According to their own hobbies, the following to recommend some readable literary works to friends in need, most of them have dense long sentences, long paragraphs, no excessive complex descriptions, narrative techniques and novel structure are more approachable, drama is a strong category in serious literature.
The first book: "Animal Fierceness".
The animal of the same name is a novella, tens of thousands of words, for Jiang Wen's famous debut sunshine day of the original, but not inferior in comparison. Although the ages are different and the environment in which you grew up, you sink your heart into reading, enjoy a short journey through time, return to youth, and face those restless, desired, cowardly, and strong...
The remaining short stories are The style of playing with the tongue that Wang Shuo originally became famous for, with dense dialogue, humor and absurdity, and a deconstruction of the mainstream ideology of society in a spooky atmosphere. If you have seen Feng Xiaogang's early Chinese New Year films and liked them, then you will definitely love these works of Wang Shuo. Because Feng Xiaogang's two films are almost to visualize the text, and Wang Shuo can be said to be Feng Xiaogang's spiritual father to some extent.
Not what I said, Feng Xiaogang could admit it.
The second book: Yu Hua's first three long stories.
As a member of the avant-garde writers group in the early days, Yu Hua was keen to ponder the narrative techniques and structure through short and medium stories, and at that time he paid more attention to the experimental nature of the genre. But then I wrote a long story and picked up the traditional way of writing novels.
Yu Hua's novels are clearly distinguished, the first three are masterpieces that will be compiled into literary history in the future, and the quality of the remaining novels is so vast that people can't bear to read them.
These three long stories are Alive, Xu Sanguan Selling Blood and Shouting in the Drizzle. Except for the last one, which retains Yu Hua's early exploration of style and language, the other two are surprisingly easy to read, both because of the simple narrative technique, the language has become colloquial, and the drama is also quite strong.
All in all, don't be discouraged by the name of avant-garde literature and serious literature, this uncle's novel is outrageously approachable.
In addition, if you read these three books, feel that you are not enjoyable enough, feel that you have spare energy, you can read a super novella from his pioneer period: this document for the young girl Yang Liu.
After reading it, you will realize how Yu Hua, the old man, can be on par with Mo Yan.
The third book: long story, "One sentence top ten thousand sentences"
Liu Zhenyun, to some extent, actually has a very strong temperament of a worldly novelist. He never suffered a great vendetta, but he was extremely good at writing about the delicate relationships between people, about the living conditions of ordinary people in the social relations that were disturbed one after another. He wrote official novels in the early days, and later wrote about the chicken and dog life of small citizens, and in the later period, Dacheng handed over this report card. Many people say that this is the Chinese version of a hundred years of loneliness, do not think that this is out of propaganda, do not think that this is a killing. Through countless twists and turns, Liu Zhenyun's twists and turns, through his twisting and turning language, go around and around, inadvertently let you understand the faint and sad loneliness of ordinary chinese people.
This book is extremely easy to read, so let's put it this way, as long as you read the story, you must read this novel.
Book Iv: "Frog"
Originally, I wanted to recommend sandalwood punishment, but because of the problem of legibility, I recommended this book instead.
This book can basically be regarded as a representative of the works of the older generation of realist writers in our country, that is, to recreate the chaotic, repressive, and smelly years before the reform and opening up through fiction, because the writers have personally experienced it, and often write incomparably thick and informative. At the same time, this generation of writers also tried to depict the current strange China, but limited by energy or understanding, they were always like blind people touching elephants, always punching on sandbags.
This is an excellent novel that is discouraged, and the portrayal of the aunt, the executor of the family planning, is extremely profound, and the copy of that era is also extremely vivid. You can read it as a novel or as a fictional history.
Book V: A Collection of Short Stories, The Story of Toon Street
Su Tong, like Faulkner, installed a virtual coordinate on his series of short stories: a place called Toon Street in the gloomy and damp South.
Su Tong is extremely good at describing teenagers, those confused teenagers who have nothing to do, those teenagers who are naïve and advocate violence, those gloomy teenagers, they are disillusioned one by one.
I've always thought that beginners can easily enjoy Su Tong's short stories. Why? Because in the beginning, Su Tong's Toon Street was extreme:
Death, depression, disillusionment, fighting...
These extreme traits are so well matched to adolescence, and it is not difficult to imitate them.
Of course, Su Tong in the middle and late period is not so gloomy, and there is also a warm collection of novels such as "Snow White Pig's Head". That's another flavor.
Sixth Book: And Listen to the Wind, Pinball, 1973.
These two books are by no means Murakami's best works, they are closer to light novels, and even essays.
However, they had a deep impact on me.
Without it, the right book comes across the right time. In the long summer vacation after the college entrance examination, adolescence began to dissipate, the distance began to be clear, and the emotions were complicated. Then you open these two nostalgic, sentimental, lonely youth novels, and it feels like a stomach full of embarrassment, and the author helps you write it.
It's so cool.
Especially listening to the wind and chanting, it is simply prose, flowing slowly like the calm water until dusk.
Seven: A collection of short stories, "Those Sorrowful Young People"
Fitzgerald, a typical dick counterattack, an American version of Xu Zhimo. He rose to fame by writing, gaining a rich material life, a high reputation, and the lover of his dreams. However, because of the profligacy, he had to often write shoddy novels to earn money, so that Jiang Lang was exhausted, and the evening scene was very desolate.
His novels, on the one hand, strive to create a kind of drunken and dreamy, golden and brilliant material world, on the other hand, let them finally fall into disillusionment. His novels often linger back and forth between romantic desire and disillusionment. But don't be afraid, he is a writer who can write extremely romantically even disillusionment.
Finally, just kidding, you can think of Fitzgerald as a much higher-ranking Mr. Guo Jingming who writes serious literature.
Eight: Short Story, The First Love, The Last Ritual
Don't be fooled by this seemingly small and fresh title, its story themes include homicide, pornography, incest, transvestia and other extremely heavy flavor elements.
However, it is an authentic young adult novel. Through extreme stories, it creates for you the loneliness, confusion, desire, uneasiness, fear of adolescence...
It is a collection of short stories of great literary attainment, and it is also McEwan's debut novel, written in his twenties. This book is enough to overshadow a group of literary and artistic youth.
In addition, Yu Hua recommended this book to Wang Junkai, and I was stunned at the time.
Nine: The Long Story, Laughter in the Dark
People with a little literary attainment are believed to have heard of Mr. Nabokov's name. This brilliant stylist, this novelist who loves to make things difficult for readers, this butterfly lover whose main business is to catch and observe butterflies.
Some of Nabokov's novels are too demanding of readers, so this one is recommended. The novelist playfully imitates the clichéd black-and-white film and writes a clichéd cheating story, but through his weighty narrative, the small details he depicts, and the answer that has long been revealed, once again makes the reader feel ridiculed.
Plus, the book is extremely easy to read, so don't worry.
10: Short story, The Dubliners
The author of this book is Joyce, the world's recognized master of the originator of the modern novel, which is his only short story. The author sets his sights on Dublin, borrowing more than a dozen fictional short and medium stories to depict very different characters, as well as their circumstances and choices. Finally, the hundred rivers return to the sea, and these stories collectively complete the profile of that era.
This beautiful way of writing has been a template for many of the short story collections written by many excellent writers since then, and has been imitated repeatedly, such as the Nobel Prize winner Naipaul's "Miguel Street". Of course, the short stories on Miguel Street are interconnected, appearing everywhere like the Marvel Universe, which is another way of writing.
Joyce has had a great influence on China's avant-garde writers, and the "Arabie" in this book was unanimously praised by Yu Hua and Su Tong as the most perfect short story in their reading experience.
Finally, there are not many strange words in this collection, but the emotional state it wants to express, especially the sense of epiphany, is extremely subtle and needs to be quietly tasted.
It was through this book, through repeated reading, and then looking up some reviews, that I finally learned a little bit about the beauty of short stories.
XI: The Great Novel, Crime and Punishment.
The proudest thing about great writers is that the works they write become recognized masterpieces, and the saddest thing is that becoming a masterpiece often means being worshipped but shelved.
Many people think that famous works must be high, must be extremely difficult to understand. Friends, this is a misunderstanding!
This tome is the most hungry and heart-stirring serious literature I have ever read besides Mr. Jin Yong's popular literature. Its drama is so strong, the portrayal of the characters' hearts is precise and meticulous, and the compassion is so broad that people cannot praise other than bow their heads.
Beginners can read it as a crime novel, and you will feel like a treasure. And any crime movie that portrays human nature on film and television brings people joy, thinking, and addiction, which is not the case.
Don't hesitate friends, this novel is not at all more difficult to read than Jin Yong.
XII: A collection of short stories, The Most Beautiful Drowning Man in the World
Márquez's novels are actually extremely easy to read, far less obscure than stream-of-consciousness writers such as Faulkner, and the main headaches are the endless number of names. In the short story, everything is not a problem.
Read this book, don't take the preconceived notion with you, think of yourself as an empty cup, and accept it all. You will harvest a magical and interesting world.
Beginners, you can even read it as a fairy tale.
If you still have an interest in Márquez after reading this book, you can first read the more realistic and less famous "The Colonel Who Wrote To Him", "A Murder Case Publicized beforehand", then transition to "Love in the Time of Cholera", and finally "One Hundred Years of Solitude".
XIII: A collection of short stories, The Borges Novels.
The collection pictured above is now a short version, and it sells more than 400 yuan on Taobao, and it is estimated that it can only be borrowed in the library. Of course, there were other editions, but the publisher did whatever it took to divide Borges's collection of novels into many thin books, hoping to make a profit. Therefore, the book is recommended to read the electronic version.
Most novelists, especially those who write short stories, rely on real-world experience, subtle touches on detail, but Borges's novels rely almost entirely on reading experience and fanciful fantasies, and he is an authentic and well-written bookworm. Many novels have a scent of prose or essays.
Borges's novels may be easy for beginners to swallow. You need to think about it, and once you think about it, you immediately find out what a wonderful world he has created for you.
In fact, some of his novels, you can even read as science fiction settings, detective novels.
It is recommended that you read the following short stories first:
The garden where the path bifurcates (parallel spaces), the Babylonian lottery (a social fable similar to the black sheep), the Babel Tower Library (give the monkey a typewriter and give it enough time to type the dream of the red chamber verbatim), the South (a bit of a dream-like novel), the well-informed Funes (I once imitated and wrote one, a person peeing will have the pleasure of ejaculation), Immortal (like the advice to read vampire novels, the discussion of immortality is really wonderful), Circular Ruins (Borges version of Zhuang Zhou Mengdi) , The Man with the Rose Horn (Borges's version of the detective novel), the theme of traitors and heroes (behind the great men), death and the compass (Borgesian detective novel plus labyrinth).
Fourteen: A Collection of Short and Medium Stories, Southern Expressway
Cortázar, a master of South American literature on a par with Márquez and Borges, had previously been very well known to Chinese readers, only one or two small collections. However, in 2017, domestic publishing houses began to systematically translate their works and publish them in China, which is the second book.
It's hard to describe what kind of writer he is, he's too hard to summarize. The only thing that is certain is that he is not on top, he writes novels just to play, to be funny. His works give people a sense of illusion in real life, very cinematic, and many film directors love him.
In the early days of writing, Mo Yan once imitated his novella of the same name, Southern Highway, wrote a cotton sales avenue, of course, the imitation was actually not good.
It's a bit exhausting to introduce here, but all in all Cortázar is a great writer who must not be missed, and I was amazed when I first saw it. The experience of reading literature that had persisted in obscurity became clearer the moment I met Cortázar, and I seemed to have a vague understanding of how to read and experience literature. It was a very wonderful experience.
Hopefully, someone will enjoy this episode as much as I do.