The second season of the documentary "But There Are Books" is being broadcast on Station B. Because, like the first season, voiced by actor Hu Ge, this documentary about reading and books is a bit "circle-breaking". We invited Liang Hong, a writer, scholar and professor at the School of Literature at Chinese Min University, to talk about her documentary as one of the interviewees, about the dubbing of Hu Ge, about the fact that celebrities drive book sales, and about the influence of regions on literature and people.
Liang Hong on the documentary "But there are still books" (08:03)
Regarding the documentary "But there are books", what do you think of Hu Ge's voice acting?
I really, really like hu ge's voice because I think there is a particularly gentle inner emotion in his voice. Hu Ge is an actor, his own experience of emotion is particularly good, I also like his movies, the way he performs in the movie, so this time Hu Ge's voice is like hearing a friend talking outside the picture, accompanying me back to Liangzhuang.
But there are books in the second season of the Hu Ge version of the poster
What do you think of celebrities driving literature and driving book sales?
I think it's still very good, because everyone is engaged in different professions, maybe literature itself is not as attractive as film and television stars, but if there are stars who are willing to read books, and are willing to give him/her fans and public recommendations, I think this is a very good interaction. I don't think that film and television stars don't read books, every star or actor especially wants to be able to perform characters well, and should also have a good literary literacy, he likes the direction may be different, but he will definitely like books. So, I don't think of it as a gimmick. I appeal to the stars who really love to read to recommend it without hesitation, because writers, writers, as people in such a profession, they may be engaged in a more introverted writing career, and he needs an interaction. These two can not say that the writer has dipped in the light of the star, or the star has improved his cultural character, in fact, everyone is engaged in the same profession, but our respective directions are not the same. Literature, this way of writing and publishing, may be doomed to not have as much mass influence as film and television, and mutual care and mutual improvement is a very good thing.
Screenshot of the end of the second season of "But There Are Books", in which the publisher Yang Quanqiang is pictured
"But There Are Books" selects three writers, including you, from the northeast, Henan and Fujian, and everyone's writing is related to the region in which they are located, how do you think about the influence of the region on literature? What is the impact on a person?
Whether he admits it or not, a writer who grows up in a place will definitely be influenced by the place, although it is possible that this writer does not write about the place where he grew up, but his character, temperament, and the inner breath of his words will definitely have the feeling of the place where he lived in his early years, like the silence of the northeast, the snow, the cold, like the sense of the central plains in Henan, the sense of desolation and plains, will definitely be presented in the work. For example, when I write about an urban subject, when I want to create characters in it, I will unconsciously be influenced by your early life experience. Therefore, as far as our broad sense of the region is concerned, regionality is a very important feature in literature. There is no need for the writer to avoid this regionality, but sometimes it is not necessary to overemphasize that the writer must be naturally in tune with this place, and when he shapes the subject matter and shapes the character, he may naturally present this. And I think that the more a writer can deeply appreciate the place where he lived in his childhood and adolescence, the more he can appreciate what the field in which he lives is, and perhaps the more life texture and details in his work, the better it is possible to write excellent works. No matter what the subject matter is, even if the subject matter has nothing to do with the region at all, your deep understanding of childhood and adolescent life will be added to your understanding of later life, and superimposed on it will make you more profound and broader.
In fact, my master's and doctoral dissertations are all about regional writing. Just when I was a Doctorate student, it just happened that regional literature and regional culture were very prosperous, including the root-seeking literature of the 1990s and 1980s, and in fact, it also began to pay great attention to regionality. My doctoral dissertation was "Looking at Henan Literature from the Transmutation of Cultural Space in Other Provinces", and one of the very important points is that Henan, as a very important place in the Central Plains culture, how it affects the survival of this place, a certain life experience of this place, and the direction of writers' writing. In the process of research, you will find that the so-called culture, locality, such as how to eat, how to speak, how to act, has invisibly shaped the unconscious part of a person. This is where culture comes from. What is culture? Culture is the unconscious character, and this unconscious comes from thousands of years, your mother, your grandfather, your family, your friends around you, all of which have done this, and finally formed a ritual, a state of culture. Therefore, regionality is rooted in the depths of a writer's soul.
Stills from the second season of "But There Are Books", by Bao Huiyi, a young writer and associate professor of the English Department of Fudan University
And Chinese literature, because of its particularly vast territory, is completely different from the south and the north, the northeast and the northwest. For example, the works of Jia Pingwo and Yu Hua, such as the works of Xiao Hong and Zhang Ailing, who were a little earlier, are really very different. Can Xiao Hong write Zhang Ailing's "Agarwood Crumbs • First Burning Incense"? She couldn't write it. Conversely, can Zhang Ailing come out of Xiao Hong's "Field of Life and Death" and "The Legend of Hulan River"? Again, she couldn't write it. The first page of the first chapter of the "Biography of Hulan River" is written that the earth is frozen, the ground is cracked, and then how people walk, what things are frozen, and finally enter a specific state of life, which is a very natural description for Xiao Hong, because it is the northeast, which is related to her living environment. Let's look at Zhang Ailing, most of her metaphors are indoors to compare the outdoors, because she is a child growing up in the city, it is also unconscious for her, and her attention to those interiors, such as a celadon vase, such as dressing, may be far greater than her concern for nature. So, I think this is the place where you live unconsciously affects your temperament, the characteristics of your observation of things. Let's look at the writers in Henan, such as Liu Zhenyun, Liu Qingbang, and Li Peifu, are all very famous writers, and the plain characteristics in their novels are brought to the writers by the traces of nature year after year, because we know that Henan is a place with special four distinct seasons. And, of course, the way of everyday life. Therefore, like Li Peifu wrote "The Door of the Sheep", Liu Zhenyun wrote "A Place of Chicken Feathers", it is very natural. Think about southern writers, like Bi Feiyu and Ge Fei, whose temperament in their novels is completely different. There is no distinction between high and low, but it is said that the temperament of the land in which they live naturally affects the temperament of the work, it is like a plant growing in the earth, growing this plant in this land, growing that kind of plant in that land. That is to say, the genes of culture are consistent with the state of nature and the way you have lived as a nation for thousands of years.
For myself, I am actually very fortunate to have such a distinct, self-aware village. But in the new round, some people grow up from the city, which is also a kind of region, a region in the general sense, such as the city of Beijing and the city of Shanghai are also different. If you are a writer in Shanghai, you can write about this place in Shanghai as your region and as your living space. In this sense, you will naturally bring the place to life, and your work will naturally have a living background. In fact, this is also a source of regionality.
Liang Hong's "Liang Zhuang" series