Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 879: Listening to your words is better than reading for ten years

It was almost 12 o'clock when Ou Youquan knocked on the door again and asked Fang Minghua to come down for dinner.

The dining location was in the restaurant on the third floor of the hotel. Ou Youquan asked for a private room and asked, "Chairman Fang, our Hunan cuisine is quite spicy. I wonder if you can get used to it?"

"It doesn't matter. We in Qin Province also eat spicy food."

"That's good." Ou Youquan ordered a few Hunan dishes.

They ordered chopped pepper fish head, spicy chicken, Mao's braised pork, stir-fried vegetables with oil residue, a soup and white rice, and opened a bottle of local Shaoyang Daqu. They ate and chatted.

"Chairman Fang, Chairman Han must have told you why I came to you. I really want to hear your opinion on online literature."

Fang Minghua did not answer directly but asked: "Do you know the two literary websites Huanjian Book Alliance and Qidian Chinese Network?"

Ou Youquan was stunned for a moment before he said, "I know. Huanjian Book Alliance is a large-scale online literature website that publishes fantasy and fairy-tale novels. It has a great influence among online readers. Qidian is similar to Huanjian, but it was established later, is smaller in scale, and has less influence."

"How do these two compare with 'Under the Banyan Tree'?" Fang Minghua asked again.

“There is no comparison! Whether it is the scale of the website, the literary quality of the online articles published, or the status in the minds of readers, it cannot be compared with Under the Banyan Tree!”

What Ou Youquan said was not wrong.

The current "Under the Banyan Tree" is no longer the literary website it once was. With the continuous "burning of money" in the prosperous literature world, it has become the leader in domestic original online literature.

The website has held three consecutive online original literature competitions, and has brought together a group of outstanding online authors, such as Li Xunhuan, Jin Hezai, Jiangnan, Murong Cunxue, and Annie Baby.

More importantly, these people have relatively strong literary skills, and many of the novels published on the Internet have been published as physical books offline.

Therefore, Under the Banyan Tree is known as "the online literature website that is closest to real literature."

"Then which one do you think is the future or development direction of online literature, Under the Banyan Tree, Huanjian Book Alliance, or Qidian?" Fang Minghua asked another question.

"I think it's the former, under the banyan tree!" Ou Youquan answered decisively.

Fang Minghua shook his head: "You are wrong, it is the latter."

"the latter?!"

"Yes, it's the latter. If you think it's the former, then you don't really understand online literature." Fang Minghua said, picking up a bite of food.

Ou Youquan was surprised at first, and then fell into deep thought.

After a while, Ou Youquan said again: "Chairman Fang, let's put aside the view you mentioned for now. I have another question."

"Oh, you said?" "Online literature, how do you understand this term?" Ou Youquan asked.

Fang Minghua smiled and said, "I understand what you mean. The term 'Internet literature' is a noun or noun phrase with a modifier-head structure. 'Internet' is the modifying component, and 'literature' is the main component, right?"

"Yes, that's what I think."

"In fact, this idea is a subconscious one, because people are used to reading literary works in paper form for a long time. If you change your perspective and take the "Internet" as the subject, you will have a new perspective and cognition: Internet literature is literature that belongs to the "Internet", not literature "on paper". The Internet has a certain subject meaning here."

"Do you think so?" Ou Youquan was as surprised as he was when he heard Fang Minghua's point of view. He thought for a while and said, "According to your understanding, storytelling literature was popular in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and the vernacular novel, which is the literary basis of the art of "speaking", began to become popular."

"Talking" generally requires vivid plots, popular language, sonorous tones, and varied rhythms. The speaker has a clear attitude and is full of enthusiasm. Therefore, the family of "talking" and narrative skills are all reflected in the storybook. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it became popular for folk bookshops to print books. "All the stories are not the talk of Taoist priests since the Song Dynasty, but the thoughts of the people in the alleys, which are messy and shallow, and generally not worth reading. However, their influence on people's hearts is very great. If literati stand up and compile and polish them, they will also be the embryo of a grand masterpiece." That is to say, different printing technologies and different printing entities also have different influences and restrictions on the theme content and language of the book? ! "

Ou Youquan seemed to understand something and was deep in thought.

"Yes, after the rise of the modern newspaper industry, literary magazines and newspaper supplements became the most important battlefield for the publication of literary works, and also the material form in which these literary works were born and existed."

Fang Minghua added: "Tabloids and periodicals that became popular in the late 19th century directly and powerfully promoted the rise of modern popular novels, ushering in a literary era centered on periodicals in China. Newspaper supplements had a direct and unique influence on literary styles."

"According to your point of view, Lu Xun's short essays were written to meet the needs of newspaper supplements?! In other words, if there were no newspaper supplements in Lu Xun's time, Lu Xun's essays would not have appeared?!"

Ou Quan said quickly.

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"You can think so." Fang Minghua smiled slightly.

"The Internet has freed the preservation and dissemination of novels and poems from tangible media such as lead type and paper. It can carry huge amounts of text and information at a very low cost and spread them quickly, providing authors with convenient conditions for quickly generating massive amounts of text information."

The meal lasted two hours. At the end, Ou Youquan sighed and said, "It's true that listening to your words is worth ten years of reading. If I had met you earlier, I would have avoided many detours. Chairman Fang, I toast to you."

Ou Youquan picked up the wine glass respectfully, and Fang Minghua followed suit, and they both drank it all in one gulp.

In fact, Fang Minghua still has many questions to ask:
For example: For example: The Internet only seeks instant consumption of the moment, but literature points to eternity. "Screen reading" is a symbolic form of desire. Human beings yearn for this "poetic dwelling". Will the digital existence of literature and art change the human mind's construction of beauty?
Furthermore, the Internet has brought literature down from the altar and created a new folk fairy tale in which “anyone can be a writer”. But while the Internet lowers the threshold for literature, how can we ensure that online literature does not lose its value bearing and aesthetic logic support?
The Internet penetrates literary production with weightless "bits", thus making all literary conventions weightless. Its formatting of printed literature has easily replaced the existence mode of literature in the field of media studies. But why is it full of loopholes and beyond doubt in the sense of phenomenology?...

In fact, after twenty years of development of online literature, there is still no clear answer or solution.

After the meal, Ou Youquan said, "Minghua, I plan to rethink the views I wrote based on what we talked about today, so I decided to co-author this research paper in the name of both of us."

"No, no," Fang Minghua quickly refused. I'm just expressing my opinion, which may not be correct. If you think it's appropriate, you can use it, but don't drag me into it."

"That's so embarrassing."

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about."

(End of this chapter)