Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 638 637 "His unlucky day is coming soon!"

It turned out to be "Literary Review".

There was an article by Wang Shuo published on it, commenting on Wasted City. One paragraph read:

"It's ridiculous that Jia Pingwa pretends to be a ghost and writes a notebook novel. That has something to do with the microclimate that blows him up. Jia Pingwa's early Shangzhou series is okay, but "Wasteland" is completely something that was dug out of the toilet. He is really decadent and boring, so he shouldn't pretend to be a "master."

"Scattered from the toilet!" This sentence deeply hurt Jia Pingwa.

Wang Shuo has been very popular in the past two years.

Just last year, Huayi Publishing House published a four-volume collection of essays entitled "The Collected Works of Wang Shuo", namely "The Collected Works of Wang Shuo: Innocence Volume", "The Collected Works of Wang Shuo: Pretentious Volume", "The Collected Works of Wang Shuo: Humor Volume" and "The Collected Works of Wang Shuo: Sincere Feelings Volume", setting a precedent for young writers to publish collections of essays.

Likewise, royalties are also given!
In addition, several TV series such as "The Story of the Editorial Department", "Getting High", "Seahorse Ballroom" and "No Applause" have been broadcast one after another. As a screenwriter and planner, Wang Shuo is not only popular in the literary world, but also in the film and television circles.

Wang Shuo is a talkative person who cannot control his mouth. As his status gets higher and higher, his heart becomes more and more inflated, and he seems to be able to "point fingers at the world".

Therefore, it is not surprising that Wang Shuo scolded Fang Minghua in "Wasteland". He asked Jia Pingwa in return.

"Brother Jia, what are you going to do?"

"Wang Shuo is the only one who can scold people. How can I not do that? Even a rabbit will bite when it is angered! I am going to write an article to scold this coward!" Jia Pingwa said hatefully.

"Don't." Fang Minghua shook his head.

"Didn't we agree on this? Don't write articles to defend your novels. That will only cause more trouble."

Seeing Jia Pingwa's frustrated look, Fang Minghua comforted him, "Brother Jia, I once told you a principle: as long as your book is not removed from the shelves, you don't need to take it to heart no matter how others scold you."

"Besides, there are many people who scold you, but there are also many people who support you and your novel. Not to mention the writers and scholars in our Qin Province, who hasn't published an article publicly to express your support for this novel?"

"And Ji Xianlin, Wang Xiaobo, Lei Da, Yan Gang and others also wrote articles to publicly express their support for you? The most important thing for you now is to keep calm and do nothing. No matter how many blows you suffer, you will still be strong.

After Fang Minghua's persuasion, Jia Pingwa felt better and muttered: "Minghua, you are right, I am a little impulsive, but isn't Wang Shuo's words too hurtful?"

"He is just that kind of person, a big mouth." Fang Minghua said with a smile: "You can say he is bad, but he is not that bad."

"However, his mouth will eventually hurt himself." Fang Minghua smiled slightly when he said this: "Just wait and see, his unlucky day is coming soon!"

"Wang Shuo is going to be in bad luck? What bad luck?" Jia Pingwa asked hurriedly.

"Don't worry, you will know soon enough!"

By September, Zhang Yimou won the Golden Lion Award from the Venice Film Festival, and Shengshi Films and Shengshi Books worked at full capacity to promote the event.

In particular, Shengshi Books immediately launched a large-scale symposium on the work "To Live" in Yenching, inviting famous writers and scholars from home and abroad to participate.

Fang Minghua was also invited to participate in the work seminar. At the meeting, he pointed out: "'To Live' is like a dazzling star hanging in the sky. Yu Hua stands out from that narrow path. To be more precise, Yu Hua has matured. He is already writing novels based on his 'background' without relying too much on his writing skills." Shortly after the seminar ended, Shengshi Books launched a book signing and sale event for "To Live".

Yanjing, Shencheng, Xijing.
"To Live" became an instant hit.

Of course, not all the comments were praises, there were also criticisms. Wang Shuo publicly commented in his own article: "To Live is not as good as others. Yu Hua can't write as well as Yan Lianke and Liu Zhenyun. Simply put, his works are nothing but imitations and plagiarisms."
Yu Hua naturally didn't answer.

“The literary world is so lively this year.”

This is the biggest feeling of many writers, scholars, and even readers.

But what was unexpected was that in Shanghai, a seemingly ordinary literary theory discussion meeting sparked a large-scale academic discussion, which then spread from the literary theory circle to all sectors of society across the country, becoming a far-reaching public cultural event.

The story begins in the summer of last year (1992).

The "Critics Club" column of Shanghai Literature magazine is going to be restored. With the help of East China Normal University, Fudan University, Yenching University, Yenching Normal University and other major criticism centers, we will start to express our views on the current status of literature and culture in the form of dialogue.

Several young scholars from East China Normal University who often got together and had similar views decided to join. The agreed members included Wang Xiaoming, Xu Lin, Zhang Hong, Cui Yiming, Zhang Ning, etc.

The identities of the people at this time are: Wang Xiaoming: Professor of the Chinese Department of East China Normal University
Xu Lin, PhD in Literature, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, East China Normal University

Zhang Hong and Cui Yiming: PhD students in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, East China Normal University

Zhang Ning: Master's student of Chinese Language and Literature, East China Normal University

They share a common view that "literature has not fulfilled its due responsibilities."

Shortly after the start of the second half of the semester in 1993, the matter was put back on the agenda.

The dialogue took place in Xu Lin's room 9, dorm 625. During the discussion, everyone agreed that the current literature is in crisis, "the decline of public cultural literacy and the continuous deterioration of humanistic spirit have exposed the crisis of contemporary Chinese humanistic spirit."

Of course, these young students do not talk in general terms, but focus on two of the more popular cultures currently.

First: Wang Shuo’s ruffian literature.

It is believed that "Wang Shuo's works are typical kitsch literature, and the overall tone of his works is ridicule." The popularity of the "Wang Shuo phenomenon" and the "playful literature" school further illustrates the importance of the value orientation of "reconstructing the humanistic spirit."

Second: Zhang Yimou's film commercialization tendency: Taking "Raise the Red Lantern" as an example, it is believed that "the director is too obsessed with "new wave" art such as postmodernism, and ignores the staleness of the value orientation of the work."

The entire article was published in the form of a symposium record in "Shencheng Literature", with the title "Ruins in the Wilderness - The Crisis of Literature and Humanistic Spirit"

After that, newspapers and magazines such as "Reading", "East", "October", "Guangming Daily" and "Wenhui Daily" also reprinted the article and published comments. Participants also received many letters from readers, and a "great discussion on humanistic spirit" that lasted for three years kicked off.

However, the originally lively literary world of Qin Province became quiet at this time.

(End of this chapter)