Back to 80: My Literary Life

It was almost 12 o'clock when Ou Youquan knocked on the door again and asked Fang Minghua to go downstairs for dinner.

The dinner location was in the restaurant on the third floor of the hotel. Ou Youquan asked for a private room and asked, "Chairman Fang, our Hunan cuisine is quite spicy. I wonder if you can get used to it?"

"It doesn't matter. We Qin people also eat spicy food."

"That's good." Ou Youquan ordered a few Hunan dishes.

Fish head with chopped pepper, spicy chicken, Mao's braised pork, fried vegetables with oil residue, and a soup and white rice. He opened a bottle of local Shaoyang Daqu and the two chatted while eating.

"Chairman Fang, Chairman Han must have told you the purpose of my visit. I really want to hear your opinion on online literature."

Fang Minghua did not answer directly but asked: "Do you know the two literary websites, Huanjian Book Alliance and Qidian Chinese Network?"

Ou Youquan was stunned for a moment before saying: "I know. Huanjian Book Alliance is a large-scale online literary website that publishes fantasy and fairy tale novels. It has a great influence among online readers. Qidian is similar to Huanjian, but it was established later, with a smaller scale and less influence."

"How do these two compare with "Under the Banyan Tree"? " Fang Minghua asked again.

"No comparison! Whether it is the scale of the website, the literary quality of the online articles published, or the status in the minds of readers, it cannot be compared with Under the Banyan Tree!"

Ou Youquan's words are not wrong.

The current "Under the Banyan Tree" is no longer the literary website in history. It has continued to "burn money" in the prosperous literature and has become the leader of domestic online original literature.

It has held three consecutive online original literature competitions, and the website has gathered a group of outstanding online authors, such as Li Xunhuan, Jin Hezai, Jiangnan, Murong Cunxue, Annie Baby, etc.

More importantly, these people have relatively strong literary skills, and many novels published on the Internet have been published offline as physical books.

Therefore, Under the Banyan Tree is known as "the online literature website closest to real literature."

"So which one do you think is the future or development direction of online literature, Under the Banyan Tree or Huanjian Book Alliance or Qidian?" Fang Minghua asked another question.

"I think it is the former, Under the Banyan Tree!" Ou Youquan answered decisively.

Fang Minghua shook his head: "You are wrong, it is the latter."

"The latter?!"

"Yes, it is the latter. If you think it is the former, then you don't really understand online literature." Fang Minghua said, and took a bite of food.

Ou Youquan began to be surprised and fell into deep thought.

After a while, Ou Youquan said again: "Chairman Fang, let's put aside the view you mentioned for the time being. I will ask another question."

"Oh, you said?"

"Online literature, just this word, how do you understand it?" Ou Youquan asked.

Fang Minghua smiled and said, "I understand what you mean. The word "network literature" is a noun or noun phrase with a modifier structure. "Network" is the modifying component and "literature" is the main component, right?"

"Yes, that's what I think."

"In fact, this idea is a subconscious one, because people have long been accustomed to reading literary works in paper texts. If you change your perspective and regard "network" as the main body, you will have a new perspective and cognition: network literature, that is, literature belonging to the "network", not literature on "paper". The network has a certain main meaning here."

"Do you think so?" Ou Youquan was as surprised as he was when he heard Fang Minghua's point of view. He thought while thinking, "According to your understanding, the storytelling literature of the Song and Yuan Dynasties was popular, and the storybook novel, which was the literary basis of the art of "speaking", began to become popular."

"Speaking" generally pays attention to vivid plots, popular language, sonorous tones, and varied rhythms. The speaker has a clear attitude and full of enthusiasm. Therefore, the family of "speaking" and narrative skills are all reflected in the storybook. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it became popular for private bookshops to print books. "All the stories were not the fabricated talks of Taoists since the Song Dynasty, but the thoughts of the people in the streets and alleys, which were messy and shallow, and generally not worth reading. However, their influence on people's hearts was very great. If some literati stood up to compile and polish them, they would also be the embryos of great works." That is to say, different printing technologies and different printing entities also have different influences and restrictions on the theme content and language of the book? ! "

Ou Youquan seemed to understand something and was thinking.

"Yes, after the rise of modern newspapers and periodicals, literary periodicals and newspaper supplements became the most important battlefield for the publication of literary works, and also the material form for the birth and existence of these literary works."

Fang Minghua added: "The tabloids and periodicals that became popular in the late 19th century directly and powerfully promoted the prosperity of modern popular novels, and made China appear in a literary era centered on periodicals. The newspaper supplements had a direct and unique influence on the style of writing."

"According to your point of view, Lu Xun's short essays were written to meet the needs of the supplements? ! In other words, if there were no newspaper supplements in Lu Xun's time, Lu Xun's essays would not have appeared? ! "

Ou Youquan said quickly.

Read the error-free version!6=9+Shu_bar first published this novel.

"You can think so." Fang Minghua smiled slightly.

"The Internet has freed the preservation and dissemination of novels, poems, etc. from tangible media such as lead type and paper. It can carry huge amounts of text and information at a very low cost and spread them quickly, providing authors with convenient conditions for quickly generating massive amounts of text information"

The meal lasted for two hours before it was over. In the end, Ou Quanquan sighed and said, "Listening to you is really better than ten years of reading. If I had contacted you earlier, I would have avoided many detours. Chairman Fang, I Here’s to you.”

Ou Quanquan held up the wine glass respectfully, and Fang Minghua followed suit, and the two of them drank it down in one gulp.

In fact, Fang Minghua still has many questions that he has not said:

For example: The Internet only seeks instantaneous consumption at this moment, but literature must point to eternity. "Reading screens" is a symbolic form of desire. Human beings long for "poetic dwelling" here. Will the digital existence of literature and art change the human mind? The construction of beauty?

Furthermore, the Internet has brought literature down from the altar, creating a new folk fairy tale in which "everyone can be a writer." However, while the Internet lowers the threshold of literature, how can we ensure that online literature does not lose its value commitment and the support of aesthetic logic?

The Internet penetrates literary production with weightless "bits", thus making all literary conventions lose weight. Its formatting of printed literature has easily replaced the existence mode of literature in the field of media studies, but why in the field of spiritual phenomenology? The meaning is full of flaws and cannot be questioned?...

In fact, after 20 years of development of online literature, there is still no clear answer or solution.

After the meal, Ou Quanquan said again: "Minghua, I am going to rethink the views I wrote based on what we talked about today, so I decided to co-author this paper in the name of both of us."

"No, don't" Fang Minghua quickly refused. I'm just saying my opinion, which may not be correct. If you think it's appropriate, feel free to use it, but don't involve me. "

"That's so embarrassing."

"Nothing to be embarrassed about."