Cover news reporter Zhang Jie
Born in 1999, the young writer Dulan is a native Mongolian speaker. The mongolian realm of indistinguishable between man and nature has also become a major feature of his novels. In the spring of 2022, After Dulan's short story collection "The Fool Unigo Disappeared" was published by October Literary and Art Publishing House, it triggered a warm response from young readers. The novel is full of wonderful metaphors, and the synaesthetic use of color, touch, sound, and smell also makes people wonder: where did her literary world come from?
In April 2022, the "Heguang Reading Club" from dalian University of Technology Chinese discipline organized a seminar on Dulan novels, a group of post-90s and post-00s readers, trying to open up the vast literary space of Dulan's works from the perspectives of imagery, nature, language, rhetoric, and narrative. Two other members of the book club, Liu Yan and Chen Wen (both undergraduates of the department of Chinese of Dalian University of Technology in 2019), also had a conversation with Du Lan. In this dialogue, Du Lan also revealed her literary creation concept and growth experience, giving people the opportunity to deeply glimpse the inner world of this literary girl.
▲ Dulan (Photography by Chen Yuxiao)
"Morning workout
We ran with the horses."
Wataru once said that the Mongolian school she attended was located in the remote countryside, surrounded by desert, pastures and farmland. "In the morning, during morning workout, we run with the horses. When you go to the toilet, there will be chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep next to you. They may also be taken out by the teacher to break corn or play in the desert and villages. In short, our growth and nature are almost no distance. ”
The growth experience of being so close to nature also reminds Chen Wen that in the novel, the characters of Dulan are also often integrated into the setting of the soil. Is her world related to her upbringing? Watanabe replied yes, "I have loved to be close to nature since I was a child, and my mother and father have encouraged me to explore. When I was a child, the house I lived in had a small yard, and I always played there, small but enough, with a lot of insects, plants and birds. Dad built me a small pool with frogs in it. Giving children more exposure to nature helps them form a healthy outlook on life, which can largely avoid children from falling into the predicament of self-pity, narcissism, selfishness and inferiority. Nature urges children to think. Nature encourages children to pursue freedom. ”
I don't deliberately write with a child's mind
Just try to express what you think
What makes Liu Yan curious is that where does Dulan's fantasy writing usually start? Whether there is a situation where the theme is first, Du Lan revealed that when writing, she will first think of a word, a sentence or a scene, and then the writing revolves around it, and the core of the theme of the work will appear. "For example, the story of 'The Fool Unigo Disappears' starts with the crow; as the story unfolds, I reflect on how everyone has to go through death, and it's important to face it with what kind of mentality. How do you dispel the fear of death? This is something I've been exploring. ”
Watanabe's depiction of things and scenes is very novel. In The Sound, for example, she writes about noise: "The sound of its valves, the sound of pulleys, the sound of crankshafts and pistons running, like the creepy sound of hundreds of thousands of people grinding their teeth at the same time." So much so that some commentators believe that Watanabe is "writing with children's thinking, and has a very accurate grasp of children's psychology", to which Watanabe said that he would not deliberately use "children's thinking" to write, "I just want to try my best to express what I think in my heart." Maybe it's because I'm more inclined to write about children, so I have a child's perspective. I don't know if it will weaken or improve with age and experience, it's still unknown. ”
What books would a person who writes fantasy novels read? Du Lan admitted that he read more miscellaneous books, and read books on history, philosophy, and medicine, but "I read relatively few books in literature." She also mentioned that the biggest influence on her writing was Schultz, who read his book during the summer vacation after the college entrance examination, and at that time I thought, I also wanted to write a novel in a similar style." ”
Many people think that Dulan is a "genius" in writing, for which Dulan did not like this lazy word at first, "But later I found that the problem is not the critic, but myself, the important thing is to have your own thinking, have a pertinent and sincere evaluation of yourself, so that no matter what others label you as genius, mediocrity, wood, or whatever, you can keep your own heart, and use your own heart to create, to live." ”
