1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 316 Love in Our Land

Editorial department of "Beijing Literature".

In the office, Wang Anyi was absent-minded, conceiving her infancy of a "root-seeking" literary novel.

She usually works flexibly and goes to the editorial office two or three times a week. Apart from completing the task of publishing, she spends the rest of her time on writing.

This was specially approved by Wang Meng.

Under Wang Meng's management, Beijing Literature has been implementing this model.

Flexible working hours.

Because Wang Meng felt that Wei Junyi, the old lady from Renwenshe, said something very good:
“Editing is not about how long you sit in the office, but how many good books you can edit and publish in that effective time.”

Wang Anyi sat at the table, holding a pen, scribbling on the grid paper of the manuscript.

This is her writing habit. Anyone who has seen her manuscripts knows that she would scribble on them, outline and modify them with various lines. At first glance, they look as dense as a spider web.

In later generations, her manuscript of "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" was jokingly called the editor's "Song of Everlasting Sorrow".

[
The crying that had just stopped started again, and the water in the ditch was rippled and rippling. The shadow of the grave was shaking. The sky was gloomy, as if it was going to rain, but it didn't. Baoshan stood solemnly, surrounding a world of mourning.

]
In a corner of the manuscript paper, Wang Anyi wrote out this paragraph, read it twice, and feeling proud of herself, she raised her neck and looked in the direction of Zhang Dening.

Because they are both women and editors of the novel group, Wang Anyi and Zhang Dening are very familiar with each other.

With a hint of joy, she wanted to take this passage to Zhang Dening for evaluation, but she saw Zhang Dening raised his eyes with tears in his eyes.

"De Ning, what are you doing?"

Wang Anyi was stunned. She glanced at the magazines spread out on Zhang Dening's desk and immediately realized that Zhang Dening had cried after reading the article, which made her completely stunned.

Although it is normal for editors to have various reactions when they see a manuscript they like, Zhang Dening is already an experienced editor with many years of experience. He has developed a certain resistance to literature and is relatively not too emotional, so it is still difficult for him to cry when reading a book like this.

"Dening, are you okay?"

Wang Anyi asked in a low voice.

Zhang Dening wiped away her tears, said nothing, and calmed herself down.

Wang Anyi lifted up the magazine on the table and took a look. It was the 1982th issue of "People's Literature" in 6.

"What novel is so touching?"

"Jiang Xian published a new manuscript in People's Literature." Zhang Dening replied with a choked voice.

"Comrade Jiang Xian has published a new manuscript again?" Wang Anyi was surprised.

What surprised her even more was yet to come, because Zhang Dening added that Jiang Xian had published a medium-length novel.

Wang Anyi was confused.

How long has it been since Jiang Xian last published an article?
Wang Anyi would pay special attention to each of Jiang Xian's novels after they were published, so she is quite familiar with each of Jiang Xian's novels.

She clearly remembered that Jiang Xian’s previous novel should be "Rocking, Rocking to Grandma's Bridge" published in "Harvest".

It’s been less than half a year now, right?
For a writer engaged in literary work, it is definitely a high productivity to create a medium-length or long novel in less than half a year, and a medium-length or long novel that can be published in a magazine of the same level as "People's Literature".

During this period, Jiang Xian was also distracted on the front line and completed his recently famous reportage work "Long Live Understanding".

Earlier, he wrote a theoretical article titled "Return to National Traditions, Return to Real Language!" and put forward the slogan of "seeking roots".

"It is a novel of the 'roots-seeking' type," Zhang Dening said. "It is well-written. I think it is one of his best novels. You can also take a look at it."

Firstly, this is Jiang Xian’s new work, and secondly, this is a novel that made Zhang Dening cry. Wang Anyi quickly asked Zhang Dening for this issue of "People's Literature" and couldn't wait to read it. What kind of color does Jiang Xian, the person who shouted the slogan of "seeking roots", write about "seeking roots"?

Soon, she was shocked.

When she wrote "Xiao Bao Zhuang", she wrote about the two words "benevolence and righteousness", while in Jiang Xian's "Red Sorghum", a vigorous and wild vitality comes to the fore.

Jiang Xian writes about simple rural feelings, the pursuit of freedom, fearless patriotism, and the wildness of life.

So Wang Anyi was quickly infected by the wild words in this novel.

The story of "Red Sorghum" is of course inseparable from the scenes of sorghum fields.

The sorghum field first symbolizes flourishing love and vigorous desire. Love happens here and desire also occurs here.

What shocked Wang Anyi the most was the love in Red Sorghum.

".
Dai Fenglian cried so hard that she didn't realize that one of her feet was exposed outside the sedan chair. The sedan bearers were so overwhelmed by the sight of her delicate and beautiful feet. Yu Zhan'ao came over, bent down, and gently held Dai Fenglian's feet, as if he was holding a fledgling, and gently put her back into the sedan chair.

Dai Fenglian was in the sedan chair and was moved by the tenderness. She really wanted to lift the curtain to see what kind of person this sedan bearer with a pair of warm young big hands was like.

I think that a marriage is made in heaven and a love is made in heaven. It is an impeccable truth. Yu Zhan'ao's holding of Dai Fenglian's feet awakened the great inspiration for creating life in his heart, which completely changed his life and Dai Fenglian's life.

"

Wang Anyi has read many descriptions of love at first sight, most of which are famous foreign works.

Like Les Miserables:
"He passed the chair again; the girl raised her eyes, and their gazes met. What was in the young girl's eyes this time? Marius could not tell. It was everything and nothing. It was a strange flash of lightning.

That evening, when Marius returned to his humble apartment, he looked at his clothes and realized for the first time the sheer folly of going for a walk in the Luxembourg Gardens in his 'everyday' clothes, so untidy and unpresentable.

However, it was the first time that Wang Anyi had seen such a love at first sight full of folk flavor as in "Red Sorghum".

Dai Fenglian's feet were bound. She was forced to have them bound before she was 6 years old. This pair of three-inch golden lotus feet was an unhealthy product of feudal society.

However, these feet, at this moment, changed her fate, causing a bold bastard to develop an indescribable love for her.

A kind of ironic and magical color arises spontaneously.

Wang Anyi couldn’t tell what was wrong because that was the old society.

Where is the fairy-tale romantic emotion?

That's a Western thing.

In this land, what we pursue has always been naked desire accompanied by strong reproductive desire.

No romance, no twists and turns, it's just so direct.

Thus, a small foot exuding the scent of desire triggered a passionate affair.

Jiu'er went back to her parents' home on the third day. On her way back, she was kidnapped by Yu Zhan'ao and taken to a sorghum field. The two of them hid in the sorghum field and made love.

Jiang Xian wrote:
"Yu Zhan'ao took off his big straw raincoat, crushed dozens of sorghum plants with his feet, and spread the straw raincoat over the sorghum carcasses. He carried Dai Fenglian onto the straw raincoat.

Dai Fenglian's soul left her body and she looked at his naked chest, as if she saw strong and fierce blood flowing under his dark skin.

A thin mist was curling up from the tops of the sorghum, and the sound of the sorghum growing could be heard in all directions. The wind was calm, the waves were still, and rays of blazing, moist sunlight crisscrossed through the cracks in the sorghum.

Dai Fenglian's heart was pounding, and the lust that had been hidden for sixteen years suddenly exploded.

Dai Fenglian and Yu Zhan'ao loved each other in the vibrant sorghum field, and their two unruly hearts that despised the laws of the world were closer to each other than their bodies that delighted each other.

Such text is simply outrageous.

Wang Anyi's heart was shaken violently when she saw this.

Is Dai Fenglian wrong?

It was difficult for her to criticize what Dai Fenglian did.

Dai Fenglian's family is not rich, but not too poor either.

Her father was a silversmith and her mother was the daughter of a ruined landlord.

Her family was definitely not the kind of family that lacked food and clothing and had to sell their children to survive. But what did it matter? Her cruel parents still sold her to the Shan family.

Her parents knew that Shan Bianlang had leprosy, but they were still happy to marry their daughter to him.

All they care about is money, and for the sake of money, they are willing to ruin their daughter's lifelong happiness.

They first hid the truth from Dai Fenglian and did not tell her.

Dai Fenglian heard from others that Shan Bianlang had leprosy, so she went to tell her parents about her worries.

But what about her parents? They continued to lie to her, saying that the son of the Shan family was well-read and handsome.

What can Dai Fenglian do?

Girls in the old society had no control over their own destiny.

She could only obediently cover her head with the veil and get on the sedan chair.

The villagers were afraid of being infected with leprosy, so no one went to the Shan family to watch the fun. Dai Fenglian's wedding was cold and deserted, even eerie and scary.

In the bridal chamber, she saw Mr. Shan, the “clean and fair” man his parents described.

He curled up on a square stool, his lower eyelid was rotten, and he stretched out his chicken claw-like hand towards Dai Fenglian.

Is this fair?

Is such a fate fair to Dai Fenglian?

Dai Fenglian longed for fate to forgive her and for someone to give her a little protection.

However, no one was willing to protect Dai Fenglian, leaving her to face a dark and horrible future.

On the day she returned home, Dai Fenglian cried to her father and said that she never wanted to go back to the Shan family again, and that Shan Bianlang really had leprosy.

But his father was drunk and all he remembered was that Shan Tingxiu said he would give him a big mule.

Jiang Xian did not deliberately intensify any conflicts.

But all readers can feel a kind of anger, an anger caused by feudal persecution.

So when Wang Anyi read that Yu Zhan'ao and Dai Fenglian were both guilty of treason, she had to admit it.

She felt refreshed for a moment.

She was really pleased.

That was the beginning of Dai Fenglian's real control over her own life, and also the prelude to her challenge to feudalism.

Wang Anyi also noticed that Zhang Dening wrote a small note next to this paragraph:
"The emotions and desires suppressed by the world will surely be broken through by people's courage and fearlessness.

No matter whether one is born in the abyss or the vast wilderness, it cannot stop people from pursuing love and freedom.

Why not be a wild sorghum, waving freely in the afterglow of the setting sun."

She knew it.

Zhang Dening was obviously also shocked by this episode.

It took Wang Anyi half a day to read the entire "Red Sorghum".

The bloody tragedy in the novel made Wang Anyi so angry that her ten fingernails pierced into her palms.

At the same time, the naked love described by Jiang Xian also made Wang Anyi constantly recall and ponder.

In Jiang Xian's novel "Red Sorghum", love is desire and desire is love.

The witness of all this is the sorghum field.

Wang Anyi bit by bit breaks down the metaphors in this important plot of the novel.

The boundless sorghum fields symbolize the vigorous vitality from the earth.

The wild sex in the sorghum field symbolizes that human desires can break through the moral ethics that constrain human nature.

Here, love has no distinction between the spiritual and physical, and love completely leans towards the physical side.

The implication that Jiang Xian wanted to express was also very clear:

Love is the union of flesh and flesh!

Love is a strong desire!
Love is the most primitive reproductive force!
It has to be said that Jiang Xian’s view of love in the novel, which puts desire above all else, is somewhat unacceptable to Wang Anyi.

She, who wrote "Rain, Rustling", is more fond of the Platonic love that pursues spiritual purity and transcends physical desires.

But she had to admit that the love described by Jiang Xian was so unique.

Even though she and Jiang Xian had different ideas, she was still shocked by the vigorous vitality in the novel.

"Have you finished reading it?" Zhang Dening went to deliver the manuscript and returned to the office, where he saw Wang Anyi closing the book and thinking deeply.

"finish watching."

A look of anticipation appeared on Zhang Dening's face.

"how do you feel."

"It's very shocking." Wang Anyi said.

After thinking for a while, he added: "I even think that this can be said to be an extremely grand magical masterpiece."

Zhang Dening was surprised by Wang Anyi's praise.

Wang Anyi used the word "masterpiece".

This shows how highly she thinks of Jiang Xian's novel.

The two of them chatted about the content of the novel. There was a lot to talk about in "Red Sorghum".

That's what a good novel is like, there are always many things that can be analyzed from different angles.

Generally speaking, the author doesn’t have the answer when writing, he just puts this thing here.

Common name: digging a hole without filling it.

Zhang Dening soon talked to Wang Anyi about the love in "Red Sorghum".

She thinks that, from a certain perspective, "Red Sorghum" truly describes the true concept of love that has continued for thousands of years on our land.

The emperor and the beautiful woman in the troubled times described in "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" are a minority.

Love stories like the one in "The Peacock Flies Southeast" that are manipulated by feudalism are the majority.

Why do love tragedies like "The Butterfly Lovers", "Meng Jiangnu" and even "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" continue to exist for so long?
The answer is simple.

Empathy!
Our ancestors had their love and desires suppressed all day long.

Isn't that empathy?!
This suppression of human nature is a problem that exists in feudal society.

So when Zhang Dening saw the two people having sex in the sorghum field in "Red Sorghum".

She also felt refreshed from her scalp to her fingertips.

I couldn't help but say hello to the two people in the sorghum field:

Fuck this feudal oppression!
Fuck the moral code!
(End of this chapter)