Literary Master 1983

Chapter 11 Magical Realism
Huang Xingbang, editor-in-chief of Red Rock, said that A Moment of Romance needed a new ending, and Yu Qie agreed.

The original ending was not literary shocking enough.

In addition, he suggested that Yu Che study the magical realism of "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

What does it mean?
For example, the protagonist Hua Di turns into a dog after his death. The dog sees his dead girlfriend running on the viaduct in her wedding dress and cries, "Hua Di!"

"Huadi!"

Regarding Huang Xingbang's suggestion, Yu Qie believed that it was right for him not to use his talent in novel writing.

There are many ways to make a story sad.

Like the protagonist's ignorance of his miserable situation: he does not realize that he is in a terrible situation, but the reader has more information than the character, and therefore understands the protagonist's miserable situation better than the character.

The protagonist calmly accepts the tragic current situation and is even open-minded and optimistic.

The protagonist is full of hope but his efforts are meaningless. He struggles against tragic fate to keep something, but that thing is taken away by force majeure. However, in the end, it is strangely given to the protagonist, who has lost the qualification/ability to possess it.

This is exactly the situation in the original ending. The two finally confessed their love and were willing to get married, but they were separated forever and it was no longer a realistic possibility.

Such an ending is beautiful and not redundant, but Yu Qie still needs another kind of sadness, which comes from the strong butterfly effect: an unintentional behavior or a random choice of the protagonist greatly changes his future destiny, causing great regret or a tragic ending.

This kind of tragedy is bound to happen, and it is consistent with the social situation before the 1980s. The lack of order stems from the collapse of the previous order. They lack legal employment opportunities, so they resort to violence.

Where is the hope?

The hope lies in the college entrance examination that has been resumed.

If we now add a character of Huadi who is smart and even likes literature, and he once wanted to apply for the mechanical engineering department of the university but gave up because there were no vacancies, when he was dying, he was thinking not only about the love between men and women, but also about the experience of discussing literature together in his dreams.

At the last moment of his life, Huadi dreamed that he went to school, wrote poems, learned ballroom dancing instead of fighting, understood mechanics instead of how to hit someone on the back of the head, and knew how to make handmade paper cranes instead of sharpening a dagger. He would be there, holding flowers, where he would meet his girlfriend in a wedding dress as expected.

This is more in line with the national conditions than the original ending. At least, Yu Qie really gave a plan.

Go study, there will never be another era so suitable for test-takers.

The new ending of "A Moment of Romance" was about to be released, but Yu Qie fell ill. The endless writing made him feel nauseous in his chest. One day when he walked out onto the street during the day, he actually felt as if he was in another world.

He saw the sun.

Ale suggested that he take a day off and have some fun.

What's the fun?
People next door were arguing about the content of the book "One Hundred Years of Solitude". The editor-in-chief of "People's Literature" from Beijing came over to exchange ideas. He hoped to use the magical realism characteristics of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" to point out the direction for future domestic literary creation.

Last year, the Latin American literary masterpiece "One Hundred Years of Solitude" won the Nobel Prize for Literature, shocking the world literary world. The award of this work is not only a personal honor for the author Gabriel García Márquez, but also an inspiration to creators in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Third World. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" has a particularly great influence on Chinese writers. "Chinese writers always mention "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "magic fantasy" when they talk about it, as if Chinese writers would have no right to speak if they did not read this book."

A group of writers who later became famous admitted that they were influenced by Marquez.

Many young literary people are the same. They are proud to have a copy of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" tucked under their arms, and regard it as a sign of their literary level.

Experts on Latin American literature research held a series of seminars on foreign literature at the central government. One leader mentioned, "Now many friends have recommended this book to me." The influence of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" at the time quickly transcended the literary world.

You must have read One Hundred Years of Solitude or sentences similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude:

“Years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano was going to think back to that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Alai told Yu Qie: "Chinese literature learns from Europe and America, while European and American literature learns from Latin America. What about us? Shouldn't we learn as well? Speaking of 'magical realism', China has a lot of it. All kinds of strange stories and folk customs can be used as creative materials. Now that our minds have been liberated, we can now write what we couldn't write before."

Yu Qie met Huang Xingbang, who said the same thing: "Magic realism can guide our future creations."

When Yu Qie arrived at the discussion meeting, everyone was arguing over the original text of the sixth chapter of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" translated into the "World Literature Magazine", which Yu Qie found ridiculous.

One said: "Magical realism can be a shortcut for China to catch up with world literature!"

Another said: "Chinese people should write their own magical realism works."

No dude…you know what magical realism is?
Because none of them have read the original text of "One Hundred Years of Solitude". It's like a group of eunuchs holding a meeting - nonsense.

The earliest translation of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in mainland China appeared in 1984, which is next year, and it was a re-translation from Russian and English, while the original text was a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese.

All the copies of One Hundred Years of Solitude in mainland China are pirated, as the copyright was not obtained until 2011. In the 150s, when Marquez himself came to mainland China, he found that the market was full of unauthorized pirated copies of his work, and he was furious: "For years after my death, I will not authorize the publication of my works in mainland China, especially One Hundred Years of Solitude."

This year, the entire content of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" that the mainland can access is the sixth chapter that was temporarily translated by several translators for the "Magazine of World Literature" after Marquez himself won the award.

This is exactly what is being discussed and pursued on the scene.

It was one chapter in a 260,000-word novel.

After the book was published, I didn’t really care whether the Colombian had been paid copyright fees. However, due to the lack of direct communication with Marquez himself, the so-called “magical realism” actually developed in the mainland was a self-imagined blunder.

According to later research and Marquez himself, "There has never been magical realism, only realism!"

Yu Qie said this, and the discussion in the meeting was stunned, and everyone looked over.

　The information about writing about sadness comes from Zhihu, and the original author is "Zhenshui".

　　
　
(End of this chapter)