Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 160 Zhang Chao's Literary Confession
Watching Zhang Chao's figure disappear at the door of Luyuan's office, Tie Ning turned around and sighed helplessly to Wang Meng.

Wang Meng smiled and said, "This kid is always as slippery as a loach. It's okay, he's still young. We'll see in a few years."

Tie Ning said: "You are too supportive of him. In fact, joining the association is not to control him. We also hope that he can participate in more activities and integrate more into the big family of the literary and artistic community.

In the eyes of many young writers now, our association is either a den of dragons and tigers, or a place of petty tricks. In fact, we urgently need fresh blood to join us so that we can reform those malpractices. "

Wang Meng did not respond to this question, but said: "Whether Zhang Chao is willing or not, those people still have to be warned."

Tie Ning also became serious and nodded, saying, "Since the resumption of foreign exchanges in the 80s, the Chinese literary world has never lost such a great figure."

Wang Meng said: "I just told Zhang Chao that we did a good job in foreign affairs, but I still feel a little guilty. The writers in the United States and the island countries who have good relations with us now are all from the old foundation we built in the early years.

These writers are generally older and are dying one after another. Our communication work with foreign young and middle-aged writers, especially influential writers, is not good and is very stiff.

In fact, IWP's Carlson's method of winning over Zhang Chao is actually quite tempting to most writers. However, Zhang Chao's personal situation is too special, and his personality is too unique.

If someone else had gone, the results would have been very different. This also reminds us that our working methods must keep pace with the times and we should not always invite people to tea parties or guesthouses.”

Tie Ning smiled bitterly and said, "You are right, but where will the funds come from..."

Wang Meng was speechless after hearing this.

Contrary to what many people think, these two associations are not management organizations and have no right to restrict, manage or punish members.

Except for the full-time chairman, secretary-general, resident vice-chairman, and some necessary staff to maintain daily operations, the rest of the members do not receive a salary.

If the chairman is not a full-time position, he will not receive a salary. It is a completely empty-handed government office with a very limited annual budget. Organizing foreign writers to visit China is very expensive and also involves certain risks.

Therefore, such activities are usually organized by other units or departments, and cooperated by the two associations.

Tie Ning couldn't even imagine an event like IWP that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

On February 2, students from Yan University and Yanshi University began to return to campus one after another; on the 16th, school officially started.

Theoretically, Zhang Chao can graduate this semester, but he must submit a qualified graduation thesis and a qualified graduation project.

Zhang Chao is preparing to combine the two into one!

For his graduation thesis, the proposal report he submitted last semester, he chose Wang Xiaobo's "Wanshou Temple", and his entry point was the core techniques of this novel: "complex narrative" and "meta-narrative".

The first is the "complex narrative". Wanshou Temple tirelessly narrates the Tang legend of "Hong Xian stealing the box" 22 times. Each narration is completely different in terms of method and content, yet vaguely related.

The main plot is that the amnesiac "I" (Wang Er) recovers his memory in the process of discovering and retelling old manuscripts, interspersed with: 1. The old manuscript of Xue Gao's story;

2. The story of Xue Gao that I rewrote before I recovered my memory;

3. The story of Xue Gao going to the top of the tower to repair the boiler, which was thought out before he lost his memory and written down after he recovered his memory;

4. A story written to "say goodbye to a life without memories": The Romance of Chang'an.

The whole story begins again and again, over and over again.

In Zhang Chao's eyes, the characters, relationships, plot development, and logical causality in this story were created again and again, then subverted, recreated, and subverted again...

Xue Song, Hong Xian, mercenaries, old prostitutes, young prostitutes, assassins… these characters haunt the narrative maze like ghosts, and their personalities change with the changes in time, place, environment, and relationships. Just like the heavy snow in the ancient city of Chang'an, they are like objects that are used to represent things and drift with the wind. Even matters of life and death present multiple possibilities with the arrangement and combination of various plot factors.

The author no longer tries to draw the reader into a single story thread, but instead has a cross-radiating maze structure like a spider web.

The formation of this style was largely influenced by the novels with strong exploratory nature of the master of formal exploration, the contemporary Italian novelist Calvino, such as the trilogy "Our Ancestors", "The Castle of Crossed Fates", and "A Traveler on a Cold Winter Night".

The second is "meta-narrative", that is, the novel creation itself becomes the object of description, making the narrative act directly become the narrative content.

The novel technique of consciously exposing narrative behavior is not the invention of modernist novelists. Since the very beginning of the chapter-based novel in ancient China, there has always been a narrator called "storyteller" who reminds "all readers."

In the 17th century, Cervantes repeatedly claimed in Don Quixote that the novel came from a fragment of manuscript he found in the market.

These "meta-narratives" mostly exist as suggestive language at the beginning or end of the novel and do not destroy the fictionality of the story itself.

Modernist novelists directly insert "meta-narrative" content into the course of the novel, deliberately emphasizing the fictional nature of the narrative, and even revealing their original intentions and motives for arranging the plot.

Although the fictionality of the novel is exposed, it does not mean that the novel has found a way of narration other than fiction. The exposure is only for the purpose of better fiction, which is a technique of covering up fiction in a sincere way.

Traditional realist novels often try their best to conceal the fictional nature of the novel and describe the novel as reality. They also try hard to make readers believe that novels are not a medium that reflects life, but are almost life itself.

"Metanarrative" deliberately exposes the fictional nature of the novel and tears apart the mask that the life described in the novel is isomorphic to reality, thereby fundamentally stimulating the reawakening of consciousness.

As Wallace Martin once said in Narratology: "They startle us to realize that what we are dealing with is not the world itself, but just another thing in the world, a thing created by man."

This discovery was a fatal blow to traditional realistic novels. All the teachings and guidance it carried out in the name of truth were fundamentally questioned, and it made readers suddenly realize that the way traditional realism gained trust was nothing more than a better-covered and more deceptive technique.

This discovery angered readers. This is how China's avant-garde novels after 1985 dealt a complete blow to traditional writing and quickly dominated the literary world.

Neither Ma Yuan (The Temptation of Gangdise) nor Mo Yan (Wine Country, etc.) has ever exposed the narrative behavior in their works as thoroughly as Wang Xiaobo - exposing the source of the novel, the creative process, and the creative techniques.

Wang Xiaobo also reached the pinnacle of technical skills among domestic writers.

Whether it is "complex narrative" or "meta-narrative", it is an idea of ​​Calvino that Wang Xiaobo is trying to explore, that is, novels, like computer science, have infinite possibilities.

Today, avant-garde literature has been on the decline in China. The group of avant-garde writers who once dominated the world have either faded out of the literary world or have given their works a realist veneer.

Zhang Chao's famous work "Young Babylon" was once regarded by critics as a symbol of the revival of avant-garde literature returning to the mainstream vision.

But soon, Zhang Chao showed through his subsequent works that he seemed more interested in being a popular literature writer. Many literature lovers still complained about this.

Zhang Chao himself knew that his love for the techniques of pure literary novels had never been extinguished in his heart.

The exploration of the literary techniques of "Wanshou Temple" was aimed at completing his graduation work - "The Glory of Criminal Police".

In fact, that night, he and Yu Zhandong completed a very avant-garde literary creation in the car.

The story of Yu Zhandong and the story of Zhang Chao seem to be about originality and re-creation, which are two sides of the same coin.

But who can guarantee that Yu Zhandong's story is 100% "true"? Human memory is unreliable. Especially when the relationship with oneself is closer and the emotional stimulation is stronger, it is easier to magnify and ignore various details.

And what kind of memory does Captain Cheng in the story have of his experiences as he pursues the murderer again and again?
Zhang Chao decided to return to pure literature in this novel, like a confession letter, as a graduation gift to himself.

(End of this chapter)