Literary Master 1983

Chapter 5 Seminar

While Yu Qie was on his way to Chengdu, the previous week, Huang Xingbang, the editor-in-chief of "Red Rock" magazine, also saw his wonderful article, "A Moment of Romance".

"Hongyan" magazine is a provincial publication with a brilliant record. After its founding in 79, Zhou Keqin's "Xu Mao and His Daughters" was immediately published, and it won the first Mao Dun Literature Award last year. In recent years, it has discovered a group of young creators and also vigorously reprinted and promoted works on realistic themes.

In fact, from an artistic point of view, "A Moment of Romance" is lacking, but the story is indeed sincere and touching, so I wrote back to inform me of the acceptance.

Huang Xingbang himself has no talent for writing novels, he specializes in reportage.

"A Moment of Romance" is a third-party onlooker narrative, which he finds quite rare. In addition, the subject matter also corresponds to the severe security reality in the country, and undoubtedly corresponds to certain realistic factors, which is in line with the magazine's consistent preference for realistic works.

The author's writing style is sophisticated and sharp, and especially has an inexplicable sense of readability. Whenever Huang Xingbang is about to lose his patience in reading, he immediately throws out a new attraction. This is completely different from the traditional novels that are difficult to read. He didn't know that it was something called the rhythm of a refreshing novel... In short, after getting the manuscript, Huang Xingbang read the whole story in one breath.

And smoked a cigarette.

It’s so cool, just like watching a movie, with a sense of picture.

Huang Xingbang sniffed and felt sorry for the abrupt ending.

The protagonist of the story, Huadi, died in the end.

The author Yu Qie is an unknown newcomer, but at one point he was thought to be an alias of some great writer. Looking at where he submitted his works, Wanxian, his style is very similar to that of another literary big brother in Wanxian, Ma Shi Tu: no show-off, no long descriptions, good readability, and strong storytelling.

It not only describes the glorious image of heroes, but also shows their struggles and contradictions in real difficulties.

Yu Qie did the opposite. He wrote about a small gangster, but also showed his heroic spirit, which made people like him. But in the end, he let him die on the street. Then you can't help but think, you are a beautiful woman, why do you become a thief?

All I can say is, wonderful!
This article spread in the editorial office of "Hongyan" magazine, and many people wanted to meet who this Teacher Yu was.

"It must be a pseudonym. Who would have that name? He looks like a mathematician."

"I'm not young anymore, at least I'm middle-aged, and I have some tips and insights that young people can't get."

"This person sees the big picture from the small. He wrote a love story, but it actually talks about today's society... There are so many people doing nothing and without jobs. How can there not be trouble?"

It just so happened that Huang Xingbang learned that Ma Shi Tu was going home to visit his relatives and was passing by the editorial office of "Hongyan" in Chongqing Province on his way to Chengdu (he had already settled in Chengdu), so he showed him the works of Yu Qie.

Ma Shi Tu is highly praised.

Many works from the 1980s were not easy to read and were too divergent, but this story was not like that. It fits with Ma Shi Tu’s own creative philosophy: putting readers first and setting up a fun chat (slang: chatting, having fun).

He said that Yu Qie's work serves readers and is reader-oriented.

Nowadays, many writers are busy with scar literature, busy with accusations and expressions. They do not cherish the opportunity for their words to meet readers, and mistakenly believe that readers will read them forever and remain obsessed with their works.

Sometimes, when I read the articles above, they are not as interesting as the gossips I had with the little people in the small government offices and government agencies when I was an underground party member in the late 1930s! I sat on the bench with them, drank cold tea, talked nonsense, and heard strange stories that I could not imagine! In fact, it was indeed so. In fact, only five or six years later, by the end of the 1980s, many authors felt that the "unparalleled close relationship between literature and the masses" had disappeared.

Why it disappeared so quickly? I'm afraid this is something the authors should reflect on.

It happened that the Sichuan Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles was holding a seminar in Chengdu, and some young and veteran writers attended the event. Everyone suggested that Yu Qie be invited to the seminar to talk about his views, and also to get to know who he is.

Huang Xingbang was short of articles, so he went to Chengdu on a public-funded tour to communicate with Yu Qie face to face. It would be best if he could urge Yu Qi to write an article and consider whether they wanted to have long-term cooperation.

Yu Qie is likely to be a prolific writer, and he meets the basic characteristics of a prolific writer:

The unemployed, the newcomer, the one who likes realistic themes and has a unique writing style - this kind of person will often continue to have sparks of inspiration for a period of time.

In addition, Huang Xingbang felt that the ending of "A Moment of Romance" was not powerful enough.

This also needs to be discussed with the author himself.

The next step is to decide on the writing theme for the seminar. In the seminar, the authors will create around a certain theme, which can be a certain subject, a social hot spot, a work of a famous writer, a certain literary genre, etc.

There are several things happening right now.

The first is a series of social changes after the reform and opening up. Reform literature, educated youth literature, etc. are all subsidiary contents of this change.

The second is the conflict between the south and its neighbors, which has entered a long-term confrontation since 1979. The "Wreaths under the Mountain" and the later "Triumph at Midnight" written by military writers are both articles from this period.

In the literary world, the long-lasting major events are how to define the past and how the future will go, as well as the subsequent trend of scar literature and reflective novels, the rewriting of literary history by drawing parallels between the past and the present, the search for the roots of national culture and the absorption of Western literature, the decline of the Misty Poetry School, the mention of enlightenment and humanism, the promotion of the so-called "subject theory" in academic creation, and so on.

To sum it up in one sentence, literature is very confused at this time. A hundred flowers blooming and a hundred chaos are two sides of the same coin, and there is a trend of shifting towards a thoroughly serious literature.

The aforementioned "loss of the incomparable close relationship with the masses" is also the bitter fruit of this shift towards serious literature rather than popular literature.

Some authors first isolate themselves from their readers, and then their readers abandon them.

Fortunately, the theme chosen for this seminar was not serious literature, but was decided by Ma Shi Tu himself, so the final theme chosen was war.

"Most of the people here this time are young people. Is the theme of 'war' too big?" Huang Xingbang actually disagreed.

However, Huang Xingbang had to agree, "It has to be bigger." Because Ma Shi Tu, the elder brother, had already refuted, "If it's not big, you can't see the true level!"

So the matter was settled.

(End of this chapter)