Literary Master 1983

Chapter 98 Single Volume

Zhang Shouren, editor of the "October" novel group, was stationed directly at the entrance of Yanjing Railway Station.

As soon as he saw Yu Qie, he said, "Yu Qie, you are finally back?" Seeing Zhang Li hiding behind Yu Qie, Zhang Shouren was surprised and said, "Who is this..."

"Zhang Li, my girlfriend!" Yu Qie introduced, "Zhang Li is your cousin, she's an actress in Dream of the Red Chamber."

Zhang Li immediately said, "Hello, Teacher Zhang."

"No, no," Zhang Shouren said, "Yu Qie is the teacher, and a famous one at that."

He said this with deep resentment. Zhang Shouren was one of the four famous editors in Beijing, so he must be worthy of the title of "teacher". He was just teasing Yu Qie.

why?
Yu Qie had originally promised October that he would write a novel every month and publish it until he had completed the "New Reality Trilogy". He did exactly that with the first two novels... The novels "Big Scatter" and "The Two of Us" were published in the February and April issues respectively. He wrote faster than he published.

After April, Yu Qie was temporarily seconded to southern Xinjiang to do condolence and propaganda, which delayed the writing of his third novel.

The reason why the trilogy was published in a hurry was to counter the wave of opposition to "fantasy literature" originally launched by Liu Xinwu. However, Yu Qie made a big fuss in the south, which made Liu Xinwu's opposition wave a little floppy.

The incident ended with Liu Xinwu changing his speech to praise Yu Qie at the "Youth Party", indicating that he had given up. So the publication of the trilogy was no longer so urgent.

However, the third novel still needed to be written. Zhang Shouren suspected that Yu Qie was so busy writing military literature that he did not write a single word about the "new reality".

That’s right, Yu Qie didn’t write a single word.

As they walked, Zhang Shouren asked, "Yu Qie, have you decided on a subject for your third novel?"

"Think about it."

"What are you going to write?"

"In order to improve his son Liu Xiaochun's violin skills, his father Liu Cheng brought him from Chengdu to the capital and asked him to become the apprentice of a strange teacher named Jiang. During the learning process, Liu Xiaochun gradually became good friends with Jiang regardless of age difference."

"During the course of his studies, his father Liu Cheng persuaded a great professor to accept Liu Xiaochun as his apprentice. The original teacher Jiang also realized that Liu Xiaochun was a genius and was willing to let him go. However, none of them considered what Liu Xiaochun was thinking and feeling... He felt depressed and miserable."

Zhang Shouren became interested when he heard this story. He asked, "Did Liu Xiaochun succeed in becoming a disciple?"

"Of course I succeeded in becoming your disciple."

“So did he become an influential violinist?”

"I can't get to that point yet, but I've already thought of the ending. Liu Xiaochun finally won a place in the International Violin Competition, becoming the first young performer in China to win a place. After returning home, he played the violin in front of his father, and the novel ends here."

"What's the name of the novel?"

“With You.”

Zhang Shouren thought for a while and suddenly asked, "Are you planning to use this to make a movie?"

Yu Qi was confused: How did Zhang Shouren know this?
"Together with You" is a movie of the same name produced at the beginning of the new century. It was directed by Chen Kaige, and the story was based on the famous violin professor Lin Yaoji in the 1980s.

He taught a large number of violinists in the 1980s. His student Hu Kun won the prize in the 4th Sibelius International Violin Competition in Finland, achieving a breakthrough for Chinese violin in international competitions.

And Hu Kun was from Rongcheng, Sichuan Province. This story was perfect for Yu Qie.

Zhang Shouren said, "I have always noticed that your novels are characterized by concise and clear language. I think it is like a movie script. For example, if we write about 'dusk', the writer needs to use hundreds or even thousands of words in the novel to describe the color, light, shadow, and atmosphere of dusk in a unique and meticulous way; but when a playwright writes a TV series, only the two words 'dusk' are enough."

"As for what kind of dusk it is, the director and photographer go out to the wild to find and select the scene to make it vivid and visual."

Damn, this Zhang Shouren is really an expert!

Historically, these words appeared in his conversations with the writer Zhang Xian. He believed that Zhang Xian had distorted his writing ability in order to write scripts and was no longer worthy of being called a "writer". These words were used to criticize Zhang Xian.

Now it is a reminder to Yu Qie: writing novels and writing scripts are two different things.

"Together with You" is the finale of the New Reality Trilogy. "Big Scatter" was a good start, and "The Two of Us" was also good. This third work must surpass the first two.

Zhang Shouren then talked about Wang Meng's review article published in the Literary Gazette. He hoped that Yu Qie would be humble and not be crushed by his own pride after reading it.

It’s pretty much the same as what Ma Shi Tu said.

After leaving Yanjing Railway Station, Zhang Shouren called a taxi for Yu Qie and Zhang Li.

Starting as early as December, Yanjing will be flooded with yellow "minibuses". This type of taxi has been around for ten years. Standing on the streets of Yanjing, looking around, you can see yellow "minibuses" everywhere. Therefore, this type of taxi is jokingly called "the flood of yellow (locusts)" by many people.

Now, Yanjing taxis are divided into Shouqi and Beiqi. Shouqi generally carries foreign guests and state agencies, mostly European and American cars, and costs 2.5 yuan per kilometer; Beiqi is for citizens, generally Soviet and Eastern European cars, and costs about 20 yuan per kilometer.

BAIC's trump card is the three-wheeled motorcycle produced by the Modong factory. It has a green skin and is usually crowded in hospitals and train stations where there are large numbers of citizens in a hurry to travel.

The taxi that Yu Qie and his friends took was this three-wheeled vehicle, and it had to be booked in advance.

Zhang Li and Yu Qie said goodbye here. One of them was going to the Old Summer Palace in the northwest, and the other was going to the Beijing Publishing House in the southeast. Zhang Li hugged Yu Qie gently and said, "Brother Yu, we should see each other more often in the future."

After she got in the car, she stuck her head out of the car and waved to Yu Qie.

Soon, it was Yu Qie's turn to get on the bus.

Zhang Shouren questioned Yu Qie and Zhang Li about their relationship, and was relieved when he learned that they had met Ma Shi Tu and his parents. "Yu Qie, as a writer, you are loved by many people. You should pay attention to your work style and don't be like Zhang Xian, who abandoned his wife and went around playing with other women."

"Zhang Xian is the one who wrote "The Corner Forgotten by Love"?"

Zhang Xian's novels are considered to be a master at describing women. "Yes, he sympathizes with women in his novels, which resonates with many female readers, but he plays with women."

"What did he do?"

"Although I am an editor and do not judge writers by their personalities, I still feel disgusted. This year I went to the south to ask Zhang Xian to write for me, and I met him and his wife Zhang Ling. Although his home is small and the light is poor, everything hanging on the windows, on the table, and on the bed is carefully designed and elegant. The cement floor is polished to a shine and spotless."

Zhang Shouren said: "I was thinking that Zhang Xian's wife was doing a good job and keeping the house in order. Then his wife told me that Zhang Xian was very unfaithful and had affairs with other women. My colleagues from the cultural department were there at the time, which really embarrassed me!"

Today's writers are very romantic. For example, Zhang Xianliang, the original author of "The Shepherd" mentioned earlier, has already started a life of pursuing beauty.

There is an author named Gao Xiaosheng who specializes in writing about the sufferings of farmers. After the reform and opening up, he came to his senses, fell in love many times, and no longer paid attention to farmers. Zhou Keqin, also a writer from Sichuan and Chongqing, also abandoned his old love and found a new one.

Wang Meng, for being honest with his wife, thinks he has "very high moral standards." He can really think so, because people are compared to others in the circle.

Yu Qie asked: "How does Zhang Xian chase women? Why is he the only one to chase after women when there are so many of them?"

Zhang Shouren recalled: "Zhang Xian's routine for pursuing women is usually like this. If he likes a woman, he will ask her out for dinner, coffee, and park. He will give her a gold necklace, and then he will hug her and approach her, thinking that he can do whatever he wants..."

Damn, isn't this Dong Ge's routine? The same exact thing.

Zhang Shouren said: "First, writers have money, and everyone thinks it is clean money, so no one will retaliate against them; second, they often go out for meetings and revise manuscripts in isolation, which provides ample time for them to go out and have affairs with women - Yu Qie, don't be that kind of person!"

Yu Qie said firmly: "I am not such a person. I have never hurt women."

Although some women have expressed their affection for Yu Qie, Yu Qie really did nothing, let alone actively seduce women.

These playboys have all been dissed in novels, which has affected their future in the literary world. Some people forgive them: "You are like Jia Baoyu. It is your happiness to be kind to women, but you have also paid a lot of price..."

Some people hate them: "I curse love, I curse literature, and I doubly curse the flowery love literature..."

Seeing that Yu Qie answered sincerely, Zhang Shouren didn't say anything.

The three-wheeled motorcycle swayed and swayed until it arrived at the editorial office of October.

October is affiliated with the Beijing Publishing House and is relatively independent. The editorial department stopped working for Yu Qie's return, and the editor-in-chief Wang Shimin said a few words:

"'New Realistic Novels' have begun to show their brilliance! The sales of October have hit a new high, gradually approaching the million-level... Post offices in various places have called the publishing house and asked for reprints of each issue of October. We said that the publishing house is short of pulp and asked for your understanding. They said they could not understand unless they saw Yu Qie's novel!"

Wang Shimin was in high spirits, and in front of many people, he quickly extended his hand to Yu Qie. The two men held hands tightly together and waved them continuously, and everyone in the editorial department became excited. They all looked at Yu Qie without saying anything, but seemed to be observing Yu Qie's reaction.

what happened?
Wang Shimin laughed and said, "You guys tell Yu Qie what happened?"

It was like a starting gun being fired, and everyone's voices were mixed together. It took Yu Qie a while to understand what was being said.

He is going to publish a single book!
Publishing a single volume not only allows the author to receive one or more royalties, but is also an honor for the author, as it means that the novel can be published and sold as a separate volume.

Generally speaking, writers publish their novels in single volumes first, and then in comic books and other forms. Yu Qie is the opposite. But he has figured it out, which shows that his novels are very popular.

Beijing Publishing House took a fancy to the "New Reality Trilogy" and started publishing the first part, "Da Saba".

Why not some earlier novels, such as "A Moment of Romance" and "College Entrance Examination 1977"?

Because the censorship for single-volume books is more stringent, it is very troublesome to revise novels. "October" and "Red Rock" are pure literary journals, and their audiences are assumed to be intellectuals and cadres who are not easily fooled. The audience of single-volume books is wider, and some ideas cannot be expressed in novels, which exceed that standard.

Another advantage of a single volume is that it is eligible for certain literary awards, such as the Mao Dun Literature Award. The award requires a word count of more than 13 words and a completed work that has been published in a book. Novels published in magazines are considered "in progress" by default and are not eligible for the award.

If there is another advantage, it is that it can be easily adapted by film studios.

Wang Shimin said: "The readers' voices told us what kind of works we should choose to publish. Every time we held a meeting at our publishing house and mentioned the issue of a single volume, I would bring up Yu Qie's novel, and it finally happened on this day!"

This incident became Yu Qie's recent major event. He picked up the manuscript of "Da Saba" and had it revised by the author himself.

Then, while writing the new novel "Together with You", I was also writing "Bloody Battle of Laoshan". The latter is a novel with hundreds of thousands of words.

Zhang Shouren brought Yu Qie letters from readers all over the country... There were thousands of them, most of which were love letters, some contained food coupons, and some about life confusions. Yu Qi picked some to reply to.

Gradually, writers also began to write letters to Yu Che, and around the magazine "October", writers who had contact with Yu Che began to communicate with him.

Qu Tiening wrote to him and asked if he had any new works recently. She had some creative ideas that were somewhat similar to the "new reality" advocated by Yu Qie.

Wang Meng and Zhang Shouren are friends. He was very excited to learn that Yu Qie's new novel involves violin and the protagonist will play Tchaikovsky. Because Wang Meng likes music, one of the reasons why his novels have a "stream of consciousness" is that he often uses music to express the emotions of certain characters.

This is rare. In the 1980s, how many people in China knew Tchaikovsky? Naturally, they would think that his works were too "stream-of-consciousness".

There was another writer named Yu Hua who wanted to discuss with Yu Qie whether there were any well-known writers at home or abroad for him to learn from.

Yu Qie told him: "Go read Kafka's novels."

After reading it, Yu Hua was overjoyed and wrote a long letter back to Yu Qie: "There are several people who have influenced my literary career. The first one is Kawabata Yasunari, who writes with more details. The second one is you. You like to use the characters' behaviors and interactions with the environment to express the characters' psychological emotions. It is very vivid. I admire you very much after reading it... The third one is Kafka. I feel something is brewing in my heart, and I am about to write something good."

Of course, many of Yu Qie’s novels were originally adapted from movies, so of course they have a sense of picture.

Yu Qie wrote a letter to encourage his relative, hoping that he would come to Yanjing as soon as possible.

With the attitude of an elder, Yu Qie pointed out that "the convenience provided by the capital to authors is something that other places cannot provide."

After half a month, the letters kept piling up and he couldn't put them down. Yu Qie realized that he could afford to buy a house.

(End of this chapter)