Liang Xiaosheng Guo Hongsong painting
My novel creation can basically be divided into two parts in terms of theme: one part belongs to Zhiqing literature; the other part belongs to the theme of "present".
Because I sorted out some prose essays, I thought of many things in the past, such as New Year goods, cloth tickets, meat tickets, bath tickets, household registration books, toilets, etc. I am very emotional that China has indeed stood up, become rich, and become stronger, and has indeed developed, and the changes are so great that if I do not look back and compare, my impression is not deep enough. Now any table of meals in ordinary restaurants cannot be eaten by northern families during the Spring Festival in the past. At that time, I couldn't see fish and shrimp, eggs and noodles were ticketed, and I didn't eat dim sum for the first time until I went to the countryside. This kind of life was not unique to the most difficult families in the city, but was a common phenomenon at that time. In 1990, I took my first hot shower at home in Beijing. Therefore, I want to tell young people about the past and let them know what China was like in the past. Only by combing through that era can we understand the development and changes of Chinese society.
My father was a third-line construction worker and only returned home every few years. After my two younger brothers and I went to the mountains and went to the countryside, there was still a mother, a younger sister and a mentally ill brother left in the family, all supported by the little brother alone, and I think he bore a lot more family burden than we did. Just as Bingkun was able to write a long list of his wives after he was imprisoned, the relationship between his brother and his co-workers lasted until his death, which was created by the lifestyle of that era. These young people, who remain in the ordinary working families of the city, are almost silent and absent in our literary and art galleries.
Many contemporary writers are born in the countryside and write about rural life, and there are countless good works, such as "Ordinary World", while there are relatively few novels that comprehensively describe the lives of young people at the bottom of the city.
When I was a teenager, I liked to read works with a sense of age, such as "Les Misérables", "War and Peace", "Resurrection", etc., but it was very difficult to create a work with a strong sense of age, and I always felt underprepared. At the age of sixty-seven or eight, I felt that I could write, and I had to write.
I grew up in the city and understood the life of the people at the bottom of the city; I once wrote "Analysis of All Levels of Chinese Society", which is more familiar with the mental journey of intellectuals and literary and artistic circles in the past 50 years; I have also had close contact with old revolutionary cadres. The familiarity of these aspects makes me write without being too confident. I decided to write a novel with a long chronological span, depicting the warmth and coldness of the various classes through the relationship between the characters, and reflecting as widely as possible the development picture of China in the past 50 years from the perspective of the people.
I don't know computers, I can only write by hand, I don't know the title when I write the first page, but I know that I have to write more than 3,000 pages to stop. A friend reminded me, don't write so long, it is best to write two or three hundred thousand words, good pricing, good sales, write so long who buys who out who reads? I said, it's not something I'm thinking about, I just want to accomplish what I want to do.
I am pleased that in the 1.15 million-word "Human World", some of the content is not common in other novels, some of the characters are rare in literary galleries, and some fragments of life are not made up solely by creative experience. They all stem from my writer's unique life accumulation, and they all have distinct personality characteristics.
I often wonder, why do human beings need literature and art? Literature and art are to make our lives richer, but also to let the human heart evolve towards goodness and beauty.
I once wrote an article called "On the Meaning of Good Man Culture", not "good old people", but people who have requirements for their own kindness. There are no bad people in "The World", only mentally abnormal people always do bad things. I always dig out and show the good side of the character in my works. This is also my understanding of literature. The United States made a series of films such as "Schindler's List" and "The Zoo Chief's Wife" that showed the courage of ordinary people during World War II.
In fact, there are many good people in our country, but it seems that the struggle is expressed in literary and artistic works.
Two things irritated me. Once, I went to the home of a foreign friend whose son was watching a Chinese palace fight drama. Friend son asked, why are the characters in the play so bad? The friend replied, don't believe it, people in our country are not like that. Another time, the child of a Chinese friend watched a foreign movie "War Horse". The child said, Mom, these people are so nice. The child's mother said, don't believe it, there are some good people.
What is it that makes us stop believing in good people? In fact, just before the launch of my novel "The World of Man", the noon news reported several good things. One of them is that a bus fell into an ice river, and the crane driver who passed by saw it and started the crane urgently, using superb technology to save the people trapped in the bus one by one. There are many, many such people and things in real life. When I created "The World of Man", I asked myself to show that most people instinctively want to be good people. After the creation is complete, I can say with certainty that no matter what changes occur around me, I can't be a bad person anymore.
Writers are literary animals, and literature itself cannot solve any practical problems, but can only provide some folk living and textured cognitive content. If those who have the confidence, ability, and motivation to solve practical problems occasionally want to indirectly supplement their understanding of the people through literature, and "The World of Man" can play a little such a role, as an author, I am naturally happy. (Liang Xiaosheng)
Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition