On January 12, at a seminar to explore the relevance of online literature to the times, Xu Zechen, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, had a face-to-face exchange with the squid who loves diving, and the two sides conducted in-depth discussions on their own creative experience, creation and interaction, creation and era connection, and future prospects in the creative field. Yang Zao, researcher of the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Yang Chen, vice president and editor-in-chief of Reading Group, Wang Xiang, researcher and critic of Lu Xun College of Literature, and Cong Zhichen, associate professor of Peking University and visiting researcher of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, participated in the seminar as guests.
"Literature Illuminates a Better Life - 2021 Searchlight Annual Book List Release and Reading Famous Artists Series Seminar Kick-off Meeting" was held at the China Museum of Modern Literature on January 12. At the event, Xu Zechen, Squid who loves diving, Yang Zao and others discussed the issue of the relevance of online literature to the times.
Online literature is recreating myths for humanity
In Yang Zao's view, the relationship between online literature and traditional literature is not almost antagonistic or even separated, Yang Zhao said, "Literature is a big tree, just different branches grow on it, in our time to get different nourishment, blossom different flowers, but there are similarities and similarities between flowers." ”
Xu Zechen said that he was moved by a book during his college years, which made him feel that writing is a very magical profession, and he has been writing for this day. "Jerusalem" is a long novel created by Xu Zechen, which tells the protagonist's return to his hometown and encounters several childhood friends, whose respective life situations, ideal pursuits and retrospectives of past lives write about the life and spiritual journey of a generation. In the eyes of many people, "Jerusalem" may be Xu Zechen's endorsement for this group of people in the 70s of the last century, but from his personal point of view, he never thought of endorsing, "For so many years, I am watching, I am listening, I am thinking, I am imagining, I am fiction, I want to think what I think, do my best to do a thorough cleanup, literature is a person's business in the end, its uniqueness lies in how much I can cover, I hope to transform all public resources into personal unique resources, Rather than turning our individual unique resources into public resources all at once. ”
Jerusalem, by Xu Zechen, Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House, March 2014.
The diving squid has created works such as "Arcane God Seat", "Lord of Mystery", "Long Night Embers" and so on, but in fact, his dream at the beginning was to become a scientist, not a writer, and after reading a lot of online works, he had an impulse - "I also want to create such a thing, I also want to write out what I have in my head, I also want to express my ideas." This impulse grows stronger over time. "In his eyes, online literature is a product of the times that came into being under the guidance of the Internet wave." I think good online literature must be derived from reality and higher than reality. We must draw nourishment from reality, try to restore a vivid world in the novel, so that the reader feels that it is as if it really happened around us, and this sense of reality and reality is very important. ”
In Wang Xiang's view, there are obvious commonalities between the times and literature. Wang Xiang believes that many online authors are creating myths. What is mythology? Myths are the stories of the gods. The gods grow into gods through self-cultivation, and in the process use their supernatural powers to solve problems and fulfill human wishes, which is called mythology. So, are only ancient myths called myths? In his view, the common work of popular literature and art is to recreate myths for mankind. From this point of view, the squid who loves diving is a typical representative, he gradually constructed his own myth on the basis of the world's mythological imagination resources, and constructed the "squid myth", and this "squid myth" has many characteristics, which are different from many fantasy fiction writers. Unlike many online fiction creators, he did not fall into the problem of blindly emphasizing the powerful and forgetting modernity. On the contrary, Wang Xiang believes that modernity in the "squid myth" is fully expressed.
Lord of Mystery, by The Squid Who Loves to Dive.
As a senior witness of online literature, Yang Chen found that most of the protagonists of online literature have been of the type of "bitter and bitter hatred", and now the protagonists, most of them have a good family from childhood, and feel that society is very beautiful, "In fact, online literature creation is to reflect the changes of the times, social changes, when the society becomes better, the novel environment, the novel background will also become better, I think online literature is naturally the most suitable way to portray the era of writing." ”
Want to write a good life in the moment,
A very important path is to turn back
As people living in the same era, in Yang Zhao's view, the nourishment of the literary tradition they each received was not the same. In this regard, the squid and Xu Zechen, who love diving, responded from their respective experiences. Wuxia fiction writers are the people who have the greatest influence on the squid who loves diving, "one is Mr. Jin Yong, and the other is Gu Long." At my age, elementary school was just the time to watch martial arts. The spirit of the chivalry, the way of telling the narrative, and the inheritance of Chinese popular culture and Tang legends, may have had the deepest impact on me. ”
The earliest influence on Xu Zechen was the avant-garde, "The avant-garde people inherit some experience from the West, so we inherit them, and they are relatively familiar with the skills of modern Western novels." Next, entering middle age, we began to pay attention to reality, and many people began to be grounded, paying attention to very practical material and spiritual problems in their own life field. Moving on, the current personal situation, I feel that the Western part, I have accepted a part, or I still have to continue to accept, and the whole way and path of acceptance is basically no obstacle, but what is missing is the classics: traditional Chinese literature and folk literature. We've been asking one question all these years – the China story. ”
In Xu Zechen's view, as a writer, I want to write about my current life and know the Chinese of the moment. "Then I think maybe a very important path is to turn back." He believes that "this retro is not a simple retro, nor is it to make a pattern, to get a chapter back, we find something for us to deal with the current life from the traditional literary narrative resources, folk narrative resources, and cultural resources." ”
Here, Cong Zhichen commented on the impact and promotion of the development of online literature on the entire cultural industry from a macro perspective. He said: "Chinese writers use the Chinese way of thinking to shape the story, the subject matter we write carries the deep imprint of China, online literature is more to tell the story and the structure of the world, the structure of the world will have some kind of unconscious refinement of reality." ”
Author 丨He An'an
Editor 丨 Li Yongbo
Proofreading 丨 Liu Jun