Reporter Shi Wenjing
April 29 marks the sixth anniversary of Chen Zhongzhong's death, and this year marks his eightieth birthday. The reporter learned from the People's Literature Publishing House that Chen Zhongzhong's work "White Deer Plain", which "cushioned the coffin as a pillow" and spent his whole life," has been published and distributed for a full thirty years, and now the number of copies printed has reached more than 4 million. "White Deer Plain" has not been forgotten because of the passage of time, on the contrary, the charm of this work is timeless
The editor of the Humanities Society told reporters that at the beginning of the publication of that year, six consecutive printing times in five months, printing 600,000 copies, for a while Luoyang paper is expensive, no one knows that the reading of "White Deer Plain" has not faded, and now the printing number has reached more than 4 million copies, and it continues to be adapted by various art forms, there are dramas of Beijing Renyi, Dramas of Shaanxi Renyi, dance dramas, Qin Cavity, there are big-screen film works, and there are also super long-form 77-episode TV series that have created new ratings, and the influence of this work continues to oscillate, after the washing of time, Become a shining pearl of contemporary literature.
A novel is a daunting thing
Chen Zhongzhong once said: "Before the summer of 1985, I regarded long-form writing as a relatively distant thing. The main point, in my consciousness of writing, is that the novel is a frightening and too big thing to think about. ”
In the summer of 1995, the Shaanxi Provincial Writers Association held the "Shaanxi Long Fiction Creation Promotion Association", and Chen Zhongzhong recalled: "I attended this meeting, and several friends expressed their intention to write long novels on the spot. What is certain is that Lu Yao did not return to Xi'an after the meeting, and stayed in Yan'an to sit down and draft the first part of "Ordinary World". In fact, Lu Yao had been silently preparing for the writing of this novel a year earlier. I made a very short but clear statement at the conference, without the slightest preparation for novel writing, without any consideration when the desire to write a long story would occur. ”
However, in just a few months, "the coolness of autumn occurred in the early morning and at night, and when I sat down to write the long-planned novella "Mr. Blue Robe", I was almost startled by the desire for a long novel. ”
In the following two years or so, Chen Zhongzhong devoted his main efforts and energy to the White Deer Plain behind his ancestral house, as well as the ShenheYuan, Shaolingyuan, Fengqiyuan and Tongrenyuan, which were across the River from bailuyuan.
On a good morning during the Qingming Festival in 1988, Chen Zhongzhong sat on a sofa cut by a village carpenter in the simple study of his ancestral house, opened a large 16-carbid hard leather book on his knees, and wrote down the first line of the draft of "White Deer Plain": "Bai Jiaxuan later became proud of marrying a woman of seven rooms in his lifetime. ”
If not, go home and raise chickens and never write again
In April 1986, Mr. Chen Zhongzhong took a bus to Lantian County to collect information on the cold Bahe River, and after two years of conception and material preparation, he began to write "White Deer Plain" in April 1988, and by January 1989, the real writing time was eight months, the first draft was completed, and then it took two years of careful revision, and finally finalized in March 1992.
The editor of the Humanities Society said that after the manuscript was completed, the only publishing house he thought of was the People's Literature Publishing House, and when the People's Literature Publishing House received the news of his completion, it immediately assigned two editors to Xi'an and took half a million words of heavy manuscripts from Mr. Chen Zhongzhong' hand. He went home to wait for fate, and he told his wife that if he couldn't, he would go home and raise chickens and never write again.
The People's Literature Publishing House did not live up to Chen Zhongzhong's life trust, completed the three-level review in the shortest possible time, and immediately replied to the author's review opinions, highly affirming the value of this work. The subsequent editing and publishing work was very smooth, and the People's Literature Publishing House was well aware of the value of this book, and held a special seminar on works, which was highly praised by the literary community. The success in the market is also a bit unexpected, "White Deer Plain" became a bestseller, the People's Literature Publishing House immediately re-signed the contract with the author, the original one-time word remuneration contract was changed to the international royalty contract, fully considering and protecting the interests of the author.
"White Deer Plain" was republished in the first edition of the Humanities Society, and was in a prominent position in various distribution places and several major websites in China, and was sought after and loved by generations of readers. "White Deer Plain" has not been forgotten because of the passage of time, on the contrary, the charm of this work is timeless.