Literary Master 1983

Chapter 129 Shanghai Writers Circle

The delegation returned to Shanghai on an Air China flight that evening.

Several staff members of Iwanami Bookstore, some officials from the education department and Japanese college students who had not yet had time to board the plane were on the same plane as the visiting writers group.

There was a joke at the time. The translator Chen Xiru thought that the drinks, fruits and other things on the plane were free like those on Japan Airlines.

As a result, he ordered a Coca-Cola, and the flight attendant repeatedly confirmed with him: "Sir, do you really want to drink Coke?"

"Drink it. And give Yu Qie a drink, too. Two."

"Two dollars." The young lady stretched out her hand to ask him for money.

Chen Xiru was stunned.

Yu Qie was about to pay when he was seen by Kenjiro Kobayashi, a staff member of Iwanami Bookstore. He announced that his company would pay for everyone to have Coke.

Because he had heard that Yu Qie's novel would soon be published by Iwanami Shoten, Chen Xiru knew that everyone was benefiting from Yu Qie's work.

He asked Yu Qie: "This Japanese is really nice to you, but is the status of Japanese writers so high?"

This puzzled Yu Qiewen because these are two different career paths. In terms of wealth, Japanese writers' income is definitely much higher, even if the income gap between countries is excluded.

But in terms of political status, people like Ba Lao and Ma Shi Tu were much higher and had no worries about food and clothing. It is difficult to compare.

Yu Qie shrugged, talked to him about the difference between the two, and said, "Which one do you choose?"

Chen Xiru immediately shook his head: "Then I'd better be a Chinese writer."

These Iwanami Bookstore staff members came to investigate China's business environment, and by the way, they found Yu Qie to get the manuscript of his first Japanese novel and fax it to Japan.

Because Iwanami Shoko likes to publish "classical literature", the books they publish have become a bit like "fashion items" in Japan. That is, readers may not necessarily read them after buying them, but they will definitely buy a few copies to show off and pretend that they are very cultured.

Japan's Minister of Education wrote an article criticizing this phenomenon: there is a saying in society called "Iwanami boys" and "Iwanami girls". Young students deliberately take out red-banded books (Iwanami Bunko marks series with colors, red for foreign literature) from their school bags for others to see, like a secret code to attract like-minded people and show off their medal of "already being cultured people".

Among the staff members who came to China, Kenjiro Kobayashi could speak some Chinese. After leaving the airport, he followed Yu Che all the time, wherever Yu Che went, he went.

When Yu Qie was ready to eat, Xiao Lin came out to treat him.

When Yu Qie was going to attend a banquet at Ba Lao's house, Xiao Lin bought him an IWC mechanical watch in advance and then squatted at the door. Yu Qie said, "Ba Lao doesn't accept gifts. He's not that kind of person."

Xiao Lin said, "Then you take it."

"I don't accept gifts either."

"Then you can give it to someone else. Are you going to Ba Lao's house? I'll call you a taxi."

Although Yu Qie received nothing, he finally realized how much Iwanami Shoko wanted his novel to be published quickly.

He originally planned to write a wasteland novel in the "Metro" series, and then make some Japanese localized adaptations.

"Metro" is a trilogy written by the original Russian writer in 03. Including "Metro 2033", "Metro 2034" and "Metro 2035", this series is more famous for being adapted into 3A video games. Before Yu Qie traveled through time, the series was about to be adapted into a blockbuster movie.

Yu Qie and Lucy, an international student at Yanda University, once discussed dystopian masterpieces such as "1984" and "Brave New World". The "Metro" series is also a dystopian work. "1984" believes that rule requires fear, and "Brave New World" believes that rule requires deception. "Metro" is more realistic, probably because it was written by a Russian after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He believes that rule actually does not require anything, but only needs to provide a kind of order, and humans have a natural obedience.

This is an alternative "cool story". In the end, the protagonist holds the power of life and death over humans and another new species on the surface. Due to lack of communication, he chooses to kill the other species, and then before the destruction, he discovers that the new creatures are already intelligent creatures.

And because there were no external enemies, humans continued to fall into eternal self-torture.

This is another view that was relatively new before the 1980s, but has become very common in later generations - humans are just the "best adapters" on Earth, just like the dinosaurs that once dominated the Earth.

Even if the whole earth is covered with radiation and scars from nuclear bombs, the earth will be fine. There have been many worse times in the history of the earth. If a nuclear war breaks out, humans will just kill themselves.

But these books are all long, about 450,000 words each, and they can't be finished in a short time.

Yu Qie decided to write a short novella and publish it to Iwanami Shoku first, as he still lacked some inspiration.

Afterwards, at the invitation of Li Xiaolin of Harvest magazine, Yu Qie stayed in Shanghai for three more days, visited various places and made some friends.

Here, Yu Qie entered a new circle, which was composed of cultural celebrities in Shanghai. At that time, there were many regional circles among writers, who communicated, played and created with each other, and finally promoted each other with the help of each other.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Yanjing Stock Exchange correspond one to one. Whatever Yanjing has, there is often a corresponding one in the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The two largest circles are Yenching and Shanghai. Among them, it is generally believed that the magazines in Shanghai are more courageous, because Ba Lao is in charge here and his literary inclinations are more open.

For example, in literary criticism, Yenching has two magazines, "Literary Review" and "Modern Literature Research", while Shanghai publishes "Shanghai Literature" and the theoretical edition of "Shanghai Literature".

Yu Qie's destination in Shanghai is Shanghai Literature. This issue has a writer named Zhong Acheng, whose debut work "Chess King" was published in Shanghai Literature, telling the story of a "chess fanatic" who is looking for opponents to play chess with.

After the novel was published, it became very popular. The editorial department was discussing why it was so popular. When they saw Yu Qie coming, they turned their attention to him.

At No. 675 Julu Road, the editorial office of Shanghai Literature was filled with smoke. Zhou Jieren from the literary theory group and editor-in-chief Li Ziyun were having a discussion.

Zhou Jieren said: "Why is "The Chess King" so popular? Is it because it is a novel about educated youth?"

Li Ziyun shook his head: "Nowadays, there are educated youth novels everywhere. I think the success of "The Chess King" is definitely not due to its subject matter, but its narrative style and its cultural connotations."

Zhou Jieren keenly noticed the cultural connotation: "You mean, the public has gradually lost interest in educated youth novels, and the reason why The Chess King is popular is because of that 'culture'? But what exactly is this culture?"

Li Ziyun didn't know what this culture was.

If Yu Qie came to listen, he would answer that it was local culture or root-seeking culture.

Zhou Jieren then began to criticize today's writers: "I feel like they are imitating Westerners in writing novels, but they don't even know basic foreign languages, so what kind of phenomenon does this cause?"

"What's happening?" Li Ziyun acted as the supporting actor.

"What they actually learn is the translated works. For example, Huang Jinyan translated One Hundred Years of Solitude. So what these people learn is not from Marquez, but from Huang Jinyan. Yu Qie wrote some opinions at the beginning of that book, and they also quoted them everywhere - Yu Qie and Marquez wrote letters, and you took the rubbish that others had chewed up and regarded it as the criterion!"

"You're being a little too absolute."

"Not absolutely. Li Tuo, the editor-in-chief of Yenching Literature, also thinks so. The last time I met him, he was even more exaggerated than me. He said that some writers learn second-hand, such as Hemingway and Faulkner... They don't learn anything at all. They don't even understand foreign languages. What's the point of learning!"

(End of this chapter)