Literary Master 1983

Chapter 55 Cold Wave (I)

"What's wrong, Luo Yihe?"

"Yu Qie, you must finish reading these pages." Luo Yihe's expression was serious.

It turned out that the new issue of "People's Literature" reprinted the editorial of the 83th issue of "Wenyi Bao" in 11 and the report of the symposium in the 12th issue.

The above criticizes the phenomenon that some writers regard Western modernism as the direction and path of the development of my country's literature and art, are "keen on expressing abstract humanity and humanitarianism" in their creations, regard "expressing oneself" as the only and highest goal, etc.

He also criticized the American science fiction series "Star Wars" released in 77, saying, "This Star Wars has no scientific basis at all. Star Wars is about creatures from one planet invading and oppressing another planet; even if humans have developed interstellar travel and even escaped from the solar system, they will still go there to exploit and oppress, and to kill other intelligent creatures... In the world depicted, exploitation is eternal and universal..."

"What use is this kind of thing to us?"

This certainly has nothing to do with Yu Qie. Science fiction literature has been on the verge of death since this autumn, because it has been caught in the crossfire and attacked by the masses.

The criticism of science fiction literature that lasted for dozens of days eventually led to the almost complete cessation of all original publishing activities involving science fiction. At the worst time, no place could publish a single science fiction novel.

But someone wants it to matter.

In this issue of People's Literature, a review article entitled "Beware of Fantasy Literature" signed by "Liu Xinwu" was also published. This article seems to be criticizing the now-refuted science fiction literature, but in fact it is not. The review article says:

"There is a kind of fantasy literature that is popular now. What is fantasy literature? It is about things that are impossible to happen and do not have the conditions to happen. It touches people's inner vulnerabilities with emotional excitement and induces resonance with fantasy in people's hearts."

"Fantasy literature cannot replace real literature and cannot actually give people strength. In the end, it will only make people depressed and cause great harm."

When Yu Qi read this, he realized that this might be directed at him.

Because "A Moment of Romance" is more in line with this set of standards and is one of the most famous novels.

This review appears polite on the surface, but in reality it completely denies the value of what Liu Xinwu calls "fantasy literature," which is an extremely dangerous sign.

Luo Yihe was worried. He told Yu Qie: "Science fiction has become a target of public criticism. We cannot have any connection with science fiction... Sometimes the value of literature does not depend on its readers, but on other real things. Science fiction was once popular, but now I don't know when it will recover."

"The word 'fantasy' is particularly dangerous, because that's how science fiction was refuted. First people tore off the 'science' in science fiction, turning it into anti-science, then tore off the 'literature' in science fiction, turning it into non-literary, and finally turning it into pure whining... It's useless, and useless literature is guilty."

Yu Qie continued reading, and the following review article made it even clearer, "Fantasy literature is literary opium. After reading it, it will only make people fall into endless emptiness."

"It can be said that it has no value at all. If it has value, it is negative value."

"It is quite different from other popular literary genres today, such as educated youth literature, because educated youth literature does not contain too many fantasy elements, but truly reflects the author's own experience and situation, and is the author's literary autobiography..."

At this point, Liu Xinwu's review article has revealed its true colors. As we all know, Yu Qie is completely different from the characters in his novels. This is different from many writers in the 1980s, such as those who went to the countryside to work in the production team and came back to create educated youth literature, those who went abroad to study created overseas student literature, and those who retired from the army created military literature...

In the 1980s, there were certainly some people whose writings gradually became unrelated to their own experiences and who were all-rounders who were good at many things.

For example, Feng Jicai, who was earlier, was originally the center of the Tianjin Men's Basketball Team. His first work was the revolutionary history theme "The Boxer Rebellion". He then worked as a painter for a while, and later began to write scar literature that shocked the literary world. Then, he turned to writing love novels and folk tales novels.

But honestly, there aren't many people like that.

People generally write about what they have experienced, and it is difficult for them to cross boundaries because their knowledge reserves at the time do not support their "fantasies".

Yu Qie felt his temples throbbing. He was indeed a little nervous. If things continued to develop like this, it might affect his creation and even the publication of the "New Reality Trilogy" later.

Some criticisms may seem like small things, but it’s hard to say if they become a big deal.

The bigwigs of science fiction literature didn’t take criticism too seriously at first, thinking that even if it didn’t belong to literature or science, they could just turn to children’s literature. Unexpectedly, the critics turned the rhythm into “science and anti-science” and questioned it in People’s Literature. This was the biggest challenge to political correctness in the 1980s, and it killed science fiction literature.

Things developed very quickly. The day before, science fiction writers were still discussing which magazine to publish in, and the next day they learned that no more science fiction literature would be published.

Luo Yihe said: "Liu Xinwu is good at seizing opportunities, knows how to speculate and take sides, knows how to grasp the direction of the wind and take advantage of the situation - in fact, scar literature got its name from the novel Scar, but he promoted his own Class Teacher many times as the earliest scar literature, and finally took over the title of pioneer."

Yu Qie said, "What should we do with our current novels and the novels that will come after that?"

Luo Yihe is not very old, and he has the straightforward spirit of a young man: "What can I do? I'll just write it and publish it. At worst, I can stop publishing. I can go back to writing poetry and studying for a master's degree. What's there to be afraid of?"

That being said, the matter cannot be decided by Luo Yihe.

The two rushed to the editorial office of October. It was already filled with smoke. Not only the editor-in-chief Wang Shimin was worried, but the editors of other groups were also worried. Everyone had smelled the smell of a storm coming.

Not only will the debate affect the judgment of literary value, that is, what is good and what is bad, it will also have a real impact on your livelihood - you have to know that the current explosion of literary works and the explosion in sales of pure literary journals have only been four or five years.

Before that, it was more than ten years of hard times, with no works and no readers.

Huang Xiu Ji and Tang Huan sat at the door, like two farmers who had not harvested their wheat.

They were the two who were in charge of literary criticism in October and were also Yu Qie's senior brothers. They had previously published a review of A Moment of Romance and were preparing to add fuel to the fire. Now, when they saw Yu Qie coming, they said:
"Yu Qie, I'm afraid I'll have to stop writing reviews for a while. It's not that I don't like your novels, but I want to keep a low profile for you and not add any more glory to you."

"It must be uncomfortable to be the center of attention..." they said meaningfully.

(End of this chapter)