Back to 80: My Literary Life

Liu Sola from Yanjing finally determined his writing direction, but Yu Hua from Zhejiang Province was still hesitant. .

At the end of 1983, Yu Hua rushed from Haiyan to Shanghai alone, and finally found Fang Minghua, the editor of "Yanhe" magazine. Under his careful guidance, the article "Stars" was published in "Yanhe" magazine.

This is the first time that Yu Hua has published a novel in a national publication, and it is also the first time for Haiyan people as a whole.

The whole county was shocked.

For this reason, he was first seconded and finally transferred to the County Cultural Center.

This is his dream place.

The office is not very bright but very spacious. There are almost no people in the whole office and it is quiet outside.

Is there any place more conducive to your own creation than this?

On the first day he entered the office, he acted like this.

But more than a year later, he found that he was wrong, very wrong.

Over the past year, he worked diligently and wrote several short stories such as "The Tenor's Love", "Old Postal Notes", "When Can You Hold This Hand Again", etc., which were published in "West Lake", "Young Writers" and "Yanhe" on.

But it did not bring him happiness like the first novel "Stars", but instead brought him depression.

Some people publicly accused him of writing these things: "too stingy", "not profound", and even "a poor imitation."

He admitted that he was imitating.

Some are imitating Wang Zengqi, and some are imitating Kawabata Yasunari.

However, how can we write "generous" and "profound" works?

Yu Hua looked back on his experience of more than 20 years more than once: He had never joined a team or been an editor like Fang Minghua, nor had he endured as much hardship as Mo Yan in his childhood. He had never gone to university or worked as a worker, nor had he ever been a worker. There have been twists and turns, but there have never been ups and downs.

He didn't know what to write or how to write, and felt confused and painful:

"How I wish I could be exiled to Siberia and shepherd sheep like Su Wu did in ancient times. Then maybe I can write good things."

One time, he couldn't bear it anymore and said these words to his new wife. As a result, his wife quickly touched his forehead.

"Yu Hua, you don't have a fever, do you? Don't scare me?!"

He never said this to anyone again.

It was raining outside today and there were very few people coming to work. As always, he was sitting alone in the office, silently reading various newspapers and magazines. I haven’t written anything for a long time.

He felt as if he had encountered an invisible wall.

I have been hit hard and bleeding but I can't get through.

Suddenly, he saw this article by Fang Minghua, and he became energetic and read it carefully.

Once, twice.

For a whole day, Yu Hua was immersed in this article, carefully considering every sentence and word he wrote.

"In fact, every work of avant-garde novels is written by the author himself and expresses the author's inner world. Everyone's experience and inner world are unique, so the novels written are also unique."

"The cold, objective, concise and implicitly sarcastic language expresses the author's anxious and worried mind. You can use cold language as a "sharp ax" to split the illusion of life that blinds people's eyes, but you will jump under this cold language. With a burning heart, this narrative style is formed, which is cold on the outside and hot on the inside, with a mixture of sadness and joy."

Slowly, Yu Hua finally understood.

"Every work is written about the author himself and expresses the author's inner world" - If my work is about myself, what should I write about?

Hospital.

Since I was a child, I have been wandering around every corner of the hospital, and I have become accustomed to the buckets of bloody things brought out of the operating room, as well as those miserable cries.

He still remembers one thing.

A few years ago, I was assigned to a dental hospital in a city for further training. At that time, I happened to shoot a 21-22-year-old prisoner. After the shooting, I threw the dead prisoner onto a mottled table tennis table in the elementary school next door. .

It didn’t take long before doctors from various specialties came from Shanghai and Hangzhou to divide themselves up there. There were doctors from all specialties.

What kind of heart-gouging and eye-gouging things.

Those people were used to talking and laughing.

Can't these be written into novels?

Death, blood, indifference.

As Minghua said, use "cold, objective, concise and ironic language to express anxious and worried hearts. You can use cold language as a "sharp ax" to split the illusion of life that blinds people's eyes."

Thinking of this, he smiled. Looking at the rain that kept falling, he had never felt that the rain was so lovely.

Because, he saw the wall in front of him collapse.

Years later, he recalled:

"When I was about to become a funeral object of literary superstition, it was Minghua's article that saved me from the butcher's knife of Kawabata Yasunari. I understand this as a gift of fate."

These avant-garde novel writers who have become famous or are about to become famous draw energy and nutrition from Fang Minghua's article, but some of them are confused.

This afternoon, Fang Minghua is preparing the next lecture content in the office.

This time it’s simple, mainly talking about the writing skills of modern poetry:

"Modern poetry is free, but that doesn't mean that phonology is unimportant. The length changes or neatness of sentence patterns and the harmony of rhymes are part of the beauty. This is the wealth gained from old poetry."

"This is the role of sentence length in poetry, which makes the poetry rhythmic. Even if the singing style of the words is lost, it still reads catchy. This is the beauty of art. And in modern poetry, some people I gained a lot of experience from it, and some good poets have such characteristics in their poems."

"For example, the poems of Xu Zhimo and Dai Wangshu, the modern ones such as Shu Ting's stories, and the poems of Yu Guangzhong."

“True poetry is the perfect unity of art and ideals, the corresponding unity of color, emotion, sound, line, and tension, and the condensed language of truth, goodness, and beauty.

Fang Minghua was writing furiously in the office when the office door was suddenly knocked open, and it was Lu Yao who came in, holding his imitation leather briefcase that had remained unchanged for thousands of years.

"Brother Lu." Fang Minghua stood up and was surprised.

"Didn't you go to Tongchuan to write? Why are you back again? Brother Jia asked you to give lectures again?"

"No, I suddenly couldn't calm down anymore."

"What's wrong?"

Fang Minghao poured him a cup of tea and sat across from him.

"Hey, it's what you said in the West Auditorium last time." Lu Yao sighed and continued.

"Minghua, I told you that this long novel I wrote is set in the ten years from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. It tells the story of the struggle of a pair of young brothers on the loess land. It is a typical realism theme. , I thought about it for three years and started with full confidence. But now I suddenly feel like I am out of date in writing these things?"