There is an attitude | Balgi Wilderness: Lack of literary and sincerity is the "fatal wound" of many essays

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Under the current liveliness and exuberance of literature, does open controversy and sincere criticism still have a place? Although the literary life of an era appeals to vitality and prosperity, the appearance of bustle and the pursuit of popularity should never be the only measure of literary quality. Attitude is related to the heart, attitude calls for perseverance, we look forward to a direct and sincere discussion, face the literary scene, directly hit the literary topic. To this end, the China Writers Network has set up a column of "There is an Attitude", hoping to build a healthier literary ecology and lead a more ideal literary life.

The first issue of the column starts from the "overall vision", looks at the style, and invites writers and critics to talk about "Literary Writing in Our Time: Pain Points and Expectations".

- Editor

Phase 1 | The Literary Writing of Our Time: Pain Points and Expectations

Bao Erji Yuanye, mongolian, won the 7th Lu Xun Literature Award, the 5th Ethnic Minority Literature Creation Horse Award, the 16th Hundred Flowers Award, the 2nd Pu Songling Short Story Award, the January 2021 China Good Book and other literary awards, together with singer Tengger and painter Chao Ge and called the "Three Musketeers of the Steppe" in the Chinese literary and art circles. The original author of the movie "Heroes of Fire", many prose works have been selected into the language textbooks of universities, primary and secondary schools and the language examination papers.

Lack of literary and sincerity

It's the "fatal wound" of a lot of prose.

China Writers Network: What is your ideal prose?

Borghi Harano: If we understand the connotation of the question as "what kind of prose do you like to read", I think that such a work has a literary character, including the grand and even subtle beauty that literature should have. For example, the Japanese painter Higashiyama Kuiyi's prose collection "Dialogue with the Landscape", in which the heavens and the earth, grass and trees, the calendar reappears. He leads us to borrow the eyes of a painter to observe nordic nature. It allows us to appreciate the scenery that Dongshan Kuiyi saw, observed, and remembered. In addition to the figurativeness of things, there is also an inexplicable undercurrent in the text, which can barely be said to be a faint depression, a hidden gratitude and a sigh that suppresses the voice, and it is this unspeakable undercurrent that infects the reader. It is not Dongshan Kuiyi who is infecting us, it is literature that is infecting us. This is the power of literature.

The beauty of Higashiyama's essays is related to the sensitivity of the Japanese national character to beauty, and also to the professional quality of the painter, but the literary skills he has mastered transcend the above factors, which is the beauty of literature. When I read his work, I felt a smell that I blindly called the smell of the Nordic forests. In fact, it is the taste of Dongshan Kuiyi literature, unlike other writers and painters. He did not show the heavens and the earth, but only revealed his heart.

I would say that the prose I like is literary and unique. Let me give you another example: the French writer Victor Hugo's essay "The Death of Balzac" is something I have read many times. Reading from the first word of this work to the last is like witnessing Hugo build a huge house in front of us. We saw the grass in front of the house and the rooms in the house, and even the candlesticks and tablecloths in the rooms. People walked in and out of the rooms, standing or standing. We were also in the middle of it, feeling like there were people around us and behind us. And we're standing on Hugo's side. The central characters and events in this article are Balzac and his death, and we follow Hugo to know all this, as we have personally experienced. What a great power, this is the power of literature. Literature produces a much greater power than we think, and reading the works of those masters feels this power every time, whether the genre of these works is poetry, prose or fiction. As we all know, Hugo is a novelist, not only good at portraying the fate of characters, but also at portraying the times. In this essay, I am more happy to see him as an architect of literature. Everything he wrote is memorable. There is a sense of space, there is a flow of time, the lens does not stop for a moment, it is aimed at all the focus. This ability is, of course, also the ability of literature. The death of his best friend Balzac brought great sorrow to Hugo, and he suppressed the grief with greater strength, and built a monument to Balzac with his hands, which is what we see in the "Death of Balzac". And this monument is nothing more than an essay.

It cannot be said that prose has turned words into a monument, but it should be made clear that literature has turned words into monuments. I cite these two examples in an attempt to convey the common idea that good prose should be good literature, which seems self-evident, but it is actually difficult to do so. On the contrary, we see prose that we do not like, not because we dislike the author and the events described by the author, but because there is no literature in it. Just like drinking boiled water is not a substitute for drinking soup. Boiled water and soup are both water, but the connotations are completely different. Now a lot of prose is not literary, or simply has nothing to do with literature, it is boiling water.

China Writers Network: What problems do you think exist in the current prose creation?

Bauergi Wilderness: Works created by different authors have different problems, and it is not easy to say them in general. I'd rather answer the question, "What is the fatal wound of prose writing?" ”

I read an article in which the author combed through the mainstream articles of the Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties and found that there were three characteristics. The first is that none of these articles have survived. Second, they are all flattering articles. Third, flattering articles have a high degree of similarity, with similarities at the beginning, middle, and end. The New Culture Movement had ruthlessly lashed out at such articles, and Mao Zedong also hated them, calling them the Eight Shares of the Party. Looking at today's prose, flattering articles still abound, which shows that China's flattering articles have a historical tradition. It's not a question of the article, it's a question of style.

Some articles even give flattery to trees and rivers, and many more to administrative agencies, officials, scholars, and so on. I didn't say we can't celebrate government and nature. But praise and flattery are two different things, from the heart it is called singing, and false words are called flattery. Flattering articles are highly similar, and the author flatters these things and people while saying what he sees. The article ends with a top hat superimposed, reiterating the point of flattery, and the merit is complete. Why is such an article ugly? Quite simply (see the first question), there is no literature in it. Everyone knows that truth, goodness, and beauty are inseparable, and without truth, there can be no goodness and beauty. These flattering articles are prose and look like a literary newsletter. But good literary and artistic communications are also sincere, and such articles are far from catching up with good literary and artistic communications.

China Writers Network: In view of the problems existing in the current prose creation and criticism, what do you think is the possible solution?

Borghi Wilderness: As far as prose creation is concerned, if the creators themselves cannot do it without harming literary interests because of their personal interests, it is difficult to solve and perfect the so-called prose that is full of lies.

(Moderator of this issue: Du Jia, Li Yingjun)

Editor: Liu Ya

Second instance: Wang Yang

Third instance: Chen Tao