Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 637 Chapter 636 As the saying goes, when a person becomes famous, he or she will be surrounded by gossips; the same is true when a book becomes famous.

"If there are too many critical articles, it will inevitably affect the reputation of this novel, and then affect its sales." Lei Xuecheng smiled and said, "Among the six books of Qin Jun's Eastern Expedition, "Wasteland" may not have the worst literary value, but its reputation is the worst."

"Well, Teacher Minghua reminded us before the book was published that we should pay attention to the social response to the book after it was published." Dai Jiali was not surprised at all: "We have already made a plan within our company."

After saying that, Dai Jiali took out a mobile phone from the bag she was carrying and started making a call while standing aside.

"Director Liu, I'm Dai Jiali. Have you seen the article criticizing Wasted City written by Professor Meng Fanhua of Yenching University in Literary Review? Please study it carefully and refute his views."

"Also, have you contacted Professor Ma Yuan? He was very optimistic about this book at the seminar. Can you ask him to write a review?"

Fang Minghua naturally admitted that he knew Ma Yuan.

One of the representative writers of contemporary Chinese "avant-garde" novels, he published the novel The Temptation of Gangdise in 1985 and Liu Sola's You Have No Choice in the same year, which officially set off a storm of avant-garde literature in mainland China.

After Fang Minghua finished the book signing event at Xuecheng Bookstore, he moved to the Bell Tower Xinhua Bookstore the next day. At this point, the entire book signing event was over.

The fame of "The Qin Army's Eastern Expedition" grew, and the sales of several books also increased.

As the saying goes, when a person becomes famous, he or she will be surrounded by gossip; the same is true when a book becomes

There were gradually more and more critical articles in the literary world, especially Jia Pingwa's "Wasted City", which almost became the target of public criticism.

Cheng Depei, a scholar from Shanghai, wrote two articles, "Is the criticism circle also being "criticized"? " and "A batch of "epics" were accidentally created" to express his strong dissatisfaction with "Wasteland".

Yang Xianyi, the English translator of A Dream of Red Mansions, wrote a doggerel poem titled "Thoughts": "Suddenly I saw a book stall selling Wasted City. Jia Sheng's talent is unprecedented in ancient and modern times. Human greed is like a snake swallowing an elephant, and greed cannot satisfy ghosts' paintings."

Among them, ten young critics and graduate students from prestigious universities were the most critical.

Li Shulei believes that "Wasted City" "directly caters to the dark and humble psychology of the cultural masses", "has no soul at all" and "is vulgar to the core."

Chen Xiaoming said: "Jia Pingwa, wearing the battle robe of 'serious literature', riding a little cow from the northwest, leading a group of unruly modern Ximen Qings and beautiful women with various styles and burning desires, came slowly and told people the biggest sexual myth at the end of the century."

Han Yuhai said Jia Pingwa "has become a cultural accomplice of the ridiculous act of teaching the cat to catch the mouse and a lackey of the tiger."

For a moment, it seemed like a storm was coming, as if Jia Pingwa would be drowned with saliva.

Of course, writers in the Qin Province literary world did not dare to show weakness and wrote articles to support and encourage Jia Pingwa. Shengshi Books, the publisher of the book, was also not idle and secretly organized young scholars and graduate students from the Chinese departments of universities to write articles to praise the book.

Fang Minghua also wrote a review and published it in the magazine "Novel Review" to support it.

"Recently, there has been a lot of criticism about the novel Wasted City. Literary criticism is a very normal thing. But it is not difficult to see that these recent comments about Wasted City have long gone beyond the scope of literature and art, and are instead condescending moral judgments."

"This year is 1993, and reform and opening up have been going on for more than a decade. Many Western novels have been introduced to China. For example, Lady Chatterley's Lover was published in China as early as 88, and had a direct impact on the creations of Jia Pingwa, Chen Zhongshi and others. The modernist classic Ulysses also has an in-depth description of Bloom and Molly's sexual consciousness, and this book has also been published in China a long time ago."

"What I want to ask is, these critics think that writing about sex in Western works is to better shape the characters and thus fully display and explore human nature, while Chinese writers are considered vulgar, explicit and shameless when they write about sex?"

"Jia Pingwa's "Wasteland" is like a certain sister-in-law wearing a cheongsam when she goes out. Not only do we have to say that the dress is ugly, but we also have to think about her motives and whether she wants to seduce someone... Of course, I say that there is only one standard for literature and art in China now, and that is malicious slander."

"What I want to say is that some foreign works will be handed down from generation to generation, and they will not be judged by the standards of the present world or morality. Such standards have never been applied to Chinese people. From this, we can draw a conclusion: "That is, in the field of literature and art, foreigners can do things that transcend humanity, but Chinese people cannot."

"In the fields of literature, art and other humanities, some people use different standards. They use artistic or scientific standards to evaluate foreign works, while they use moral standards to evaluate Chinese works. I call this phenomenon "double standards."

This review was extremely sharp, directly raising the issue to the differences between countries and between Eastern and Western literature, and immediately leaving those who criticized it speechless.

Want to occupy the moral high ground?
Well, let’s see who stands higher!

Today is August 8th. The beginning of autumn has passed and the weather in Xijing is starting to become less hot, especially after it rained yesterday. It seems very cool today.

Fang Minghua's house is quite lively today, with several people coming.

Zhang Yimou, Ge You, Gong Li, Zhao Jiping, Du Yuan, and Lu Le are the main creative team of the movie "To Live".

It turns out that "To Live" won the highest award of this year's Venice International Film Festival, the "Golden Lion Award", together with Krzysztof Kieslowski's film "Blue of the Blue, White and Red Trilogy". Zhang Yimou returned triumphantly, and Shengshi Film and Television held a celebration party for the movie "To Live" in Xijing and invited leaders from relevant provincial and municipal departments to attend, and also held a seminar on the movie "To Live".

As a private relationship, Song Tangtang also specially invited the main members of the team to his home, cooked a table of dishes, served Maotai, and everyone chatted happily.

Among them, it goes without saying that Zhang Yimou often comes to Fang Minghua's house.

Gong Li is Zhang Yimou's favorite heroine in his films, and the two are now in an ambiguous relationship. Zhao Jiping and the other two are core members of Zhang Yimou's film creation team. They are all from Xijing. Shengshi Film and Television has invested in several films and TV series shot by Zhang Yimou, and they are the core of the creative team. Fang Minghua and Song Tangtang are both familiar with them.

The only difference is that Ge You is working with Zhang Yimou's team for the first time, and he is not from Xijing, so he seems a little unfamiliar.

For this reason, Fang Minghua poured him a few more glasses of wine. He naturally congratulated him, but in his heart he was thinking that it was a bit of a pity.

Historically, this film was entered into the Cannes Film Festival in France and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, which is equivalent to the second prize at the film festival.

But at the same time, Ge You won the Best Actor Award!
This time, perhaps it was because the Venice Film Festival jury gave "To Live" the highest Golden Lion Award, and did not give Ge You the Best Actor Award, only a nomination award.

One less actor
Therefore, Fang Minghua poured two more cups for Ge You to express her apology.

Everyone was eating and chatting in the dining room, and it was lively when suddenly we heard the doorbell ring outside the courtyard gate.

"I'll go see who's here." Song Tangtang said and hurried out.

"I guess it's because my two kids were sent back because they're about to start elementary school." Fang Minghua explained with a smile and invited everyone to eat.

A few minutes later, Song Tangtang hurried back and whispered to Fang Minghua, "Pingwa is here."

"Pingwa? Let him come in and have a couple of drinks together." Fang Minghua said as he walked out of the dining room and saw Jia Pingwa standing at the gate of the yard with a bad look on his face.

"Brother Jia, come in." Fang Minghua greeted with a smile.

"I heard from Tangtang that you have guests at home today?" Jia Pingwa asked.

"Didn't Zhang Yimou's To Live win the Venice Film Festival Grand Prix? Let's invite a few of the main creative staff to have a meal together. Brother Jia, let's eat together. You also know Zhang Yimou, Zhao Jiping, and others."

"No, no." Jia Pingwa declined politely: "Since you have guests, forget it. I'll come another day."

"Brother Jia, I see that you don't look well. What happened?" Fang Minghua asked with concern.

"It's all because of the book 'Wasted City' that I wrote. If I had known this would happen, I would have given up writing it!" Jia Pingwa cursed.

It looks like he's having a hard time these days.

Fang Minghua thought for a moment and said, "Let's go to my study. I'll make you a cup of tea to cool you down."

"And your guests?"

"Tangtang is here, it's okay."

"That's fine."

Jia Pingwa agreed.

The two of them went upstairs. Fang Minghua made a cup of Longjing tea for Jia Pingwa, and then said, "Brother Jia, I told you a long time ago to be prepared. Your novel has stirred up a hornet's nest among the literati. It would be strange if they didn't scold you."

"You can scold me if you want. I've endured it, but look at this." Jia Pingwa took out a magazine from his briefcase and handed it to Fang Minghua.

"Look, what does this Wang Shuo think he is?!"

(End of this chapter)