Pan Xiangli:
Shanghai is a city where women can "be themselves"
□ He Ziying and Pan Xiangli
He Ziying (hereinafter referred to as "He"):
Hello To Lai! I was very happy to have the opportunity to do this conversation with you, and I also felt that the opportunity was rare. You're not a particularly prolific writer, but every piece of work you shoot is a masterpiece. Your pursuit of the quality of the work, I also experienced one or two in the process of this manuscript, and I can't help but admire it. I remember when you talked to me about the manuscript, you said that the manuscript was already written and needed to be changed, and you said: "I feel that I have exhausted my strength in writing every work." I was particularly touched by this sentence. The care and attention you put into your work is evident. Your work gives the impression of exquisite elegance, if compared with personality, as if everyone is beautiful, dignified, exquisite, aesthetic, but also romantic and intellectual. I feel that you have a perfectionist complex for literature, I don't know if it is accurate? What should you look for in your mind that a good work should be?
Pan Xiangli (hereinafter referred to as "Pan"):
The two states I write more often are: either like a love network, or like a great enemy. The common denominator is that they are all very serious and by no means easy. To be precise, writing novels is like falling in love, and writing column essays to taste ancient poems is like facing a great enemy. Whether it is falling in love or facing each other, it is all life-threatening, and of course I am going all out. After writing, sometimes I regret it and say to myself: You are also too exaggerated, writing for so many years, it seems that you don't have to do your best.
Sometimes I hear the contractor say, "Feel free to write this!" "When I was young, I didn't recognize my life, and I used to think "casually", but when I moved this thought, I would often write two sentences and stop, or write three sentences and delete four sentences, and I couldn't write at all. Even wrote the whole article overturned and rewritten it again.
So I understood: I can't write words without seriousness. This is my life. It's like a person can't say he's in love, but at the same time say he's not serious. I think that if you are not serious, it is not love, maybe it is a mess, maybe it is deception, there may be all kinds of necessity, but it is definitely not love. If you are not serious, you are not writing, which is exactly the same.
What does it do to write a non-serious, unexciting text? If you think of writing as a way to make a living, this is a very poor way to make a living, and most writers can choose other ways. We have no problem with IQ, of course, we can use other ways to live a better and more enviable life. So, it's emotional, spiritual, and it's the emotional reason that keeps us in the industry. This is not a way to make a living, it is a career. Since this is the case, seriousness is an account of one's own life, and there is no need to choose.
As for your impression of my work, I can only take it as an encouragement. My strengths and weaknesses are obvious, no, the shortcomings are more obvious than the advantages, but perhaps everyone looks at my solemn attitude towards words, and they are all tolerant. I appreciate that.
what:
As we all know, you were born in a family of scholars, your father, Mr. Pan Xulan, is a famous scholar and writer, and I remember that you talked about your ancient poetry cultivation from your father's personal teaching to you from childhood. I really envy you for that. Our generation grew up mostly in an era when literary books were scarce, let alone ancient poetry readings. Compared with most of the post-60s and post-70s writers of the same era, you can be described as unique. This kind of classical literature is very prominent in your prose, you have written a series of essays to interpret ancient poems, and your series of tea culture essays have also won the essence of classical traditional culture. How do you think your literary background has influenced your fiction writing? How do you recognize the relationship between reading and creation?
Pan:
Family influences have enabled me to still be enlightened by classical literature in the era when classical literature was blank. The influence of classical literature on the novel is hidden, but it is very large. Because it influenced and participated in shaping my values, feelings, and aesthetics before I wrote my novel.
Without the influence of classical literature, I may also write, but Pan Xiangli, who has been nourished by classical literature for a long time, and Pan Xiangli, who has not been nourished by classical literature, will be two writers. They see the world differently, their writing intentions are different, the angles and colors of expression, and, very importantly, the texture of words is different. So, the impact is very large.
Recently, I saw you launch a number of short stories intensively in several publications, including "Old Love", "Lotus Ginger", "Angel and Afternoon Tea", "Flowers After You Left", and our latest launch of "Adding Wine back to the lamp to reopen the banquet", the protagonists of the works are young urban white-collar women, they always have some unsatisfactory places in life and love, and you find the space for literary growth in this unsatisfactory gap, thus creating a swaying female image, which is called by critic Liu Qiong" Shanghai Rose", which is a very appropriate image. You are a master of writing about women, good at capturing their subtle psychology and feelings. You write about the possibilities hidden in seemingly ordinary life, the subtle waves that lurk beneath the surface of life, and the restlessness in the depths of your soul, which is obviously due to your keen ability to capture perception. Specific to the novel "Adding Wine and Returning to the Lamp to Reopen the Feast", I read it repeatedly when I was editing, and I couldn't help but smile whenever I read some chapters. In the novel, "my" girlfriend Liu Yedu has a petty bourgeois mood, lives and eats and drinks and dresses exquisitely, and also requires style and taste for the object of love. When the novel describes the reasons why she broke up with her ex-boyfriend Xia Xinliang, she designed a particularly interesting bridge section, Xia Xinliang said that she liked the attackers in "Dream of the Red Chamber", she resolutely could not accept it, so the two decided to break up. Liu Yedu said, "People who will look up to people should not choose me anyway, if I am with such a person, how can I be worthy of myself?" The reason for this breakup seems simple and ridiculous, but it accurately reflects Liu Yedu's concept of love, which is the "three views are consistent" emphasized by young people when they fall in love. But what about Liu Yedu's current husband, the end of the novel let her husband appear, Liu Yedu finally had an emotional breakdown, and her expectations for the "ideal partner" were finally disappointed. Willow's sadness is really painful. Where did you get your inspiration for this set of works? Is it the result of long-term observation and thinking, or is it the touch of the reality of life?
Living in Shanghai has a double meaning for a novelist. On the one hand, Shanghai is a very realistic city, emphasizing rules, heavy contracts, and abiding by rules, and the people here are more restrained, and the range of daily life movements will be more restrained, so that drama, impulsiveness, decadence and romance are difficult to survive. This is not good for the novel. But the temperament of the city is very special, it is relatively subtle, but it is very rich, there are many things that lead to it, many shades are intermediate colors, Morandi colors, very few big red and green, not direct, not hot, not exaggerated, subtle colors and light a lot, more twists and turns of the mind. The fabric of urban life is also intriguing.
Inspired by everyday life in Shanghai. The novels you just mentioned are all in my "Shanghai Love Stories" series. The characters in this series, I don't think they're very common in Shanghai, but I think they're coordinated in Shanghai. Or, if there really are such people in life, then they will not appear elsewhere, only in Shanghai.
Liu Yedu's sadness exists on a large scale in China's married life. On the one hand, in the world of men, it is difficult for feelings to rank first, generally career and livelihood rank first, and then blood relations or brotherhood rank second, lovers or spouses only rank third, and traditional culture tells them that this is right and there is no problem. And many urban women still put feelings first. On the other hand, women are more eager to communicate, need to keep talking and listening, and men speak less, there is a data, women must speak twenty thousand words a day, the heart can be comfortable, and men almost only need to speak one-tenth to spend the day; in addition, men are not so willing to communicate anytime and anywhere, so women are easy to feel ignored and hurt. According to scientific research, this is an innate difference between the sexes. Sounds a bit pessimistic.
So, although I wrote about the disappointment and sadness of the Willow Leaf Ferry, I had no solution. In addition, I know in my heart that if they can seriously consider these things, then their lives are not bad. Life is like this, the troubles are constantly disappointed.
Your novel can be described as a typical urban literature, but also can be said to be a representative text of the current Shanghai school of literature, your work on the depiction of life scenes and details is very vivid, such as Starbucks Bakery, Lao Dachang, Kaisling, Ruby Cake, Butterfly Crisp of the International Hotel, Bright Village fresh meat mooncake, old Shanghai smoked pomfret, etc., these depictions with pyrotechnic gas show the texture of the city, reflect the interest of the old-school citizens, can mobilize the reader's visual taste, delicate and perceptible, It exudes a strong atmosphere of Haipai. I found that local Writers in Shanghai, including Wang Anyi and Jin Yucheng, are very good at meticulously describing the fireworks of the city's life, and this fireworks exudes a kind of exquisite and confident in life. Please talk about the literary nourishment that the city has given you.
Living in Shanghai, in fact, the psychological cost is quite large. The daily life in Shanghai is constantly changing, there are constantly new things coming out, although many of them bring convenience and improve comfort, but some just cause surprise and attention, no matter how new things need to be adapted, not always relaxed and pleasant; at the same time, there are constantly some familiar, intimate scenes and details will disappear, people will sigh and sad about it. I'm in it.
The touch that this city touched me mainly came from daily life - every day, friends, neighbors, pedestrians on the street, neighboring tables in restaurants, until the "spit" in the WeChat circle of friends, many details are very interesting and very vivid.
Writers in Shanghai seem to be all single-handed in their creations, and their styles are also different. It seems that unlike other provinces and cities, several writers are put together and named by region or style. This may be very Shanghai. I don't know exactly what "Haipai" means, so I rarely use the word. I like to use "Shanghai" as an adjective, and I usually talk to my friends and say this: This is very Shanghai. This man is very unsupportable.
I feel that the character and atmosphere of your novel embody a classical beauty. For example, Sister Yun in "Flowers After You Leave" is an innocent and romantic artist who lives in her own world, because her first love loves blue, and the flowers she planted in a yard are blue. The creation of this mood is aesthetic and sad. And does Sister Yun's traditional obsessive and persistent personality setting benefit from the potential influence of classical literature, such as "Peach Blossom Fan" and "Peony Pavilion"?
This novel has little to do with the classical, maybe its atmosphere is classical, but the core is contemporary and urban. The heroine is innocent and romantic, but not classical. As a young woman, Sister Yun had a successful career and bought such a big house in the center of Shanghai, and then she was calm and relaxed, and she lived in this house alone. She did it all on her own, and it certainly wasn't a classic story.
In this story, in fact, the princess did not meet the prince, and she herself became the queen. Although she is obsessed, she is not the traditional "loyal", it is just that she is willing to wait, or because of various life opportunities, she has waited for so long unconsciously.
Today's urban young women no longer marry for survival, clan, and public opinion, which is a great progress. Of course, I also stressed the importance of the background of Shanghai, in my opinion, Shanghai is the best place for men and women in China to achieve equal rights, and it is also a city that can achieve women's "being themselves". A woman like Sister Yun, in some places, will be pointed out by others, will be forced by her parents to go on a blind date, and even have children with men she does not love at all, but in Shanghai, a well-developed urban civilization, so that people like her can do their own thing and distance themselves from the crowd, and the outside world will give her praise and respect from afar. It is to have such a modern urban background, so that women can live a light but pure, poetic and beautiful life. For such a personality woman, if the environment is hostile and stressful, it will evolve into a tragedy that is shocking and then difficult to sustain for a long time, or forced to leave the country.
The male protagonist has the same brilliance as her, but in fact, whether they will be together is still a big unknown, and the story after they are together is that the relatively perfect love falls into the daily day and night after getting along, what will happen, is a bigger unknown. But those that are not important, the part of the novel that has been written reveals the information is more important: in the current metropolis, there can be such a woman, with a career, living a good life on her own, spiritual independence, having her own principles and perseverance, living quietly and calmly in the sea of people. This is very beautiful and very inspiring.
Yes, the classical atmosphere, the modern spiritual core, Sister Yun represents those independent self-respecting and confident women in the city, you explain it very well. The appearance of Du Jiajin in the second half of "Old Love" has given Qi Yuanyuan's mother great comfort in the serious illness, and also given Qi Yuanyuan in embarrassment a shoulder to lean on. The shining appearance of the architect in "Flowers After You Leave" makes these stories full of warmth and beauty, and all the previous torments and waits seem to be for the last moment of reunion, which also makes the reader's tense nerves loose. It can be seen that you are a gentle and well-intentioned writer, you always seem to be unable to bear to be cruel to your characters, do not like to create tragedies, such an ending is more in line with the traditional Chinese classical aesthetics of the reunion complex. I remember that Mr. Li Jingze had an evaluation of your creation in his early years, saying that your novel wrote the "faith" and "keeping" in the world, calling it "letter on ice". That means that the world and human nature are complex and unfathomable, but you are willing to dance on ice, willing to "believe in each other, believe in yourself, believe in stability and happiness in this world." Comparing this judgment with your recent work is still valid. The two works just listed write the letter and keep between the two pairs of lovers. I think this actually reflects the writer's personal philosophy of life. (You yourself mentioned earlier that classical literature participates in shaping your values, feelings, and aesthetics), please talk about your ideas about how to deal with the plot of the novel and the relationship between the characters.
When it comes to writing, it's actually easy to be ruthless. In life, killing people pays for their lives, and in the novel, it is not illegal for you to kill a large piece, and it can also shock the reader. It is actually easy to be ruthless, because life is not easy, human nature cannot withstand scrutiny and questioning, and no era is perfect. The steering wheel hits the negative side, on the one hand, it can shock the reader, on the other hand, it is easy to occupy the psychological high ground - if the reader feels that there is a flaw, the author can retort to the lips: that is, you do not see deeply about life, you do not see through human nature, that is your limited experience.
On the contrary, it is more difficult to write warm, clean and beautiful, because everyone sees that life is not easy, human nature is unreliable, the times are not perfect, and the writer wants to write a warm, clean and beautiful feeling, which is not so easy to be believed, but it is easy to be questioned and ridiculed. So, how to be within the capacity of a novel, the words of a short story may be 10,000 or 20,000 words, slowly, little by little, let the reader believe in you, believe that there is such a corner in the world, such a person, such a mind, such a feeling... It is difficult to be ashamed, it is difficult to hide clumsiness, this is what the writer of "faith" has to face. But for many years there has always been a tendency: writing about the city, but also the tone is bright, then you must be superficial, shallow, anyway, it is impossible to be profound. I still face such contempt and disdain a lot. For this, I am grateful to Mr. Li Jingze for his "defense" of my work.
A ruthless writer may gain something that shocks others, shocks people, and makes people think; I can't do this, and I'm not so willing to do it. The unscrupulous writer hopes that a piece of warmth will slowly penetrate into the reader. If I have any extravagant expectations, I probably give friends such a little warmth to readers. I'm weak and may only be able to provide a little. But it is this little bit, whether it is warm or cold, the difference is still very big.
This may be related to the writer's physique and environment, I am a southerner, Shanghai winter and no heating, I am very afraid of cold.
Do you consider yourself a feminist writer? I feel from the text that you have a gentle sense of feminism, not too flaunting women's personality like a typical feminist, but also have a deep sympathy for women, gentle comfort, and some psychological dark angles of men are not without kindness and ridicule, and temperance. For example, in "The Aroma of Water Lilies", you use the male limited knowledge perspective to add more subtle memories and psychological descriptions to the article, which is very moving in itself. The male protagonist is awakened by the netizen "Water Lilies" to a delicate feeling of life, a man's spiritual derailment is described as three points, and the object of the derailment at the end is a man. This plot prompts the man to have an epiphany of life on his own, thus adjusting to a normal life trajectory. Such an ending dissolves the seriousness of this realization, which is quite philosophical. Literature is inseparable from the expression of gender relations, which can be described as the most complex and delicate relationship in the world. In your opinion, in modern society, how should women live in harmony with themselves and achieve gender harmony?
I haven't studied these theories, but I must say, I'm probably a legby egalitarian, right? There is no meaning of confrontation and competition with men, but it feels that all people are created equal, then everyone, no matter what gender, should be equal. As a writer, I also treat the roles of men and women equally, and I am more sympathetic. After all, everyone is just a human being, and it is not easy to live in this world.
The Aroma of Water Lilies is about the longing for nowhere to settle in everyday life and the choice of escape or return. Urban life is very realistic, the "formatting" power is strong, and normal people's hearts will have the idea of resisting or escaping at certain times or moments, but there is still a long way to go between this and putting it into action. In fact, in this novel, the hero finds that what arouses his heart is a man (he is heterosexual, so if he knew at the beginning, the whole psychological process would not happen), and the inner feelings may not be clear to him. There will be a huge loss, but there will also be some relief and ease, because it is impossible to continue, there will be no need to bear the pressure, there will be a little "heaven is dead, not the war is unfavorable", so a major choice is avoided, and it returns to the "normal" daily life track.
However, there are still some changes, he seems to understand that the quality of two people getting along, not all depend on each other, that is, if there is a problem in the marriage, it is not simply a change of person to make all the problems disappear, so he began to pay attention to his wife again, pay attention to some of the daily details that were originally ignored, and also tried to communicate with his wife, and the wife also began to echo his concerns, which is actually a good start. Contains a little blessing to the conscientious and tired people of married life.
The protagonist is a short story of men, and there is also a "Dream Screen", which is written about the different psychology of three men facing love and marriage, various inner contradictions, daily encounters and consciousness, subconscious constantly colliding, physical and chemical reactions. Marriage is no longer an easy shore of happiness, but a series of tests that urbanites are confused, conflicted, tired and even afraid of but have to face. I want the reader to see how people's behavior and the heart are often inconsistent, and how the inner balance shakes and tilts under the surface calm. The good news is that sometimes, passing these tests is worth it.
How should women treat themselves? Big problem. I can only repay your jack in four or two, women should love themselves well and always strive to become a better version of themselves. How to achieve harmonious coexistence between the two sexes, this is completely unknown, completely impossible to say. Because it is increasingly seen that, apart from qualities and sincerity, except for psychological factors and communication skills (individuals hate the word "skill"), the element of luck cannot be ignored. About two men and two women, about the same age, the same married, one pair of people will live a smooth life, the other pair of people but after marriage chicken flying dog jump, and then has not been smooth, which obviously has an element of luck.
Luck is not fatalism, it is actually probability. According to the probability of expert statistics, one-third of the people on the earth are actually not suitable for marriage, one-third will be divorced after marriage, and only one-third will carry out marriage to the end, so it may be better not to be too optimistic about "harmonious coexistence between the sexes" at the beginning.
What you say is wonderful and transparent, and that's where the novelist's sharpness lies! The language of your novels is elegant and witty, and there are often some intellectual words in the writing that jump and flicker, which is very pleasant. I don't remember any famous person who said that language is thought. Language without thought is doomed to dry and hollow. For example, at the beginning of "Adding Wine and Returning to the Lamp to Reopen the Banquet", the self-narration of "I": "A person who insists on 'no personality' for several years and is not moved by fashion trends at all, then this will also become a kind of 'personality'." "The identity of a parent of a school-age child is so lethal that it seals everything related to gender." Such language is clean, graphic and powerful, forming a unique speech style and beauty of the individual, increasing the interest of the text, playing a role in adjusting the atmosphere, and also extending the thickness and strength of the language. What do you learn about language training?
Thank you for saying that. Language is the initial threshold for writing, and it is also the ultimate threshold. Language is really particularly important to fiction. I have put a lot of effort into my language and am ready to do so in the future. I will change it repeatedly, sometimes I can't stop changing it, and even the third time I change it and go back to the second draft.
It doesn't matter if you use too much force, because after a few days of reading, you will find that this is just a waste of effort, what I am most distressed about is that because of the number of changes, I need to keep several drafts - in the end, I compare and decide which draft to use, so I can't cover the previous text casually, so that every novel has several versions, and when it comes to magazines and publishing houses, it is easy to get it wrong. I missed the version of "Adding Wine back to the lamp and reopening the feast" that I gave you this time, which is really sorry. But it also confirms what I said.
What's the takeaway? There are only countless tired and dark memories.
Yes, you should be a very self-demanding person in all aspects, and it is even less likely to allow yourself to make a little low-level mistake, even if it is a typo. This time you said to give the wrong version, in fact, it is just a few places Liu Yedu's name written wrong a word, I can easily correct it, but I as an editor should still confirm the version of the document with you, and your reaction is indeed as you said earlier, Hehe, such as the enemy, confess that I must delete the original version. And when I proofread after the publication, I didn't pick out a typo, which is really convincing to you! What a tribute to the writers of the text! Editors are accustomed to typos in manuscripts, and when they see such a clean and crisp text like you, don't mention how much you like it. There is a comment that you wrote a new world situation in Shanghai, do you agree? How do you think shanghai is different from the Shanghai you grew up in? How do you see the new Shanghainese in the context of modernization? What kind of relationship have they formed with the Haipai culture, acceptance, integration or mutual influence? Will you write more about the image of the new Shanghainese in the future?
No one can say that they wrote Shanghai, whether old or new, Shanghai is not so easy to write. However, readers who live in Shanghai and are familiar with Shanghai can see at a glance that "what you wrote is not Shanghai" at a glance. What I'm going to do is try to avoid that. The current Shanghai is very different from the Shanghai I was a child, and there are many details in my novels. Forgive me, I can't say it in general, because if I could, I probably wouldn't be writing a novel and writing such a series. There are many feelings that cannot be expressed in simple and clear words, so writers write novels.
In my novels, there are new Shanghainese, and Shanghai attracts people from all over the world every day. For example, in the daily life of Shanghai now, Shanghainese face strangers, basically speak the first sentence in Mandarin, and if the other party answers in Shanghainese, then they will start to speak Shanghainese. In addition, children in Shanghai do not speak Shanghainese, or do not speak Shanghainese well, which is very common. Dialects are still like this, and other aspects can be imagined. I came to Shanghai at the age of 12, so I am not an "indigenous" in Shanghai, I feel that their hearts have deep and complex feelings for the "new Shanghainese", and the feelings of outsiders for the shanghai aborigines are not simple, both sides have their own reasons, no one can easily "suppress" who or "convince" whom, so these people intersect, of course, very interesting.
A novel I just wrote is to write about this relationship, the young man in Shanghai broke up with the girlfriend of the new Shanghainese, and then the parents of the old Shanghainese came forward, at this time, the real Shanghainese and the new Shanghainese, the old generation of Shanghainese and the new generation of Shanghainese, formed a sandwich relationship, several layers of psychological refraction, this sandwich is right and wrong, many psychological refractions, in such a crowd as Shanghai, particularly rich, particularly complex, but also I pay special attention to observation and try to describe.
Sounds like another heartwarming novel! In your previous novels, such as "I Love Little Pills" and the Lu Prize-winning "White Water Greens", the heroine has a resolute temperament and spiritual purity to stick to her personality to the end. A few years ago, you seemed to focus on prose creation, and you were fruitful, I often read your prose on WeChat, which is another kind of beautiful enjoyment. Now that you're back to writing fiction, your heroines still have unique personalities, but they also have a breeze, as if they have reached a reconciliation with the years. For example, the narrator "I" in "Adding Wine back to the lamp to reopen the banquet" has formed a contrasting relationship with Liu Yedu's stubbornness and true temperament, and "I" treat life and emotions calmly and idyllicly, not demanding or demanding, and everything follows fate. Is this kind of inclusive character image related to your life experience and the growth of years?
Of course. The change is related to age. I'm not thirty or forty years old, there's no way. But when I was still relatively young, I saw that Bi Feiyu said a meaning: If Bi Feiyu is always thirty years old, then who will write Bi Feiyu's fifty-year-old works? The thought comforted me. Then I found that age brings life experience, brings different perspectives, brings insight into life and self-control (emotional control and language control), and really good change. Therefore, when there are readers and editors who are familiar with my writing process who recognize my writing in recent years, I will smile and reply: I can't be old in vain. It is inevitable and helpless that old age certainly brings some disadvantages; old age may also bring some benefits, but this is not inevitable. As a writer, how to grasp the benefits of "old" and naturally bring it to the work and bring it to the reader is an interesting experiment I have been doing in the past two years. The effectiveness remains to be judged by the reader.
I didn't write novels, it seemed like twelve years, and then I resumed writing last October, and that's the "Shanghai Love Stories" series. The first article published was "Old Feelings", published in "Youth Literature", "Novel Selection" and "Novel Monthly" have been turned, "Novel Selection" editor-in-chief, the famous writer Ms. Xu Kun said in the preface: Pan Xiangli This novel continued her novel "White Water Green Vegetables" published in 2004 by the Lu Xun Literature Prize, but "time flies, the vicissitudes of the sea, seventeen years have passed, the female pioneer has become a true defender", "finally forgiveness and reconciliation with life", Xu Kun said that this is the compassion given by the years. There are some changes that the years have given to writers, and Xu Kun is absolutely right about this.
I recently saw an interview with Li Jingze, who said that literature should "leave behind the history of customs and spiritualities of this era." Customs, hearts, and histories are all important matters in literature, both outwardly boundless and subtle, both social and historical, but also concrete, personal and spiritual. So to borrow, do you want to use your literary works to leave a history of women's lives and hearts for Shanghai in the new era?
I will only focus on the novel in my hand, the novel that is growing in the continuous contact between my fingers and keyboard, and I want to write it well, write it to the best I can, and I will not think about the "great future" of those things. "Leaving behind the history of customs and spiritual history of this era" is a big goal, and "leaving a history of women's lives and spiritual histories for Shanghai in the new era" sounds good, but it will not be done by one person. If, I mean if — this hypothesis is unlikely, and I'll be happy many years from now someone thinks I'm one of them. But it still hasn't had much impact on my current writing.
Writing for me, this moment, this one, this one word, is almost all.
On closer examination, it is difficult to classify your novels into which genre and what doctrine, but the style is unique and I do my own thing. How do you define your writing? Which of my works are you most satisfied with?
Writers have a hard time defining their own writing. In terms of attitude, immersion, and best effort, I am satisfied with every novel and essay I write. By the standard of my ideal state of Chinese studies, then I am not satisfied with every novel and every essay I write. I write without ambition, without a plan, because I like it, and the biggest gain from writing is the joy of writing itself. Therefore, I can't accept the advice of "don't write so seriously", it's like you are in love, in love, someone comes to you and says: Why be so serious! Will you listen? You'll just want him to walk away.
Novel, favorite of his own long andrographis "andrographis". Essay, favorite of his own "Ten Thousand Thoughts". The special essays on ancient poetry, like "Meibian News", and the next one to be published by the People's Literature Publishing House, is the collection of the "Like Flowers in the Wild" column on "Zhongshan".
Haha, it's wonderful to use the metaphor of love! You are now the vice chairman of the Shanghai Writers Association, but also concurrently hold a variety of social positions, official duties must be busy, these work will distract some energy and time, so how do you balance the relationship between creation and work? Do you continue to write the Urban Women series in the future, or do you have any new creative plans? For post-90s or even younger authors, what creative experience and suggestions do you have to share with you?
Time management is indeed a science, or art. I used to be an editor at a newspaper supplement for 22 years, when I was busier and more stressed. Although I like the work of editors, but everyone's situation is different, some people work in the newspaper while creating a lot of results, this is also what I have seen; unfortunately, I can only concentrate on one thing at a stage, I have been concentrating on editing for twenty years, I think I have also achieved the ultimate, to an age to consider whether I can still write novels in this life, so, in order to write time, I went to Shanghai in 2020 to write. Life is a continuous choice, each choice is based on their own, the situation at the time, in fact, it is difficult to say clearly the gains and losses, not to mention that I am more confused about some gains and losses. It is often misunderstood as willfulness, but in fact, it is not willful, or it will not calculate and is not shrewd.
All my more authenticity and refinement, it seems, is mostly given to writing this one thing. Of course, this may also be an excuse for an incompetent person in reality to make for himself.
I don't have much advice for young writers. Just because they are older than others, are they entitled to say any advice to them? How can it be. When I was younger, I didn't seem to listen to anyone at all.
How difficult it is to write. In all kinds of loneliness, sleepiness, suffering and despair, I wish that we can all grit our teeth and write well, and perhaps one day, we will meet in the depths of time and the peak of our souls.
—END—
Yangtze River Literature and Art, No. 1, 2022
Responsible Editor | He Ziying
▲He Ziying
▲ Pan Xiangli