1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 444 "Functional Circle"

“Open up the increasingly rigid publishing model.”

“Change the stereotype of People’s Literature in readers’ minds?”

The editorial department of People's Literature rarely had the habit of writing "forewords", so Su Tong felt a little surprised when he saw this line of text.

He looked down and caught a glimpse of a novel. The title of the novel was written in large font on the first line:
You Have No Choice

That’s right, this novel was first published in two magazines, People’s Literature and People’s Digest.

What caught Su Tong's attention even more was the signature at the back, which read "Jiang Xian".

"Jiang Xian's novel?!" Su Tong was a little surprised.

He is Jiang Xian's reader and has read each of Jiang Xian's novels more than once.

In Su Tong's opinion, the writer Jiang Xian is definitely the most dazzling one among the writers of the 80s.

Su Tong once took some time to read and study all of Jiang Xian's works.

Then he was surprised to find that although Jiang Xian's novels had varied styles, in terms of quality, every novel published by Jiang Xian was of extremely high quality.

To the extent that until now, the name Jiang Xian is almost a guarantee of the quality of the novel.

Su Tong immediately became interested in this new work.

Based on the name "You Have No Choice", he felt that the novel should have a modernist style, combined with the extremely rebellious words in the "Foreword" and the name Jiang Xian.

This novel will never be that simple.

With curiosity in his heart, Su Tong's eyes were deeply immersed in the novel.

As a relatively professional writer with a deep understanding of Western modernism, Su Tong was surprised to find that Jiang Xian narrated the article "You Have No Choice" from a third-person perspective.

In other words, he narrates from the perspective of a bystander who has nothing to do with the story.

Based on this narrative form, Jiang Xian analyzed the real lives of a group of college students in the composition department of a music college with a calm and objective attitude.

This kind of narrative form from an external perspective is a fundamental subversion of the omniscient perspective of traditional novels.

"sharp."

Su Tong couldn't help but sigh.

The more you understand, the more you can feel the maturity of Jiang Xian's writing and his mastery of writing techniques.

As for this novel, Li Ming is just one of the characters in the novel.

In addition to him, there are various other characters, basically students and teachers of various personality types in the music conservatory.

The common characteristics of these people are:

“There’s almost no character development.”

Yes, these people's personalities are fixed and do not change during the plot.

Moreover, their behavior is full of absurdity, as if they are a group of mentally disturbed people.

For example:
Sen Sen, a college student majoring in composition, is extremely talented, but he never takes a bath or washes his clothes. Once during a piano lesson, he even suffocated his piano teacher for five minutes due to the irritation.

Shi Bai can recite music theory by heart, but is completely out of touch with it when it comes to practice, and his pieces sound "like dry feces".

Professor Jia, a senior professor in the composition department, never composes music, just like he never wears new clothes. The occasional tunes he composes are mediocre, just like even if he wears new clothes, they are still dark blue polyester Zhongshan suits.

Professor Jin is a casual person. He always likes to wear corduroy hunting suits and work pants at an old age. Sometimes he even smells like French perfume. "He used to put a handful of peanuts on the podium when he taught a large class. He would throw one into his mouth after a few words. After he accidentally threw a piece of chalk into the podium, I never saw him eat peanuts again."

The images of these people, without exception, reveal a kind of casualness and absurd "black humor".

As for the structure of the novel, it was written more casually.

There is no main plot in the whole novel, although it is divided into 23 chapters.

But in fact, in Su Tong's opinion, it is impossible to distinguish which chapters are more important or less important, or which are primary or secondary.

Even when connected together, they lack close logical connections and are just relatively loose and free "plot blocks".

Su Tong had never read such a novel.

Full of "relaxation".

"He has started writing novels like this?!" Su Tong was shocked.

He could clearly feel the huge gap between himself and top writers like Jiang Xian.

To describe it in the way of martial arts novels, Su Tong is still a beginner who has to follow the moves in the martial arts manual meticulously, while Jiang Xian is already a martial arts master who can perform his own moves with ease.

The whole novel seems like something Jiang Xian wrote casually after getting drunk.

But once you get used to the narrative style of this novel, you will quickly enter the world of this novel.

If I have to say what it is about, it is about the college life of a group of college students.

Li Ming, a talented, elegant and musical composition student, is always distracted in class, and his classmate Ma Li is even more bored.

The former wanted to drop out of school, while the latter kept buying books, and made his own book numbers, stamped them, and attached library cards. He also made bookcases and desks for the books he bought, and decorated his dormitory like home.

At night, the classmates all returned to the dormitory to chat, but Mali fell into a deep sleep.

Li Ming went to Professor Wang, whom he admired, to explain his reasons for dropping out. After listening to him, Professor Wang scolded him:
"Just study hard, you fool!"

“You have no choice but to compose.”

Li Ming had no choice but to give up the idea of ​​dropping out of school and spend his days fooling around and chatting with girls.

My roommate Shi Bai often banged the piano when practicing. He had studied a book on harmony for seven years, but the music he composed sounded boring.

Shi Bai later moved out of the dormitory and stayed in the dormitory of Nie Feng, a student from the Command Department whose hair was permed into fluffy curls.

Nie Feng's arrival attracted many girls.

At night, Li Ming and others had to leave the dormitory to Nie Feng to direct the girls to rehearse.

Sen Sen, who lives next door to the dormitory, always has long hair like a big bird's nest. She doesn't wash clothes or take a bath, and the smell is so bad that even the old lady who has piano lessons can't stand it.

Sen Sen couldn't play a tune when practicing the piano, which shocked Li Ming so much that he buried his head in the quilt.

Meng Ye's talent is no less than Sen Sen's. He is very handsome, and is surrounded by girlfriends all day long and often disappears inexplicably.

Professor Jia and Professor Jin in the Composition Department are rivals, so the student presentations held in the department often become a competition of their achievements.

Meng Ye is Professor Jin's favorite student.

Li Ming thought Meng Ye and Sen Sen were too crazy, so he went to talk to Dong Ke, but Dong Ke often said irrelevant things.

There are three girls in the composition class: "Cat", "Confused" and "Time".

This is of course a nickname, and the nickname also reflects their personality.

They made the class a mess, which made Professor Jia feel desperate.

After the exam, Ma Li went home to visit his relatives but was crushed to death by a collapsed cave.

Not long after, a certain country held an international youth composer competition. Meng Ye's work was disqualified because Professor Jia thought it had a flavor of "French music".

Then, Meng Ye was maliciously reported by his girlfriend and had to drop out of school.

Sen Sen barely managed to retain his qualification to participate and eventually won a prize in the competition.

After Li Ming learned the news, he decided not to go into bed again.

".
When the graduation ceremony began, Sen Sen was still in the piano room.

The corridor was empty. This noisy corridor suddenly became quiet, adding weight to the air.

Sen Sen was wearing headphones, and it seemed as if he had been surrounded by his own audio for half a century.

The more he listened, the more confused his thoughts became, and the heavier his mood became. A chill slowly spread upward from under his feet.

He thought of Meng Ye; thought of "Mengdong" crying for Meng Ye in front of the functional circle; thought of the little guy giving people hints everywhere; thought of Li Ming never leaving the bed. All the people passed by him, disturbing him like the rough sound of his ensemble.

He opened the drawer and rummaged aimlessly with his hands. There was still a cigarette, but no matches.

There was half a sheet of score paper lying inside, enough to draft a polyphonic question. He pulled out the entire drawer and found a tape at the back that he hadn't listened to for five years. On the cover was written: "Mozart's Jupiter Symphony in C Major".

He subconsciously turned off his music and put the tape into the recorder.

Immediately, a fresh, wholesome sound full of sunshine enveloped him deeply.

He felt a relief he had never felt before.

It was as if he was in a pure holy place, and all the turbid impurities in the air had disappeared. He was overjoyed, opened the window to look at the clear jade-like sky, and reached out to feel the air flow of nature.

Suddenly, he started crying.”

The novel ends here. When Su Tong finished reading the last paragraph and saw Sen Sen burst into tears, hot tears suddenly fell from his eyes.

Su Tong didn't feel like he was reading a novel, he felt like he was listening to a piece of music.

In this article "You Have No Choice", Jiang Xian is neither keen on the plot nor telling a story.

The whole article is written like a flowing melody.

Su Tong heard about Ma Li, who was busy buying books, numbering them and putting them on the shelves all day long; Meng Ye, who was full of musical fantasies but was tortured by his girlfriend; Sen Sen, who smashed the keyboard and shouted "Fuck the strength"; Shi Bai, who was still interested in discussing literary theories at two o'clock in the morning; and the "little guy" who began to wipe the huge functional circle above the classroom after Ma Li's accidental death.

It seems that everything is caused by the functional circle.

Functional circle is a special term in the harmony of music composition theory courses, and is the circular logic of harmonic movement in European classical music.

In the world of this novel, the functional circle is framed with a beautiful border and hung high above the classroom.

The only effect it had was to scare these students to death every time they looked up and saw it.

Everyone in the composition department adores it, but is also driven crazy by it.

Before going abroad, the little guy tried his best to wipe the functional circle.

This plot made Su Tong think for a long time.

He knew that Jiang Xian must be trying to express something through this absurd behavior.

Until he opened the novel for the second time and read it from the beginning for the second time.

Su Tongcai finally understood.

Why does the little guy try so hard to wipe the functional circle?

Because he knows that in the end no one can escape, and all the heretics will eventually return to their place.

One day they will come back on their own, either with tears of gratitude or in tears.

Because they have no choice.

"Great, really well written!"

Su Tong didn't know how many times he had cried tonight.

In the eyes of his roommates, he seemed like a madman, crying and laughing at the same time.

Several roommates were already whispering and discussing whether the rejection of the manuscript was too much of a blow to Su Tong and had crushed his spirit.

But only Su Tong understood how he felt at the moment.

It's like listening to a song and all your situations are presented in this song.

It's like listening to a sad song when you're having a bad relationship. Tears start to fall from your eyes as you listen, and you can't help but sigh, "This song was written just for me!"

If you replace music with literature, that would be Su Tong's current situation.

A huge mountain was pressing down on him.

There are no functional circles in literature, but there are things similar to functional circles.

Every writer is driven crazy by this thing, and is suppressed to the point of going insane.

Su Tong tried to struggle, to rebel, and to be unconventional.

But the result of rejection after rejection told him:
"You have no choice!"

The only consolation is that as long as you write "postage payable" when submitting your manuscript, you don't have to pay postage, so the only cost of submitting your manuscript is the envelope and manuscript paper.

"Su Tong."

After hesitating for a long time, one of the roommates finally decided to find Su Tong to say a few words of comfort and soothe his mood before turning off the lights.

The other party glanced at People's Literature and casually found a topic to talk about, "What are you reading?"

Su Tong glanced at him and wiped his eyes.

"A novel."

"What novel?"

"You Have No Choice, Jiang Xian's new novel."

"Jiang Xian's?"

The other party became interested instantly.

Nowadays, there are too many college students reading novels.

There are more people who write novels.

In the 80s, there was a famous saying by writer Wang Meng to the young people of that time:
“Don’t crowd the narrow path of literature.”

In this age of literary craze, almost every college student is writing. Whether in rural or urban areas, the percentage of all educated young people who write is very high.

In Su Tong's class alone, out of more than 40 students, more than a dozen of them submitted articles openly or secretly.

"How is it written?" the other party asked.

“Exceptionally good.”

Su Tong gave this comment, and as if worried that his brief description was not enough to reflect the excellence of this novel, he quickly added: "This is the best novel I have read this year."

"Is it?"

The other party did not question Su Tong's words at all.

question?

Are you kidding me?
The author of this novel is Jiang Xian.

Which of Jiang Xian’s novels is not a masterpiece that has caused a sensation in the literary world?

Following Su Tong's recommendation, the roommate quickly finished reading the novel and immediately fell into the same emotion as Su Tong.

That is a reflection on destiny and life.

In this world where we are defined, exploited and bound, how should we live so that we can truly gain freedom and become our own masters?

The boys' dormitory is a magical place.

No matter whether it is delicious or beautiful, don’t even think about keeping it for yourself. Everyone in the dormitory must share it.

After Su Tong recommended the article "You Have No Choice", the whole dormitory quickly read it.

Then, the lights in the dormitory were turned off and a discussion broke out.

Most of the topics are about the thoughts extended from the novel "You Have No Choice".

Of course, a question will inevitably be raised:
Why did Jiang Xian write this novel?
(End of this chapter)