Literary Master 1983

Chapter 10 Cotangent of Two Cards
There is a main thread in the development of mainland China's literature in the 1980s that has a crucial impact on its fate.

It is about the balance between story and art, or in other words, whether to develop towards popular literature or serious literature.

History here eventually evolved into the latter.

As a result, scar literature, root-seeking literature, "modern" literature (specifically referring to literature inspired by Western literature), avant-garde novels... no matter what faction or group they belong to, they got the bitter fruit of what they expected and lost the honeymoon period with society and the public.

Five years later, Wang Meng published an article in the Literary Gazette titled "After the Loss of the Sensational Effect", talking about how literature caused a wave of enthusiasm in society in the early 5s. Later, the enthusiasm became a matter within the literary circle, but by the late 80s, even the enthusiasm within the circle was no longer seen.

“No matter if you write about organs that everyone has or ‘dissipative structures’ that most people don’t understand, no matter if your novels are full of pioneering saviour consciousness or full of dirty words of street scoundrels, no matter if you write more Western than the foreigners or more ‘Shen’ than Shen Congwen, you can’t make many waves.”

Why did it turn out like this?

The secret lies in the casual chat between Yu Qie and Huang Xingbang.

"Teacher Yu, you want to write about big scenes and big wars, to make it gripping and full of dangers... a fictional novel that goes beyond non-fiction, but it is fiction after all, and you obviously have a critical attitude towards the behavior of the 'breakup letter' in the end, so why did you write the first part? Did you write too much?"

Huang Xingbang swallowed his saliva and added, "I think there are too many story-like elements and too few critical elements. Your...your A Moment of Romance also has this kind of problem. It comes to an abrupt end at the end. In my opinion, you paid too much attention to writing well and neglected your own expression."

"Red Rock is a major magazine that leans towards realism. Your novels meet the requirements of Red Rock and will continue to meet them in the future. However, Mr. Yu, you are still so young, but your creative ideas tend to be popular literature... Is it okay for me to say this? In my opinion, yes."

Huang Xingbang finished speaking all at once.

This is a bit strange. He commented that Yu Qi's works are good-looking and he enjoys reading them. However, he feels that one should know when to stop and not waste one's talent.

why?
Literature, you must teach me something, you must criticize something.

Huang Xingbang is engaged in reportage. In the discrimination chain of literature, reportage is still in the middle of the chain, while popular literature is at the bottom.

Yu Qie used Ma Shi Tu as a shield. "If you want to reason with people, how can you make it to the end if you don't tell them something surprising to keep them listening? Aren't all the stories in "Ten Night Tales" just a bunch of nonsense?"

Huang Xingbang said: "After all, Mr. Ma is different. He has already become famous. Before he even started writing Ten Tales of the Night, he had already booked it with People's Literature and confirmed its publication. How many writers can do that?"

Ma Shi Tu does more than just set up a dragon gate formation!

There is a story in "Ten Night Tales" called "Marrying a Concubine", which tells the story of a man who made his fortune with his wife and then abandoned her and his daughter, moving to the main city of Chongqing to become a big manager. His wife remarried and moved to the main city with her daughter, and when the daughter grew up, she was raped and gave birth to a child, so she could only half-heartedly become a concubine...

This plot can burn out anyone's CPU.

What did Ma Shi Tu criticize in this novel?
When he was writing this part, was he thinking, "Let me teach you some truths, let me express something", or "Brother, is my dragon gate formation weird? Is it awesome?"

Commercial writing skills do not affect literary expression, but can contribute to literary expression. Such a simple truth has not been truly recognized by the literary world even after forty years.

Huang Xingbang said: "However, the trend of contemporary literature is to explore different writing techniques, innovate in subject matter and structure, regard self-expression as the only and highest goal, and create abstract humanity and humanitarianism..."

Yu Qie was a little surprised. He didn't expect that Huang Xingbang was actually a supporter of "subjectivity theory".

The so-called subject theory has come along with the development of serious literature, which is to give the "subject" the ability to transcend specific time and space and possess infinite possibilities... In simple terms, you can write whatever you want, there is nothing you cannot write.

These academic things are very abstract, but they are what the current literary world is debating and popularizing, and they have influenced most creators. These thoughts once dominated the world, and were constantly spread in magazines such as "Wenyi Bao", "Wenhui Daily", "Red Flag", and "Academic Monthly", and gradually reached the peak.

Why did later generations have no impression of this?
Because in the first half of next year, the chief secretary made a speech at the Central Committee, saying that this kind of academic debate had crossed the boundary of ideological liberation and was fundamentally wrong. After that, these things were openly swept into the garbage heap and were not allowed to be publicized. However, secretly, it was actually retained under the name of "rewriting literary history" and modernists' study of world literature, and finally shook the foundation of popular literature.

There was a private outrage.

The revival of popular literature is actually a resurgence due to the writing of online articles. Traditional literature should be grateful to online articles. Without online articles, traditional literature would even lose its significance among the masses.

Today's general public is influenced by online literature far more than so-called traditional literature.

Yu Qie found that he had an opportunity to play with the wind. As long as he showed a firm attitude to draw a clear line between himself and "subject theory", criticize it and discredit it, it would be beneficial to Yu Qie's future position in the literary world.

Someone will ask?
Didn't you say that these people would go into hiding? How can we control them if they reappear by rewriting literary history and studying world literature and Western literature?

If a person plays a card that says "foreign literature is superior to Chinese literature", and he plays a second card that says "I studied foreign literature, therefore I have authority".

Now Yu Qie has played his cards. The first card is that the highest awards for foreign literature are the Akutagawa Prize, the Prix Goncourt...which represent the highest level of foreign literature.

Do you admit it?

You admit it.

Yu cut out the second card: I won the prize.

So I have direct authority.

How should the other party respond?
This literary debate did not continue. As the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Huang Xingbang, I would like to mention here briefly that he did not have the interest to go through fire and water for subjectivism.

The most important thing for him now is to establish a long-term and effective contractual relationship with Yu Qie.

Huang Xingbang said: "The study of Latin American literature is a recent trend in Europe. One Hundred Years of Solitude won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year. It's incredible! Now, we should also study Latin American literature."

Yu Qie expressed pessimism: "One Hundred Years of Solitude is a great literary work, but forty years later, I am afraid that no more than 50 million of the one billion Chinese have read it."

"Fifty million people, isn't that a lot?"

Yu Qie said, "But I care more about the remaining 950 million."

(End of this chapter)