Literary Master 1983

Chapter 197: Choosing a Mentor

The youngest of this group of people is Wang Meng herself, who is 51 years old, and the oldest is in his seventies. There are quite a few of them, and it is obvious that the teachers are older.

And what about the students?
Although it has not been decided at this meeting, the recommendation forms collected show that most of them are under 30 years old. After all, if they are older, their literary path will have been set and there is no need for training.

By the way, Yu Qie also recommended a dentist in the county town—he is not very old, only about 20 years old.

He is also my "Brother Yu".

After the meeting, Wang Meng, as the secretary, said: "A common problem in our advanced training classes is that the teachers are too old. I think this is not suitable for communicating with students. We should have at least one or two writers of younger generation to teach."

Wang Zengqi immediately proposed: "That's what I said, but where can we find such a writer... This person must convince the students in the audience, and he must be about the same age as us, and he must be on par with us! The difference can't be too big! Otherwise, he will be looked down upon. It's not easy to find such a candidate."

What about the cotangent? How about the cotangent.

Jiang Zhenghan had been to Japan with Yu Qie before. Before boarding the plane to return home, he was deeply impressed by the scene where several Japanese university students waved books and blessed Yu Qie.

He pointed out that due to some historical reasons, there are not many Mesozoic novelists, and it is difficult to find such candidates, but on the contrary, we can find writers who are younger than these students but have achieved much greater success.

Does everyone know who he is talking about?

It's the remaining part.

Wang Meng thought about it again and again, and said, "I'm afraid Yu Qie is not suitable. Although he writes novels well, he is too young... I'm not saying that he is not qualified to be a teacher. He is fully qualified. I'm saying that the public may not think so. I'm worried that it will have a bad influence on him."

Yes, the spring of literature has only just arrived. Looking back at that time, it seems that we should not rush into things.

The proposal was temporarily shelved. After the meeting, Wang Meng thought about who else could be teachers: In fact, it’s not that there aren’t any. Liu Xinwu can come and teach for a period of time. He is very good at expressing himself.

Basketball player Feng Jicai is also a good writer. His personality is a bit more introverted, but it's not bad.

……

Suddenly, many people appeared in Wang Meng's mind. After thinking about it, Liu Xinwu was still the most suitable person in terms of age. He had been a class teacher and had not published any good works in the past two years. Perhaps Liu Xinwu's teaching for a while would help him get out of the nightmare of "Yu Qie's seven captures of Meng Huo".

But Yu Che may be Liu Xinwu's victim all his life - just when Wang Meng was about to find Liu Xinwu in person, Wang Meng accidentally learned: Yu Che had published a novel in Japanese and was about to print another 100,000 copies.

real or fake?

Wang Meng's thoughts changed immediately.

The distance between People's Literature and October magazine is not far, so Wang Meng went directly to the editorial department of October to inquire about the situation from Yu Qie's editor Zhang Shouren and the magazine's editor-in-chief Wang Shimin.

The situation took him by surprise, for real.

Not only has Yu Qie's book sold successfully in Japan, he may also be nominated for a professional literary award: if this really happens, it will have an explosive impact in mainland China!
There is a great possibility that he will get the nomination. The person who recommended him is Iwanami Publishing, and everyone knows the ins and outs of publishing houses.

If he can really write Japanese literature, ordinary young authors will definitely not be able to surpass him - just like Yu Qie won this year's National Excellent Short Story Award and Mao Dun Literature Award, this is a foregone conclusion!

Whether in terms of the breadth or depth of his works, Yu Qie is second to none in the mainland novel world this year. The year 1984 in the novel world can be called the Yu Qie Year.

So, would Yu Qie be a suitable teacher?
Wang Meng ran to the Yanda campus to find Yu Qie.

At this time, the "New Reality" Society has now developed into the largest literary society in Yenching University, and has quickly surpassed the May Fourth Literary Society in terms of membership. Every time the society holds a meeting, a large number of people will come. If the founder Yu Qie is also there, the number of people will increase, and they even have to hold meetings by the Weiming Lake.

Because the classroom can't accommodate so many people.

When recruiting new members after the National Day, Liu Zhenyun and others led a group of club cadres. They did not do any publicity but simply wrote the name "New Reality", which caused a sensation among students. It took several days to read through the application forms submitted.

Even some literary societies outside the school applied to become branches of New Reality.

Wang Meng and his group randomly picked up a student and asked, "Where is the New Reality Club? Do you know?"

The student said warily, "I am from the New Reality Club. Why are you looking for our club?"

Wang Meng made up an excuse: "I'm looking for Yu Qie. I'm the editor of People's Literature. He has a manuscript that has passed the review... but it still needs some revisions, so I came to him in person. Because Yu Qie is not easy to find..."

When the student heard the words "Yu Qie is not easy to find", he immediately believed it. "It turned out to be the editor! Please follow me, Yu Qie is teaching. He always teaches for a while every time he comes."

Wang Meng was curious: "Yu Qie is still in class? He is so young, why would you listen to him?"

The student asked back, “If we don’t listen to him, who should we listen to? Those people from the May Fourth Literary Society who have to revise the school magazine all the time? Even their own vice president Luo Yihe has betrayed us. The few poets who came out of our school were all non-staff members of the New Realism Society…”

That's the truth!
Wang Meng thought: It seems that Yu Qie is not only good at writing novels, but also good at waging struggles. The May Fourth Literary Society was so famous back then, but now it has been defeated in its base camp and can’t even hold on to the shores of Weiming Lake.

Following this student, Wang Meng entered through the back door of the New Reality Society, followed by a secretary and editor Feng Mu.

Feng Mu is the editor-in-chief of Literary Gazette, and he is not young anymore. He is engaged in literary theory, and is not satisfied with most mainland writers. He is barely satisfied with Yu Qie, but he loves him deeply and criticizes him harshly - his ideas are the same as Wang Meng's.

Feng Mu said: "One shortcoming of Yu Qie's novel writing is that he always writes about big things and always combines them with social trends, which is somewhat suspicious of being a bit tricky. Can he really write a simple and plain novel without big characters or big events? I think he is fully capable of writing it, but he just doesn't write it!"

At this point, Feng Mu shook his head vigorously. He mentioned another shortcoming: "Also, Yu Qie has done too little research on literary theory and professional research. If things go on like this, it will eventually affect his literary status and literary creation."

Wang Meng found excuses for Yu Che: "Yu Che has written so many things, he can't write them all."

"That's not a reason."

"Editor-in-Chief Feng, Lu Xun never wrote a novel in his entire life, but that doesn't affect his status as a great writer."

"If Lu Xun had lived longer, how could he not want to write? He was still thinking about this matter before he died." Feng Mu did not accept the reason Wang Meng gave.

In fact, during the period when Lu Xun lived, there was a process of literary creation shifting from classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese. Lu Xun's success in this matter established his literary status. Yu Qie now vigorously promotes his own "new reality" and seems to be aware of this. Literary critics all know that Yu Qie is intentionally leading a new literary genre.

However, compared with the great achievements of writing in vernacular Chinese, this is naturally incomparable.

Feng Mu did not mention this because there is simply no way to compare the two.

When they entered the "New Realism" club, they heard Yu Che giving a lecture on why "scar literature" was bound to disappear... Wang Meng and Feng Mu immediately became interested, because Yu Che had not done any literary research since he wrote "Latin American Realism" under a pseudonym.

Whether scar literature still has vitality is now a hot topic in the literary and art circles, and there are many different opinions.

After listening for a while, Wang Meng and Feng Mu both opened their mouths slightly, listening intently. It turned out that Yu Qie had done literary research before, but he was just too lazy to write it down in his thesis.

(End of this chapter)