Editor's Note
Creation and criticism, such as the wings of a bird, the axle of a car. The development of literary creation is inseparable from the prosperity of literary criticism and the efforts of generations of literary critics. In 1998, the Southern Literary Circle launched the "Critics Today" column, which has introduced more than 100 critics so far. Critics of different personalities speak "my view of criticism" with their sharpness, talent, and agility, and hundreds of articles have accumulated to form a sensitive, vivid, and full of vitality and talent.
Now the China Writers Network has re-launched these articles to share with you, so stay tuned.
1
Critics of the day
Yue Wen (Filmed in 2014)
Yue Wen is a researcher at the Creative Research Department of the China Writers Association. He is the author of "Where the Silence Is" and "Lyrical Tension". He has won the first "Zijin People's Literature Star" Literary Criticism Award, the 2014 Excellent Paper Award of Southern Literature Circle, the 4th Tang Han Youth Literature Research Award, the 11th Shanghai Literature Award, the 3rd Yangtze River Review Biennial Award, the 7th Literary Newspaper New Criticism Excellent Review Award, the 2019 Excellent Paper Award of Chinese Contemporary Literature Research, and the 2019 Excellent Paper Award of The Chinese Modern Literature Research Series.
My view of criticism
Where the silence lies
Yue Wen
As usual, in this short article, I need to talk about how I finally reached the path of criticism after a thousand turns, and how I established the "core" of criticism, a weapon called "critical view" that is said to be a must for critics.
This confusion is real, just as the long silence that preceded it was also true. Not exactly. At first, I followed the critics, stuttering and parroting, toying around with the common sense or truth about literature that I had just learned from them, but I knew that about literature, the deep self inside, was still silent.
How can it not be silent? When you have been thinking hard for a long time about the unsolvable problems of life, and suddenly get a flash of inspiration in literary works; when you think that the form of emotion that belongs to you is actually polished and shiny under the writer's pen; when you want to escape from this world and suddenly find that the ideal way of life is manifesting one by one in literary works, how can you not suppress the ecstasy in your heart, except for repeated reading, immersion in it, and have nothing else to ask for. So, in this sense, literature is not a bunch of linguistic material for me, it is more like the skin of the body, the most important thing that makes "me" "me". It made the small world in front of me incomparably large, and it made me realize that there are countless truths, they are noisy and opposed to each other, but they can all reach eternity. For the most precious thing, what else can you do but treasure it in a place where no one can find it, pretending to have never seen it? Of course, silence is also because you haven't found the right language to talk about literature. You can't talk about literature in the same way you talk about philosophy, you can't even talk about literature in the usual way you talk about literature, you have to find your own language. And language is like a small beast, and it can be fed with painstaking efforts, and it must be given time. So, just don't say anything.
The change happened after I became a mother. In the face of young children who have not yet learned the language, the silence is broken. I became willing to share what I had learned from literature. Experience needs to be passed on from generation to generation through literature, which is the mystery of human life, and this truth is almost simple. Creation itself is for dialogue, literature does not live in isolation, on the contrary, literature builds bridges between people, making us realize that seemingly different existences, the difference is not as big as imagined. Criticism means to choose, define and open, and in the year of establishment, I realized that life is so short, time is fleeting, I am willing to choose books worth reading for my children, and even more people, which is why I am willing to talk about literature in the form of melting my life experience, in the end, literature is to help us truly understand distant strangers, understand our complex entanglements, understand the rapidly changing times we live in, and of course, most importantly, understand ourselves.
But silence still seduces me, like an old friend, reminding me from time to time: You are talking too much, about literature, too much rap, which is probably not a good thing. This reminder is correct, because the impulse of language is not a perpetual motion machine, it will exhaust itself. One day, I may rediscover that silence is the essence of literature. Perhaps, I will be silent again.
That's fine too.
The article was published in Southern Literature Journal, No. 2, 2014
Critic Impressions
Strings with knives
——Yue Wen's impressions
Ji Wenjun
The first time I saw Yue Wen was at a dinner party in the literary circle, delicate, delicate, and too quiet, and it was inevitable that people would guess that there was a bit of low-key arrogance hidden under that quietness. Several men at the table consciously left the table to smoke outside the house, and were surprised to know that the girl with this little white flower was already a "mother-to-be". The second time we met, it was more than a year later, the "prospective" mother was upgraded to a mother, less weak, but also did not see plump, and the conversation was much more lively. Talking with Yue Wen, direct and in-depth, rare bright and clear, spontaneous and insightful, I can't help but cherish people, but I also have a little worry - I am worried that if I crash into it like this, it will inevitably be full of bags.
My worries are a little superfluous, Yue Wen has her own sophistication, but this sophistication is the sophistication of Aunt Lin, relying on intelligence and understanding - knowing when to control your "most talkative" mouth and not speaking; knowing when not to mention that you have read the four books, only say "a few words"; know that even Aunt Zhao's passing by must be polite and thoughtful... My first impression of her was mostly the moment when she was so sensible. Such a moment is limited in the end, smart and sensible in the end can not fight nature, natural spiritual wisdom, sharp teeth, just like Lin Girl, inadvertently say jokes, or will be mean to irrelevant people.
Yue Wen, however, does not love The Lin Girl, and appreciates Bao Chao's "ruthlessness" even more. After listening to her high argument, I laughed disapprovingly, and it was only affectionate that I made this remark. Yue Wen is keen and delicate, sympathizing with others with such a soft heart, rubbing words, touching the texture of the literary world with needle-like nerves, "raising this little beast of language with heart and blood", sometimes tired, sometimes helpless, sometimes resentful, sometimes hurt and painful, it is inevitable to feel that the "ruthlessness" of being indifferent and clumsy is wonderful.
Even if he was a ruthless and touching Mountain Master, I expected Yue Wen to be unable to do it.
Reading Yue Wen's critical article, I felt that she was a tight string—a piano string or a bow string. It is said that it is a string, because her criticism is not external to the examination and judgment of the work, but the sound of the work playing on her body - the body and mind are immersed, the spirit is enlightened. She herself said, "Literature is not a pile of linguistic material for me, it is more like the skin of the body, the most important thing that makes 'me' the 'me'." "It's a blessing—even a rare— luck— for a writer to meet such a critic, because your work will be felt as a living organism, not as a dead object. However, if you think that Wen Girl will naturally play you a song of "Mountain Flowing Water", you are a little naïve. Because the string will then be transformed into a bow string, the sensual force gathered by the immersed reading is pulled up in order to shoot an arrow of opinion. Yue Wen has a point of view - critics have views, but unfortunately there are many people, and there are more books, and it is rare to hear this view that private customization of works will never collide. It is said that this is also the result of Yue Wen's reflection, when she first wrote a critical article, it seems that there was also a time when it was embellished with the latest popular academic sequins of the season.
Yue Wen has a full passion for introspection. At a seminar on works, Yue Wen's speech was not simply aimed at writers and works, she reflected on herself, saying that perhaps what needs to be reviewed is our criticism, and the problem of works is precisely the result of literary criticism and the discipline and guidance of literary journals. Although she is already one of the most widely regarded and recognized young critics in China today with a series of important critical awards, especially the Tang Han Youth Literature Research Award, she seems to have a heavier obsession with self-examination. Once she talked to me about "roots," and said that her criticism and research lacked "roots"—roots that grew from the depths of culture and allowed literary life to continue to grow. After I listened, I didn't feel a sigh in my heart, this should not be Yue Wen's problem alone, but others may not be able to know so consciously, and even if they know, they may not be willing to admit it so painfully - let alone say it in front of people without heart and lungs. There are many duckweed floating all over the world, the veins of the oblique veins are leisurely, and the white flowers have become a poetic landscape, only she refuses to relax from there.
The lilac knot hibiscus is not tied to the pearl sword - this knife is not a decoration. Wen Girl's critical article is written in a beautiful way, but she can also see the cold light of the knife. At a seminar on novel writing, she spoke about the long creation of recent years, coughing up beads and spitting jade, looking at the hand waving, Li Xunhuan also had to bow to the wind, and turned back to me sitting on the edge of the house, smiling, and sending a knife, "I am very worried about the long story you are writing." "It made the conference host laugh, and I was really glad that the writers she didn't remember." Of course, as mentioned earlier, Wen Girl's knife is not only swung at others, but also at herself— the so-called "natural critic", as it should be.
Sharp and sharp, just as a critic Ofs Yue Wen. Getting along with friends is often her gentle and considerate, receptive and stoic side. And under her seemingly relaxed smile, there is an extraordinary tenacity and bravery - all of which makes Yue Wen have a sense of tension - like a tension like a string. As a friend, I hope she can relax, but as a writer, I hope that she will continue to "refuse to relax", because literary criticism is not a companion of literary creation, criticism and creation are mutually reinforcing life cycles, and I need such a sharp critic. I think Yue Wen has the ability to sublimate this tension into a truly powerful critical force—looking back at the archery, thousands of miles of twilight clouds.
(Ji Wenjun, Museum of Modern Chinese Literature)
1
Read more
Impressions of a Critic
Zhang Yanling, Zhang Ping, editor-in-chief
Writers And Publishers September 2019
My View of Criticism
Zhang Yanling, Zhang Ping, editor-in-chief
Guangxi Normal University Press, January 2016
Editors: Liu Ya, Deng Jiefeng
Second instance: Wang Yang
Third instance: Chen Tao