Sail to the lighthouse of your heart
Wang Ketian: A Faust Sonata, which connects several characters in the novel and their fates, is also a testimony to the protagonist Zhang Tianwen's life course, and his scholarly status is also related to this poetic drama. In addition, musical forms are also expressed in novels, such as Brahms's Deutsches Requiem, the "Sonata" in the title. In the other works I have read, elements such as literature, art, philosophy, and religion have poured in, not only as a background for the narrative of the novel, but also as a colorful tone to lay out the fate of the characters and the deep meaning of the text. In other words, the characters in your novel are either artists, scholars, or modern, independent-minded young people who love literature or philosophy. It should be said that these characters belong to a niche group in real life, is this considered to you to "write about your familiar life"?
Ding Xiaolong: Yes, your summary is very precise. In my work, part of it is about this so-called niche group. For example, The Hollow Man and the Faust Sonata focus on young people with philosophical backgrounds. Of course, there is also a difference between the two novels, the former is a criminal with philosophical speculation, while the latter is a veritable academic intellectual. For example, "Fantasy and Fantasia" is about the artistic life of the pianist, "Vientiane" shows the daily reflections of the painter, "Night of the World", "Things and Elephants" and "Whale" are concerned with the existence dilemma of the poet, and so on. Looking back at the short and medium stories I wrote in previous years, I do pay some attention to this niche group, but they are also a group of people who are very familiar to me. In the process of writing, I create a sense of strangeness and maintain an artistic distance from the characters I create. In fact, I have a lot of works written that are not artists, writers, and intellectuals. For example, "The Weary Man" is about the later life of veterans who participated in the Korean War, "Young Knight" is about the growth of two teenagers, "Same Dust" is about the sad past after losing their son, "Face" and "Trek" are about the life situation of middle school teachers, and so on. In addition, I have written science fiction novels, such as "Brigade"; I have written absurd novels, such as "Absurd Age". I'm interested in people and fascinated by all kinds of stories. Paying attention to the dilemma of human existence and exploring the infinite possibilities of art is the most original driving force for my creation.
Wang Ketian: Poets temper language, smelt the gold of words, and for writers, language is equally important. Even in a work, different characters have different discourse styles, which requires the novelist's language inventory to be richer or even more complicated. Your language gives me the impression that it is more of a mixture of poetry and philosophy, presenting the characteristics or tendencies of a poetic narrative. Can you talk about your linguistic pursuits and specific practices when you create novels?
Ding Xiaolong: Exactly. This accuracy has multiple meanings. Different characters need different languages, which is a kind of accuracy. The language of each work needs to conform to the temperament and style of the work itself, which is also an accuracy. For me, Flaubert, Woolf, Márquez and Yukio Mishima were my literary mentors in this area, and their language was just right and particularly accurate. For example, before I wrote the 80,000-word novel "Hollow Man", I didn't have too many presets about language in my mind, but after a long period of thinking, I had an empathetic understanding of the protagonist, and I even felt that the protagonist was some kind of incarnation of me. After writing the first two thousand words, I suddenly understood what kind of language style I needed, what kind of literary structure I needed, which may be the so-called apocalyptic moment- not that I chose the language, but the language that chose me.
Wang Ketian: Reading your novels, it can be said that almost every one of them is new in structure, and there are few similarities, which give people a very special reading pleasure and experience. This Faustian Sonata has four chapters, not named separately, only marked by numbers, is it borrowed from the sonata's style? Other works, such as "Vientiane", which uses the structure text of the ancient Chinese five elements theory of "water, earth, metal, fire, and wood", and "Night of the World" shows the protagonist's life in four sections of the life rings of "winter, spring, summer, and autumn". How do you see the structure of the novel and how it is used in its creation?
Ding Xiaolong: Yes, the Faust Sonata borrows from the structure of the sonata. Four parts, equivalent to four movements, each with a different content, different speeds, and different characters, but they are related to the same theme. In fact, I pay special attention to the musicality of the work, which not only refers to the rhythm between the words, the sonata between the words, but also refers to the formal sense of this musical structure. In my opinion, the structure is the skeleton of the novel, the reinforced concrete that supports the building of the novel. Without structure, no matter how profound the literary theme, no matter how beautiful the literary language, it will fall to the ground. Of course, the structure of the novel is not only the external form, but also the internal spiritual meridians. For example, in my novella "Vientiane", the protagonist is an oil painter and a visual artist, so using her five paintings of "Golden Elephant", "Wooden Elephant", "Water Elephant", "Fire Elephant" and "Earth Elephant" as the chapter title is not only the need of structure, but also the need of the inner spirit.
Wang Ketian: Novels are the art of narrative, and the way of narration is of course an important part. In actual creation, in addition to the refinement of language and structure, the writer will also take pains in terms of narrative perspective. We know that modern novels are mostly narrated from the perspective of "I", which does not present a wide field of view and is not suitable for depicting a magnificent social life. However, the unique subjectivity of the first person can penetrate deep into the heart of the character, reveal the dark surge of consciousness, and present a multi-level psychological structure. What I'm interested in is, what different writing experiences do you have when you apply different narrative perspectives?
Ding Xiaolong: Your opinion is very reasonable. In my current work, there are more first-person, followed by third-person, and of course, I have tried writing in the second person. When writing in the first person, subjectivity is stronger, and it is easy to bring the author and reader into the world of the text. The difficulty of creating in the first person is how to distinguish between the perspective of the author and the protagonist, avoid confusing the two. Third-person writing is a good way to avoid this confusion of perspectives. When writing the Faustian Sonata, I had intended to write it in the first person I was more familiar with, but when I wrote a thousand words, I always felt that something was wrong. So I changed my approach and wrote the story in the third person, and the creative process became much smoother. Sometimes, I can't tell why, but this may be the intuition of art, and it is also the charm of art. When I was writing Vientiane, I decided to write in the second person at the beginning, which was a whole new artistic experience for me—you had to immerse yourself in it and you had to detach yourself from it.
Wang Ketian: Traditional realist writing has advantages in presenting the details and forms of life and the sociality of people, but the transmission of people's spirituality is often weak. Material reality is reality, and so is inner reality. Modern novels should face the complex existential reality of modern people, and they should also have the ability to present and reveal the complex inner experiences of modern people. Your novels don't model reality, they focus on revealing the inner hearts of the characters and touching on the conscious and subconscious levels. How did you find and determine the theme for your writing?
Ding Xiaolong: It's not that I'm looking for the theme, it's the theme that's looking for me. It could also be an artistic intuition. I am a person who especially likes art, likes classical music, loves movies, loves painting, and also likes plastic arts and photography art. All art has a certain spiritual quality in common that will inspire a lot of my creations. For example, Fantasy and Fantasia was inspired by Schubert's Fantasia, The Song of Absalom was inspired by biblical stories and Schumann's Childhood Scenes, The Wind Knows Its Name was inspired by an illustration seen by chance, Vientiane was inspired by an exhibition seen at Tsinghua University, Long Nights short song was inspired by a movie scene by Antonioni, and so on. Therefore, all experience is useful to the writer, with a certain enlightened quality.
Wang Ketian: As far as the development of Chinese literature is concerned, poetry has always been ahead in terms of stylistic awareness and stylistic self-consciousness. Of course, the novel also has a variety of forms, techniques and thematic explorations, such as the New Sensations of the 1920s and 1930s, and the avant-garde novels of the 1980s. However, since the beginning of the new century, the once active avant-garde novelists have returned to reality and tradition, and only a very small number of writers, such as Remnant Snow, have maintained the sharpness and depth of avant-garde and exploration. So, as a young writer of the new era, how do you think about the exploratory or experimental nature of the novel genre?
Ding Xiaolong: The exploration of the genre of novels is the artistic ideal I have always pursued. In my opinion, the avant-garde and traditional nature of the novel are not dualistic artistic qualities, and a good work of art can accommodate these two qualities at the same time, and even blur the boundaries between the two. Pioneering doesn't necessarily mean depth, and tradition doesn't necessarily mean conservatism. For example, I really like Pamuk's literature. In that novel, My Name Is Red, he tells the story of sixteenth-century Istanbul, a return to tradition, but his writing is so fascinating, telling multiple themes such as murder, love, and culture in a first-person, multi-voice way. Therefore, even in the most realistic and traditional works, the artistic techniques used can be very diverse, and the themes discussed can be very modern and profound.
Wang Ketian: The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa wrote a thought-provoking sentence: "Each of us is a whole society." Looking at the creation of novels in this way, can we say that the writer's characterization is a split in the self, and the protagonist who appears in each novel is actually still the writer himself wearing a mask of different personalities?
Ding Xiaolong: Yes, I agree with that view. Flaubert once said that Madame Bovary was me. His words had a big impact on me. At first, I didn't understand this sentence. With the deepening of writing, I feel more and more that all the protagonists in the novel are actually different doppelgangers of writers. Because only by truly going deep into the soul of the character can we understand the character and shape the character. At the same time, it is also necessary to withdraw from the characters, observe the characters from a distance, and portray the characters. In this sense, in fact, all novels are some form of autobiography of the writer. I have a strong feeling that when I write, I forget myself and become someone else. Only by forgetting the self can we recognize ourselves. Only by forgetting subjectivity can we build a true subject.
Wang Ketian: After years of writing and living with your fictional characters all day, will they also disturb your mind like ghosts, and even have the illusion that the novel is real, and reality is illusory?
Ding Xiaolong: Novels are the truth of lies, and life is a lie in truth. It was a very peculiar feeling, and I always felt that the characters I created were real—they existed in this world before I created them, waiting for my discovery; in my creation, they spoke, they were silent, they laughed and cried, and I discovered the meaning of life, understood the secrets of all things; after I created, they began their new life, and I would think of them at some point and bless them. For example, Zhang Tianqing in Faust's Sonata, I may write another story about him later. In my opinion, good fiction is closer to reality than reality, closer to the core of existence.
Wang Ketian: Fiction is fictional, fictional narrative text, but it also has a real side: the revelation and expression of the truth of things. Some people emphasize the objectivity and authenticity of the novel, that is, the disclosure of the truth of life and reality, but some people claim to be only responsible for beauty (artistry). In your creative practice, how do you consider or balance "truth" and "beauty"? Brodsky once said: "Aesthetics is the mother of ethics", and the category of "good and evil" is also what you consider?
Ding Xiaolong: In my opinion, the types of novels are diverse, and the functions of novels are also diverse, so novels of various genres will be born. Realist novels, modernist novels, and postmodernist novels are only the most general and general divisions, and there are many more detailed divisions in them. Each genre of fiction has its own unique quest for truth and beauty. In my own creation, "truth" and "beauty" are inseparable twin flowers, the double pursuit of my artistic life. In my opinion, when you reach the core of "truth," you will realize the essence of "beauty." In addition, the dilemma of ethics is also the center of my novel writing. I have little interest in black-and-white, good-or-evil events, but in the gray areas of human nature.
Wang Ketian: Nowadays, many writers are obsessed with the writing of novels, as if a larger capacity can prove and realize their literary ambitions. In fact, when we read the short and medium stories or even small stories of Kafka or Borges, we can feel the deep space composed of symbols and metaphors, like compressing an object with a very large mass and energy into a very small physical space, which requires greater intelligence and high-intensity processing. You've also published novels, what do you think about that?
Ding Xiaolong: I like Kafka and Borges, and I also like Dostoevsky and Kenzaburo Oe. I probably don't particularly agree with this view. I think good novels need wisdom, energy, and patience, as well as metaphors and symbols. In my opinion, "The Brothers Karamazov" is certainly more challenging than "Metamorphosis", and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is certainly more difficult to grasp than "Book of Sand". Of course, novellas, novellas, and short stories all have their own problems and charms. There is an idea that short stories are practice grounds, and they are preparing for long novels. I don't quite agree with that either. I really admire the Canadian writer Atwood because she has written excellent novels such as "The Handmaid's Tale", "The Blind Assassin", etc., and has also written very good short stories, as well as a poet and scholar. The literary themes and artistic explorations she focused on fascinated me.
Wang Ketian: In the early 1980s, the writer Wang Meng called for "the scholarliness of writers", and to this day, many of our writers are obsessed with writing, but rarely read, and their writing resources are basically life itself. Your reading is broad, deep, and systematic, which is easily recognizable in your novel narrative. What do you think about the relationship between reading and writing? Can you name some of the writers and artists that have influenced you, or that you prefer?
Ding Xiaolong: Reading is another form of writing. Writing without reading is building a pavilion in the air. Before I was twenty-five years old, my favorite thing to read was literature, mainly novels. Especially at the undergraduate level, I often soaked in the library, reading novels, poetry and prose one by one. At that time, I read a lot of foreign literature, and the most impressive ones were Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" and Yukio Mishima's "Kinkaku-ji Temple". It was during that college year of literature that I began my own writing career. After the age of twenty-five, I began to read philosophical, aesthetic, psychological, and historical works systematically, and I developed a strong interest in film, music, and fine arts. In order to read the books of Camus and Duras and to understand the films of Godard and Houmai, I also deliberately learned French. At the same time, I have translated some English literature. The writers and artists I favor can make a long list of writers and artists who have influenced my writing in different ways. For example, there are Tolstoy, Hesse and Morrison among writers, Bach, Mahler and Rachmaninoff among musicians, Bergman, Antonioni and Akira Kurosawa in directors, Rembrandt, Monet and Frida among painters, and so on. Of course, this is only a small part of the long list.
Wang Ketian: Your literary creation is mainly novels, and there are not many essays and poems, but the quality is very high, and I also like it very much. Do you have a clear plan for writing? Can you reveal your writing plans for the coming period?
Ding Xiaolong: In the future, I will still focus on novels, and occasionally write essays and poems. For writing, I will always be a stranger to myself. I have a document called "To the Lighthouse", which has sub-categories of "long novels", "novellas", "short stories", "essays" and "poetry". In each sub-category there is a creative notebook containing all my secrets about writing. For me, writing is a beacon of inspiration.
Magician of time
Wen 丨 Ding Xiaolong
For a long time, I was particularly fascinated by the words of film directors. As a result, Tarkovsky's "Sculpting Time", Bergman's "Magic Lamp", Bresson's "Notes on Film Writing" and other works became my bedside books for a certain period. Although their literary works are naturally different from their film works, they have something in common in the presentation of themes - through different artistic practices, they have completed the empowerment of different dimensions of time, and thus become the magicians of time. For me, the process of giving is just as fascinating as the result of giving. In essence, art is the shape of time, and the artist is the magician of time.
Every time I write a novel, I see it as an exploration and creation of time. In the forest of time, I sometimes get lost, sometimes I get lost, and when you walk out of the labyrinth, you will put the whole forest into your heart and never get lost again. Every time I finish a novel, I have an extra sense of time. The author creates the work, and the work in turn creates the author. For me, every novel is an answer to time. All I have to do is try to avoid imitating myself, avoid repeating myself, and each work should have a precise expression, should have a unique structure, and should have a different concept of time.
Time is the subject of art that I focus on the most. In my opinion, themes such as the theme of death, the theme of love, the theme of existence and the theme of redemption are all extensions and expansions of different directions of the theme of time. Therefore, the theme of time is the motif of these themes. Both the Bible and the Book of Verses begin with the expression of time closest to divinity, and these texts are essentially the true books of time. In terms of personal preferences, the writers I love are also people who are obsessed with the theme of time, from Dante to Kazuo Ishiguro, from Woolf to Morrison, from Cao Xueqin to Wang Anyi. Their artwork, their way of looking at time, inspired and illuminated me from different dimensions.
However, this does not mean to illustrate the subject, to become a slave to the subject, but to use the subject as a beacon, to see the true face of time in the sea voyage again and again. In fact, real works of art are difficult to summarize in a few words, and the so-called theme of time is nothing more than a glimmer in the forest of texts. In order to truly understand time, we must understand every sentence in the text, every word, and even understand the silence behind the words, and all of this is the true state of time.
Writing is a prayer and a blessing. In the voyage of time, I follow the characters in the work to be either happy or sad, bitter or sweet. I have to admit that in writing, I slowly understood others, understood society, and thus understood my relationship with the world, myself and myself, and myself with others. I learned compassion, and I learned compassion. Perhaps this is the greatest favor that writing has given me. Writing has made me a magician of time.
(Source"Yalu River")
Ding Xiaolong was born in February 1988. He is a member of the China Writers Association, a student of the advanced research class of Lu Xun Literature College, and a contracted writer of the Shaanxi Writers Association. His works have been published in a number of domestic literary magazines, translating and publishing short and medium stories by Toni Morrison, Colm Tobin, Samant Rushdie and Janet Winterson. He is the author of the novel "Light in the World", the novel collection "Night of the World" and "Island Notes". He has won many awards such as the Shaanxi Youth Literature Award, and has been selected as one of the "100 Best Talents" in Shaanxi Province.