1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 330 Go read the county annals!
"How many are there in total? Have you figured it out?"

"Shanxi has 4, Sichuan has 5, Guangdong has 34, and Liaoning has 40."

The staff of China Film Group counted the pictures one by one, and when they saw Liaoning, they couldn't help but gasp.

"Damn it, 35, can they release them all in Liaoning?"

Nowadays, the screening cycle is long. A movie is first shown in big cities, and then in small cities. Almost a year has passed since then. After that, it has to be shown back and forth in rural areas. Once a good movie is released, it will not be taken off the shelves for at least five or six years.

How many cities are there in Liaoning?
On average, there are 3-4 copies in a city, which is too damn luxurious.

“Why can’t I finish it?”

A person from China Film Group said with disdain, "Workers in Northeast China go to listen to crosstalk and watch movies when they have nothing to do after work. Their lives are so beautiful. You think they are just like those poor places in your area."

"Stop making noise."

The statistician took a piece of paper, did a quick calculation, and then announced the result:

"Shaolin Temple, 35mm print, 299 pieces."

When the result came out, everyone was stunned.

"Shit, if I add one more it will be over 300!"

“This movie is going to be a hit.”

"How about someone add another copy to make it even?"

The representative from Liaoning held his briefcase and said generously, "Let's add one more."

Colleagues around him were immediately envious.

There's no way around it. They have high income from issuing books, so they naturally feel confident when they speak.

No. 2, North Beach Street.

In an office, a group of comrades from the China Writers Association are busy carrying out an award judging activity.

This award is not the national outstanding novel selection hosted by People's Literature in previous years.

Instead, it is a novel award established in accordance with the last wish of Comrade Mao Dun to promote the development of Chinese novels:
“Mao Dun Literature Prize.”

How is the Mao Dun Literature Prize evaluated? What should we do?
This is a major problem facing the China Writers Association.

Previously, the China Writers Association has had experience in awarding national prizes for outstanding novels.

The approach adopted at that time was a combination of experts and the masses.

That is, the masses vote and experts also make recommendations.

We welcome readers from all walks of life to actively participate in recommending excellent works, and we also sincerely hope that literary and art publications, publishing houses, and newspaper literary supplements from all over the country will assist in introductions.

Later, we organized a novella selection, which was more mature at that time. We set up a special reading club and hired about 18 literary and artistic workers. These 18 people conducted a completely closed reading session for a month, isolated from the outside world. Finally, they discussed the final results of the selection.

Based on such a rigorous selection system, the several award ceremonies can be said to have been very successful.

What should we do about the Mao Dun Literature Prize this time?

Of course, we need to learn from the experience of previous times.

Therefore, the China Writers Association organized a "Creative Research Office" to select works, and Xie Yongwang, editor of the "Wenyi Bao", was responsible for the daily affairs of the awards.

Xie Yongwang's face was pale at this moment.

The selection of the Mao Dun Literature Prize was a grand event.

This is the first selection of novels in New China.

The selections are for novels created over the past few decades.

How many novels would that take in a few decades?
After discussions among provincial and municipal writers' association branches, publishing houses, and editorial departments of major literary journals, 58 units from across the country finally recommended a total of 143 novels that met the award requirements to their Creative Research Office.

Attention, 143 novels!
143 pieces!
Novel!

Or maybe literature is a physical job.

Writing a work is difficult enough, and reading it is equally difficult.

There are a total of 19 reviewers in their "Creative Research Room".

These 19 people have to read 143 novels and select 18 works for the jury's reference.

Finally, the jury will select 18 final winners from the 6 nominated works.

"."

Reading novels is hard enough, and discussing works is even more difficult. Xie Yongwang's biggest headache recently is Jiang Xian's works.

"How come Jiang Xian is so young, but he has written more novels than so many older writers?"

"Yes, it's only been a few years since he published his first work. How come he has written so many novels?"

The people in the Innovation and Research Office were chattering about it.

Among the 143 recommended novels, the most popular one is Jiang Xian's work.

It would be great for others to get recommendations, but he had several articles recommended at once.

The Mao Dun Literature Prize stipulates that the word count for novels must be more than 13 words.

Therefore, Jiang Xian's novels "Furong Town", "Rice", "The Grass House", "Copper Coin Street" and "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" which meet the required word count have all been recommended by literary and art workers.

Let’s talk about it here.

The word count of the novel "Glass Moon Shining on Copper Coin Street" itself is not enough.

However, when Writer's Publishing House helped Jiang Xian publish the book, they asked him to rewrite an updated version.

This number of words is enough at once.

It meets the award requirements of the Mao Dun Literature Prize.

"The pieces recommended by Jiang Xian are all good works. I think they meet the award criteria and are eligible to win the award," said a critic named Xue Ningxue from the Creative Research Office.

During this period, their research department has been discussing Jiang Xian's issue for a long time.

In the end, I should choose one from Jiang Xian’s several recommended works.

Still, several of his works won awards.

This is also what makes this writer special; other writers basically don’t have this problem.

"They are all eligible for awards, so we can't let him take all of them."

Another comrade said, "We only have six works that can win awards in the end. Each seat is very valuable and is an encouragement to writers. If Jiang Xian wins several awards alone, isn't that a waste of seats?"

“But how do I choose one?”

Someone frowned, "I find it hard to tell which of Jiang Xian's novels is better."

After a long discussion, Xie Yongwang came up with a solution.

"Comrade Guang Weiran also said that when we select works, we need to 'reflect the times', 'create a model', 'provoke deep thought' and 'touch the heart'."

"So, I think this year, we should still focus on 'realistic literature'."

"."

The Innovation and Research Room suddenly became quiet.

Several people's eyes lit up. Could it be that Xie Yongwang was the director?
The working ability is here!

When selecting works, their "Creative Research Room" should naturally use Marxist views on literature and art as its guiding ideology.

So they prefer realistic literature.

This is both reasonable and legal.

It also helped them solve a big problem.

As long as we add the screening criterion of "realistic literature" to Jiang Xian's selected works, then only two works, "Furong Town" and "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood", meet the criteria.

The situation suddenly became much clearer.

It just invisibly affects some excellent novels on other themes.

Because of Jiang Xian’s problem, they, the innocent innocent, were also affected.

Gaomi County.

The temperature difference between day and night in Shandong in October is quite large. Sometimes it is so hot that you need to wear a cotton jacket, and sometimes it is so cool that you can wear a shirt.

Zhang Shijia didn't go to work until nine in the morning, and when he arrived, he found that he was the first one to arrive. This was the norm at their cultural center, and Zhang Shijia was used to it.

He lit a cigarette, read a magazine for a while, and then started opening the letters sent by the mailroom at the door.

Their cultural center often receives letters from the public.

Some people even expressed in their letters that they were extremely desperate about the suffering they were facing, or that they were confused about life and the future, and hoped that the people at the cultural center could give them some advice.

For people like Zhang Shijia who don't have to go to work at 9 o'clock, they would write something like "keep one's feet on the ground, work hard, and good days are just around the corner" to motivate them to continue working hard in life.

Recently, Zhang Shijia has received a lot of feedback from the public about the novel Red Sorghum.

Many readers were shocked and moved by the vigorous vitality and spontaneous patriotic enthusiasm of people like Yu Zhan'ao in the novel.

Everyone said that they had never read such a novel before and it was very interesting.

Another reader told a story. He said that he told the novel to his illiterate grandfather and asked his grandfather whether there was a person like Yu Zhan'ao in Gaomi County.

His grandfather, who is over 80 years old, actually said that there really was a person named Yu Zhan'ao in Gaomi in the past, and that the things written in the novel actually happened. His grandfather once followed this person to burn down the landlord's house, divided the landlord's food and property, and set up a table on the street to eat.

Zhang Shijia was shocked when he saw this.

The writer Jiang Xian is not from Gaomi, but he was able to write a novel about things that happened in Gaomi that even he didn't know about, and he wrote it so brilliantly and heroically.

Of course, there are also people who criticize the novel "Red Sorghum", thinking that the novel is nonsense.

"It's obvious that this author has never farmed before."

“Sorghum can still be tall and beautiful.”

"Bah, only a spendthrift would plant something like that."

“Only short-growing varieties of sorghum can produce high yields.”

This is actually true.

The beautiful sorghum fields that are tall and dense as described in novels are rarely seen in reality.

Because dwarf sorghum has higher yields, farmers prefer to plant it.

In another time and space, Zhang Yimou suffered the same loss.

When he was preparing to shoot Red Sorghum, in order to capture the scene of tall sorghum swaying in the wind as described in the novel, he personally went to Gaomi, rented land, and asked villagers to plant sorghum, a total of 100 acres.

He and the villagers agreed that the sorghum would eventually belong to them and he would only need it for filming.

When the crops were planted and they reached the sorghum field, Zhang Yimou was dumbfounded.

Out of 100 acres of sorghum, more than half are dwarf varieties!

It turned out that in order to increase the yield, the villagers did not buy the sorghum seeds he wanted, and instead planted the high-yield dwarf seeds.

From a distance, the sorghum field looked so messy and disorganized, completely unrelated to the word "beauty", let alone like the scenes in novels. It was totally impossible to capture the beautiful scene he wanted.

Later, Zhang Yimou wanted to fertilize the dwarf sorghum, so he distributed chemical fertilizers to the villagers and asked them to apply them to the fields. As a result, the villagers took the fertilizers and secretly took them back home.

In those days, fertilizers were scarce in our country.

"."

Zhang Shijia read the letters for a while and suddenly saw one of them with the address of the editorial office of People's Literature at No. 2 Shatan North Street, Beijing.

After a few seconds of reaction, he perked up.

“People’s Literature has replied!”

I opened the letter immediately. There was a letter and a copy of People's Literature, Issue 1982, 10.

Zhang Shijia first read the letter:
"Comrades from Gaomi County Cultural Center:

It is a great honor to receive your letter. The editorial department of People's Literature has forwarded it to Comrade Jiang Xian on your behalf."

The gist of this is that we have given your letter to Jiang Xian, and he confirmed that Gaomi County is where the story of Red Sorghum takes place. We were also surprised.

As for the creative talk you wanted, we have also made an appointment with Jiang Xian. He has already written it and published it in the 10th issue of "People's Literature". I have sent you a copy along with this letter.

Zhang Shijia was excited at first because he heard from Jiang Xian that Gaomi County was the setting of the story of Red Sorghum.

After hearing from the editor of People's Literature that Jiang Xian had also published an article on his creation in the tenth issue of People's Literature, Zhang Shijia hurriedly opened the copy of People's Literature that was given with the letter.

I opened the catalog and quickly found the page where the creative talk was.

Jiang Xian said that after the publication of Red Sorghum, many people, including himself, said that it was root-seeking literature, but in fact, looking back now, he did not have too much intention of seeking roots when writing it, but it was just that the literary proposition of seeking roots was invisibly conformed to in the process of writing.

Jiang Xian attributed his understanding of Gaomi County to the time when he went to the countryside to work as a sent-down youth. Out of boredom, he often gathered with other educated youth to listen to stories.

People don’t know many stories, so they can hear one story over and over again.

As for several things about Gaomi County, he heard them from an educated youth. The source of the stories was that the educated youth had the county annals of Gaomi County.

Zhang Shijia was a little disappointed. He actually thought that Jiang Xian might have been to Gaomi at some point, which was why he wrote about Gaomi so beautifully.

However, his disappointment was only short-lived. After reading the rest of the content, Zhang Shijia was so excited that he picked up the manuscript and ran to the curator.

"Look at this."

He placed the 10th issue of People's Literature in front of the curator.

"What's all the fuss about?"

The curator took a sip of water, and after reading the article that Zhang Shijia asked him to read, he couldn't help but take a breath.

"Do we still have such people in Gaomi County?"

In his article, Jiang Xian said that the character of Yu Zhan'ao was inspired by the life experience of a man named Cao from Gaomi County.

It’s not really true to say that he is a prototype, because this person is not a bandit like Yu Zhan’ao. He is educated and even went to university.

However, several major events were done by this Cao XX, including the ambush written in "Red Sorghum".

The curator and Zhang Shijia hurriedly checked the county annals and found that during the Republic of China period, in order to facilitate communication and joint defense between the Japanese garrisons in Jiaoxian and Pingdu counties, the Japanese army conscripted more than 40 civilian laborers from Gaomi, Pingdu, Jiaoxian and other places to build the Jiao-Ping Highway.

During this period, countless crops along the way were destroyed during road construction, and the mules, horses, and carts in the villages on both sides of the road were also looted by the Japanese.

After the road was repaired, the Japanese army patrolled back and forth by car every day. The trees, cattle, sheep and even pedestrians on the roadside became targets for their marksmanship competitions, and innocent villagers were often killed by their guns.

The Japanese army's atrocities aroused hatred among the local people.

Cao XX decided to launch an ambush on the Jiaoping Highway to teach these vicious Japanese soldiers a lesson.

"On the morning of April 1938, 4, eight Japanese military vehicles entered Cao XX's ambush circle. At the commander's command, the guerrillas stood high above the enemy and fired at the enemy.

The Japanese soldiers hurriedly hid under the cars and resisted stubbornly. Since the guerrillas had just been formed and the soldiers lacked combat experience, several of them were shot and killed.

In a desperate situation, an experienced old team member led more than ten people, each holding a bundle of burning sorghum stalks, and risked their lives to set the car on fire. The thick smoke and fire drove the Japanese out from under the car.

After a fierce battle, except for one Japanese soldier who hid in the sorghum stalks on the roadside and escaped, the rest were all killed.

"

After finding out these things, the curator and Zhang Shijia both felt an indescribable feeling.

Even a little proud.

The curator felt regretful again, "It's a pity that this Cao XX is from that side. He is not worthy of publicity, let alone a monument or biography."

Zhang Shijia thought that we could look at it from a different angle.

"It's not just him who participated in this battle. Our civilians also shed blood."

When the curator thought about it, he suddenly felt that Zhang Shijia was a genius.

Yes.

Our Gaomi ancestors shed blood for this land!

Some people even lost their lives.

Why isn't it worthwhile to erect a monument for them?
After realizing this, the curator immediately decided to continue expanding the influence of the novel "Red Sorghum" in Gaomi.

Zhang Shijia also wrote things after he returned.

He wrote a letter to Guan Moye.

He was going to tell him.

Jiang Xian's "Red Sorghum" is becoming more and more popular in his hometown.

(End of this chapter)