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"Because I didn't know much Chinese characters, later critics praised me for being concise."
In "Readers", Dong Qing was amused by Yu Hua's words on the other side. When the other party spoke, the paragraphs continued one after another, refreshing the audience's original impression of him.
The crowd began to wonder: Is this really the serious literary writer Yu Hua? This is simply a scribbler who has been delayed by writing.
Speaking of the writer Yu Hua, people who have read his books know that whether it is Fugui in "Alive" or Xu Sanguan in "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood", each protagonist is a combination of suffering.
In Yu Hua's pen, suffering is rendered in the slightest. For this reason, he was called "the cruelest writer".
Why does a person who talks funny and humorous become a writer who writes a history of suffering in the world?
From his growth story, we can glimpse one or two.
01 Children who have taken a nap in the morgue
Not a child born with a golden spoon, but with a different experience.
In 1960, Yu Hua was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, to parents who were doctors, and can be said to be an enviable "dual-worker" family. Later, due to his father's job transfer, Xiao Yuhua, who was only 3 years old, followed his parents to Haiyan City, Zhejiang Province.
In this place where there was not even a bicycle at that time, Xiao Yuhua began a different childhood.
The childhood of other children, parents love, laughter, colorful, Yu Hua's childhood, is a knife light and blood shadow, crying, black and white intertwined.
At that time, the hospital was Yu Hua's home. This is the house, opposite is the surgical room. Even to go to the toilet, you have to go through the eerie morgue.
Because her parents were busy with work, young Yu Hua often shuttled through the hospital. While his father was working, he often sneaked into the operating room.
Xiao Yuhua saw his father holding a dangling scalpel to operate on the patient, and the bright red liquid was left behind, and he did not feel afraid until he was expelled from the surgical room by his father.
Day is bloody, night is crying.
Every time she slept until the middle of the night, Yu Hua would be awakened by a miserable cry. That cry was full of the sadness of the death of a loved one, and after listening to it more times, Yu Hua actually heard the difference of each cry.
In the hospital, there is a place that everyone avoids, but Yu Hua has a special love for it.
That's the morgue. At that time, the morgue was a very wide cement bed. For Xiao Yuhua, it is undoubtedly the most comfortable place in the summer.
On a hot summer afternoon, Xiao Yuhua was too hot to eat, so he secretly ran to the cement bed in the morgue and slept a beautiful nap.
In this way, blood, crying, and morgue ran through Yu Hua's entire childhood, and at a young age, he felt death early and looked down on life and death, but what he couldn't see was that the light of fate was quietly growing up with him.
02 Students fascinated by watching The Selected Works of Mao Zedong
As soon as childhood is over, the student years follow.
In the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, it was an era without books, and all the literary works published before the Cultural Revolution were destroyed, leaving only the works of Lu Xun.
One summer when Yu Hua was about to enter junior high school, the county library that closed its doors during the Cultural Revolution reopened, and Yu Hua's father gave Yu Hua and his brothers a library card.
The literary works in the library are all revolutionary and counter-revolutionary struggle themes, which are very boring. But one or two of the story books, Yu Hua still read with relish.
However, due to the confiscation of the library card later, there was no book to read, but Yu Hua was anxious. He began to search around for books. Yu Hua found that there were books on the shelves in his parents' room, but in addition to the professional books on medicine, it was the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong".
He was not interested in either, but after searching for it, Yu Hua was defeated and could only choose to watch the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong".
But at a glance, Yu Hua discovered a new continent. The annotations in the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" are particularly beautiful, with stories, events, characters, and the introduction of various historical figures, which makes Yu Hua fascinated at once, and he holds the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" every day with relish.
In high school, Yu Hua began to read some novels, which were secretly preserved in the early days of the Cultural Revolution. After many people's hands, the book is missing pages and fewer codes, a story, inexplicably without a beginning, nor an end. It is acceptable to have no beginning, but without the story of the ending, Yu Huawan can't stand it.
What to do? It's all on your own.
Every night in bed, Yu Hua began to make up the end of the story by herself, making up one that she felt dissatisfied with, and then a second one until she was satisfied.
At this time, he did not know that the storytelling ability he had cultivated at this time had actually boosted the road ahead.
03 Decided to abandon the doctor congwen stunned
In 1977, the Cultural Revolution ended, and Yu Hua took the college entrance examination twice, both of which failed.
In desperation, Yu Huazi inherited his father's business and became a doctor, but unlike his father, a surgeon, he became a dentist. The daily task is to help others extract their teeth.
On the first day of work, the old doctor let Yu Hua see his operation and directly let him get started. At that time, Yu Hua was confused. Although I don't have a score in my heart, I still have a hard scalp.
At that time, the teeth were all old farmers, the teeth were rotten, the first old tooth was successfully pulled out by Yu Hua, there was a second, a third, just like this, Yu Hua changed from a novice to an old fritter, and life was okay.
At that time, the Cultural Revolution had just ended, and the going to the countryside by Zhiqing had been canceled, and some of Yu Hua's classmates went to factories and some went to department stores. In the eyes of others, dentist work like Yu Hua is already very decent.
But Yu Hua's idea is different.
After pulling out her teeth for several years, Yu Hua felt more and more that staring at other people's mouths all day was the most scenic place in the world.
Sometimes he stared at the scenery outside the window, thinking about life that could be seen at a glance, and he felt a little tired. A thought popped into his mind: No, he couldn't live his life like this.
At this moment, Yu Hua met someone who changed his destiny.
One day, when Yu Hua was leaning against the window alone, he suddenly found that there were several people wandering around on the opposite street, and he felt very curious, so he asked about it, only to learn that they were people from the cultural center, and it was a daily job to walk around the street.
Yu Hua instantly felt that the Heavenly Dao was unfair, and it was also going to work, why were they so relaxed? No, I have to be like them. Suddenly, Yu Hua had the idea of working in the cultural center.
But at that time, if you wanted to work in the cultural center, you had to have some hard skill, either singing and dancing, or drawing, or writing.
Yu Hua can't sing and dance, and he can't draw, so he only has one option left, writing. But Yu Hua couldn't write either, he thought to himself, he was also a person who knew thousands of words, and he could learn it.
With the determination to enter the cultural center, he helped others to extract teeth during the day and learned to write novels at night.
Easier said than done, Yu Hua had no idea how to write a novel. He gritted his teeth, found a short story, and began to study it himself. How to change paragraphs in the novel, how to organize the language, so slowly groped and wrote.
It is said that the newborn calf is not afraid of tigers, and Yu Hua, who wrote for the first time, has the confidence of a fan, as long as he writes a good article, he will mail it to large magazines such as "People's Literature" and "Harvest", but he is rejected every time.
At that time, as long as the postman saw Yu Hua's letter, he threw it directly into the courtyard from outside the wall, and later, as long as he heard a click, Yu Hua knew that the rejection was coming.
At that time, Yu Hua's strong psychological quality did not know where it came from. When he received the rejection, he was only slightly disappointed, so he opened the letter to see which one rejected the manuscript, and then found a magazine mailing that was lower than its requirements.
Rejected, re-voted, rejected, re-voted.
In 1982, literary magazines, such as "Shanghai Literature" and "Harvest", had a circulation of hundreds of thousands of copies, and the magazines placed in the newsstands on the street at that time were all literary, and there were almost no other magazines.
Yu Hua reads novels published in magazines while writing her own novels. He believed that the novels published in famous magazines were no better than those written by himself, but they could all be published, and in unsung magazines, his own works could not be published, and he could not help but feel a little indignant.
At that time, Yu Hua's colleagues all knew that he was writing, and advised Yu Hua in the tone of a person who came over: Don't think about what literature you like, it is a pipe dream.
But Yu Hua, as if he hadn't heard it, continued to write, continued to submit, continued to be rejected, and then submitted, and the more frustrated he became, the more courageous he became, and this situation lasted for five years.
Time is not afraid of anything, only those who work hard.
One night in November 1983, when Yu Hua was about to leave work, he suddenly received an unexpected phone call. On the phone, someone told him that the manuscript he had written needed to be changed, and asked him to go to Beijing to revise it.
At that moment, the effort finally paid off. Yu Hua became the first person to go to Beijing to revise the draft, and was also transferred to the Cultural Center as he wished.
Supposedly, the next step is already smooth sailing, but in fact, everything has just begun.
04 Two life coaches
When Yu Hua first entered the cultural center, he was only 23 years old, and in the eyes of the predecessors of the cultural center, he was just a small hairy child.
At that time, pen meetings were often held in the cultural center, and at the pen meeting, most of the old writers had experienced the Cultural Revolution and had rich experiences. In front of Yu Hua, he talked about his experience, full of ostentatious tone.
They had asserted at the time that a writer like Yu Hua, who had only been a dentist for five years and had no social experience, had no success. Between the words, there is a lot of irony.
While admiring their experiences, Yu Hua paid no attention to their ridicule and continued to concentrate on his own literary creation.
In his slow exploration, he published the short story "Stars" in Beijing Literature, followed by Yu Hua published several novels, but it was tepid in the whole country and did not have any impact.
At this time, he was not satisfied with the status quo, but also felt an unprecedented crisis.
A few years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, China's scar literature was in the ascendant, and most of the creators' works were related to scars.
One day, Yu Hua was excited. He met his first mentor, the writer Yasunari Kawabata.
The first time Yu Hua read Yasunari Kawabata's works, he was fascinated. He did not expect that in addition to the accusation, the wound had another way of expression.
Yasunari Kawabata's depiction of details made Yu Hua crazy. All of Kawabata's novels published in China were bought and read. Sometimes, he was so obsessed that he bought two copies of the same book, one for reading and one for treasure.
At the same time, Yu Hua began to imitate Yasunari Kawabata's writing style, and he learned how to express the details and write the pain quietly.
But with the deepening of imitation, Yu Hua began to feel that his novels were getting worse and worse, the more difficult it was to write down, and the more he wrote, the more he didn't know how he should write. It was as if he had fallen into a trap, wandering around looking for an opportunity to escape.
As if hearing his cry for help, the savior appeared.
Once, Yu Hua was in a bookstore with a friend in Hangzhou and saw a copy of Kafka's Selected Novels. At that time, the books in the bookstore were only printed once, and there was no next shop in this village. Kafka's novel happened to be the last one, Yu Hua's friend bought the book first, Yu Hua also wanted, and constantly persuaded his friends to give the book to him. The friend said he wouldn't say anything.
After a night of non-stop grinding, Yu Hua finally got his wish, and he exchanged "Kafka's Selected Novels" with his friends with "War and Peace".
The night he opened Kafka's Selected Novels, he lost sleep. The profoundness and free writing of Kafka's novels deeply shocked Yu Hua and completely liberated him from the trap.
From Kafka, Yu Hua not only gained the idea of freedom of writing, but more importantly, the entire worldview was also changed.
In this regard, under the guidance of Kafka, Yu Hua opened up the vein of literature, began to write fearlessly, and became one of the representative writers of avant-garde novels after publishing the short story "Eighteen Years Old And Far Away".
Li Tuo, who was in charge of Beijing Literature at the time, after reading Yu Hua's "Eighteen-year-old Going Out for a Long Trip", excitedly said to Yu Hua: "You have now come to the forefront of Chinese literature. ”
Such a simple evaluation gave Yu Hua enough self-confidence and established his new creative path.
05 Highlight hours and dark moments
Life is a highlight moment interspersed with a dark moment.
In 1987, in order to pursue better development, Yu Huabei went on to study, and at the Lu Xun Literature College, he made lifelong friends and also met the love of this world.
During his studies at Lu Xun Academy of Literature, Yu Hua met a group of classmates with the same literary dreams, Liu Yiran, Su Tong, Mo Yan...
Coincidentally, he and Mo Yan shared a dormitory. The two of them wrote in the same window, feeling sorry for each other, the bed was only one meter apart, and the rustle of writing on the pen on the paper could be clearly heard from each other.
At this time, Yu Hua also met her classmate Chen Hong, and when they first met, she had a long black hair, and the unspeakable beauty suddenly hit Yu Hua's heart.
Through chatting, Yu Hua knew that Chen Hong not only wrote poetry, but also was also a screenwriter and had a crush on her. Chen Hong also appreciates Yu Hua very much, and she believes that Yu Hua is a talented person who will definitely make a difference in the future. The two have the same hobbies and interests, so that the two hearts get closer and closer, becoming confidants.
Accompanied by friends and confidants, in 1991, Yu Hua published his first novel, Shouting in the Drizzle.
For this novel, Yu Hua was awarded the French Medal of Arts and Literature, the highest honor awarded by the French government to the literary and artistic circles.
At this time, Yu Hua began to have some fame. But in order to go further, he simply resigned and moved to Beijing.
In the days in Beijing, for a long time without a job, there was no money on his body, Yu Hua could only rent a basement of only 9 square meters, and his life was extremely poor and depressed. To make ends meet, he began writing scripts for serials, whatever genre, and for two years.
Seeing Yu Hua's situation, Chen Hong not only did not abandon it, but also ran over to take care of Yu Hua's diet and living. She always firmly believes that one day, Yu Hua will become a blockbuster and become a literary master.
Later, the lovers finally became dependents, and the two married and huddled together in the basement of only 9 square meters.
With the companionship and care of Chen Hong, Yu Hua put all her energy into creation and wrote novels wholeheartedly.
Even the best writers will have a time when their literary thoughts are exhausted, and when they can't write without inspiration, Yu Hua's temper becomes very grumpy, and Chen Hong patiently comforts him on the side.
Once, Yu Hua accidentally heard an American country folk song "Old Black Slave", and the spirit of not bowing to fate in the song deeply infected Yu Hua. He suddenly had an idea: Why not write a novel about a Chinese peasant?
Ideas are beautiful, reality is harsh. The process of writing the novel was not very smooth, writing and writing, when it reached 10,000 words, Yu Hua found that he could not continue to write, and he began to walk around the house anxiously, even shouting.
After Chen Hong saw it, she walked over to read the manuscript he had written, reassured him and suggested: "Since the third person can't be written, why not try the first person?" This may be a better sense of substitution. ”
After Chen Hong mentioned this, Yu Hua realized that he had never tried first-person writing before.
So he switched to the first person, overturning the full rewrite. In the process of writing, Yu Hua almost wrote while crying, and he could not control his emotions at all.
After a year, the novel "Alive" finally ended.
"Alive" was released, a sensation for a time, quickly occupied the country's major bookstores, and won the highest award in Italian literature - the Grizzana Carver Literary Award, the third world literature "Ice Heart Literature Award" and many other awards.
At this point, Yu Hua became famous in the First World War, laying the foundation for the status of China's contemporary literary scene.
People who have become famous since ancient times, there are flowers and curses.
Those who love Yu Hua, praise him for replacing the knife with a pen, carving out the suffering of the world, and can be regarded as China's "Charles Dickens".
Critics of Yu Hua first said that he was too slow to write a book, taking as little as five years and ten years, and the latest "Wencheng" took 21 years.
Again, his writing style has changed drastically, and it is not as good as before.
It is true that he is slow to write books, but he is slow to produce a series of fine works.
His style of writing has changed greatly because he has been exploring progress in line with the footsteps of the times.
Being ridiculed as a thing can't be done, but it took years to insist on writing a series of gods to fight back.
He studied novels for most of his life, wrote most of his life, and still writes today.
Yu Hua is telling us that in this life, people must stick to their hearts, not be depressed by blows, and not be lost by applause. One day, you will reap the results you want.
In this life, it is cool to stick to one thing to the end and do it to the extreme. What do you think?
-END-
Author: Xi Zhou, a woman who regards words as a lifelong love, Xiao Wei is an annual student of the Academy of Reading and Growth.
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