"If you can't write a book that can be used as a pillow after death at the age of 50, this life will be in vain!"
Chen Zhongzhong left this bold statement to the Chinese literary circles, and still supervises the vast number of literati.
On the 25th day of the lunar month in 1991, Chen Zhongzhong drew a satisfactory end to "White Deer Plain".
At that time, a cigar was lit, green smoke rose, I turned on the lights in the house, turned on the volume of the tape recorder to the maximum, the old house was very bright, and the pleasant Qin cavity echoed in my ears, at that moment, I sat in the old chair, and felt tears flowing from the corners of my eyes...
On that day in 1988, Chen Zhongzhong, who was 46 years old at the time, returned to his ancestral home alone with his luggage, which is the name of "White Deer Plain", and the story took place from this land.
According to Chen Zhongzhong's own recollection, when he returned to his ancestral home, he sat on the sofa and stopped for a moment, smoked a cigarette, drank a few cups of tea, and then opened a 16-open hard leather book and wrote down a sentence that everyone knows today: "Pot Pot Jiaxuan later became proud that he married a woman in seven rooms in his lifetime." ”
Then Chen Zhongzhong planted a French plane tree with a thick index finger on the edge of the ancestral house, perhaps he wanted to see how much shade this delicate sapling could cast when "White Deer Plain" was completed.
Xijiang Village Ancestral House, Where Chen Zhongzhong wrote "White Deer Plain"
Chen Zhongzhong created Bailuyuan, but also encountered a very realistic problem, he has written large and small short stories before, there have been manuscript fees, enough for his own life, but now he no longer writes short stories, there is no contribution fee, plus now that his wife has children, it is really difficult to support a large family with a meager salary!
During the period, only the wife watched the children alone, and a few Shaanxi Hanzi came to the family to talk about literature, and Chen Zhongzhong took out a decent meal, so he let his wife cut a plate of radish strips and used it as a cold dish.
Chen Zhongzhong locked himself in the ancestral home, and the daily meals were also sent by his wife, and when the final draft of "White Deer Plain" was about to be completed, his wife asked, Can you really publish this? What if I can't publish it? Chen Zhongzhong said without hesitation: "I will go to raise chickens!" ”
From 1988 to 1992, the writing of "White Deer Plain" before and after a total of 6 years, at the end of 92, "White Deer Plain" finally appeared in the then famous "Contemporary" magazine in the country, Chen Zhongzhong excitedly ran to Xi'an to buy impurities, but when he entered a post office, he would tell him that all the impurities were sold out, and he simply went to the largest bell tower post office, or did not buy it.
Chen Zhongzhong was lost but sweet, and his "White Deer Plain" was on fire!
Before the official publication of "White Deer Plain", the editor once asked Chen Zhongzhong: "White Deer Plain" manuscript fee or royalties
？ Chen Zhongzhong, who was honest and honest, said a stupid thing: If you say, you can mess with it! The editor said then the royalties!
"White Deer Plain" won the Mao Dun Literature Award in 1997 and has been reprinted 7 times, and Jia Pingwa's "Waste Capital" was also published at about the same time, but "Waste Capital" is a manuscript fee, and the money is far less than royalties!
In 2006, Chen Zhongzhong, with a royalty income of 4.55 million yuan, was ranked 13th in the writers' rich list. It was this stupid sentence at that time that made him earn 4.55 million! Of course, the value of this work is far more than these millions!
Chen Zhongzhong wrote it himself
The townspeople are rooted in the land, and "White Deer Plain" is an immortal classic
Today, "White Deer Plain" is listed by the Ministry of Education in the "Must Read for College Students" series, has been distributed more than 1.6 million copies, and has been adapted into a variety of art forms such as Qin Cavity, Drama, Dance Drama, and Movie.
As he wished, the tome of more than half a million words became the pillow in his coffin. Bailuyuan is Chen Zhongzhong's hometown, and "White Deer Plain" is his spiritual hometown, as he himself said, without these works such as "White Deer Plain", he is no different from ordinary farmers.
Some people say that "White Deer Plain" is a majestic epic of fifty years of changes in the Weihe Plain, a long scroll of colorful and shocking paintings in the Chinese countryside, and indeed, this novel lives up to its reputation. From the last years of the Qing Dynasty to the 1970s and 1980s, he spanned half a century. Two generations of descendants of the two families fought for the rule of Bailuyuan, and staged a thrilling and unique Shaanxi style, exclusive to the personnel changes of that era.
Balzac said: "The novel is considered the secret history of a people. This sentence is quoted by Chen Zhongzhong at the forefront of the novel, which may be his creative criterion, and this sentence is also the biggest feeling that many people have after reading "White Deer Plain" - the real classic is often the perfect embodiment of an era and a national history and culture.
Chen Zhongzhong (right) communicates with farmers
This is a complete history of the development of shaanxi region, looking at the county history, looking for history, visiting various households, in order to create this work, Chen Zhongzhong really returned to his hometown, saw every household in the village, and many of the characters in the work have corresponding prototypes.
Lao Gu's truest feeling after reading it is that he has never experienced as strongly as reading "White Deer Plain" that the diametrically opposed factors of static and moving, stability and chaos, and space and time are twisted together to form a huge and strange charm.
It is the story of the times, behind which is the true emotions of generation after generation, the language is simple, but the words poke the heart, reading this book, it is like traveling once, back to the original northwest land, feeling the grace and resentment in that yellow land, there is black humor, there is magic realism, and its eternal foothold is in the people's life!
Read Chen Zhongzhong again, and explore the authenticity of life in the present from his recurrent works.