"Chinese Peach and Plum" book shadow, published by Writers Publishing House
Liang Xiaosheng has produced a new work, this time a novel about the real situation and spiritual growth of the "post-80s".
"Chinese Peach and Plum" tells the story of li xiaodong and Xu Ran, a new student of the millennium Chinese, who met for the first time on the train and formed a partnership after a long entanglement. The two chose to go to Beijing to work hard, facing the many challenges of high housing prices, high prices and work setbacks, and struggling to find a possible path between career ideals and life plans.
At a recent media meeting held by the Writers Publishing House, Liang Xiaosheng said that "Chinese Tao Li" uses his teaching experience at Beijing Language and Culture University as the material to create for the "post-80s" students who have taught, which is a wish to be fulfilled.
Writers are recorders of the times
Liang Xiaosheng at a media meeting
Recalling the 1980s, Liang Xiaosheng can still feel the "infinite scenery" of the Chinese Department, and students who study Chinese are often sought after as "talented children" and "talented women". At that time, it was also a period when major newspapers rushed to run supplements, and even art academies such as the Academy of Fine Arts and the Dance Academy also opened literary publications.
But as the wave of commercialization intensified, literature continued to be marginalized. Inspired by this, Liang Xiaosheng created "Chinese Tao Li" to record this change.
As an old writer in his seventies, will it be uncomfortable to write the story of the "post-80s"? In this regard, Liang Xiaosheng admitted that there are indeed challenges, language is the first difficulty, and he is not familiar with the current popular language habits. Fortunately, he and his son have a common language and can find the expression of "post-80s". Although there is a generation gap with the younger generation, it is still "possible to communicate intimately."
Liang Xiaosheng defines a writer as a recorder of the times. At the same age as the Republic, he has experienced the magnificent changes of the times, coupled with the experience of CPPCC members participating in politics, making him particularly sensitive to various social phenomena. He wanted to use essays to ask questions to society like Lu Xun, and "The 93 Assertion", "Gazing at The Ninety-Seven", and "Analysis of All Levels of Chinese Society" were the products of this stage. These works with strong feelings of compassion are the "crossovers" for him to come out of the literary ivory tower and participate in social review.
He believes that novelists cannot only see novels in their eyes, but should respond to various social problems. For example, he said, the best writers in the history of literature, such as Tolstoy, Hugo, Dickens, Turgenev, etc., were both writers and intellectuals. They are all concerned with the fate of the other.
In addition to "truthfulness, goodness and beauty", the others are all over the clouds
The scene of the media meet-up
As he grew older, Liang Xiaosheng became more peaceful, no longer "torn" as he was then, and his views on life and literature also brought religious feelings. He has been thinking about what people are really pursuing in their lives. In the end, he felt that except for "truthfulness, goodness and beauty", everything else was a passing cloud. He wanted to see what else could be done "on the verge of melting."
Xu Ran in "Chinese Tao Li" divides life into songs, poetry, prose, reportage, epic... This is an interesting division. As far as Liang Xiaosheng himself is concerned, he has never experienced a poetic life, and may have had some romantic feelings in the stage of Zhiqing's novels, and his life has always been reportage-style, "romantic, abstract, and hypocritical."
In the novel, it is written that Li Xiaodong's love affair with Xu Ran was blocked by his parents, but he persisted because of idealism. Liang Xiaosheng's view is that the love between the two protagonists is "not right at the door", which is rare in real life, because "door to door" is a natural phenomenon of biological stability. The reason for this design is the intervention of his personal concept.
Like "The World of Man", "Chinese Tao Li" also emphasizes the friendship between men, which is related to Liang Xiaosheng's experience of young age. At that time, he was taken care of by many elders and formed a friendship that "can give up his life". Wang Wenqi and Li Xiaodong in the novel belong to different classes, but have a solid friendship, which is affected by this layer. He believes that "the 'core' of social relations is getting bigger and bigger, but fewer and fewer people really care about themselves, or who care about themselves." Most people are a 'nucleus', like the atmosphere outside the Earth. ”
Write another book, and "Liang Ji Noodle Shop" will close its doors
"Chinese Peach and Lee" book shadow
In Liang Xiaosheng's own words, "Chinese Tao Li" is equivalent to "one of the last two cylinders of noodles" in his life. He laughed and said that he was the owner of the "Liang Kee Noodle Shop", and he was about to close his business after writing a novel.
In his view, writing novels is more of a craft, and there is no essential difference from the labor of boot makers making boots and winemakers making famous wines. "Writing is like a pastry chef opening a noodle shop, it's nothing more than making the pasta a little better and ensuring the freshness of the ingredients." And it was enough for him to be able to do this for the rest of his life.
Talking about the current situation of literature today, Liang Xiaosheng said that writers should not take themselves too seriously and pretend to be profound. He believes that this is related to the particularity of the Chinese department, "even if it is half a bottle of water, it can be shaken very badly." Literature did play a great role at a certain stage of historical development, but now that it has declined, literature should no longer be "carried to a high place".
Similarly, he also resents the ridicule of things that should be taken seriously, as if it is impossible to win popularity without this, for example, many teachers like to talk about the students in class. Liang Xiaosheng believes that the best way to teach is to "read literary works that provoke thinking and can extend useful discussions."
(Photo courtesy of Writers Press)