Backtracking to the Age of Literature and Art

Chapter 937 What's the Prospect

"Roar!"

Scholes had just entered the Bear Bookstore when he heard a loud cheer from upstairs.

He turned his head and asked Jenny, the saleswoman next to the counter, "Is there any activity upstairs? Why is it so lively?"

Jenny said with a smile, "You haven't come for a few days, I don't know what day it is."

Scholes raised his eyebrows and said, "I know, today is the day when YU's new book "The Ninth District" is released, so I came here."

Although it is a happy thing for YU to release a new book, in the past, everyone read books seriously and quietly, and it has never been so noisy like today.

"You are wrong, today is not only the day when YU's new book is released, but also the day when the International Olympic Committee holds a general meeting."

Scholes suddenly realized, "Oh, yes, I heard about this before. It seems that Yanjing's Olympic bid was successful?"

"It should be, I didn't watch it either."

Jenny stayed downstairs all the time and didn't have a chance to go upstairs to watch TV with everyone. Even the content of YU's speech was told to her by her colleagues, but she had someone record the part of YU's speech. Watch it with your boyfriend.

Although Jenny didn't see the live TV broadcast, the result was easy to guess, because the customers who were watching the live TV broadcast at the moment basically supported Yanjing.

Originally, for most Americans, whoever bids for the Olympic Games was not important to them at all, but since Yu Dong became Yanjing's Olympic bid ambassador, the situation has changed a little.

Love the house and Wu, many Americans began to support Yanjing because of Yu Dong.

Maybe Yanjing's bid for the Olympic Games was successful, and YU is in a good mood, so why not write more books?
And maybe Yanjing's Olympic bid was successful, and YU is in a good mood, so he will hold more signings?
Is it not our readers who benefit?
Besides, since Yanjing hosts the Olympic Games, Yu Dong will definitely go to Yanjing. If he goes to the Olympic Games, he might be able to see him.

There are many reasons for these American readers who like Yu Dong to support Yanjing's bid to host the Olympic Games.

At this moment, cheers came from upstairs, indicating that the result met their expectations.

Scholes smiled, "This is also good news. I also support Yanjing in my heart."

Jenny asked with a smile, "Will you go to Yanjing to watch the Olympics then?"

Scholes shrugged his shoulders, "Who can guarantee what will happen seven years later, but I have always wanted to visit Jinling. I have heard many times on the Internet about the Deep Space Park, but I have never had the opportunity to go there in person. have a look."

Jenny enviously said, "That's great, at least you can go if you want. I really want to go, but I probably can't."

"Haha, your bookstore is a special partner of the Deep Space Corporation, maybe the Deep Space Corporation will give you all the places to go to Yanjing at that time, this is the consistent style of the Deep Space Corporation."

Jenny curled her lips, "Even if there is a place, it's not our turn. Our store manager went to the annual meeting of Deep Space Company last time."

"Good luck then."

Scholes smiled, and then walked upstairs. He was going to look for new books in the YU section.

After arriving on the second floor, he saw a group of people discussing lively around a TV.

"Seven years later, we will go to Yanjing together."

"Why do we have to wait until seven years later, we can pass this year's annual meeting."

"Haha, I wonder if YU will write a novel about sports after Yanjing's Olympic bid is successful."

"That shouldn't be true, he hasn't had much contact with sports."

"Who said that, I heard that he plays football every day and is very good."

"How did I hear that he is very good at basketball?"

"His body is more suitable for playing football?"

"Haha, do you think he will combine science fiction with sports?"

"It's hard to say, I'm not surprised that he combines science fiction with any subject matter."

"Indeed, this "Ninth District" can explain the problem. When I read the book this morning, it was really..."

"Don't spoil it, there are still people here who haven't read the book."

"Who hasn't read the book yet?"

"Nemo hasn't watched it yet. He just came and watched the live broadcast with us."

"Nemo, hurry up and see it, it's so beautiful."

……

Hearing these people's conversations, Scholes smiled, walked to the bookshelf with anticipation, picked up a copy of "District [-]" and walked to the cashier on the second floor to check out.

After paying the bill, he took the book and went to a higher level.

He usually likes to read on the second floor, but today the second floor is too busy, he needs to find a quieter place.

Walking all the way to the fourth floor and sitting down in an unoccupied corner, Scholes first looked at the cover. Among the ruins, there was a strange-looking creature that looked a bit like a cockroach half-kneeling on the ground. His eyes were fixed on the person outside the book.

Without much research on the cover, Scholes opened "District [-]" with reverence.

The beginning of the story looks a lot like a modern urban novel. It describes a 30-year-old ordinary man who just got engaged to his fiancée. He worked in other companies before and finally became a full-time employee of a large multinational company through his own efforts.

After becoming a regular employee of a multinational company, he was sent to the Ninth District to participate in the on-site management.

As far as the novel is written, there is no place related to science fiction. There is only District [-], which looks more like science fiction. The author has not explained what this place is.

This way of writing is very common. The writer minimizes the description of the background to create a sense of reality... At least when Scholes read this paragraph, he felt that this ninth district is a very common one in the world. Stuff, because only uncommon things need an introduction.

Although the author did not make any special introduction, Scholes soon knew what the Ninth District was through the development of the plot.

Several decades ago, a group of aliens escaped to the earth. The aliens who came to the earth did not seek to invade, but to seek asylum.After discussion, the countries of the earth decided to set up an area in South Africa as a temporary shelter for these aliens.

It is said to be a refuge, but it is actually to detain these aliens together for centralized management.

At the beginning, the governments of various countries discussed taking turns to manage District [-]. Later, everyone found it troublesome and simply outsourced the management of aliens to a well-known multinational company, which is the company that the male protagonist entered.

These aliens look ugly and look like a kind of worm called prawns, so humans hate these aliens very much, so in the ninth district, there are often situations where humans bully aliens.

The male protagonist’s attitude towards aliens has been changing. When he first joined the company, he was more curious and afraid of these aliens, but as time passed, he spent a long time with other colleagues and began to hate them. He thought of aliens, but there was some sympathy in his disgust, and in the end he became as insensitive as anyone else.

Halfway through the novel, Scholes narrowed his eyes.

He felt that the book was becoming cold.

The weather was very hot, and the air-conditioning in Little Bear Bookstore was fully turned on, but Scholes knew that this cold feeling was definitely not brought to him by the air-conditioning, but from Yu's icy brushstrokes.

A writer's pen has temperature, and temperature is a neutral term. It can be warm or cold.

When reading the first half of the novel, Scholes did not feel cold. He could even feel the warmth from the interaction between the protagonist and his family and self-confidence. The protagonist has a happy family and a great improvement in his career. Everything is going well Developing in a good direction, the protagonist even walks on tiptoes.

But in the second half of the novel, it suddenly becomes icy cold.

This is not over, when Scholes felt the cold, blood and violence ensued.

After that, when the protagonist is infected with a mysterious virus and slowly turns into a "prawn", the story reaches its climax.

When he saw this, Scholes suddenly remembered the interview with YU that he had seen before. YU mentioned Metamorphosis and Expressionism before, and now it seems that it is true, this is an expressionist science fiction novel.

After reading the entire book, Scholes looked at the cover again, and now he knew that the ugly creature on the cover was an alien, or in other words, this should be the protagonist after alienation.

Maybe he was staring at the people who besieged him at this time, or maybe he was staring at the spaceship going away.

Closing the book, Scholes stared at the crowd outside the window, lost in thought.

The talking and laughing downstairs had stopped at this time, but Scholes seemed to hear some noisy voices from far away, and some chaotic pictures were wrapped in these noisy voices and sent to his mind , slowly crowding out the space in his brain.

Scholes doesn't know much about expressionism. In fact, when ordinary readers read a book, they don't care what kind of doctrine the work is or what techniques are used, and some only have the most direct subjective feelings.

But before reading "The Ninth District", Scholes knew that this novel was related to expressionism. Now that he has read the whole novel, his impression of expressionism is that it is full of stamina.

That's right, it's full of stamina. Now that I've finished reading the book, the picture is still in my mind.

The most important thing is that in the process of reading, because the rhythm is fast, there are only some scattered fragments. Now that the book is finished, these scattered fragments are pieced together in my mind to form one picture by one. If they are missing, the brain will automatically fill them up.

In fact, Scholes didn't know that his feeling had little to do with expressionism, mainly because of zero-degree writing. When the author wrote at zero degree, he lowered his emotions, which would also affect the emotions of readers. , so that the reader does not have strong feelings immediately, but when the aftertaste comes, the emotions that have been "frozen" before will be released.

……

After "The Ninth District" came out, it attracted a lot of attention. Many people thought that Yu Dong's placement of the Ninth District in South Africa had a meaning.

As we all know, South Africa has been implementing a system of apartheid for half a century after 1948.

According to the laws of the time, the various ethnic groups were forcibly separated geographically.

No wonder everyone thinks so, because no matter how you look at it, the Ninth District in the novel is like a replica of South Africa's apartheid system.

Involving politics is not a good thing, but this matter has no effect on Dong.

First of all, Yu Dong is a great writer, and people are very tolerant towards writers, especially when it comes to insinuations and accusations.

Secondly, the apartheid system in South Africa has been in the past for many years, and it is not a big deal to criticize it.

If I had to talk about influence, it would be that in subsequent interviews, Yu Dong asked more and more political questions.

After the conference, the delegation returned to China, while Yu Dong stayed in Moscow for the signing.

At the press meeting of the first signing event, a reporter directly asked Yu Dong whether writing about District [-] was inspired by the South African apartheid system.

Regarding this question, Yu Dong didn't admit anything, but he didn't deny anything either. He only talked about "The Metamorphosis" and Kafka.

But because he talked about "Metamorphosis", a reporter immediately asked him: "YU, some people say that your "Ninth District" is a work that completely imitates "Metamorphosis". What do you say about this?"

Yu Dong smiled, "Someone said it? Who said it?"

The reporter faltered and said: "I saw some netizens talking about it on the Internet."

"Oh, I thought it was you. Actually, I don't mind if people say that "District [-]" is a copycat of "Metamorphosis", as long as people like it."

"Then you..."

The reporter wanted to ask again, and a knowledgeable reporter next to him rushed to ask, "YU, the Galaxy Awards ceremony will be held in a few days, will you go back to participate?"

Yu Dong smiled and nodded, "Of course, I will return to China after today's autograph session is over."

"Do you personally have any expectations for this year's Galaxy Awards?"

"Haha, I personally hope that the program of this year's awards ceremony will be better. In addition, this year's deep space park still has science fiction-themed activities. If you are interested, you can go and see it. Everyone present, if anyone wants to go, I will give it to you personally. A star card with [-] points is for you."

Hearing that one person gave away a star card with [-] points, the reporters couldn't help but sigh with emotion, YU really likes to give away star points.

As for the fact that YU likes to give away star points, everyone knows that the situation of giving away points later like today often happens, and YU is not a small amount when he makes a move.

Today there are 50 media workers on site, and each of them has 500 points, that is, [-] million points. Now the exchange rate between star points and RMB is basically between [-]:[-] and [-]:[-].

Four and five million points, roughly equivalent to 500 RMB, is no small amount, but Yu Dong then threw it out.

Of course, not many of these people at the scene would go to Jinling because of these points. After all, travel expenses also cost money, and [-] points can't fill a hole.

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Alas, today I moved bricks from the construction site and went home to open the writer's assistant to see the bad news. The first two pictures were blocked

(End of this chapter)