Literary Master 1978

The Christmas dinner hosted by the embassy was not luxurious, but the dining atmosphere was very good. Most of the guests did not know each other, and they could talk quietly during the meal.

Sitting next to Lin Chaoyang was an old man with a Chinese face. He saw that Lin Chaoyang and his wife behaved intimately and smiled.

After talking to him, Lin Chaoyang found out that the other party was Xiao Qian.

Xiao Qian has many identities, including writer, journalist and translator. Behind each of his identities, he has made outstanding achievements.

As early as the 1930s, he wrote the poetic novel "Dream Valley", which is praised as the most important and charming autobiographical love tragedy in modern Chinese literature. He is considered by modern literature researchers to be one of the representatives of Beijing School literature in the 1930s.

His "Ledge Collection" was highly praised by Shen Congwen: "Except that I think it is very good, I can't say anything else."

During the Anti-Japanese War, he also wrote many influential reportage works such as "Seeing and Hearing" and "Ashes".

At the same time, he has made great achievements in translation. He translated the Chinese version of Ulysses, an important work by James Joyce, one of the founders of postmodern literature and stream of consciousness literature.

Lin Chaoyang did not know Xiao Qian, but Xiao Qian knew him.

"You have no impression of me, but I have an impression of you. I sat down and watched you receive the award for this year's National Excellent Short Story Award." Xiao Qian said with a smile.

"I have heard of your name for a long time!"

"It is I who have heard of your name for a long time. "The First Floor in the World" is well written, and the People's Art Theater has another classic work."

Xiao Qian's words immediately reminded Lin Chaoyang of the performance of "The First Floor in the World" in May. The other party also wrote an article praising "The First Floor in the World" at that time.

"Thank you for your kindness."

Facing the praise of his predecessors, Lin Chaoyang must be humble.

"Have you written a script recently?" Xiao Qian asked.

"I have written some, but they are not plays, they are movie scripts. One is an adaptation of my own "The Shepherd", which was given to director Xie Jin of Shanghai Film Studio. The other was written for director Li Hanxiang of Hong Kong."

Xiao Qian sighed after hearing his words, "Your "Lai Zi's Summer" was also published this year, right? One novel and two scripts a year, you are a young man after all!"

"Lai Zi's Summer was written at the end of last year."

Xiao Qian nodded slightly, "When the movie is released, I will go to support you."

"Thank you for your support, but the movie will be released a long time ago."

Xiao Qian asked again: "Are you also going to participate in the International Writing Program?"

"International Writing Program?" Lin Chaoyang was slightly stunned, and felt a little familiar. He thought of what Li Tuo seemed to have talked about when he visited his home before.

He shook his head, "No, I didn't participate in that writing program. I came here at the invitation of a friend."

The "International Writing Program" mentioned by Xiao Qian is an activity initiated by Chinese-American writer Nie Hualing and her husband, the famous American poet Paul Engler.

Last year was the first year of the implementation of the International Writing Program. Xiao Qian was invited to become one of the first Chinese writers to participate in the event and conducted an exchange activity in the United States for more than four months.

Xiao Qian mistakenly thought that Lin Chaoyang was invited to attend the dinner at the Embassy because he was going to participate in the International Writing Program.

"That plan is well done. Going abroad can broaden your horizons. If you have the opportunity, you should go out for a walk." Xiao Qian suggested.

Xiao Qian's suggestion was sincere, but it was not his decision. The two were just chatting.

The dinner did not last long, only an hour.

After the dinner, everyone moved to the big restaurant, where the Embassy also held a cocktail party.

Compared with the dinner with only more than 20 people, the scale of the cocktail party was much larger.

Today is Christmas. Yanjing Hotel is one of the few hotels in the city with a Christmas atmosphere, so many consulate officials and foreigners stationed abroad in Yanjing chose to spend the holiday here.

Therefore, the cocktail party after the banquet not only had guests hosted by the American Embassy, ​​but also foreigners from other countries.

In addition to these guests, a 14-member orchestra was arranged at the reception to play music, and a special place for guests to dance was opened in the center of the reception.

As soon as the reception started, many foreigners joined the dance floor.

Tao Yushu looked at the foreigners with colorful hair and speaking in a gibberish language on the dance floor and sighed: "I have lived in Yanjing for so many years, and I have never seen so many foreigners. You said less just now, I feel more than half, all the foreigners in Yanjing should be here, almost catching up with the United Nations."

Lin Chaoyang took her hand and asked: "Let's dance too?"

Tao Yushu immediately pulled out her hand, "I can't dance!"

"What's there to be afraid of?"

Lin Chaoyang wanted to pull her, but she shrank back in fear.

She couldn't shake her head and make coquettish gestures like those foreigners in public.

On weekdays, their classmates at Yanshi University would also hold dances in private, but Tao Yushu had always been indifferent to these things.

Seeing her resistance, Lin Chaoyang stopped arranging the dance and instead pulled him to the dessert table.

"Then let's have some desserts."

The food at the cocktail party was only desserts, but there were many varieties, including vanilla pudding, tiramisu, rum baba, donuts, apple pie, muffins...

At a time when Chinese people still needed to use pastry tickets to buy dessert shops, the dazzling array of desserts on the dessert table was extremely luxurious.

Women have no resistance to desserts, and Tao Yushu inherited her mother's genes and is even more irresistible to sweets.

The Western food at the dinner is only half full for Chinese stomachs, and desserts can just make up for the emptiness in the stomach.

However, when Tao Yushu took the desserts, she carefully observed the surroundings and took as much as others took.

In contrast, Lin Chaoyang was much more unrestrained and ate several pieces of desserts in big mouthfuls.

He didn't like desserts or pastries, but because you have to use tickets to buy pastries these days, you don't eat for a long time, and there are so many desserts of various shapes and colors here, so he wants to indulge occasionally.

"Pay attention to your image." Tao Yushu reminded him.

"Thin-skinned people can't eat it, thick-skinned people can eat as much as they want, don't you know this?"

Lin Chaoyang said without any worries, stuffed another piece of dessert into his mouth, and then stopped with satisfaction and wiped his hands.

Although Tao Yushu usually said that Lin Chaoyang was thick-skinned, in an occasion like today, she felt a real sense of relaxation from Lin Chaoyang, which was a trait and confidence that she could hardly possess.

The desserts for the cocktail party were provided by Yanjing Hotel, but the taste was based on the taste of the Americans, so sweet that Tao Yushu was sick of it and didn't want to eat anymore after eating a few pieces.

She looked at the dessert table full of desserts and felt sorry for her small appetite.

It would be nice if she could take so many desserts home.

When she was regretful, Lin Chaoyang noticed that there was a foreigner in front of the dessert table who was also eating a lot, and the foreigner seemed to have noticed Lin Chaoyang.

"Hi!"

"Hello!"

"Lin Chaoyang!"

"Paul Theroux!"

"Writer!"

"Writer!"

After introducing himself in a coded way, Paul Theroux said, "The desserts here are good."

"Yes."

"It's rare to eat desserts as sweet and greasy as those in the United States in China."

Lin Chaoyang felt a little awkward listening to Paul Theroux's words. He belittled two countries in one sentence. You are a talent, buddy!

"Have you just come to China?" Lin Chaoyang asked.

"Yes, I've only been here for more than a month. Man, your English is really good."

Paul Theroux has been in China for more than a month. Apart from the official translators he has seen, Lin Chaoyang's spoken English is the most fluent he has ever heard.

"You Orientals look so young! Did you learn English in college?"

In the eyes of Westerners, it is difficult to tell the age of Orientals because their appearance is too deceptive.

Just now, Lin Chaoyang introduced himself as a writer. Paul Theroux thought he was like the Chinese people he saw, just looking young, but actually he might be in his forties.

"I guess so."

As the two were chatting, Shanlon Woodcock came over and greeted them.

"It seems that you already know each other."

Paul Theroux and Lin Chaoyang looked at each other, "Yes."

"But you must not know what works the other person has." Shanlon Woodcock smiled and kept it a secret.

The two looked at her, waiting for her introduction. Shanlon Woodcock said, "Speaking of which, I have read both of your works in the past six months."

She said to Paul Theroux, "Lin wrote a very good stream of consciousness novel, which has an English version in the official foreign literature magazine "Chinese Literature" in China."

Paul Theroux's mind flashed back to the magazine he had read when he was bored on the train. For foreigners traveling to China at this time, except for the foreign books they brought with them, it is difficult for them to see foreign-language books in China.

"Chinese Literature" is one of the few books that has no threshold for reading, so this official magazine does have many readers among foreigners in China.

Paul Theroux bought a copy of "Chinese Literature" because he was bored on the train.

"I know, it's "Lai Zi's Summer", right?"

Shanlon Woodcock smiled and said, "Yes, it seems you have read it."

"Yes, I have read it, on the train. The novel is really well written, especially with an oriental romantic atmosphere!"

"Thank you." Lin Chaoyang said.

Shanlon Woodcock introduced Paul Theroux's works again, "Paul Theroux is a travel writer. His work "Train Bazaar" is very famous in the United States. This is his first time to come to China."

Listening to Shanlon Woodcock's introduction, Lin Chaoyang suddenly realized that it was no wonder that he felt familiar with Paul Theroux's name just now. It turned out that he was the author of "Train Bazaar".

"Train Bazaar" is Paul Theroux's representative work. Since its publication in 1975, it has been praised by more and more readers as a classic work of travel literature.

Of course, this book has not been introduced into China. Lin Chaoyang's understanding of Paul Theroux and his works comes from the memory of later generations.

Lin Chaoyang recalled that the old man just said something that belittled the behavior of China and the United States. If it were him, it would not be difficult to understand.

Because this old man's style has always been like this, sarcastic, mean, and picky.

When he traveled around Britain, he said, "The whole of Britain is like a witch riding a pig";

On the Orient Express, he said, "The Orient Express is not as good as the shabbiest Madras train. On the latter, you can at least use dirty meal coupons to exchange for vegetables and rice";

He said, "Mumbai is noisy and chaotic, revealing the arrogance of a poor metropolis";

This guy later wrote a travelogue of his life in China, which also included sarcastic comments.

However, his sarcastic comments were not limited to any country, city, or race, and emphasized that all beings were equal. As long as he was in a bad mood, he would diss.

But it was precisely this kind of sarcastic comment that made Paul Theroux's works stand out from the monotonous travel literature and formed his own unique style.

Of course, it is impossible for any literary work to impress readers with sarcastic words.

In addition to being sarcastic, Paul Theroux's writings were also humorous, calm, and delicate, so much so that many years later he was revered by many people as the godfather of modern travel literature.

After Shanlon Woodcock introduced him, Lin Chaoyang shook hands with Paul Theroux formally, and they were considered to have met.