Chen Zhongzhong passed away on the sixth anniversary, this year is his eightieth birthday, he "cushioned the coffin as a pillow", and the work "White Deer Plain" that he spent his life painstakingly on is the only exclusive copyright owned by the People's Literature Publishing House. On the evening of April 28, the Humanities Society organized the first of a series of activities to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Chen Zhongzhong's birth - "I have handed over my life to you", and invited He Qizhi, the group writer of "White Deer Plain" and the former deputy editor-in-chief of the People's Literature Publishing House, Hong Qingbo, former editor-in-chief of Contemporary Magazine, and Xing Xiaoli, executive vice president of White Deer Academy, to commemorate this great contemporary literary writer.
"White Deer Plain" has been published and distributed for a full thirty years, at the beginning of the publication of that year, six consecutive times in five months, printing 600,000 copies, luoyang paper is expensive, no one knows that the reading of "White Deer Plain" has not faded. Now printed more than 4 million copies, continue to be adapted by various art forms, there are Beijing Renyi dramas, Shaanxi Renyi dramas, dance dramas, Qin Cavity, big-screen film works, and also set a new high rating of super long 77 episodes of TV series, the influence of this work continues to oscillate, through the washing of time, has become a pearl of contemporary literature shining.
Chen Zhongzhong was born in 1942 in Xijiang Village, Baling Township, Baqiao District, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, and at the end of 1982, at the age of 40, he was transferred to the creative group of the Shaanxi Writers Association and became a professional writer. But instead of moving his family into the city, he moved back to his very remote hometown from Hanqiao Town, where the district cultural center where he used to work. After staying in his hometown for 10 years, he created short stories such as "Kang Family Courtyard", "Boss Zizi", "Cellar", "Mr. Blue Robe" and so on.
Many years later, Chen Zhongzhong was also touched by the choice of the writing environment of the ancestral house under the roots of the north slope of Bailuyuan, "Out of my perhaps special psychology, I want to find a quiet and even remote environment, read the books I want to read and the books that I can't read, especially I need to chill down and chew on the life I personally experienced, I just crossed the 40 years old, the first 20 years as a student saw the rural life, and the next 20 years directly involved in the rural life." In the 20 years that I have personally participated in it, I have had many direct feelings and experiences, and now I have jumped out of the specific position of life, no longer as a cadre but as a writer to see yesterday's life, and it can be said that the reform that is taking place is turning upside down. ”
This is a return to the roots of a writer, who for the first time examines his life and the land on which he grew up and the tides of the times with a sober and rational spirit.
Because "Mr. Blue Robe" triggered his desire to write a long novel, "If you want to find the first image, it is the gatehouse of the original courtyard with the inscription 'Reading the Farming Family', and I want to explore the mysterious story in this gatehouse." In April 1986, Chen Zhongzhong crossed the cold Bahe River and took a bus to Lantian County to collect information.
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. He hung the story of "White Deer Plain" on the ring of 1911, when the Xinhai Revolution took place, and a great change that has never been seen in ancient times is about to unfold on this original.
He visited the home of Lu Da Lin, a Song Dynasty scholar who wrote China's first "Township Covenant" to educate the people, which was also the academy where the "Niu Caizi" (the prototype of Mr. Zhu) sat in the museum and studied; he searched for the ruins of the grain store of the first Communist Party branch established on the White Deer Plain. There are also stories from the old people in the village, including his own ancestors, including many details of his life that make him feel happy... All kinds of people and all kinds of things induce fictional characters and plots, and activate some details of life in his memory.
In this way, while visiting and collecting materials, the imagination-induced ideas occurred simultaneously, and the overall framework of "White Deer Plain" gradually took shape, and the characters and details were constantly enriched. In particular, he heard his people talk about his great-grandfather, who was very tall and always straight, and walked through the village, and the women who were in the streets and alleys under the gatehouse to nurse their children were all frightened and ran back to their homes or hid in the courtyard door of the villagers.
When Chen Zhongzhong heard this image and details, he felt an indescribable excitement and an irrepressible excitement. The image of a patriarch he had begun to conceive of before was still a vague plane, which was suddenly injected with vitality and texture, and suddenly sounded in the village alleys, ancestral halls and his own gatehouses of the fictional White Deer Village; this person's dedication and temperament almost reached the vividness and concreteness of the author's sniffles at this moment. It was also at this moment that Chen Zhongzhong's "Township Covenant" copied from the county chronicle naturally melted into this person's blood.
After two years of conception and material preparation, one 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-open hard leather book on his knees, and wrote down the first line of the draft of "White Deer Plain": "Bai Jiaxuan later prided himself on marrying a woman with seven rooms in his lifetime. ”
At this time, the whole world had been reduced to the point where there was only one White Deer Plain; this geographically ancient plain was embodied in a person named Bai Jiaxuan, the last patriarch in the White Deer Plain, who adhered to an ancient "Township Covenant" and faced challenges from various forces. Lu Zilin, who has considerable economic strength but violates the spirit of the "Township Covenant", is a potential opponent; Heiwa, who relies on rebellious nature, and Xiao'e, who relies on physiological instincts, is absolutely intolerable to Bai Jiaxuan's psychological structure and personality; Zhaopeng, who consciously rebels with new ideas, and his daughter Bai Ling, he sighs in vain, this is a strong psychological structure, the only opponent who is difficult to show self-confidence; Bai Xiaowen, whom he relies on, has completely degenerated and escaped completely, hurting him the most, but he cannot disrupt his psychological order... Bai Jiaxuan is the White Deer Plain, and one person supports a plain.
From April 1988 to January 1989, the first draft was completed, and the real writing time was eight months. After that, Chen Zhongzhong spent two years of meticulous revision, and finally finalized it in March 1992.
After receiving the news that he had finished his manuscript, the Humanities Society immediately sent two editors to Xi'an to receive half a million words of heavy manuscripts from Chen Zhongzhong, and later Chen Zhongzhong told his friends that at that moment he seemed to have entrusted his life to him. At that time, Chen Zhongzhong returned home to wait for the arrangement of fate, and he told his wife that if he could not do it, he would go home and raise chickens and never write again.
The Humanities Society 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. From the end of 1992 to the beginning of 1993, "White Deer Plain" was serialized in two issues in Contemporary. In June 1993, it was published as a single book, which was not only highly praised by the literary world, but also enthusiastically welcomed by readers, and became a bestseller.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Enjie
Editor/Cui Wei