In the contemporary Chinese literary world, if we talk about the legend of personal experience, we have to mention Wang Xiaobo.
This big man, who weighed one meter and eight meters, was tall and mighty, but because of his stunted development at birth, he had many diseases in his life; he was clear that his appearance was not proud, and his life was poor, but he caught up with Li Yinhe, the "delicate woman of heaven"; he was a literary wizard, and he was China's "Joyce" and "Kafka", but he was in a bad state before his death.
He subtly and precisely pointed out where the ultimate happiness of mankind lies: "What can bring about the happiness of thought can only be the product of the supreme human wisdom." Anything lower than this will only bring suffering to people; and this kind of low-grade goods is all kinds of ideas out of utilitarianism. ”
He also saw to the point the source of the world's suffering: "All human suffering is essentially anger at one's own incompetence. ”
He once gently confessed to his lover: "I love you to the point of not being selfish." Just as a man has a pigeon in his hand and flies away, he blesses the flight of that pigeon from his heart. ”
He also coldly analyzed life: "I live in the world, I just want to understand some truths and encounter some interesting things." If I can do it, my life will be successful," "People live in the world, happiness and pain are indistinguishable." So I just ask him for the truth."
In just a few short quotes, in fact, it has well reflected the legend of Wang Xiaobo, which combines freedom, rationality, wisdom and humor.
Sadly, such an interesting soul has only survived for 45 years.
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On April 11, 1997, Wang Xiaobo suffered a heart attack in an apartment in Shunyi, a suburb of Beijing, and left this world forever.
On the morning of April 26, at Wang Xiaobo's memorial service, in addition to Wang Xiaobo's relatives and friends, there were countless readers who came to mourn, most of them from the media, academia, and cultural circles, as well as many people who were ignorant of ordinary people. Sadly, none of the people present were members of the Writers' Association, nor were they novelists.
During Wang Xiaobo's lifetime, he always regarded himself as a novelist, but his works never entered the mainstream literature. He did not join the Writers' Association, nor did he have his own unit, as he said before his death: "I heard that there is a literary circle, and I don't know where it is." ”
In secular terms, Wang Xiaobo is more like an "outsider" in the literary circle. But it was this spirit of serving his own view of truth that allowed him to maintain the true soul of a writer and to make a name for himself after his death. Among them, Wang Xiaobo's famous "Times Trilogy" of "Golden Age", which was once banned but sold well for more than 20 years, is the best proof.
"The Golden Age" is a novel conceived by Wang Xiaobo based on his experience of "cutting in line" in Yunnan in 1968. Through the light and dark lines of the hero and heroine, the novel tells the passionate "love story" that occurs between Zhiqing Wang Er, who is in the countryside of Yunnan, and a female doctor named Chen Qingyang.
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Chen Qingyang in the novel is a single female doctor who has lost her husband. In a closed, conservative remote mountain village, this young and beautiful female doctor in the countryside was framed by many people as a "broken shoe" because she did not conform to the common appearance of married women of that era - "dark face and sagging breasts".
In order to prove that she is not a "broken shoe", she went down the mountain to find her former patient Wang Er for help. But Wang Er put forward to her the paradox that "since others say that they are broken shoes, why not become a broken shoe".
When Chen Qingyang found that she could not prove her innocence at all, she no longer chose to escape. She began to have a physical relationship with Wang Er in the name of developing a "great friendship". In the repression of the spirit, Chen Qingyang could only test the happiness of living with his body.
Chen Qingyang chose Wang Er for a simple reason, Wang Er is a man who neither hides nor fornicates, and he can even openly and honestly tell lies that children can debunk.
For Chen Qingyang, she lives in an "unreal" world, and even beauty has become the original sin she has pointed out for thousands of husbands. Therefore, Wang Er's bluntness and vulgarity have become a clear and clear reality. Therefore, she was willing to be taken into the real broken shoes by Wang Er.
In this way, the two protagonists incorporate the absurd into a clear logic of reality. Ironically, on the contrary, after the two really had a relationship, no one paid attention to Chen Qingyang's whereabouts, because "people there are accustomed to saying that everything that is not a broken shoe is a broken shoe, and letting go of the real broken shoe", Chen Qingyang's spiritual confrontation has become futile.
With the help of this black humor, Wang Xiaobo shows the oppression of human nature by public experience and order in a special era.
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One of the more depressing contradictions in the novel is that the great "friendship" between Chen Qingyang and Wang Er has never been based on love. For Wang Er, Chen Qingyang is largely just a carrier of sensory satisfaction, and Chen Qingyang's love fantasy about Wang Er is therefore reduced to nothingness.
Although Wang Xiaobo made Chen Qingyang fall in love with Wang Er and put on the gorgeous cloak of love for this "friendship" between the two, it is difficult to hide the fact that this weak love is simply powerless to resist the absurdity of the times and cannot save the lost soul.
Throughout, Wang Er used Chen Qingyang as a tool to release his desires, and Chen Qingyang regarded Wang Er as his weapon against order.
Because of this, even if the two reunite twenty years later, it is difficult to find a reasonable explanation for everything that happened at that time. This is probably Wang Xiaobo's irony. In an absurd era, when human nature is oppressed to the extreme, normal physical feelings will no longer be sound.
This novel, which Wang Xiaobo conceived from the age of twelve and was written until he was nearly forty years old, embodies Wang Xiaobo's sense of freedom, the spirit of criticism of reality, and reflection on the living conditions of human beings.
In the literature of zhiqing of the same generation, this is a masterpiece with a grand pattern. Unfortunately, in the conservative and restrained literary atmosphere at that time, people were too focused on the scale of writing for men and women in this work, which once led to the pearl of the "Golden Age" being dusted.
Regarding the secular prejudice caused by these elements, Wang Xiaobo once said:
"There are many places in this book about sex, which is not only easy to attract criticism, but also suspects kitsch. I don't know why, but I wrote it like this. Looking back now, this was not written to attract criticism or kitsch, but to review a bygone era. As we all know, in the 1960s and 1970s, China was in an era of non-sexuality. In the age of non-sexuality, sex becomes the theme of life. The ancients said: 'Eat color also.' Wanting to love and wanting to eat are both part of human nature, and if they don't get it, they become obstacles to human nature. ”
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But contrary to his wishes, the misunderstanding about "kitsch" that Wang Xiaobo feared still happened.
In March 1992, "Golden Age" was originally finalized by Hong Kong Prosperity Publishing House, but the publisher arbitrarily renamed "Golden Age" to "History of Wang Er's Wind and Currents" for the sake of market effects, and included it in the "Wind and Moon Series" at that time. Wang Xiaobo was very annoyed by this, preferring to risk slow sales rather than accept the tampering of this vicious custom.
Unfortunately, this work, which was regarded as "darling" by Wang Xiaobo and once made waves in Hong Kong and Taiwan, was not recognized by the mainland market in the end, and the reason was still due to the controversial "gender depiction" in the book.
From "Yellow River" to "October", "Harvest" and other large magazines, the editors all agreed that the novel was very wonderful, and also gave a positive evaluation of the work, but they were discouraged because of the scale of the novel.
It was not until 1994 that Zhao Jieping, the editor of Huaxia Publishing House, loved this work too much, took advantage of the editor-in-chief's absence, and played a time difference in the final review, so that this work could be published in China. However, because of this, Zhao Jieping was severely accused and fell seriously ill in the heart exhaustion.
What is surprising is that the "Golden Age", which has been painstakingly published, was actually unpopular at the beginning of publication. In desperation, Wang Xiaobo once pushed the bicycle to the street and shouted: "The first few books are given away for free, and then you have to give money later." ”
It was not until May 1997 that the "Times Trilogy", which was finally taken over by Huacheng Publishing House after several twists and turns, was finally published: "Golden Age", "Bronze Age" and "Silver Age". The death of Wang Xiaobo also contributed to a certain market effect, and this unknown writer was finally discovered and understood by more and more people in a painful way.
Suddenly, publishing houses are inquired every day from all over the world, and book purchase lists are flying like snowflakes, which means that the market dominated by Wang Xiaobo has really arrived, but the author himself has left us forever.
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Before Wang Xiaobo's death, a scholar asked him why he could not consider the conservative psychology of mainland readers at that time, and wrote people's secretive "sex" so naked and so grandly.
Wang Xiaobo's answer made people's hearts tremble, he said: "What people think is the most shameful and the most hidden is precisely the thing that is least worthy of shame and concealment." True private feelings are everyone's feelings, which are the most personal and secretive things. ”
This persistent pursuit of the spirit of freedom and the true insight into human nature, I think, is wang Xiaobo's greatest charm.
Liu Yu once said: "The spirit he represents is very lacking in China. His weight-heavy narrative style has influenced an entire generation. ”
Feng Tang said that the joy brought to him after discovering Wang Xiaobo's words was like Archimedes' discovery of the law of buoyancy in the bathhouse and running bare-ass.
Wang Xiaobo's wife, Li Yinhe, said: "I often feel that Wang Xiaobo is like the innocent and romantic child in "The Emperor's New Clothes", who shouted such a voice on that extremely solemn and extremely funny occasion, which surprised everyone and then showed a smile of understanding. ”
Today, Mr. Wang Xiaobo has passed 24 years ago. I am really grateful that across the pages of the book we can know such a naïve "naughty boy" decades ago, who shouted at the world without any cover, and resounded through the hearts of a generation.
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