Literary Master 1983

Chapter 69 The cotangent is the distance
So Yu Qie wrote an appreciation for Cha Haisheng, which roughly meant that as a newcomer in the poetry world, this poem had "rich symbolic meaning and aesthetic implications."

And recall the little story behind Cha Haisheng's creation of this poem.

Cha Haisheng was thinking about the copper mine in his hometown. On the one hand, "the villagers are now immersed in the happiness of mining the mine", but on the other hand, mining will change the land beyond recognition, and the tranquility and harmony of the village will be broken. For intellectuals like Cha Haisheng who study and work abroad, if they return to their hometown one day, they will probably be left with only confusion and hesitation.

The poem "Asian Bronze" itself is relatively immature, but what is valuable is the thinking behind it.

The later generations' evaluation of this poem is mainly interpreted from the perspective that "although it fails to reflect the author's originality and personal height", it "reflects humanistic care" and "has a connection with the past and the future in his creative career".

Yu Qie's appreciation brings Cha Haisheng's poems closer to "root-seeking literature", which is a popular genre in the next few years.

Luo Yihe was very happy to see Yu Qie's appreciation, and slapped his thigh: "Teacher Yu, you are in this line of work! No wonder Liu Xinwu can't do better than you in his research and is completely defeated by you!"

This appreciation was given directly to Cha Haisheng himself. After reading it, Cha Haisheng cried for a while.

Today, Cha Haisheng himself is doing aesthetic research at the Changping campus of the China University of Political Science and Law. Changping is administratively under the jurisdiction of Yenching, but old Yenching people generally consider it to be outside the city.

Luo Yihe rode over, exhausted, and had just put down his manuscript when he saw this. He asked, "Why are you so excited? When I introduced you to Yu Qi, didn't you look down on him a little?"

Cha Haisheng said: "As soon as I met Yu Qie, I knew I couldn't compare with him. After reading his articles, I knew I couldn't compare with him."

"why?"

Then Cha Haisheng introduced his own history: "I came to Yanda from the countryside. My family was not well off and I had stomach problems, so I was very short, so I felt very embarrassed."

"When we first arrived at Yanda, we had to take an English test to test our proficiency. I did terribly on the test, but others got full marks... Then I found out that some of my classmates came from cadre families and had received foreign language education at an early age. This was my second hard part."

"The third is that I sent a letter back to my parents this year. They asked me why I didn't become an official, but studied fine arts... I told them that fine arts and aesthetics are not the same, but my parents didn't know the difference. This is natural. Their ancestors were all farmers, and they just wanted me to become an official. Don't blame them!"

"But I would be even more reluctant to tell them that I am writing poetry because they would not understand."

Luo Yihe listened in silence. He and Cha Haisheng were close friends, and Cha Haisheng had never talked about these things with him before.

Luo Yihe's father was formerly the deputy director of the State Planning Commission, and his mother was the deputy secretary of the State Materials Department. After Yu Qie borrowed his bicycle, he went and bought another one... He came from a typical high-ranking official family, so how could he understand?

Cha Haisheng said emotionally: "I feel that my soul has no place to rest - you see, I was born ugly and I can't stay in Yanjing, but my family doesn't know what I love... The only place where I can rest a little is the yellow land of my hometown, which reminds me of my childhood, and now it has also been destroyed."

After Cha Haisheng's explanation, Luo Yihe understood more clearly how high Yu Qie's level of appreciation was.

These things were speculated by later people based on Cha Haisheng's life experience, and Yu Qie used them. Of course, Luo Yihe didn't know about these things. He just thought that Yu Qi had a genius-like perception, which enabled him to see Cha Haisheng's pain from his writings.

What a genius. No wonder Liu Xinwu was jealous of him.

Luo Yihe went back and told Wang Shimin, the editor-in-chief of October, who was also very surprised and said, "It turns out that Yu Qie can also display his talent in poetry appreciation... We should let him appreciate more poems, which can not only earn him royalties, but also not affect his creation too much."

On the other hand, Cha Haisheng recorded this incident in his diary, which he started writing this year: "I always think that material things are short-lived and not worth our pursuit or scrutiny... I want to be a loyal son from afar."

"I want to be a child of the earth, just like all poets who ride their dreams."

"But some people are born as children of the earth, and they are also the distant and unreachable place for me... Today, I was easily seen through, and I almost crawled on my knees."

------

In early March, Liu Jiaju from Military Literature and Art and several people from the General Political Department Propaganda Department came and brought the first edition of the comic book "Letter from the Fiancée".

Yu Qie weighed it roughly and was surprised: "So fast? There are more than a hundred paintings. Could it be a 'horse racing book'?"

"It's not a 'horse race book'! It's a rubbish comic strip that was completed in a day or two. The characters are out of proportion and the scenes are blurry... Comrade Yu Qie, take a good look at it."

These comic strips are not only colorful and full of characters, but also depict the vegetation scenes as much as possible. They can be regarded as fine works.

Liu Jiaju said: "Why is it fast? We seconded comrades from Tianjin, Yangcheng and Beijing to work together. The first 15 days were to produce the line drawing manuscripts of the illustrations and design the layout, and the next 15 days were to fill in the colors and bind the books. It was not done by just one or two people, so of course it was fast."

Why did Yu Qie ask this?

Because there was no art market in the 1980s, painters could not sell their paintings, but the market demand for comic strips was huge, so painters were very busy.

The remuneration for comic strips is generally calculated by the number of pictures, 10 yuan per picture. For a comic strip with 100 pictures, the artist can get about 1000 yuan. Assuming that the artist can complete the work in two to three months, he can get 300 to 400 yuan per month - equivalent to Yu Qi writing a -word novella every month.

You can imagine how popular it is to be a comic artist.

Of course, Yu Qie himself can also get money. The military publishing house pays him, the original author, 30% of the adaptation fee.

Yu Qie said: "The novel "Letter from the Fiancée" was just published in "Red Rock" last month, and was just reprinted in "Military Literature and Art". Critics just noticed this novel - have we completed the comic strip?"

This time, it was not Liu Jiaju who answered Yu Qie, but a comrade from the Propaganda Department: "There is a battle to be fought on the front line, and there is no time to delay!"

It turns out that Xinhua News Agency published a report not long ago: The Vietnamese army has been continuously firing guns and artillery at farms, villages, and schools in my territory, firing more than 4 rounds of various bullets, killing and injuring my soldiers and civilians on the border, forcing border residents to leave their homes and live in caves... 52 schools were forced to suspend classes, and students could not go to school... The soldiers and civilians on the border strongly demanded that the invaders be punished!
The ultimatum has been issued!

Next month, Yu Qie and other artists will go to the Laoshan front, which was occupied by the Vietnamese army and used as an offensive position. They will perform and create for the soldiers on the front line.

News reporters and television stations will also report truthfully and convey the situation on the front line to the people across the country in the rear.

Some people may ask, won’t you expose your strategic intentions by doing this?
In fact, since the end of 83, there have been a steady stream of different batches of front-line condolences. Fighting is certain, but the Vietnamese side does not know when to fight. The soldiers' psychology has reached a relatively high-pressure environment, and every condolence can relax them a little.

(End of this chapter)