The literary era since 1979

After dinner, like everyone else, Tie Ning and Wang Anyi returned to their rooms.

As soon as he closed the door, Wang Anyi couldn't wait to open the title page of the novel: "Farewell My Concubine?"

“A classic piece of Peking Opera.”

Tie Ning said: "Didn't Yan Zi say that he incorporated opera art and Peking opera culture into it when we were having dinner just now?"

"So, Farewell My Concubine is also a novel about searching for roots?" Wang Anyi's eyes sparkled.

Tie Ning nodded and turned his gaze to the densely written words on the paper.

From Cheng Dieyi cutting off his finger to learn martial arts, to Cheng Dieyi's transformation from a "man" to a "girl", to Juxian's intrusion into Duan Xiaolou and Cheng Dieyi's relationship, the story unfolds one after another, and gradually, both of them become trapped in the words of "Farewell My Concubine".

"Tiening, don't you think the relationship between these three people is a bit complicated?"

Wang Anyi said weakly: "It's obviously a story about two men and a woman, but it seems like the entanglement between two women and a man."

"Yanzi's writing is more avant-garde, pioneering and comfortable. We should criticize it with an artistic eye."

There was a gleam in Tie Ning's eyes, as if he had awakened some extraordinary attribute.

The night sky outside the window was as black as ink and everything was silent, but the lights in the house were always as bright as day and stayed on until daytime.

It was daybreak and the sky was turning pale.

"Hiss, hiss..."

Wang Anyi's eyes were red, but it was not because he had not slept all night or was sleep deprived, but because he sobbed occasionally, and his eyes often turned red from crying.

When I turned to the last page of Farewell My Concubine, I couldn't help but sigh: "The king has lost his spirit, and I, a humble concubine, have no reason to live!"

"No, no." Tie Ning shook his head.

"What's wrong?" Wang Anyi was stunned. "Did I read it wrong? No, the original sentence of "Song of Xiang Wang" is like this."

"What I mean is that it's used incorrectly. What kind of overlord is Duan Xiaolou, and how could he be qualified to use the 'Song to Respond to King Xiang'?"

Tie Ning said angrily: "Yu Ji is the real Yu Ji, but the Overlord is a fake Overlord!"

Wang Anyi deeply agrees, "Cheng Dieyi is really a pitiful and pitiful person who was teased by fate and the times."

At this moment, dazzling rays of sunlight shone through the window, onto their faces and directly into their red eyes.

"Ah, it's daybreak!"

Wang Anyi then realized that the two of them had watched "Farewell My Concubine" all night long.

"This kind of work is worth staying up all night to watch!"

Tie Ningshen stretched and instead of feeling tired, he was full of energy and wanted to chat with Fangyan for an hour or so.

Yanzi, your "Farewell My Concubine" really makes me happy!
They were not the only ones who had such thoughts. Anyone who had seen "Farewell My Concubine" was extremely excited.

In the corridors, in the cafeteria, and throughout the sanatorium, people can be seen discussing "Farewell My Concubine" everywhere.

"Ha~"

Gu Hua yawned loudly and passed by Wang Anyi.

Tie Ning was very curious, "Lao Gu, did you not sleep well last night?"

Gu Hua said, "What do you mean I slept well? I didn't sleep at all. I watched Farewell My Concubine with Shao Gong all night."

“You guys stayed up late to watch it too.” Wang Anyi was surprised and delighted. “I thought Tie Ning and I were the only ones who did this.”

"It's not just us. Look at everyone. They've been watching all night."

Gu Hua glanced around and said, "Yanzi's book is so well written that I can't stop reading it. I can't sleep until I finish it."

As soon as these words were spoken, they were immediately echoed by others in the cafeteria.

Although Zheng Yi, Ji Hongzhen, Zhong Acheng, Ke Yunlu, Jia Pingwa and others also stayed up all night, as long as they talked about "Farewell My Concubine", they were like chicken blood, chattering non-stop to share their thoughts after reading it.

"I originally thought that the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy was a peak in Iwako's creation, but I didn't expect that he would reach a new height!"

"Yes, I'm afraid I can't even begin to compare to Yanzi's level."

"I have a feeling that Farewell My Concubine will be a milestone in root-seeking literature, no, a milestone in contemporary Chinese literature!"

"..."

"I think we shouldn't talk about any other topics today, and just talk about Farewell My Concubine. What do you think?"

Everyone agreed. Suddenly, a voice came out from the crowd, "Where's Yan Ziren? Why can't we see him?"

Tiening looked around for Fangyan, and saw him going downstairs with magazine editors including Li Xiaolin, Zhang Zhonge, and Ru Zhijuan.

"Yanzi, you haven't decided which publisher to have your manuscript published yet, right?" Li Xiaolin asked.

"It's settled. It's settled."

Without waiting for Fangyan to speak, Zhang Zhonge immediately declared the sovereignty of Contemporary magazine over Farewell My Concubine.

"This isn't right."

Li Xiaolin said that the entire seminar was co-organized by People's Literature and Harvest. Since Farewell My Concubine was circulated during the seminar, it should have been published by one of them, either in Harvest or in People's Literature.

Why should we feed the cooked duck into the mouth of Contemporary?

"Our Contemporary and People's Literature are both journals under Renwen Press."

Zhang Zhonge also argued that Contemporary and People's Literature were half-brothers! Blood is thicker than blood!
Editors of magazines such as "Shanghai Literature", "Huacheng" and "West Lake" were not willing to lag behind and started vying for the position.

Everyone knows how high the literary and artistic value of this novel is, at least as high as three or four floors.

"There's no rush for this matter. It won't be too late to decide after the seminar is over."

The dialect was so annoying that it resorted to the tactic of procrastination.

Having finally escaped from the editors' "wolf's den", he "accidentally" ran into the "tiger's mouth" of Tiening and others.

"Yanzi, I'm waiting for you, come quickly, come quickly!"

Wang Anyi waved excitedly.

Seeing that everyone was ready to fight for 300 rounds, Fang Yan advised: "Everyone has been watching all night, why don't you go back and rest for a while?"

"No need to rest, we just want to talk about "Farewell My Concubine" right now!" What Han Shaogong said was the answer that everyone wanted to give.

"Look at you guys, you're anxious again."

Fang Yan said, "There are still some people who haven't watched or finished Farewell My Concubine." Then he suggested, "In my opinion, you should take this opportunity to have a good rest and get enough energy. If you really don't want to rest, you can also take some notes. When you have a meeting to discuss it, you will have something to say."

After thinking about it again and again, everyone felt that it made sense, so they readily agreed and went back to the house to rest.

The living room, which was originally bustling with activity, suddenly became deserted, with only a few people left.

"Let's not talk about Farewell My Concubine for now, let's talk about Ma Yuan and The Temptation of Gangdise first."

Fangyan pushed Shi Tiesheng's wheelchair and pushed him in front of everyone.

Shi Tiesheng said: "To be honest, I am sorry for my limited ability. I spent a long time watching it last night, but I still couldn't understand "The Temptation of Gangdise"."

"Tie Sheng, it's not surprising that you can't understand it. This novel doesn't have a complete storyline at all, and the meaning is obscure."

Han Shaogong said bluntly: "There is no logic or technique of normal narrative at all. I don't know if it was intentional or accidental?"

Fangyan said: "I think this seems to be intentionally careless, just an experiment in narrative structure."

"I agree with Mr. Fang's point of view!"

Yu Hua clearly supports Ma Yuan's narrative exploration, praising it as "a unique way of creatively distorting and making it unrecognizable."

Fangyan encouraged: "Go on."

"I think he is a veteran in playing narrative tricks, a paranoid methodologist in fiction."

Yu Hua said: "Even in some narrative techniques and structures, there are traces of imitating Malice."

“The difference between The Temptation of Gangdise and Malice is quite big.”

Fang Yan shook his head and laughed, holding up the first finger. "First of all, the narrative structure and narrative techniques I used are the common methods and routines used in detective novels, while Ma Yuan's use seems to be the technique of magical realism, with time, person, space, etc., which are both real and unreal."

“That’s right!”

Ru Zhijuan nodded and said, "The Temptation of Gangdise has been changing the narrative person without any prompts to achieve the transformation of reality and fiction in the content. Because there are no clear prompts or clear context, it is easy to be confused and have no idea what it means when you first read it."

“That brings me to my second point, narrative and content.”

Fangyan held up his second finger. "Generally, the order of novel writing is from the beginning to the end, but this is not necessarily the case for detective novels. For example, my novel Malice is written from the end to the beginning, from the 'effect' to the 'cause'. The advantage of this is that no matter if there is reverse order, interpolation, flashback, or omission in the middle, as long as the logical relationships such as cause and effect and character relationships remain unchanged..."

Then he smiled and said: "No matter how complicated the narrative is, no matter how suspenseful and messy it looks, the content is complete and clear."

Shi Tiesheng agreed very much and took a photo of the manuscript of "The Temptation of Gangdise" and said:

"I always feel that Ma Yuan seems to have been tirelessly searching for his narrative method, or his storytelling method. It seems to me that he wrote a bizarre story just to try out this narrative structure."

"Yes! Although both Yanzi and Ma Yuan designed narrative traps, they were all deliberate, but Yanzi did so to make the mystery novel full of suspense and more readable, but Ma Yuan took a different approach and placed the narrative form above the narrative itself."

Han Shaogong said: "The result is that the story is not told clearly and cannot be explained clearly."

"Teacher Fang, is it not okay to write like this?"

Yu Hua believes that literature is not only about “what to write”, but also about “how to write”.

What makes Ma Yuan's novels unique is that he does not put the drama of the story or the potential of the content first, but instead focuses on the stylistic elements of literature, narrative techniques, and the intricate connection between the narrator and the protagonist.

"I agree with this kind of experimental narrative behavior, just like in foreign rock music, there is a genre called 'experimental rock'."

Fang Yan said: “But I personally don’t advocate this kind of narrative method that doesn’t serve the content.”

“But isn’t that what magical realism is? At first glance, it seems supernatural and fake, but if you think about it carefully, it is real and realistic.” Yu Hua said, “I think the reason why Ma Yuan’s narrative seems frivolous and uncertain is that he confuses the boundaries between reality and fiction…”

Han Shaogong, Ru Zhijuan and others looked at each other helplessly.

A book called "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and a "magical realism" have fascinated a group of contemporary Chinese writers.

Fang Yan frowned, "According to martial arts novels, if you use swordsmanship in such an unconventional way, you will easily go astray."

Most young writers these days have a sense of rebellion. They feel that traditional literary forms are too conservative and are eager to break with the old literary forms, make Chinese novels "modernized" and "internationalized", and connect with world literature.

Therefore, they leaned towards Western literary genres and became "avant-garde" in terms of both techniques and concepts.

For example, Ma Yuan is the representative of narrative revolution, and his signature techniques are “meta-narrative” and “narrative trap”.

For example, Cangxiang is a representative of survival exploration. He studied existentialist literature and his novels are all about "hell on earth."

However, the reason why these writers want to experiment with narrative language and methods is just like why Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige make their films with beautiful pictures and colors. They are all flashy and want to cover up their inability to tell good stories.

Therefore, avant-garde literature is often described as a "niche literature" that is created by writers in their own circle, detached from readers and out of touch with reality.

"Being possessed? Teacher Fang, why do you say that?"

Yu Hua blinked his eyes in confusion.

Fangyan looked at him meaningfully and immediately thought of realistic novels such as "To Live", "Brothers", and "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood".

As one of the few writers in avant-garde literature who can write good stories, I feel it is necessary to give him a reminder.

"Think about it, if you think about it carefully, there may be two solutions to a math problem, or three solutions, but can there be an infinite number of solutions?"

“The more the possibilities of novels are experimented with, the less space and meaning there is for exploration of narrative techniques and textual language.”

"It's like why the literati of the Song Dynasty wrote 'Song Ci' instead of continuing to explore 'Tang poetry', because 'Tang poetry' had been almost completely written by the literati of the Tang Dynasty. To exaggerate, it had been completely written, and most authors would lose the space, motivation and goal to create."

“And the small group that persists may reach the extreme, like the Three Chapters of Meiling.”

"How do you feel about being beheaded today? Starting a business is difficult and requires many battles. I will go to Quan Tai to recruit my old subordinates, and with 100,000 flags, I will kill Yama Luo."

"Devote yourself to the revolution and you will be home. The bloody storm should have an end. Today we sacrifice our lives for justice, and plant the flowers of freedom all over the world."

"But it is possible and easy to go to extremes. Don't you see this trend in magical realism now?"

"........."

Yu Hua actually thought it made so much sense that he was speechless for a moment, with confusion in his eyes. Where would his future literary career go?
Suddenly, a thought flashed through my mind. I looked up and saw the Big Dipper, thinking of Teacher Fang!

Teacher Fang is a guiding light in the literary world!

Follow me, Mr. Fang! Please protect me! (End of this chapter)