Li Yunlei's novel collection "The Silent Man": Faithful to what you feel

I once wrote an article about continuous writing to the effect that our generation of writers, caught up with an era of peace and stability, was in a position to write longer. So, how do you do it without interrupting your writing? I remember talking about five points. One of the most important points, and the point of view that comes first, is to always approach writing with a learning attitude. The process of writing is the process of continuous learning, and if you write for a lifetime, you have to learn for a lifetime. The attitude of learning that I speak of includes learning from life, learning from books, learning from peers, and learning from young writers. Some older writers, presumably out of self-esteem, are reluctant to admit that they should learn from young writers. For the works of young writers, they also read and study behind their backs, but when they say it in public, they often say hey, small print! I'm not too old, I'm close to being rare, but I'm willing to admit that I've been learning from generations of young writers. The back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave, which is not only the law of water, but also the law of iron. No matter how big the front wave is, how high the wave is, it will eventually be replaced by the back wave. The young "houlang" are always more vigorous and sharp, plus most of them have a good formal education, have a better education, and are more open-minded, which is indeed worthy of our study. This concentrated reading of the works in Li Yunlei's novel collection "The Silent Man" was an opportunity for me to learn. Through reading, I not only got a beautiful artistic enjoyment, but also awakened a lot of sleeping memories and stimulated a lot of writing ideas. During this period, because I returned to my hometown before the Qingming Festival, I needed to self-isolate for two weeks after returning to Beijing. Well, well, after writing, I can just read novels. Outside the window, the peach blossoms bloomed begonias, the cloves bloomed peonies, and I immersed myself in Li Yunlei's novels every day, reading a little forgetfully, and seemed to gain spiritual strength from them.

Before I concentrated on reading Li Yunlei's novel, I still had some doubts. I know that Li Yunlei is a literary critic who has made considerable achievements in literary criticism and has been widely recognized by the industry. Writing reviews and writing novels are two different things, it can be said that two brains are on duty separately, thinking differently. Comments are rational, mainly logical thinking, and require a lot of theoretical resources to support. Novels are born from feelings, mainly image thinking, and can be written without knowing much literary theory. As an author of novels, I have great admiration for literary critics, so many abstract and ethereal things, they can grasp it, and once they write it, they are black and pressed, one set after another, so that people can't see the edge at a glance. When I was asked to write something like a critical essay, I was always scratching my head and didn't know where to start. Sometimes I have to write some creative talk and other words, and I always write very hard, either to be caught in the box, or to see the elbow, cramped and unconcerned. I wonder if it's a little hard for critics to write novels? Critics read a lot, their eyes are picky, they know too well what a good novel is, and they know too well what a generalized novel is, and once they start writing a novel, they are of course written according to the standards of a good novel, almost to write a model. Critics have an advantage in rationality, will they use their strengths to write novels more esotericly? Influenced by the trend of Western literature, some novel creations on the mainland have indeed appeared in the situation where rationality is greater than sensibility and form is greater than content, taking playing with flowers and making things up for themselves, taking the vanguard as the vanguard, and blinding the reader enough. However, novels are very naughty, and each novel has its own personality and is not so good to serve. If you understand the theory of the novel, you may not be able to write the novel well. As a critic who is quite accomplished in literary theory, how is Li Yunlei's novel written? Does he also attach more importance to reason? Isn't his novel also difficult to understand? When I read his novel after novel, my feeling is that I am happy to add joy to the top, joy to appreciate, appreciation to the top and then to the end. Li Yunlei's novels are all based on the self, writing about the life and feelings that he is familiar with. Wildflowers everywhere in the spring, rolling wheat waves in the summer, melons and fruits in the autumn, and heavy snow in the winter, Li Yunlei presents us one by one with the gaze of a teenager riding a bicycle through the fields. The content of this collection of novels is coherent and coherent, and it is also possible to say that it is a long novel. Also from the perspective of a rural teenager, the novel depicts many rural characters that are about to come out. Among those characters are the father, mother, uncle, uncle, sister and other close relatives of the teenager, as well as the village's eldest bride, aunt, cousin, cousin and childhood friends. Li Yunlei is very faithful to what he remembers and feels, so faithful that he is even a little plain, which reminds people of prose and tradition. It is this way of writing that makes me feel kind, intimate and interesting to read. Li Yunlei's writing attitude is sincere, he seems to have forgotten his identity as a critic, or deliberately put the matter of commenting behind his mind, feel that there are feelings to express, have words in his heart to say to his friends, and sincerely and gently write novels. His novels are not at all laid out, not pretended at all, and through the novels reveal the generous nature of a writer.

There are many criteria for judging a good novel, in addition to seeing whether the novel can cause empathy, resonance, and resonance of readers, there is also a criterion, that is, to see whether the novel is an inspiring thing. I remember saying elsewhere before that good fiction has a common feature, it is not just a story, not just appreciation, not just finishing reading, it is still an inducing thing, or an exciting thing. It is the memory that stimulates memory, the imagination that stimulates imagination, the language that stimulates language. We are looking at a certain novel in our hands, looking at it, unconsciously a little stunned, a little distracted, that is probably inspired by the text of the novel, and the thoughts fly into their own memory. Reading Li Yunlei's novel is like this, between reading, there are several articles that have stimulated my memory and reminded me of my past. For example, reading about his campus life in middle school, I think of my own campus life. I was admitted to the town's middle school in the mid-1960s, shortly after the three-year famine, and my classmates were very poor. Some students can't even tie their belts at the waistband of their pants, so they can only use flowery cloth strips instead. The school asked us to start brushing our teeth, we bought the cheapest toothbrush, but we couldn't afford toothpaste, so we had to brush our teeth with a little salt. When he wrote about college, he took a leave of absence to go back to his hometown to help his parents cut wheat, and I remembered that one year when the wheat harvest was harvested, in order to avoid the heavy labor of wheat harvesting, I asked to be on duty at school. As a result, I was the only one left on the empty campus, which made me feel very lonely and bored, and there was some guilt. For example, the story of going to my sister's house to visit relatives reminds me of the experience of going to my aunt's house many times when I was a child, and some experiences are unforgettable and can be written into novels. Perhaps inspired by Li Yunlei's novels, I can really explore materials from the memories of my youth and write some novels.

There is no end to learning, no end to writing. Li Yunlei's novel, if the choice of light points is more concentrated, the narrative is more spiritual, the details are written more subtle, and the language is more personalized, it will be better.