The young girl Yi Zhi sat under the eaves of the street to watch the boat. "The boat is really beautiful. A fleet of ships led by the leading boat, dozens of long tugboats, the head boat is about to drill through the bridge hole, the tail boat looks like a small grain. Seeing more boats, her mind also shook and she followed the boat. ”
This is the "youth tour" and daydream that only the children of the canal who grew up by the water's edge have.
Recently, Hangzhou writer Xiao Er's latest novel "Queqiao Immortal" was published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House. The novel recalls the complicated past of the large pier by the canal - Jiangnan Ancient Town QiZhen, and writes the stories of several small town teenagers growing up, from the 1960s and 1970s to the new century, showing the two generations of prosperous Jiangnan, or staying or leaving, half a life of dreams, gathering and dispersing moving stories. The novel debuted in "Harvest Novel 2021 Spring Roll", and Mao Dun Literature Prize winner Jin Yucheng called it "to open a precise jiangnan heavy color map for readers".
Xiao Er is an authentic Jiangnan woman, born by the canal, grew up on the canal side, even go out to study is inseparable from the nourishment of the Grand Canal, in her pen, the background of Jiangnan civilization exists in the "Qizhen" such a Jiangnan ancient town, no matter the prosperity and decline and honor and disgrace, it is always there, there is a breath of the pulse. As the famous writer Jin Renshun said: "After reading Queqiao Xian, I am convinced that there is a Jiangnan scale that has not been broken. As described in the small world described in "Queqiao Immortal", a little higher, a little lower, a little more exciting, a little depraved, a little more vulgar, a little elegant, are not authentic Jiangnan tones. ”
According to Xiao Er, the four protagonists in "Queqiao Immortal", Yi Zhi, Yi Cong, Dai Zheng, and Jin Tian, all have realistic prototypes. The young girl Yi Zhi has the shadow of Xiao Er on her body, and Yi Cong, Dai Zheng, and Jin Tian are the writers' intimate hair. He Yicong talked and behaved like Fang Hongwei, Jin Tian was a Jiangnan man with a wind in the Yushu, Dai Zheng had the demeanor of an ancient storyteller Liu Jingting, only Chen Yizhi was cute when he was young, but when he became an adult, he broke away from the "immortal qi" that came with Jiangnan town, Xiao Er said that intellectuals are the most difficult to write - "her intellectual personality hindered her", and her heart twisted too much, so that "not free enough, not blooming enough".
They were born in the 1970s, grew up in the 1980s, and grew up in the 1990s, and they did not experience any major ups and downs, except for the "misalignment and conflict between ideals and reality", and their lives were quite smooth. Xiao Er said, "We never deny that we are the debut of the 'small town problem maker'. But in that era, the life of "small town subjects" was not bitter at all, in addition to going to school, many times in play, wandering, "almost never suppressed by the 'doing the subject', but like the "sunny day" of the particularly bright feeling." ”
Not only is "the town a problem maker" lucky, but even many students who graduated from junior high school and went to secondary school, or who failed the college entrance examination, also directly "recruited" and became civil servants in county organs, quickly occupying important positions in key departments.
The vast soup of the canal, the lights of the fishing trees, the green tiles of the stone bridge in Qixia Town, the drizzle like smoke, and the people in the town swing their hair, constitute the background of this generation's life. Since childhood, Xiao Er slept on the river, listened to the whistle of the steamboat, and pushed open the window to see the long bridge. Xiao Er said: "The river flows to the rivers, lakes and seas, the water in the world is connected, and the river is like the feeling of fate flowing to me." So I have always used the river as a channel, yearning for the outside world, following the endless river, reaching out into the distance and the unknown. ”
Nandu interviewed writer Xiao Er
Consciously uses many elements of old-fashioned novels
Nandu: At the "Queqiao Immortal" new book sharing meeting held a few days ago, several guests called "Queqiao Immortal" a "world love novel", inheriting the narrative tradition from "Golden Plum Bottle", "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Legend of flowers on the sea" to Jin Yucheng's "Flowers" Liu Zhenyun's "Ten Thousand Sentences in One Sentence". As an author, do you yourself agree with the definition of "worldly love novel"?
Xiao Er: I graduated from the department of Chinese, of course, I know the term "world love novel", but when I wrote "Queqiao Immortal", I did not think about what type of novel I wanted to write, that is, I always tried to find a tone that fits the temperament of this novel, a rhythm, both classical elements and modern elements, when I wrote "Queqiao Immortal", of course, I thought of "Flowers", I also thought of "Siege", and I also thought of some other Western novels, and finally mixed and matched "this one" in my heart. A reader friend pointed out that the male protagonist He Yi has the shadow of Fang Hongwei from his body, and I am very happy. Writing Jin Tian, I write in the image of a beautiful man of The Gongzi brother of Jiangnan, when writing his image, I often come up with He Yan in "The New Language of the World", the face is like Fu Powder, the Yushu Linfeng, the sweat is even whiter, this Gongzi Brother has a particularly good temper, so girls like Jin Tian (I personally think that a beautiful man is equivalent to a virtue). If you want to say "world love novel", then saying that Jin Tian is a beautiful man is very "world love novel", saying handsome, then the tone is not "world love novel". I also confronted the modern Dai Zheng with the ancient storyteller Liu Jingting, and made all kinds of preparations in the novel, which are some efforts of the author not only to tell the story, but to tell the story.
Hangzhou writer Xiao Er
I also felt very fresh when I heard several guests talk about "world love novels". I ask myself, have I inherited? When "Queqiao Immortal" was written, because of the important factors of Jiangnan culture and because of the memory of my hometown, I did consciously use a lot of old-fashioned novel elements, such as the feeling of Dai Zheng telling the book at the end and shocking The Wood Shot. Our Town of Tangqi is a pier that appears many times in "Three Words and Two Beats", and I want to pick up "Three Words and Two Beats" far away in the past. "Jin Ping Mei" has also been read many times, and the old novel is widely read by the children of our local families since childhood, including myself. That is to say, the literary cultivation of our young people in Jiangnan town from childhood is not from Western classics, but from the "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Three Words and Two Beats", "The Legend of the Flowers on the Sea", all the way to the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect of the literati in the Republic of China period, which is the literary cell in our bones. By the time I was in junior high school, I began to come into contact with the West. A few days ago I said to me that in the first year of junior high school, we were watching Maugham's "The Moon and Sixpence" at the same time, and I said that I don't remember, he said he was looking at the version of "Translation Forest", I said that my family also had "Translation Forest".
"We" are the lucky ones who hitchhiked in the ascent ladder instead
Nandu: You once said that writing this book is also a tribute to Joyce's novel Ulysses, "Queqiao Immortal" and "Ulysses" seem to be quite different, in what ways have you been influenced by Joyce?
Shaw: I really, very much enjoy Ulysses and have seen various versions of the novel, drama and film. I also like stream-of-consciousness novels, so each of my novels is more or less influenced by stream-of-consciousness, but I don't deliberately imitate them. The stream of consciousness in "Queqiao Immortal" is relatively moderate, I do not have a large section to expand, if the author is not moderate, the book will be 50,000 words more if you are not careful. Ulysses was Bloom's day wandering around Dublin and returning home in the middle of the night. The birth of "Ulysses" gave Dublin later a "Boom Day", which is very lively every year, and the "Youth Tour" part of "Queqiao Immortal", whether juvenile or later middle-aged, basically happened on the day of Tanabata, four or three or two hairs have been swinging in the town, in the process they reminisce about their own years of death. The route they passed could draw a map of the town of Perch, and every place name in The Queqiao Fairy was real, which could be said to be a tribute to Ulysses, but the town was too small compared to Dublin, and there was a difference in magnitude.
Nandu: Recently, the topic of "small town as a problemmaker" has repeatedly aroused heated discussion on the Internet. "Queqiao Immortals" is written about the life encounters of a group of "small town writers" in Tangqi Town, this group of people was born in the 70s, grew up in the 1980s, and came of age in the 1990s. Judging from this novel, the post-70s "small town to do the problem" seems to be easier to achieve their life ideals, compared with the "problem writers" before and after, what are the special features of the Jiangnan "small town problem maker" in that era in terms of life experience? What are the characteristics of spirit and character?
Xiao Er: We never deny that we are the debut of "small town problem makers". I remember Liu Yu said in an article before that she herself was a good student, and she did a good job of the problem first, so that she had the basis for independent thinking to open her eyes to the world later, and she also felt that there was nothing wrong with this, and she also felt that it was too late. To the effect that, I was impressed by what I saw at the time and agreed.
But the "small town to do the problem" life we experience is not bitter at all, we remember in addition to the school class, a lot of time is playing outside, it can be said that the play is dark, the group of hair in the book is small, and the hair in my life is small, although the friendship with each other also comes from the same window career, such as boys and girls learning on the "don't sprout", there is also a sense of competition between the school bullies for the rank, but these do not oppress our spiritual world at all, we still have a lot of time to play, wandering. For example, in the book, yi congjin tiandaizheng they read martial arts novels and wanted to write martial arts novels themselves, there were no video games in that era, and we often talked about those imaginative things between classes, including aliens in the future universe world history and geography, like mysterious knowledge, we are not dull at all, the desire for knowledge is very strong, there was a period of middle school I was crazy about the Mayans, looking for information related to the Mayans everywhere. I remember a lot of happy times related to playing cards, from elementary school to before high school to college, which can be described as "crazy". In the last few months of self-study in the last few months of the university, I was still reading extracurricular books and reading uncontrollably, and in the quiet self-study classroom, I suddenly burst into laughter, laughing so much that I couldn't stop laughing, I remember reading the idle book "Mirror Flower Edge". At that time, I didn't think there was anything to review, so I used to do math puzzles and read novels to pass the 2 months before the college entrance examination. And Jin Tian in the book is also because he had nothing to do before the college entrance examination, followed a group of poor students to wander, and experienced the "killing dog" incident, which is real. This is the truth of our group of "small town problem makers", who have hardly been suppressed by the "problem", but rather like the particularly bright feeling in "Sunny Days". We also chased stars, singers, football stars, and I started buying Football World, and I started collecting posters of Platini and Reinkel.
But looking back, our generation experienced more unsafe things than we do now, such as drowning in the summer, electrocuting, and dying every year. I remember going around in the summer nights to see dead people. Sometimes I think that the current "problem makers" are much more pitiful than us.
Illustration of the inner page of Queqiao Immortal
The protagonists of "Queqiao Immortal" are all small-town elites, and no one has attended cram school at that time, but our Jiangnan town as a whole attaches great importance to reading, and children with better grades know that they want to go to college and go out. Looking back, we all feel like we were lucky enough to hitchhik in China's ascent ladder. In fact, our generation of "small town problem makers" who went to college were not the luckiest, the luckiest thing was that the college entrance examination was a few tens of points worse and did not go to college, and many of my classmates who did not go to college directly "recruited", that is, they are now directly civil servants of county organs, and they work in various bureaus that are recognized as very good, and life is also good. There are also some who graduated from junior high school and went to secondary school, because at that time the country was the most short of talents, we could not find the north after graduating from college, they have quickly occupied key departments such as the financial system after graduation, and they have become officials such as the director early. Compared with the current grand situation of the examination, our generation of students who did not enter the university easily obtained it, which can only be said to be a generation of small-town people supported by the times.
At that time, the difference between urban and rural areas was still huge, but the difference between cities and towns was not obvious, and there were some good teachers in the county middle school where I was located, but in the year of our graduation, the good teachers returned to Hangzhou one by one, returned to Shanghai, went out to study for graduate school, and the last semester also became a farewell season for us and good teachers, which was impressive.
"Four weddings and one funeral" in the town
Nandu: In the novel "Queqiao Immortal", I think you are dealing with the relationship with your hometown, with the youth, and with the years that have passed. But memories of past years are often scattered, chaotic, and lacking ups and downs. At what point did you begin to feel that you could draw a clue out of the chaos, or open a path, and follow this path, you can tell the life of the town and the people in the town of Perch in an orderly and interesting way? In the process of writing, are there moments of "this road does not work" or self-doubt? How is it solved?
Xiao Er: Before the novel was really written, it took about a whole year to conceive how to write it. When I think of my hometown town, there will be two nets in front of me: a net in the sky, that is, the nebula network that we looked up at in the summer night of our childhood, dotted with seas and wide skies, leading to the unknown and mystery, imaginary distances and exotic places. Throughout the seven or eight months, as soon as the rainy season passed, our night was to lie by the river to cool off, watching the sky and chatting. Another net is a network of rivers and bridges, and rivers can also lead to the outside world. The structure of my final novel is to intersperse a net in heaven and a net on earth, in which all the past, present, and future of the town's protagonists are. As Xu Dishan said, we are all "spiders with webs", but the worldview I conveyed in the novel is actually not so negative.
You said a clue or road, when I wrote it myself, I wanted to start with a 12-year-old photo, this old photo was opened, it explained that the four protagonists of their previous generation were acquainted, they arrived at the same class at the beginning, and then thought of the big things that life is easy to aggregate, nothing more than a wedding and funeral, this is a bit like the British movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral" Arrangement, I wrote about the wedding of Meizhi, the wedding of Jin Tian, and the reunion of Jin Tian and Xiang Xiang, a wedding in Qizhen, The wedding of the daughter of Zhong Xiaowei, a classmate of four small Chaoshan entrepreneurs, and the funeral of Liu Xiaoguang. These four weddings and a funeral, plus the Spring Festival that Chinese care about the most, returned to their hometown, and half of their lives were over.
The most difficult part of my writing process is how to deal with the uniqueness of each group of characters, such as Jin Tian and Xiang Xiang, a group of men and women in the town, which is this kind, and it is always easier to write if the joy of enmity and the dramatic conflict is strong, so how to write it, I can't do it again, right? Yi Cong and Yi Cong are the two people with the most twists and turns in their hearts in the book, a bunch of grass snake gray lines but unhappy and vengeful, to pinch out a uniqueness, it is quite challenging for me. Both groups of characters have two parts after the youth and reunion, this group can not have a repetitive part, how to deal with it, it is really not clear how to be good. Therefore, there are some details differences between the "Harvest" version and the single-line version, and I have changed a lot, trying to make the direction of the fate and relationship of the characters more reasonable.
Idealized personality is potential in everyone
Nandu: Do the main characters in Queqiao Immortal have archetypes in their lives? Does the character archetype know that you are writing this novel and will also read about the novel you are writing, is this stressful for your writing? How do you balance fiction and reality?
Xiao Er: Basically there are archetypes, at least when I write, I will come up with a face in memory, who is this face, I imagine the life and fate that TA may have, such as Shen Meizhi, who many readers like, I actually integrated the images of four or five town women, who used to be female characters in the gossip after tea and dinner in our town. Another beauty in the book, Du Qiuyi, is actually a beautiful aunt who can play the piano when I was a child, I always see her from a distance, a bit like Meng Yulou in "Jin Ping Mei", very cold beauty is very reserved and very light, but there is a period of Du Qiuyi's experience in the movie "Du Shi Niang" and is based on a little girl classmate of mine, she is also a beautiful woman, but her life experience is completely different. In the book, the post-70s generation of small town elites basically has prototypes, and the previous generation also has prototypes, but it must have done a lot of processing when writing. But the four protagonists on the 12-year-old photo, Yi Zhi has my own shadow, but the life experience is completely different, after the book comes out, I always want to say that I can be more interesting than Chen Yizhi, Yi Zhi childhood and adolescence is cute, after adulthood is bound by a lot of invisible things, out of the Jiangnan town with its own "fairy qi", her shackles are mainly from the concept, her intellectual personality hinders her, she is not free, not blooming enough, this is the Chen Yizhi I want to shape. In general, intellectuals are the most difficult to write.
The three male protagonists, Yi Congjin Tiandaizheng, all have prototypes, and they are all my intimate hair. Of course, they know that I am writing, what is particularly rare is that the prototypes are very open-minded, they have given me a lot of support for creation, I can "badly step" on them as much as I want, so I have no pressure to write this generation after 70, but when I write about the previous generation, Ai Wei said that I wrote more fiercely, I don't know what attitude the elders would have if they saw the novel. Unfortunately, my mother is no longer there, when she was there, even I wrote "The Song of the Tavern" she would read carefully, she did not write about homosexuality, my mother and my father had told me before, you don't always write about foreign countries, you also write about China. My dad came from a utilitarian point of view, and he thought that writing more novels that were closer would lead to more readers.
When I write Yi from Jin Tiandai to do bad things, I often steal the pleasure. Because of the understanding of the roots, one of the advantages is that the level of the characters will be a little more plump and complex, and they can stand up. Of course, there are disadvantages to the prototype, without them taking the initiative to remind me, I can't do "fierce" at the beginning, maybe I will lose some sense of power, I am "warm-hearted" to them, everyone has shortcomings, but the first thing I see is the part of them that shines particularly. The reader will feel a little idealized, but the idealized personality is actually potential in everyone, just need to be stimulated.
In addition, I think that after a book is born, I have its own destiny, and I have a certain sense of awe, I hope that everyone in my hair will have a smooth life, have a good ending, and not be hurt. I have a deep affection for the little ones I grew up with, and it is impossible for me to write one of them dead or mutilated, which is my own "scale", preferring to compromise some of the so-called "profundity".
Illustration of the inner page of Queqiao Immortal
Nandu: Dialect is a writer's language treasure, and the language of Queqiao Xian fuses the "Wu Nong soft language" to form a unique Jiangnan voice. Please give examples of your personal favorite dialect words used in the book (such as "wavy hair") and tell us what kind of character or mood they represent in Gangnam.
Xiao Er: There are many swinging hair, there are many interpretations, I will not unfold, the state of leisurely travel, a little fairy qi, the small town Zhuangzi getaway, and so on. Imagine if a Jiangnan towner drank half a pound of yellow wine in the evening, and several people made an appointment to swing their hair together, men and women, walked to the bridge to blow the wind, looked at the lively boats on the river, and then they had to go all the way to the end of the town.
For example, "Mulang Caixian", everyone is also very interested, in fact, it is an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl boy, not much love to learn, there is a little social gas, this time early to understand men and women, talk about love, the form of love is often together on the street, Cai Xian Po is derogatory, describe this girl some wind, slim, is feminine with three points of light and thin, a little bit like Pan Jinlian, attract bees and butterflies, please imagine. When we were teenagers, while reading the books of the sages, we also liked to listen to the stories of mulang caixian of our brothers and sisters.
Nandu: Writer Jin Renshun commented: "The characters and small worlds described in "Queqiao Immortal", a little higher, a little lower, a little more exciting, a little depraved, a little more vulgar, a little elegant, are not authentic Jiangnan tones. "In order to write authentically about the food, clothing, shelter and transportation of the people in the town in the past years, did you do some investigation or research in the writing process? Are there any details that are "authentic" that only people in Jiangnan Town can understand?
Xiao Er: I lived here until I went to college, and I will go back basically every month, and I am a person who is in this place, watching its vicissitudes and changes along the way. If you say to do some research, it is better to say that in order to write a book or do some desk homework, such as finding a lot of allusions and poems related to Tangqi Town to read, in order to receive the tone, and to see a lot of disappeared things: such as the old factory site that has been closed, the ruins of the steamship dock mentioned many times in the novel, a large part of the family history material in the novel is provided to me by the children, such as the family history of Dai Zheng's family and Yi Congjia, the story of Yi Congzhi's mother Lin Bingzhi and Yi Zhi's mother Xie Qingyun, all of which have a part of the authenticity. The novel has undergone various re-creations.
For example, Miss Fan's story and so on, without that archetypal story, I really can't make up those bizarre details. Some of the old houses by the river that we had in the late Qing Dynasty, were two-story wooden structures, and after liberation, they fell into disrepair, and some of the floor slabs had gaps, so In order to vent her anger, Miss Fan could spill the urine in the toilet through the slab slits onto the men who came downstairs to the halls to kiss.
Illustration of the inner page of Queqiao Immortal
Nandu: The novel was originally titled "The Book by the River", and it is conceivable that canals, docks, and water life are also very important parts of the book. As someone who grew up by the river, how do you feel about the Grand Canal?
Xiao Er: I have been a sleeper since I was a child, and I fell asleep every night listening to the whistle of the steamboat. The river and the boat were important parts of my childhood life. I know what time every day a passenger ship passes by my doorstep. I pushed open the window and saw the long bridge. To me, I can't imagine that there is no water system where I live. The river flows to the rivers, lakes and seas, the waters of the world are all connected, and the rivers feel like the flow of fate to me. So I have always used the river as a channel, yearning for the outside world, following the endless river, reaching out into the distance and the unknown. Life is also a one-stop dock, sometimes settled, sometimes adrift. Along the way, when I met various people and got along, I stopped and had a long conversation. I never forgot the word "long talk", that is, Zhang Dai's "Night Sailing Ship" had a profound impact on me. Once upon a time, there was a monk who stayed on a night boat with a monk. The monk asked, "Is it one person or two?" The disciple replied, two people. The monk asked again, is Yao Shun one person or two people? The scholar replied that it was a man. Then the monk said, "Then let the little monk stretch his feet."
Journalism and literature are dreams of youth
Nandu: You are both a writer and a veteran media person. Curious about your writing status? When writing long stories, how to ensure the daily writing progress? Also, which one, working in journalism or being a writer, will give you more of a sense of accomplishment?
Xiao Er: I've done a lot of subtraction. In a word, you can't want it again, you have to make trade-offs. I'm a very boring person in my daily life. The biggest benefit of media work is that it is fresh, boring, and has a higher degree of freedom than other occupations. So in the last few years of my media career, I chose to return to the front line as a reporter, I am now a senior reporter and chief reporter, like me, there are really very few old media people who are still on the front line, and everyone's choice is different. My idea is that journalists in the West who specialize in their fields can be white-haired, so why can't I? Now I read a lot of books for work, and I have almost no time for entertainment, not even time to chase dramas.
Illustration of the inner page of Queqiao Immortal
When I didn't take writing as a thing before, I was a person who had to watch the five major leagues of football, and I also watched tennis and watched F1 and so on, and my interests were very widespread, in order to have time to write, I gave up many hobbies, of course, I would go out a few times a year to play crazy. I am a person who hates wasting time, and I have no patience for what I think is a waste of time, which is a bit impersonal, and I do not have time to maintain some social sophistication, and I simply "lie flat" in this regard. When I was writing, the whole person was in a small bureau, and the other surrounding sounds could not be heard, and the family talked to me and said several sentences, and I would only reflexively "um" a few times at most.
Journalism and literature were once my dreams as a young man, and the course of decades has proved that it is too difficult to achieve the ideal of journalism, and I cannot be a true journalistic warrior, so I have the intention of retreating halfway. Life is short, retreat to the world of the self, to write something you really want to write, to express something that you think is valuable through fiction, and that's it. On the other hand, just because I have a rice bowl to lay the foundation, this rice bowl I am still competent, I do not have to write for a living, so what I pursue in writing is relatively pure, and writing itself is a particularly happy thing for me. Now as long as there is something I am writing with me on a daily basis, I am very full of heart. As for how much movement there is after writing it, I am resigned to fate.
Nandu reporter Huang Qian