Recently, Ye Wei's novel "Homecoming" was successfully selected as the "2021 Annual Influential Book". This is the fourth authoritative industry list for the book after being selected for the "Literary and Art Joint Book List" and the third and fourth seasons of influential books. Writer Ye Wei, formerly known as Liu Yewei, is the winner of the 3rd Mao Dun Literary Newcomer Award, participated in the "International Writing Program" in Iowa, and is also a visiting scholar majoring in creative writing at the University of Iowa.
In the face of the current great changes in the countryside, we cannot turn a blind eye, let alone remain indifferent
Talking about the novel "Homecoming", Ye Wei said that as early as when he wrote the "Hometown China Trilogy", "Blessed Land", "Rich Mine" and "Hou Tu", there was the "bud" of "Homecoming". Ye Wei's idea at that time was that in order to continue the writing of the "Native China Trilogy", he would still take the village of zaozhuang in his hometown as a slice to further write about the changes in the lunan countryside of contemporary China and the spiritual state of the people in his hometown. With the great economic development, today's China has long since got rid of the background of "pure countryside" and entered the era of "urban and rural China" in an accelerated manner. Ye Wei said: "Taking my hometown as an example, the current Lunan countryside in China, driven by the rural revitalization strategy, has shown a trend of urban-rural integration through the construction of beautiful villages and the export of labor services. "This trend urgently needs new literature to shape and sublimate, and to tell the story of the countryside in the new era."
"In my hometown, a prominent phenomenon is that many people have started to go to the county to buy houses. With the popularity of private cars, many people who work in rural towns during the day drive back to the county town at night to live. I found that there are more and more private cars in rural areas, mostly low-end models, and some are second-hand cars. Zaozhuang used car trading market is huge, the whole country's used cars are gathered here, by the locals jokingly called 'China Sanqi'. Ye Wei discovered the change in the countryside and had the idea of expressing this change. In any case, the current Chinese countryside is definitely not what it used to be. In the small village where Ye Wei grew up, a few years ago, a well-off building was built, and many young people moved out of the old house and lived in the unit building. The original village has also become a new community. In fact, Ye Wei initially named the novel "Xiaokang Lou". Later, he considered forming a new "urban and rural China trilogy", followed by two novels with the name of "Ji", so he changed it to "Homecoming" when it was published. Talking about the biggest motivation for the creation of "Homecoming", Ye Wei said: "In the face of the current great changes in the countryside, we so-called writers cannot turn a blind eye, let alone be indifferent."
Between the "Native China Trilogy" ("Blessed Land", "Rich Mine", "Hou Tu") and the new "Urban and Rural China Trilogy", taking advantage of the opportunity of visiting creative writing at the University of Iowa in the United States, Ye Wei also completed the "Transition Era Trilogy" ("Fission", "Hesitation", and "Heavenly Selection") focusing on the spiritual history of young intellectuals in the new era. As the name suggests, the "Transition Era Trilogy" focuses on the transformation of the times, which mainly writes about the spiritual "fission" of the "post-75s" and the wandering "hesitation" of the landless wandering and the "natural selection" of the material competition after self-awakening. As the first part of the "Urban and Rural China Trilogy", "Homecoming" focuses on the combination of the century-old rural writing of the "Rural China Trilogy" and the "Transformation Era Trilogy" focusing on the spiritual history of reform and opening up, focusing on the heavy physical and spiritual growth of the "post-75" generation coming out of the countryside.
In this sense, it is appropriate for the publishing house to position "Homecoming" as "a long novel that reflects the changes in the city and the countryside since the founding of New China 70 years ago, especially the great changes in the style of farmers in agriculture and rural areas since the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy". The summary of the novel "takes the urban youth Zhao Xungen's return to his hometown as the narrative perspective, shaping the image of young farmers in the new era represented by rural youth Han Huihui, Liu Shaojun, Liu Junshan, and the 'post-75' youth who have walked from the countryside to the city represented by Zhao Xungen", which is also accurate.
As for the statement that "while reflecting the great achievements in rural revitalization and construction, the novel also looks into the living conditions of China's rural areas after entering a well-off and peasants living in a well-off building, and is an epic writing that reflects the great changes in urban and rural areas", it is a praise and expectation for this novel.
"The countryside that can't go back, the city that can't go in"
The development of the times was the main motivation for the creation of this novel. In fact, another important reason why Ye Wei wanted to write such a work with a little bit of spiritual autobiographical color was to "give an 'explanation' to himself and his contemporaries."
Ye Wei has said many times in different works and occasions, "Many of the people of our generation born after 1975 grew up in the countryside and later came to the city to go to school, work, and settle down because of college and other reasons. The spirit of this generation has a very distinctive feature, that is, it is in a state of 'wandering' and 'wandering', or to put it more extremely, it is the 'tearing' of the flesh and the spirit. This feature can be summed up simply as "the body is in the city, the spirit is in the hometown, and the soul is on the road." Ye Wei said that his contemporaries belonged to the "heels" generation. The growth of this generation seems to have been in the "middle layer", the spirit has been in a state of "squeeze", and the body is suspended in mid-air, as the inscription of "Hesitation" says: "The countryside that cannot go back, the city that cannot be entered."
Speaking of this, perhaps readers can already understand that "Homecoming" is actually a history of the spiritual growth of "post-75" writers.
Since leaving that small village, the "post-75s" have begun to "wander" between cities. Take Ye Wei himself as an example, after four years of college at Qufu Normal University, he came to work at Jiangsu Normal University in Xuzhou, northern Jiangsu Province, during which he went to Nanjing Normal University to study for a master's degree, and then read a doctorate in creative writing at Shanghai University. In the middle, I went to Beijing Lu Xun Literature Institute, studied two young writer classes, and stayed in Beijing for almost a year. This year, he was also invited to Iowa, a small midwestern town in the United States, to participate in the youth program of Iowa's "International Writing Project". Shortly after graduating from his ph.D., he visited the University of Iowa again to study creative writing for a full year. Two years ago, he went to work at the Zhejiang Media Institute in Hangzhou and Tongxiang, and was studying for a postdoctoral fellowship in cultural creativity at ocean university in China. If you add the creation and signing of the Dongguan Literature Institute, Chengdu Literature College and other urban literary associations, Ye Wei has almost "lived" and "wandered" in more than a dozen cities. In the process of "wandering", although I always look back at my hometown, I always feel that the hometown behind me is getting farther and farther away, and I have an inexplicable feeling of not being able to go back in my spirit. Especially affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, it is even more impossible to let go, which has brought further psychological impact. Therefore, the "Homecoming" intended to return to the hometown spiritually fell to the ground.
After seeing the "world", you can write "hometown" well
Return to "hometown" in order to write the "world" well
From the "Native China Trilogy" to "Homecoming", Ye Wei has been exploring and practicing new vernacular writing.
When the "Native China Trilogy" was published in 2015, Ye Wei put forward the view that "China needs a new kind of vernacular writing" in an interview with China Reading Daily. At the same time, it also emphasizes that new vernacular writing is an open concept. Since 2015, Ye Wei has collected new vernacular novels from all over the country in the name of the Novel Creation and Research Center of Jiangsu Normal University, and has published them continuously in the form of "Novel Exhibition" in the journal "Yuhua Chinese Writers Research" sponsored by the center, which has aroused great repercussions. As new vernacular writing continued to attract attention and became the subject of literature of the year, this writing also became a craze. So, where is the new vernacular writing? How is it different from traditional vernacular writing? People's Daily Overseas Edition distills the new vernacular writing.
First of all, the objects of focus of new vernacular writing are different from those of traditional vernacular writing. Xinxiang vernacular writing focuses on the current Chinese reality, specifically the contemporary Chinese countryside since the reform and opening up, especially since the new century. During this period, some new situations and characteristics emerged in the Chinese countryside, and aspiring and ambitious writers should rediscover and observe them.
Secondly, the creative group of new vernacular writing is different from that of traditional vernacular writing. Writers who are engaged in traditional vernacular writing and are still active in the contemporary literary world are mainly writers born in the 1950s and 1960s, while writers who are interested in writing in the new vernacular are mostly young people born around the 1970s, who have not interrupted their connection with contemporary Chinese rural areas in terms of life experience and spiritual thought, and their writing is increasingly different from that of traditional vernacular writers.
Finally, in terms of writing techniques, new vernacular writing is also significantly different from traditional vernacular writing. Writers engaged in new vernacular writing generally have a relatively complete knowledge structure, and the breadth of their writing and theoretical consciousness are generally high. For example, they proposed and tried the writing method of surrealism, on the one hand, focusing on the close connection with reality, on the other hand, emphasizing the transcendence and dissociation of realism to forge a new path between avant-garde literature and realist literature. This is the inheritance of Chinese vernacular literature, and it is even more transcendent.
An era has an era of literature, and the new vernacular era will inevitably need new vernacular literature. The ancient genes of native China have penetrated deep into the marrow of Chinese, whether you are in the countryside or the city, you can't get rid of the background of the countryside. Our life is rooted in the land under our feet, the singing of the countryside is the praise of the root of life, and the new vernacular writing is the rhythm of life in the depths of the soul. What subject a writer wants to write about is both an active choice and a passive endurance.
As a supplement to the concept of new vernacular writing, Ye Wei said in "Seeing the World, Returning to Hometown": For literary creation, "hometown" and "world" are a dialectical existence. Only by reading the "world" can we write the "hometown"; only by returning to the "hometown" can we write the "world". In other words: only by seeing the world can the writing of returning to the hometown be more confident; only by returning to the hometown can the writing have a universal significance. Only when I return to my hometown do I realize the meaning of the world to the countryside. If there is no new literary vision, no new ideological realm, no new writing methods, it is difficult to call new vernacular writing new. Only with the great compassion of the world and the great sense of humanity can the new vernacular writing transcend the existing rural narrative. Writers must return to their hometown, return to their roots, and start again, so that the emotions of the world can blossom in their own stamp-sized "base area".
In the sense of the world and the countryside, writing about the countryside does not mean rejecting the city. The city is the other side of the countryside. Without the reflection of the city, there is no real countryside. Especially in the countryside, it has been closely linked to the town. The new vernacular writing of the future must be a gradual integration of countryside and city. If the city belongs to avant-garde art, is lively and noisy, is rock music in music, oil painting in fine arts, then the countryside belongs to avant-garde literature, is leisure and quiet, is the folk song minor key in music, and is the brush landscape and freehand in fine art. New vernacular writing, on the other hand, is a collection of the above characteristics.
"Homecoming" is the first part of the "Urban and Rural China Trilogy". At present, Ye Wei is working on the second part of the work. The new works will still focus on the Chinese countryside in the new era and the spiritual growth of the "post-75" generation, as the beginning of their own gradual entry into middle-aged writing. After all, with the passage of time and the gradual aging of age, the spiritual world of Ye Wei's generation of writers has undergone imperceptible "great changes", and writing is also facing a new start.
(Reported by Liu Lanhui, client reporter of Dazhong Daily)