Forty years, from 1982 to the present, Cheng Yongxin has always been a mirror of Chinese literature. He launched the "Pioneer Special" written into the history of literature, and published such masterpieces as "Alive" and "Flocks of Wives and Concubines", and he and his writer friends enthusiastically discussed all aspects of novel writing.
In fact, Cheng Yongxin also writes novels. His "Snow Everywhere" is "an unquestionable masterpiece" in Ma Yuan's eyes, and his "Aunt in a Cheongsam" was described by Yu Hua as "concise and broad", but later wrote less and less, and gradually entered a state of suspension.
Until the Spring Festival of 2020, in the sudden blank days, he began to write novels again. In March this year, Cheng Yongxin's latest collection of novels, "If Only the First Sight", was published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House. This book includes five novels with different themes and styles, including genre novels that integrate history and martial arts, double-line stories full of suspense, emotional outpouring of youth, and sentimental pursuit of the times...
Four of them are new or rewritten, and one is a revised old work, Mahjong World. Recently, after a "Mileage Literature Open Classroom" with college students, Cheng Yongxin was interviewed by the surging news reporter on the new portfolio.
In the interview, he talked about his state of restarting his novel after many years, his understanding of fiction, and his pursuit of the beauty of art and life.
Not only that, he also talked about the observation and reflection of the past four decades in the literary scene, the qualities he sees as a good literary editor, and how he views the current youth writing and the future of Chinese literature.
【Dialogue】
Strangely enough, stories often come to haunt you
The Paper: As a senior literary editor, you have always had a unique aesthetic and judgment of novels, but after many years of writing novels, will this process be more difficult?
Cheng Yongxin: I belong to the kind of person who is particularly lazy, of course, objectively it is indeed busy, there are endless manuscripts, professional editors in this life is to keep looking at things, after watching more, they have also developed a "high-handed master", it is easy to be dissatisfied when I write, I feel that this is not satisfied, that is not satisfied. The epidemic in 2020, it is boring at home, I just want to have such an opportunity, I will write it out first, and finally make up my mind to write out the stories in my heart. Because many scenes and plots have been thought about many times, this time it is still relatively smooth when it is really written, and it almost comes out like this.
The Paper: The first new one is "My Chiang Mai, My Teresa Teng". Remember how you felt when you first wrote this novel? Will you feel that the "feeling of writing a novel" is back?
Cheng Yongxin: After writing it, I was definitely quite excited. Teresa Teng's influence on our generation is too great, and this novel is written as an account for itself and an account for an era. I immediately sent it to some friends to see, and I also got some recognition, and I felt that the more late things that were unresolved in my heart should be expressed. In fact, this story of going to Chiang Mai to pursue Teresa Teresa has been brewing for a long time, and I went to Chiang Mai myself in 2014. Strangely enough, stories often come to haunt you. You'll think of those stories on all sorts of occasions, and they'll come to you.
The Paper: Can you elaborate on the unresolved and relatively late things?
Cheng Yongxin: In the era when Teresa Teng influenced us, we went from being relatively closed to the early stage of reform and opening up, economic activities began to be frequent, and life underwent earth-shaking changes. In such a change, Teresa's singing voice is an enlightenment for us. I wanted to present her music, her people, her legends, which touched on all sorts of issues, including ethics, emotions, and remembrance of the times, and so on.
In Tibet, Cheng Yongxin (center) with Ge Fei and his wife and two donkey friends
The Paper: You said that this novel is to give yourself an explanation, to an era, and this explanation mainly points to the inner world and the spiritual world at that time?
Cheng Yongxin: Right. It seems to me that the novelist's highest task is to present the spiritual world of an age. We can compare with genre literature, which has its strengths, such as science fiction literature about the future, about the collision of technology and life, and traditional literature can retain the past, especially the past of our spiritual life. Why do we have literature? Literature actually cannot solve material problems, but the most fundamental pursuit of Chinese writers is to explore and present the spiritual world of people, including the relationship between people and others, people and self, people and nature, people and the world, and many other aspects, which is what literature has to face.
The Paper: The small labels of these novels are very careful, especially the revision of "Mahjong World", a major point is that the seven chapters are presented in the form of "east, south, west, north, middle, hair, and white", which should carry some of your ideas and pursuits for the structure of the novel. Was this also influenced by avant-garde literature of the 1980s?
Cheng Yongxin: In any case, the spirit of avant-garde literature still has a great influence on people like me, and I will feel that the perfect structure, architectural-like form is very important. In fact, for avant-garde literature, my personal understanding is even bigger. After the reform and opening up, our translators have introduced a large number of foreign literary works, and the contributions of these translators to Chinese literature cannot be overestimated. It is their introduction that allows Chinese writers to absorb a variety of nutrients, calcium deficiency calcium supplementation, selenium deficiency selenium supplementation, all to make up, the whole child's development. On this basis, we have avant-garde literature.
The emergence of avant-garde literature is a landmark event that marks the first time that Chinese writers have truly pondered why literary works need to be ideological and artistic. Ideologically, it is necessary to have a philosophical height, and from an artistic point of view, it is necessary to integrate metaphysical thinking about the relationship between literary works and people, the relationship with the world, and the relationship with the land of China.
Why did the Chinese writers who wrote during that period have such a great influence later? Speaking of which, root-seeking literature may have forgotten, but avant-garde literature cannot be forgotten, and it has continued the exploration of literary forms. At that time, between 1985 and the 1990s, it was the period when the imagination and creativity of Chinese writers really exploded, and the most representative were Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Ge Fei. We used to chat all night, talking about novels day and night.
However, although avant-garde literature is avant-garde and avant-garde in its exploration of form, it also has problems, that is, it is not very grounded, and it is not so closely related to real life. Then there is a group of people who all write a type of novel, the same, and eventually they will be abandoned by everyone. Yu Hua immediately wrote "Alive" and returned to realism, of course, his realism is different from the realism we have read in the past.
Later, Li Er, Bi Feiyu, Dong Xi, Lin Bai... This group of people came out, they portrayed human nature, presented people's spiritual life and spiritual world. But their writing has also absorbed the nutrition of avant-garde literature, or participated in avant-garde literature. In fact, their wave of people are all in the same vein.
The Paper: Do you think this vein has been passed down to us today?
Cheng Yongxin: Today, in fact, it is already "sneaking into the night with the wind, and the moisturizer is silent". I believe that when every writer writes, there are actually words that once shone there. If you think about Lindbergh's recent long story "North Stream", there are some elements of stream-of-consciousness novels, sometimes like a person's self-narrated dialogue, and her part about emotional interaction is also well written, the sense of form is very strong, and there are also avant-garde novels in it.
The pursuit of "beauty" is everywhere
The Paper: The Shape of the Wind in this book is actually a rewrite of the old work "Shadow of the Wind" from more than thirty years ago, does it mean that your understanding of the novel has undergone some changes?
Cheng Yongxin: Yes, in fact, the changes are still quite large, and rewriting this article is indeed based on my new understanding of the novel. When I first wrote "Shadow of the Wind" (in the 1980s), I was writing about a somewhat suspenseful atmosphere, thinking more about the more mysterious or metaphysical imagination, highlighting such a feeling. This is also related to the experimental nature of Chinese novels at that time, which not only inherited traditional Chinese classical novels, but also hoped to learn from the excellent works of the Western world. Now that I have rewritten this novel, I have joined the line of writer Du Yimin, who has fallen in love with the object of her care during the "Cultural Revolution", and the situation of life has increased, not exactly the original metaphysical pursuit. So Mirin and Du Yimin have two lines, two stories, combined into one, and I hope that the new novel as a whole can have a three-dimensional sense, a kind of architectural beauty.
The Paper: I feel that you have always pursued "beauty", architectural beauty, picture sense, musical rhythm... You'll put your own understanding of art into the novel.
Cheng Yongxin: Yes, this is my original starting point, whether I can do a good job for readers to judge.
The Paper: Music also always appears in your novels, such as "If Only the First Sight", "Mahjong World", "My Chiang Mai, My Teresa Teresa", these are all there.
Cheng Yongxin: I especially like classical music. You will find that all the things we are not satisfied with literary works are compared to music, painting, architecture, these are the art categories. We used to be dissatisfied with some works of literature because they were too unarticial. Recently, there is a relatively popular drama "The World of Man", the director is good, the actors are good, the picture is good, these can sublimate the original work, sublimate the artistry of the work.
The Paper: What are your artistic preferences?
Cheng Yongxin: My interests in art are still relatively broad, music, painting, drama, and so on. Until the reform and opening up, especially after the restoration of the college entrance examination system, we walked into the university like entering heaven, and the artistic influence of drama, poetry, painting, music and other aspects can be said to be "evil supplements".
At that time, I was very fascinated by Western drama, and after reading through the important representative works of the West, I felt that drama and poetry were the two most advanced categories in the literary style. Then there was music, and then the school would invite some people who had studied music from outside to do activities and give lectures, and the whole hall was always crowded, and the aisles were crowded. You'll see how fanatical people are about the "make-up lessons" of art. I think our love of art from the reform and opening up in the 1980s has deeply influenced our novel writing.
The Paper: What kind of art do you think is good art? We say that the post-blank frenzy may also bring to the other extreme, what understanding of art have you precipitated over the years?
Cheng Yongxin: I think good art must have some elements: for example, it can carry philosophical thinking, art and philosophy always have a very close relationship, and any form of art is guided and nourished by philosophy to have the possibility of moving forward; for example, it can express the noble quality of the human spiritual field.
Why do we need art? It is hoped that through some ways, the noble qualities of human beings will be touched; and each art discipline also has its own special pursuits. For example, for literature, language is very important, it should be accurate, beautiful, fluent, and it should be unparalleled, that is, very personal, and it is really difficult to do this.
Yu Hua said that literary language should be accurate, expressing an event, portraying a character, describing a detail, telling a scene, accuracy is indeed the first element. On the basis of accuracy, I also prefer the artistic text, that is, the same sentence, but can bring an atmosphere, an emotion to the whole scene.
In 2003, Cheng Yongxin and Cheng Baoyi were in Paris
The Paper: What about painting?
Cheng Yongxin: I am also interested in painting, from my youth to the present, I have always paid great attention to the art of painting. Painting also expresses the painter's view of the world, his view of life. If I go to Paris, I will definitely go to see art exhibitions, exhibition halls, and art galleries, and I think painting has something in common with music and literature, such as people's aesthetic ability and ability to perceive beauty. Sometimes beauty is expressed through ugliness, which is modern art.
In fact, people's understanding of beauty has also been developing, and Mr. Li Zehou, who died last year, also said this in "The Course of Beauty", but he is more traditional, which is an exposition in the traditional sense. In my opinion, the development of beauty, or the process of aesthetics, is more complex, especially like Western artists who have a very close relationship with philosophy.
In this regard, after China's reform and opening up, a number of outstanding painters have also emerged, some painting figures, some exploring in form, and also have a very long process.
But overall, I don't think we have as much a relationship with philosophy as we do in the West. It should be said that the painters of ancient China had a closer relationship with Taoist and Confucian philosophy, but the May Fourth Movement smashed all the traditional things, of course, some old things were broken, but also some things that should be preserved were thrown away. Our modern art, our view of the world, our view of life, and our view of the nature of man, they are not so closely related to philosophy, which is our weaker aspect.
The Paper: Who are the artists you admire?
Cheng Yongxin: Like Picasso in Spain, he has a "blue period", "a pink period"... In fact, they are very close to the exploration of human existence in European philosophy at that time. There were also Impressionist painters who influenced how we look at the real world. Impressionist paintings make light and shadow extremely beautiful, so that you can see a fluorescent and shining world, see the natural beauty in the spiritual world, so it is also related to philosophy. In fact, our gaze, our perception, these are all related to philosophy.
In 2003, Cheng Yongxin was at Zhu Dequn's house in Paris
The Paper: You also like philosophy, right?
Cheng Yongxin: I have seen some of them before college, but after I went to college, I paid more attention to it. For example, Tronström's poetry is philosophy, and his metaphors and metaphors are very difficult to understand, but if you understand the philosophical guidance behind him and know his philosophical meaning, his poetry is very easy to understand. If you don't have that, you don't know what he's writing about. All modern art is actually under the guidance of philosophy and has a close relationship with philosophical trends.
The Paper: How would you understand everyday life? I feel like you have your own attitude towards dressing style on a daily basis.
Cheng Yongxin: In fact, in daily life, each of us will have an understanding of beauty, which is a state of life and an atmosphere of freedom. We talk about "freedom and uselessness" in Fudan, and I didn't quite understand this school motto before, but then I slowly understood that this is a very profound generalization. Our pursuit of freedom, our pursuit of beauty, really needs a breath, and this breath is particularly relevant to our daily lives.
When I was in college, I also had close contact with European students, and their understanding and thinking about life runs through all aspects of life, such as a French classmate who thinks that cooking is to be good. He admired Chinese Sichuan cuisine, saying that there are only two countries in the world that can make their dishes so beautiful and delicious, that is, China and France, which is the understanding of the French. The interest and atmosphere of life really permeate all aspects, depending on how you live and how to understand this matter.
We say that we hope to chat with people who are closer to the three views, talk about art, you will play the chat to the fullest, will talk about all aspects of feelings and thinking. There is actually a lot of beauty in our daily life, we can choose to spend a very limited life in a variety of ways, and I do show respect and envy for some people who dress or have more tasteful habits.
The novel has the obligation to write about the "corners and corners" of human nature
The Paper: In this book, do you also have a state of "looking back"? The five novels have different themes and styles, and it is difficult to make a general summary, but I found that "If Only the First Sight", "The Shape of the Wind", "My Chiang Mai, My Teresa Teresa", and "Mahjong World" all seem to have memories of the old times and the exploration of our way.
Cheng Yongxin: You spoke very well. For this book, I am a little proud that the themes and styles of the five novels are completely different, but in the end, they still fall into the past that happened in our Chinese society, as Yu Hua said, in this collection of novels, "both we and them are written." In any case, the foothold of the novel is still in human nature and our spiritual life in China for decades.
The Paper: Speaking of human nature, several novels do reflect on different human natures, including the Buddhist words of greed, anger, and delusion. For example, the "queen" in "If only the first sight", you can say that she has a lot of desires, she is not satisfied with a lover, such a person is often painful and unbearable in real life, but she is treated and tolerated in the novel. I guess that also implies your understanding of the novel?
Cheng Yongxin: Right. You say that a person like "Queen", from an ethical point of view, she may be a woman with a heart, but from another point of view, she has pursued sincerity in her short life, and she really hopes that all ex-boyfriends can come to her funeral, and it is her natural personality that has a huge conflict with irresistible social ethical constraints.
In fact, our material life is better than before, but why is the divorce rate and breakup rate getting higher and higher? Why do more and more people believe in the "seven-year itch" proposed by Western philosophers and psychologists? I think the man who writes the novel is not a judge, he presents life, but he does not simply judge what kind of life is reasonable, what kind of life is despicable, he hopes that the reader can actively think about what love is behind the presentation. What is marriage? Is there any alienation and distortion of human nature behind the so-called "stability"? "If Only the First Sight" does not provide answers, but it can make us think about some of the "corners and corners" in emotional relationships, and the writers of novels also have the obligation and responsibility to write those "corners and corners".
You will find that some novels are superficial, but some novels dig out many aspects of human nature that are deep and complex. In this book, in addition to "Qingcheng Mountain" needs to use the shell of genre novels, the story of other novels such as "If Only the First Sight" is not what I pursue, what I pursue is how to highlight the personality of the characters in the novel. For example, people like "Queen", she has requirements for squeezing toothpaste, she has always pursued the quality of life and beautiful feelings, and I also hope to write "all aspects" of the fictional characters in detail.
The Paper: When it comes to novels that don't provide answers but provide thinking, in fact, there are still many readers who read novels with a mentality of "you have to tell me an answer" and "you have to help me solve a puzzle".
Cheng Yongxin: Novels do not have this responsibility and obligation, nor can they achieve this, but I think that thinking itself is valuable and meaningful to emotions and life. Good novels will ask questions, will give every life the right to show abundance, and will also make people have a more inclusive feeling. What's the point if people in society are all cookie-cutter? Is this happiness? Free? Human nature is so complex and varied, and the novel presents them to itself as a very beautiful thing.
The Paper: Do you feel that as you get older, your understanding of human nature is much broader and more inclusive than in the past?
Cheng Yongxin: That is too much change, more and more understanding of the depth and remoteness of human nature. To this day, I feel that if I don't present something, it's really not a task for the writer. Just like the story of "Queen", although it took place at the turn of the century, it is more necessary for us to face and think about it today.
The Paper: What do you think of time?
Cheng Yongxin: Time passes every moment, but it is so closely related to our daily life. All memories will be erased in time, all things that human beings have from ancient times to the present. You can say that a person's life is so long, but in fact it is very short, so its flow is an inevitable trend, you think of it, sometimes it will be a little sentimental, but it is irresistible.
Then I think time also has its place in art, and it can obtain a sense of eternity through the means of art, which is why art has charm. We try to take our understanding, nostalgia, or loss of time in our works, and through art we let it be carved there, let it stop there. So today we can still read works written in the past, or enjoy music born from the past, such as Mahler's symphony, which we can still hear today, and it acquires a certain sense of eternity, even though the composer has died.
Two days ago I listened to "Bolero", it was very simple, but when I listened to it, I was very excited, and when I was young, I liked to listen to this song the most. It's a very simple melody, and then it keeps pushing, it's constantly advancing, it's constantly advancing, it's changing, it's moving slowly, it's changing again. In fact, I think more of a dance song moving from slow to fast as a depiction of time. When you ask about time, it suddenly occurred to me that this piece is actually an interpretation of time from some perspective.
At the end of the 1990s, Cheng Yongxin traveled with Zhang Kangkang, Xiao Yuanmin, and Xiao Dai, the person in charge of Harvest at that time
The good accumulation of reform and opening up in the past few decades still needs someone to adhere to it
The Paper: Talking about the time earlier, you have been in the Scene of Chinese Literature for forty years. How do you think our literature has changed in the past four decades? And what is unchanging?
Cheng Yongxin: What remains unchanged may lie in the exploration of human existence by literature, such as why love is written in every era, because it always exists in our daily lives, and the reason why people are human is to have emotions. So why do new works about love continue to be born over time? Because each era will have a different interpretation of this theme. In the final analysis, it is the emotional world and spiritual world of people that are too rich, and it is always worth us to portray, describe, and show.
I think that in the past few decades, Chinese writers, especially the top people, have always had a deep thinking about the existence of human beings, and they still do their best to integrate their understanding of life and their views on the world into their works. I think these things are still becoming more and more mature, not like from the 1980s to the 1990s, each period has a certain definition: scar literature, reform literature, root-seeking literature, avant-garde literature... I think those definitions are not too meaningful, meaningful is that we have slowly found a way to express the true meaning of life, and the thinking is becoming more and more open: no matter what means, no matter what methods, as long as the spiritual world of people is depicted, then this exploration is valuable. The closer this spiritual world is to the times, the greater its value.
As for what has changed, I think it is the times, and the changes of the times have put forward different requirements for literature and art - how can you have the ability to summarize changes? Last year, when we released Lu Min's "Golden River", she said that her original intention in writing this novel was to show the change in the concept of wealth Chinese. I'm sure she had that idea, and of course we raised some specific technical questions, but I think her idea is good. Our concept of wealth has indeed changed, for example, the traditional elderly do not like to spend money, can save the province, then today, Chinese concept of wealth is also changing.
Hainan Blue Star PEN Club in the 1990s. From left: Ye Zhaoyan, Cheng Yongxin, Yu Hua, Ge Fei
The Paper: Have there been any changes within our literature itself?
Cheng Yongxin: There are definitely some. In my opinion, chinese literature has changed over the past few decades, and the most important change is that in addition to ideology, we also value artistry. This is the result of our reform, opening up, and literary development, and this thing absolutely cannot be abandoned.
So when I was compiling Harvest, many people said that you didn't seem to send something like other publications, and I said yes, Harvest will also send some works with the main theme, because the works of the main theme can also be written very well, like Wang Xiaoying writing "Monument" of the New Fourth Army. However, there are still a large number of works that have neither artistry nor ideology, but also "pander" to "pandering", and we "Harvest" do not issue such works, we still have to have a certain threshold and a certain adherence. If it is only to cater to for the sake of pandering, I think it will go against the valuable experience of running periodicals and literary exploration accumulated over the decades of reform and opening up. Good things still need someone to insist on.
There are also changes in perceptions, changes in approaches. From the 1980s to the 1990s, we borrowed more elements and templates from Western literature through translation. Later, in the Internet era, literature itself opened up, and many publishing platforms appeared on the Internet.
Of course, it is also for this reason that it is more muddy, there are some good things, and there is also the garbage of words. But this relatively free virtual space still has a great impact on traditional literature. Therefore, after entering the new century, I think the development of our traditional literature is far less than the development of genre literature.
But I sometimes wonder, is there anything good in online literature and genre literature that our traditional literature can learn from? For example, "Langya List", its story connotation is actually the revenge of the prince, but this story is very well told and the structure is rigorous. You must know that when we traditional Chinese writers write long stories, the structure has always been quite problematic, a large number of novels have solid content, vivid characters, but often the structure is problematic.
So I often say that our short and medium stories are not so far from world-class writers, and some of them are completely comparable, but our novels often lose in structure. You look at "Langya List" again, the TV series is also very good, the great general Lin Shu came back to become a very famous person on the Langya list, and then returned to the imperial court for revenge, his plan for revenge is to advance step by step, and the structural logic is very strict. Here again, when it comes to architecture, a good novel structure is to have a kind of architectural beauty.
The Paper: As mentioned earlier, "Good things still need someone to insist on." Is there a more specific quality of this "good"?
Cheng Yongxin: For example, the ideological nature of literary works must have a certain breadth and depth, which can inspire readers to think about the problems in our lives. Many people read books in order to obtain a sense of pleasure, which is true in itself, but if you can look back and reflect on your own life after the pleasure, I think it is more meaningful; and the artistry of literary works, which involves language, before our writers said that language is the first element, but in addition to language, the artistic beauty of the work is also reflected in the structure of the novel, the content of the novel and the way the novel is handled.
For example, at the last seminar, several students talked about the wood carving of the sun god in "My Chiang Mai, My Teresa Teresa", but the meaning they read was completely different, and the associations they derived were completely different, which made me feel very pleased. So artistry includes several aspects, the beauty of architecture, the beauty of structure, the beauty of language, it is very rich requirements and inner qualities.
In 1996, it was in Songhua Lake, Jilin City. From left: Zong Renfa, Chi Zijian, Cheng Yongxin
The Paper: Looking back at the new novels in recent years, which works do you personally feel are very good in terms of ideology and artistry?
Cheng Yongxin: In recent years, there have been good things, like Wang Yao's "Folk Songs". Critics have had good novels before, such as Wu Liang's use of meditative, philosophical language to write "Chaoxia". But Wang Yao's "Folk Songs" still makes us a little stunned, and the combination of ideology and artistry in this novel has reached a certain degree of perfection, including language. I also think of one of our upcoming new long stories, "Everything About Farewell," which also has an emotional thickness. There are many novels about love, but many writers write more like boiling water, and this one has a very strong emotion.
The Paper: In recent years, we may hear such a statement in literary works: "common in literary publications", and behind this expression may still be a question of literary value and standards. What do you think of such a statement?
Cheng Yongxin: I think literary journals definitely have their standards, we emphasize the three-review system, and there is a set of review procedures and systems. But do you say that the phenomenon of curing exists? There are also some, including the homogenization of some literary publications, and everyone knows that it is something that literary publications like when they see a type of work, and these phenomena are indeed not good.
As far as Harvest is concerned, we hope that the journal will be more open, more open, able to accommodate all types, all styles, all doctrines of literature, as long as it is relatively top-notch in its category, then we can tolerate it. More than ten years ago, we wanted to promote slogans, at first we couldn't think of it, I thought about this and that, those old editors and old editors-in-chief were not satisfied, and then I said "Harvest" is willing to be the sea", everyone immediately felt good, the sea is a hundred rivers, can absorb a variety of styles of works.
Of course, literary journals certainly have some requirements for works, about language, about connotations, but these requirements are not shortcomings in themselves. I think the biggest problem now is that the works of literary publications are more similar, in other words, the publications do not have their own real personality and characteristics. I think that literary publications should be inclusive, but they must also have their own preferences and personalities, so that the overall literary atmosphere is good, richer and more colorful. For example, some publications focus on realism, which is also the personality of the journal, but realism itself is an inclusive and open system, and there is no need to always ask for "copying life".
The Paper: How did you become an inclusive and open person? The longer you do it in a business, the easier it is to form some of your own deep-rooted ideas, but you seem to emphasize tolerance and openness, like "Harvest" launching an APP and holding an unbounded writing contest, which is also "colliding" with your own inherent things.
Cheng Yongxin: This is related to my view of art or life, and I think that if I go forward, there will be new things constantly emerging. The writing team is also, there must be constantly new people to join, to have vitality, to have vitality, art is not to keep innovating? If you cling to a certain idea, the world will be very limited, very narrow, very paranoid. We look at the development of classical art in history, including classical music and classical painting, which are under an open trend to have a steady stream of good works that are different from the previous works, which is very important.
One of the series of activities for the 45th anniversary of the founding of Harvest, it exchanges with college students.
From left: Cheng Yongxin, Su Tong, Zhang Wei, Ma Yuan, Ge Fei, Mo Yan
A common question for young writers: Is there a constant creativity?
The Paper: What do you think of our newcomers in the literary world? Now there are a lot of young writers, twenty or thirty years old, you are also from this age stage, and you were at that time when literature was in full swing. As a person who has come over, what do you think of today's young writers?
Cheng Yongxin: There are many young writers and they have vitality. Their biggest "problem" is not that they are young, and they are in their twenties when you see Ba Jin write "Home Spring and Autumn". The crux of the "problem" is whether they have a constant creativity? This is a common problem for young writers today. Often because one or two articles are particularly well written, they come out, but if there is no continuous "staying power", it is still untenable. When we look at a young writer, we must look at his explosiveness and his stamina and endurance.
I thought of a young writer, Sun Pin. I said to Teacher Wang Jijun that if you feel that she has the power or the energy to continue writing, you will let her live once, even if the work still has some flaws, but let her live once will stimulate her. The result is true, Sun Pin wrote better and better after one time, and her self-confidence also rose. Of course, there is still a vision in this, you have to see the strength or energy of the writer, which requires experience.
The Paper: Yeah, this vision is particularly important. Outsiders may think that literary editors are just reading manuscripts, but I think the biggest "difficulty" lies in how to judge whether a person, especially a newcomer, has strength and energy. How would you judge?
Cheng Yongxin: This is indeed a comprehensive ability, which not only requires you to have an aesthetic, but also to have a good understanding of the writer's writing and literary pursuits, and then to have a relatively accurate judgment. Some of this judgment can be slowly achieved through the accumulation of work, and some young editors have cultivated this aesthetic or accurate judgment ability through time. But there are indeed some people, no matter how hard they try, from young to middle-aged to old age, this ability is still not enough, in the end, there is still the influence of talent. Is it a bit idealistic or mysterious for us to say this? But it really exists.
In some people's thinking and concepts, a certain type of work is naturally excluded, for example, our editorial department also has a variety of editors, we also know people and do their best, as far as possible to play everyone's strengths, but sometimes, some people will block a certain type of work, there is a door is never opened. Many literary editors are graduates of Chinese departments and have received very good education and training, but when you talk about novels and talk about the fundamental things in the end, you always feel that he is still missing a little. Therefore, if its own texture and quality are good enough, most of the experience of literary editors can be accumulated through work, but the seventh floor of the pagoda can reach the fifth and sixth layers through efforts, and it is more and more difficult to go up. The threshold of literature seems to be very low, but in fact it is still very different.
In the 1980s, Cheng Yongxin gave Ba Jin, the editor-in-chief of Harvest, a birthday
The Paper: How did you "see" Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Ge Fei when you were young?
Cheng Yongxin: At that time, China had just reformed and opened up, and we literary editors would have a kind of stubborn and paranoid idea, thinking that our previous literature was not satisfactory, and that excellent works should not be like this. It is because we are not satisfied, we hope to find more meaningful works that are richer and more meaningful. With this kind of searching mood, I was quite excited at that time.
There are also enthusiastic people like Li Tuo in Beijing, we call him "off-site guidance", he is now very old, more than 80 years old, but still writing, still has great enthusiasm for young people. At that time, the editors of the Chinese literary circle, a few northern, a few southern, although everyone's taste may not be the same, but everyone has the enthusiasm to find future writers with great potential. Yu Hua was introduced to us by Li Tuo, and Su Tong was introduced to us by my college classmate Huang Xiaochu. I still remember that Huang Xiaochu would be very excited to tell me that there was a strange person in Nanjing, the novel was written very well, but it was always rejected, so I recommended one to me, I read it, called "Bluestone and River", it was really well written.
Who else, Wu Hongsen, is also a warm-hearted person. He appreciated Ge fei very much, and he came to me and told me to look at it anyway. At that time, Ge Fei was written on the manuscript paper with a ballpoint pen, and the words were very good, but the paper was a little old, and it didn't look very clean, and my first impression was more reluctant.
Wu Hongsen said, you believe me, you must read it, I read the novel at his urging again and again, and I was very excited after reading it. Of course, I said that I still have to modify it, such as the tone of the text should not be too beautiful, be plain, Ge Fei is particularly smart, take it back for a week and change it, especially good. We were all very excited after sending it out, it was the first one he posted in "Harvest", "Lost Boat", and the sense of text art was particularly good.
Of course, at that time, I was also able to do this because of an encounter, that is, our old editor-in-chief Xiao Dai especially trusted me. Some novels, I guess he may not really like, but I said yes, he sent them, unlike now to be tried three times. I remember xu Xiaohe had a short story called "The Dean and His Lunatics", which was written about the dean of the mental hospital and a group of crazy people, which was absurdly written. At that time, the temperament of this novel was completely different from other novels, and one of the editors of their "Shanghai Literature" showed it to me, and I said that I wanted this one, and the editor later regretted it, and I said that what you said to me yourself could not be taken back.
Finally, "The Dean and His Madmen" was released in "Harvest", and the national impact was very large. Old Xiao Dai is really an inclusive person, in fact, "Harvest" has always had a tradition of tolerance, old Ba Jin is also very tolerant, when everyone is criticizing Zhang Xianliang's "Half of Men are Women", he specially read it and also sent it out. It can be said that inclusion is our tradition.
The Paper: At that time, you and Yu Hua, Su Tong, Ge Fei, and Ma Yuan often talked about novels together, and Ma Yuan also took videos, which is relatively rare today. Young writers get together, but they don't necessarily talk about novels, but you can talk as if you love novels, right?
Cheng Yongxin: Yes, at that time, it was indeed more religious and persistent, and it was indeed the best time of youth to pursue real novels, and the atmosphere at the beginning was really a little different from now. Today, we will communicate with the author over and over again about the details of the novel because of the manuscript. Some writers, such as Yin Xueyun, did not say that she changed it six or seven times when she first published "Harvest", three or four times is positive, and it is still the same. The last time we sent her a novella, she didn't change it, and she said that she wasn't used to it. She is a writer with great ability to modify, do not underestimate the change, some people directly reject, some people will not change.
But like Yin Xueyun and Sun Pin, the better writers in these two years have a characteristic, that is, they have the ability to modify, and you only need to have a little bit with them and immediately understand. Reading is comprehension, writing is also comprehension, and the level of comprehension is also obvious.
The Paper: Good writers and good editors complement each other and achieve each other. Finally, I would like to ask a question, how do you see the future of our Chinese novel?
Cheng Yongxin: My expectations are still relatively high, China has such a rich reality, and Chinese have such delicate emotions, and there should be better works in the future than the present. This expectation value must be, or we should do this business, whether it is an editor or a writer, without an expectation, it will be very lost. But it must also be said that there are too few thinkers, or too few thoughtful writers.
If we compare it in the world sense, there are almost no Chinese people who can really be called philosophers and thinkers, and this is the major reason why our literary works are not profound enough. Our original Confucians and Taoists also had traditions, but after May Fourth, there is no longer a philosophical tradition, and in such a situation, it is actually quite difficult to produce very profound works. So on the one hand, I personally have great enthusiasm and great expectations, but on the other hand, I also have to see the limitations of our field of thought.
In the 1990s, Cheng Yongxin and Ge Fei (left) were at The China Normal University
【Afterword】
In the interview, the words "happiness", "freedom", and "beauty" are mentioned many times, and they are consistent with the breath of several works in "If Only the First Sight", which makes people feel a special simplicity, or a kind of juvenile obsession. Cheng Yongxin will also ask himself: "If there is no tolerance for human nature and no real understanding of existence, then where is the value of literature?" Where is the value of art? We used to say that literature is a part of art, and it should express the richness and complexity of man. ”
His gaze was often looking out the window, as if the other side of the window was another scene, another atmosphere, and he returned to a certain time and space, from where he spoke of everything he had cherished. When it comes to excitement, he will also have his eyes lit up and gestures continuously. I will think of the writer Sun Ganlu said: "He (Cheng Yongxin) is such a young man, his ideals of literature and his persistent attitude to life are always integrated." Is there anything more worth pursuing than all this? ”
(This article was originally published in The Paper, by Luo Xin)
"If Only the First Sight"
Cheng Yongxin
Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
This book is a collection of novels recently completed by Yongxin, the main programmer of harvest literary magazine. The novel of the same title, "If Only the First Sight", starts from individual experience and shows the soul of the 1980s and 1990s; "The Shape of the Wind" tells the story of a college student's encounter after knocking on the iron door of an old house; "Qingcheng Mountain" explores the relationship between ideas, dreams and human nature; "Mahjong World" tells about friendship, love and life; "My Chiang Mai, My Teresa Teng" writes about Teresa Teng's relationship with an era. The five novels have different themes, which is the author's long-term understanding and practice of literary work.
Shanghai Culture Publishing House
Shanghai Story Club Culture Media Co., Ltd
Shanghai Chewing Character Culture Communication Co., Ltd