Backtracking to the Age of Literature and Art

Chapter 952

Schroeder was indeed taken aback by Yu Dong, so much so that he unconsciously raised his voice a little.

The people around who were chatting with each other looked at this side one after another, not knowing what was going on with them.

Schroeder raised his hand to apologize to everyone, and after everyone stopped looking at him, he said to Dong in a low voice, "YU, it's too exaggerated to give you one hundred places a year, the most we can give you is Twenty places, all of which are master's places, what do you think?"

Of course Yu Dong also knew that Schroeder would definitely not be able to accept the figure of one hundred, but when it came to business, there was always a process of negotiating, asking for the price and paying back the money on the other hand.

"Schroeder, you are here to recruit students, and you will also recruit foreign students from China. The foreign students you recruit yourself may not be better than the foreign students we send to you. If you think about it differently, this is tantamount to We help you solve the trouble of recruiting students, and you can enjoy the benefits."

Schroeder is a shrewd person, of course he will not be easily fooled by Yu Dong's tricks, he shook his head and said, "It's two different things, one hundred places are too many, so let's give you 25 places, all of you Master's degree or above. No matter how much you have, you can't use it up."

Yu Dong waved his hand and said, "It's impossible to use up endlessly. You just need to rest assured about this. Well, since you took a step back first, I will also take a step back. We don't want a hundred. I'll give you a [-]% discount." , Only [-]. Your brother university recruits so many students a year, it should not be difficult to find [-] places, and these places can completely not take up your original places, so it is like finding [-] more students."

"No, no, eighty is still too much, I can't agree. Thirty, really can't be more. You know, we have to take a lot of risks to give you dozens of places a year. Yes, other students may have opinions too. The school is only this big, and there are only so many resources.”

"Students can have any opinions. Eighty more students will only make everyone's living conditions better..."

……

The two spoke in a low voice, so Yu Hua and Bi Feiyu who were sitting next to each other could hear what they said, and Yu Hua didn't understand English, so only Bi Feiyu could understand.

Bi Feiyu was a little dazed when he heard that the two were haggling over the admission quota as if they were buying vegetables in a vegetable market. Could it be that this level of negotiation is also so simple and unpretentious?
It’s a bit slanderous to say that it’s the same as buying vegetables. Generally, when buying vegetables, you don’t bargain back and forth dozens of times. At first, they added and subtracted five or ten like this. Added and subtracted one by one.

Yu Hua was also very curious about the content of the conversation between the two of them, and wanted to ask Bi Feiyu to help translate it, but because she knew that Schroeder could understand Chinese, she didn't ask Bi Feiyu to help.Without an interpreter, he could only stare at the two of them.

Yu Dong talked with Schroeder for about half an hour before finally reaching a conclusion.

In the end, Yu Dong made a little more concessions, dropping from 42 places to [-] places.

That's right, that's how it all went, which shows how intense the battle was just now.

After the conversation, when Schroeder breathed a sigh of relief, he only heard Yu Dong say, "I'll talk to Jimmy about your idea later, whether it can be done or not, we still have to see if he is interested."

Schroeder twitched his lips. He thought that Yu Dong must have the right to make decisions when he bargained with him like this. What he said now meant that he had to go to Jimmy.But as long as Yu Dong is willing to help and tell Jimmy, it's not like nothing.

"Well, then I would trouble you to talk to Jimmy, he should respect your suggestion, right?"

Yu Dong shrugged his shoulders, "When the opinions are the same, he respects my opinions more. When the opinions are different, he doesn't respect so much."

Schroeder blinked his eyes and looked at Yu Dong with piercing eyes: Did Yu tell me a bad joke just now?
……

After eating and resting for a while at noon, Yu Dong and the others walked into the auditorium of Columbia University. They were going to hold an exchange meeting for students.

Because it is aimed at students, it is impossible for all writers in the visiting group to be on stage. Today, only six people, Yu Dong, Yu Hua, Bi Feiyu, Wang Xiaobo, Wang Anyi, and Mo Yan, are on stage.

This literary visit is very long, and there are still many opportunities to go on stage. They have already made arrangements in advance, and the list of each stage is also listed.

Since it is a literary exchange meeting, it is natural that there cannot be only representatives from China. Columbia University has invited two American writers, one is Philip Roth and the other is Joyce Oates.

Both of these two writers signed contracts with the Deep Space Company, and they were also considered to be from the "Deep Space Department", but Yu Dong and the others were a little more familiar with the latter, and it was the first time they met Philip Roth.

In fact, Deep Space Corporation and Philip Roth were very early. The first well-known writers that Deep Space Corporation sought in Europe and America were Alice Munro, Joyce Oates, and Philip Roth.

At that time, the signings of Deep Space Corporation with Alice Munro and Joyce Oates went very smoothly. Basically, after contacting them, they negotiated soon. Only Philip Ross took a long time to sign.

This is also reasonable. Although the three are well-known writers, their coffee positions are also different. Compared with Philip Roth, Alice Munro and Joyce Oates are still less famous.

Now Philip Roth has won the O. Henry Award, the National Book Award, the Faulkner Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He has basically won all the achievements that the United States can achieve in literature. The Nobel Prize for Literature.

In fact, he is now one of the writers with the highest calls for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the odds are high.

Philip Roth is almost 70 years old now. Year after year, if there is no Nobel Prize for Literature, it may be difficult. How long can a person live?
In recent years, Philip Roth has been in a very productive stage, and he will publish a novel every one or two years.

Someone joked that after Philip Roth signed with Deep Space Company, he was influenced by model worker writer YU, and his production also increased significantly.

Of course, this was all a joke. No one would really think that Yu Dong could make other writers more productive. Otherwise, Yu Hua, who was closest to Yu Dong, wouldn't be able to produce a novel in a few years.

But everyone thinks that it is a good deal for Deep Space Company to sign Philip Ross and the others. On another platform, the works of the past few years have become more and more solid, and their influence in the literary world has also become greater and greater.

Similarly, Joyce Oates and Alice Munro, too, have been getting better and better since they signed with Deep Space.

If the current trend continues, there will be at least one Nobel Prize winner among these three people.

Philip Roth came almost on time, and he was late when Yudong and the others were about to take the stage.

He is 68 years old. Apart from being bald, he is still in good spirits. He is Jewish and has a typical Jewish face.

When he came, he didn't say anything, just smiled and waved.

Joyce Oates has a straight personality and is about the same age as Philip Ross. He complained directly, "Philip, you should correct your lateness. We are waiting for you."

Philip Roth smiled awkwardly. He knew he was in the wrong, but he was unwilling to apologize, so he pointed to his watch, "It's just time, and I'm not late."

Yu Dong said with a smile, "Now that we're here, let's go up quickly. The students are still waiting for us. The theme of today's exchange meeting is relatively light, so we don't need to be in a hurry."

Philip Roth nodded again and again, "Yes, let's go up."

……

When everyone walked onto the stage, there was a burst of loud applause in the auditorium. There were a lot of students, no matter those who could sit or those who couldn’t. Everywhere you looked was full of people, even the aisles were crowded with people.

After they were all seated, the host gave a simple opening remark, and then introduced Yu Dong and the others one by one.

After the introduction, the host said with a smile, “The theme of today’s exchange meeting is diverse writing and common interests. At the same time, as human beings, we have something in common, such as life, ideals, loftiness, love, etc..."

Diversified writing, common interests, this theme was provided by Columbia University. For this exchange meeting, Columbia University drafted several themes for Deep Space Corporation to choose, and finally Deep Space Corporation left this one.

After the moderator finished speaking, the first speaker was Philip Roth.

Although Philip Roth came late, he got into the mood quite quickly. He held the microphone and said slowly, "Diverse writing, common interests, I still have a say in this topic. I was born in the United States, but I My father is from Kolozlov, Austria, and my mother is from Kiev, Ukraine, so in my house, you can see several different cultures intertwined. I have always believed in a saying, as many eyes as there are How many worlds are there? Everyone sees the world differently. In different cultures, there is a huge gap in what people see. This year I heard a critical voice about me. They said that I am not a characteristic Distinguished writers, I think they are right, I have tried many things over the years, some are satisfactory to me and the readers, some are not satisfactory to me and the readers, some are satisfactory to the readers, and some are not satisfactory to the readers. There are some that I am not very satisfied with but the readers are very satisfied with."

"And the reason why I heard these voices is thanks to my agent Jimmy James, who registered me with a Deep Space Tribe account."

The audience laughed when they heard what Philip Roth said later. It turns out that you little old man also surfs the Internet.

Although Philip Roth likes to engage in nonsense literature when he speaks, it is much more peaceful than in the book. In his novels, the language is very witty but not indecent, sarcasm but not mean, there are many from the streets and Jewish Family jokes.These jokes are fully integrated into the scenes and the actions of the characters. Their dialogues are short and in line with the characters' age and personality identities, forming a colorful genre painting of the American Jewish nation.

In terms of language style, if you want to compare, Wang Shuo's language style is somewhat similar.

Philip Roth does have a say on today's topic. His family structure is complicated and he has been exposed to various cultures since he was a child. This situation is also integrated into his novels.

In his novels, many languages ​​appear, usually the narrative language is standard American English, but various characters in the novel use Yiddish at home, American slang often heard on the noisy streets of big cities and the Hebrew language used in Jewish religious ceremonies.

As for Philip Roth's criticism that he is not a distinctive writer, it is also true, and this is not said by one or two people, but by many people.

Throughout Philip Roth's writing over the past few decades, he has basically integrated realism, postmodernism, and neorealism that have been popular for decades.

His writing career can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage is the stage of realism. This is the same as many writers. Most novice writers don’t play tricks and start with realism.

The second stage is to imitate the modernist style. This stage lasted for a short time, and then he crossed over to the stage of experimental writing. At this stage, his styles became diverse, and he tried various styles and could control them.

In fact, some people criticized Yu Dong too much, similar to the content of criticizing Philip Roth. They said that Yu Dong is not a writer with distinctive characteristics, because Yu Dong's works have too many styles, and they are in such a high-yielding situation.

Philip Roth first went through the novice stage, then entered the exploration stage, and finally entered the "madness" state.

But Yu Dong is different. Yu Dong's several debut works have touched realism, stream of consciousness, and magic realism, and they are all very good.

Yu Dong didn't take this kind of criticism seriously at all.

Literary criticism is like that. If you always write in one style, some people will say that you are stagnant and do not seek change. If you keep trying, some people will say that you have no distinctive characteristics.

If you write less, some people will say that you are exhausted, and if you write more, some people will say that you are not serious about your works, or that you find someone to write for you.

(End of this chapter)