Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 643 Realistic Novel Shock Wave

"Oh, Sister An Yi, please don't say that. It makes me feel ashamed." Yu Hua said quickly, "When you went to study at the Writers Association's workshop, I was still working as a dentist in the health center. You made me feel so high up that I couldn't even reach you."

Fang Minghua laughed and said, "Why are you two arguing with each other? Sister An Yi, why do you envy Yu Hua? I heard that you are writing a novel now. Maybe it will be as popular as Yu Hua's "To Live" in the future."

“Well, who knows? The literary environment now is not like that of the 1980s. Look at how many novels are published every year. How many of them are as popular as your The Piano in a Factory and Yu Hua’s To Live?

Wang Anyi is right.

There were far more novels published in the 1990s than in the 1980s. Objectively speaking, these writers born in the 1950s and 1960s have accumulated rich writing experience after being influenced by the golden age of literature in the 1980s and attempting to write short and medium-length novels.

In the 1990s, many people turned to writing novels. Unfortunately, the social environment has changed and literature has become less popular. The phenomenon of people queuing up to buy books like in the 1980s is gradually fading away.

There are only a handful of truly popular literary works that are recognized by ordinary readers, such as novels such as "White Deer Plain", "Wasted City" and "To Live", and most of them are shelved after publication.

But the book Wang Anyi is writing is different.

That is "Song of Everlasting Sorrow", which is about to win the Mao Dun Literature Prize!
Seeing Wang Anyi sighing, Fang Minghua smiled and said jokingly:
"Sister An Yi, if this novel you wrote becomes popular after it is published and wins the Mao Dun Prize or something like that, Yu Hua and I will come to Shanghai to find you and you have to treat us!"

"Okay, just as you said, I'll take you two to climb the Oriental Pearl Tower!"

The Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai was just completed this year and immediately became a new landmark in the city. Many tourists came here to visit. Wang Anyi herself had never climbed it and was very curious about it.

What she didn't expect was that those who climbed the pagoda so many times ended up vomiting, just like Fang Minghua when he climbed the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

The meeting was held in the hotel's conference room the next morning. Fang Minghua looked around at the participants and saw that there were only about thirty people, which seemed a bit shabby.

In addition to Yu Hua and Wang Anyi, there were also already famous writers such as Jiang Zilon and Zhang Jie. He didn't know the others, but he had heard of some of the writers' names.

He Shen, Guan Renshan, and Lu Tianming, but these writers are not very famous now.

In fact, there are not many writers these days who focus on current social reality issues. They are either new realist novels like Chi Li and Liu Heng, or new historical novels like Chen Zhongshi and Liu Zhenyun.

Of course, there is another alternative in the literary world - Wang Shuo's ruffian literature.

There is also a Wang Xiaobo.

However, the discussion was still very lively. There was no podium in the venue. Everyone sat around a round table and expressed their opinions.

Zhao Benfu, the moderator of the discussion, pointed out: "After entering the 1990s, the society has undergone profound changes, including migrant workers moving to cities, state-owned enterprise reform, workers being laid off, economic reform, the political system reform process and the problems and conflicts it faces, and corruption in every corner of society. These are all worthy of our attention as writers. We must have a sense of crisis and awareness of the times and write works that can truly reflect reality.

Zhao Benfu was talking and Fang Minghua was listening carefully. He now knew what Zhao Benfu was referring to.

Before coming to this era, Fang Minghua studied "Contemporary History of Chinese Literature" in college and knew that a new type of literary work became popular in the literary world in the mid-to-late 1990s: neo-realist novels.

A common feature of these works is that they shift the focus to the daily life of ordinary workers, farmers, urban residents and other grassroots society, and use the confusion and problems caused by economic development and rapid stratification of social structure as the main narrative clues. They have a strong tendency towards realism and impacted the literary world at that time.

Later, people called this phenomenon the "realistic novel shock wave". Representative works include Tan Ge's "Big Factory", "Workshop", "The World is Famine", He Shen's "Director of the Petition Office", Guan Renshan's "No Hometown in the Snow" and "Returning Home in September", Zhou Meisen's "Absolute Power", Lu Tianming's "God is Above", etc., of course, none of these have been published.

Now, we are on the eve of this "shock wave". And Fang Minghua's "The Piano in a Factory" is undoubtedly the morning star on the eve of dawn.

As a pioneer of this type of works, Jiang Zilon, then chairman of the Tianjin Writers Association, spoke first and talked about the creation process of his novel "The Record of Director Qiao's Taking Office" ten years ago.

Zhang Jie also gave an impromptu speech, talking about her work "Heavy Wings" which won the Mao Dun Literature Prize, and specifically pointed out:

"Both Jiang Zilong's "Director Qiao's Taking Office" and my "Heavy Wings" describe the early days of reform. However, after more than a decade of development, the complexity of society, the sharpness of contradictions, and the problems and difficulties faced are incomparable to the early days of reform. This will naturally be reflected in literary works. Comrade Minghua's "The Piano in a Factory" is a very good example of this."

After Zhang Jie finished speaking, Zhao Benfu looked at Fang Minghua who was sitting opposite him and said, "Minghua, since Zhang Jie mentioned the book you wrote, why don't you say a few words first?"

"Okay, I'll say a few words."

Like other comrades, Fang Minghua first talked about the background of the novel and the series of serious problems faced by enterprises and workers that he saw during the more than ten days he and his father went to Northeast China to attend the funeral.

"I thought at the time that as writers we have the responsibility and obligation to write about it, just as Editor-in-Chief Zhao just said, with a sense of crisis, and this is also the spiritual tradition of the May Fourth problem novels that focus on reality and the grassroots."

"Novels such as "The Record of Director Qiao's Taking Office", "Rising Star", "Heavy Wings" and "Ordinary World" all point to people's lives today."

"We can call this type of novel a neo-realist novel or a neo-realist novel," said Fang Minghua.

New realistic novel!
This is a new term heard by the writers attending the conference.

"I think Minghua is the right name!" Jiang Zilong interrupted, and was taking notes seriously. He raised his head and interrupted Fang Minghua's speech:

"Realism has always been the focus of writers' creation, but it is undeniable that it has been neglected in the past decade. Scar literature, root-seeking literature, avant-garde literature, postmodern literature and various literary genres have emerged one after another. Writers often look to the past or even abroad, but ignore the present, the land under our feet. Now is the time to pay attention to it!"

"What Chairman Jiang said makes sense. We must not lose sight of reality."

"Writers should not only indulge in personal thoughts, but also pay attention to reality!"

Everyone started talking about it.

Most of the people present here are authors of realistic works. In recent years, realistic works have not been popular in the literary world. What is popular are modernist or even postmodernist works represented by avant-garde literature.

"The world has suffered from avant-gardeism for a long time." Jiang Zilon's speech expressed everyone's thoughts.

At this time, someone else stood up and said, "Chairman Fang, I remember that around 1987, you proposed the term "new realist novel" in response to the novels written by Chi Li, Liu Heng and others in the literary world at that time. Now you are proposing the term "new realistic novel". What is the difference between the two?"

The speaker was a middle-aged man named He Shen, who was also the author of the novel "Director of the Petition Office". He was one of the three leading figures in Hebei Province in the 1990s.

(End of this chapter)