is not doing speech therapy, but creating. Every word he writes shows signs of careful consideration and polishing. Even the rhythm of rhetoric and the length of sentences, I can feel that he has considered them instinctively."

Ning Chunyan nodded repeatedly: "Yes, this is why we advocate the Little Prince. Many of us believe that although these are speech therapy scripts, their literary value is undeniable."

Chen Qingluo became a little interested: "Look, his first sentence, 'I know you work very hard. As your friend, I feel bad for you, but as your boss, I can't show it', is very clever.

"He started with a heart-to-heart talk without any background or foreshadowing. It seemed to be without any context, but in fact, this sentence contained a huge amount of information. It also pointed out the personalities of both parties in the speech therapy. It was a natural progression and intertextualized with the following text, which was a little romantic."

Ning Chunyan nodded repeatedly: "Yes, and the contradiction and conflict between identity and complex interpersonal relationships is brought up from the first sentence. This contradiction runs through the entire text from the beginning."

Chen Qingluo said: "He is not doing speech therapy. He is creating. In fact, this is not a script, but a novel with a special theme."

"Correct."

"I can guarantee that this little prince doesn't understand women at all in real life."

"why?"

"Because when he was writing these scripts, what he was thinking in his mind was definitely not 'I want to conquer this woman', but 'I want to climb the highest mountain of literature so that this woman can definitely feel my awesomeness'. He actually doesn't know how to please women. He just clumsily thinks that if he is good enough in literature, he will definitely make the other party feel it."

"But the women were still pleased."

"Yes. Because you women are just as stupid as him," said Chen Qingluo.

"He is like a poet. You are just the objects of his poetry, and he expresses his feelings through objects. Just like the ancient poems about plum blossoms and snow, although they are about snow and plum blossoms, they actually want to express themselves. "But you, the plum blossoms and snow, actually listened to it foolishly, and felt that the poet was glowing all over. He did not please you, and you did not care about being pleased by him. You were just secretly fascinated by him."

Ning Chunyan was very unwilling, she clenched her fists fiercely, but she couldn't refute what Chen Qingluo said. Her interpretation was very harsh, but she was right.

After holding it in for a long time, she finally thought of a rebuttal: "I think you describe the Little Prince too superficially."

"Yeah, after all, I only read one chapter." Chen Qingluo said, "I think I need to emphasize one point. Although he is a stinky poet who is always thinking about how to recite poems beautifully, he is not kitsch. He is not kitsch at all. The reason why he is not kitsch is that he wants to make money. He did not deceive himself about how noble he is."

Most Chinese people know the word "kitsch" through the book "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". If the meaning of this word is explained in a popular way, it is a bit like "pretending to be high-profile and using low-cost behaviors to make oneself appear sacred and noble."

For example, "If you don't forward this, you are not a Chinese"; the California wildfire killed dozens of people but a cat was rescued, so people prayed for the cat and sang praises to its life; today is Kobe's birthday and everyone should not take a helicopter... These are all kitsch behaviors.

Of course, there are also some people with rich emotions who are really touched by the meaning contained in these things. Opposing kitsch is not opposing emotions themselves, but opposing false nobility and overbearing kitsch. In other words, when everyone is moved, you must allow some people not to be moved, and at the same time, when you are not moved, you don’t have to pretend to be moved.

In the case of the Little Prince, he was obsessed with literature in speech therapy scripts, but he was not using literature to maintain his psychological superiority. He just truly believed in the power of words and the appeal of literature. He believed that he could make money with literature.

Chen Qingluo said: "In summary."

"In summary?"

"To sum up, the little prince is not married." Chen Qingluo said firmly, "He is a straight man who only cares about literature. How can such a man have a wife?"

……

"The Little Prince is a literary man who has taken his romanticism to the extreme," a man commented at the table. "To put it nicely, he is romantic. To put it bluntly, he is a picky girl. He has picked up girls to the point of literary value."

Director Yang wrinkled his nose and said, "Picking up girls is picking up girls, and literature is literature. They are completely different. How can picking up girls have literary value?"

Xie Cong waved his hand: "You don't know this. These days, picking up girls is a technical job. What's the joke? Before graduation, your parents told you to try dating? After graduation, your parents urged you to get married. If you can't find a partner, try it?

"There is a lack of education about love in our country. Many young people have no experience in dating the opposite sex before leaving school. So the Little Prince, a seasoned lover, came into being!"

The man nodded. "Yes! The Little Prince is a product of our current deformed literary market. It is vulgar and obscene, but it is accepted by the mainstream."

Someone else said, "Although it's vulgar, it really works. Many girls fall for it. I learned a few quotes from the Little Prince, and they really made the girls happy."

The man laughed: "That's why I said it was a product of a deformed market! In this day and age, it's fine as long as it works. Let's make it popular first, and then we'll talk about it. Who cares about the bad reputation afterward!"

Director Yang shook his head: "I haven't seen it, I've only heard about it. From what you guys said, I think it still doesn't have much substance."

"It has no substance in the first place," Xie Cong burped. "What substance do we need these days? They just want to have fun. Those people in the literary world are all fence-sitters. They support whoever is popular. Who cares about the seriousness of literature? They should just die early!"

Wang Zixu frowned as he listened. Lin Feng came over and whispered, "Brother, have you heard of the Little Prince?"

"No."

"Why do you feel like you have something to say?"

Wang Zixu was silent for a while, then whispered, "I just think they are a bit weird."

“What does kitsch mean?”

"I'll tell you after we finish eating."

(End of this chapter)