Recently, the famous writer Xu Zechen launched the latest collection of short stories "Qingcheng", and revised and republished the classic novel collection "Running Through Zhongguancun" and "If the Snow Closes the Door". "Qingcheng" tells the emotional encounter of three women with three sad and clear love stories.
On October 17th, the "Let The Angel Dance on the Tip of the Needle - Xu Zechen's Short Story Sharing Meeting" sponsored by Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House and SKP RENDEZ-VOUS was held at SKP RENDEZ-VOUS. This event is one of the series of activities of the sixth "Beijing October Literature Month", famous writer and secretary of the Secretariat of the China Writers Association, Famous critic zhang Li and professor of the College of Literature of Beijing Normal University, Young Critic Cong Zhichen, associate professor of the Department of Chinese of Peking University, and xu Zechen, a famous writer, discussed in depth the writing achievements and literary charm of Xu Zechen's short stories around works such as "Qingcheng", "Running Through Zhongguancun" and "If the Snow Closes the Door".
Event scene from left: Qiu Huadong, Zhang Li, Xu Zechen, Cong Zhichen
Write about the sense of place and speed of this era
Beijing, as an important regional symbol, is also marked in the writing territory of Xu Zechen and Qiu Huadong, but the two writing angles are very different.
Qiu Huadong, a famous writer and secretary of the Secretariat of the China Writers Association
Qiu Huadong said, "My feelings about Beijing are more like to visualize it, and there are not many realistic parts in my novel, including some novellas, which have some realistic backgrounds, but I eventually visualized it, abstracted it with poetic imagery, and gave it aesthetic value." Zechen's novels are more qualitative, and his consideration of the groups in Beijing and the lives of individuals is more realistic, and he is exploring the state of their existence and the state of life, which is a huge difference between me and Zechen. Of course, we also have our own beauty, we are both novelists, facing the same city, we deal with it so differently when writing novels. ”
Zhang Li, Professor, College of Liberal Arts, Beijing Normal University
Zhang Li said that the changes of the times have made the two writers grow completely different literary fruits in the same land, one represents subjectivity and the other represents a sense of speed. "Teacher Qiu Huadong became famous as a teenager, and the works he wrote after coming to Beijing actually constitute the course of Beijingers' lives. If you understand the growth history of Beijing youth and read the works of teacher Qiu Huadong, you can completely outline another kind of life of north drift, but also have the sense of Beijing's locality and subjectivity. Based on the experience of renting a house in Beijing, Xu Zechen began to write from the western suburbs, and later slowly wrote about the Yuanmingyuan and Zhongguancun, looking at the world from those places. His perspective on the world is the angle of running through Zhongguancun. ”
Zhang Li believes that Xu Zechen, as a new generation of novelists, has written a sense of speed and place that belongs to our time in this way.
When Cong Zhichen talked about the Beijing written by the two writers, he mentioned the difference between the two on another level - the sense of drift. He said: "In fact, Teacher Qiu Huadong does not write much about the sense of drifting, and his sense of urban shaking does not seem to have much to do with drifting, but Teacher Xu Zechen wrote about that sense of drifting. ”
Cong Zhichen, a young critic and associate professor of the Department of Chinese at Peking University
Cong Zhichen mentioned sharing a house in the city and described it as "the encounter of angels on the tip of a needle." The encounter of strange "angels" forms the theme of urban writing, "When we read Benjamin, when we read Sanders, they tell us what the city really is. The city is so big, the city is full of strangers, and the big difference between the city and the countryside is that you meet strangers every day. And how many strangers are there? We've become numb to meeting strangers. Cities let different stories happen, different people happen, and at the same time let a man constantly deepen his understanding of women. ”
"Let Xu Zechen dance on the tip of the knife"
When talking about the theme of this sharing meeting, Qiu Huadong suggested that it is better to change the name - let Xu Zechen dance on the tip of the knife, "I often discuss the art of writing short stories with Zechen. Short story writing is equivalent to a dagger, novellas are a hammer, and novellas are an SKP. So if you write a short story well, you must have a sharp, you must have a knife tip, and in the contemporary novelist, in the art of short story writing, he has created a short story that is sharp, sharp, shiny, and cold, but is actually a soft knife. ”
Qiu Huadong believes that Xu Zechen has a strong control over short story writing. This ability is mainly reflected in the short story collection "If the Snow Closes the Door", "This book is also very diverse in subject matter, in fact, he received the best short story he has written in more than twenty years into this collection, you can look at the characteristics of his short story writing, the contrast between each other, the kind of control, the sharpness of the dagger, this is particularly important." Qiu Huadong was greatly amazed after reading this work, "I said that Zechen, as the best short story writer in contemporary times, was established by relying on this book, and I mainly refer to craftsmanship and good hand feeling." ”
"If the Snow Closes the Door" won the "2016 China Good Book", and Zhang Li, as the judge of the award, also has a high evaluation of this novel collection. Regarding "Running Through Zhongguancun", Zhang Li highlighted the stylistic awareness and life awareness in it, "If you want to see the changes and changes in life in Beijing in the past two decades, this book covers the exposition of China's best young writers. ”
"Xu Zechen used his novels to prove to us that on a basis that even if there is nothingness and nothingness, angels can dance, and the dance is so real." Cong Zhichen said. He believes that the strong ability to control the details makes Xu Zechen's novels so real, "Xu Zechen's details are so beautiful, I felt strange at the beginning when I read "Western Xia", how can there be such a thing, but when you read it, the emotions go in." When we study fiction, we think that the writer's greatest skill is that the novel itself is fictional, and you know it is fake, but the writer's narrative makes you feel so realistic. This is Xu Zechen's very rare skill, like magic, a detail, the character came out at once. ”
"These three women grew up with me"
Xu Zechen's new work "Qingcheng", including "Western Xia", "Juyan", and "Qingcheng", uses three place names as the names of three women to write their independent but intrinsically related fates. As far as the collection of novels "Qingcheng" is concerned, its creation did not happen overnight. When introducing the writing process of "Qingcheng", Xu Zechen said: "The writing time of "Western Xia" is about 2003, this novel is almost twenty years, if I look back, pick a few that make me most moved and have the most words, "Western Xia" is one of the few novels. "Juyan" is a work written after I personally got married, I felt that I had a deeper and broader understanding of family, marriage, and women. The span between the two is about eight years, and "Qingcheng" was written in the first two years, and the time is even longer. ”
Famous writer Xu Zechen
As far as the writer is concerned, he will continue to grow, and he will become more and more cautious and careful in his writing. Márquez once said that over time, writing slowly became a chore, "the problem is simple, that is, the sense of responsibility is getting stronger." Now I think that every time I write a letter, it will have a greater response and an impact on more people. "As a rigorous and meticulous and experienced writer, Xu Zechen's writing is placed more expectations, and for the writer himself, he hopes to continue to break through," after writing "Xixia" and "Juyan" I have been thinking, I think it is not enough, for a male writer, perhaps about women's writing, especially the shaping of female images, has been expected and criticized by many readers, they will feel that male writers, especially straight men like me, do not have a particularly deep understanding of women, Or look at this character image and think there is something wrong with it. So a writer will compete with himself, and he will also compete with the reader, and the more you think I have a problem, the more I hope to work hard in which place, hope to make a breakthrough, make myself satisfied, and satisfy the reader. ”
Xu Zechen frankly said that after completing "Western Xia" and "Juyan", many years later, because of a series of coincidences - on Mount Emei, I thought of taking the name of "Qingcheng"; traveling around Chengdu, copying Zhao Xi's characters; traveling with the writer Alai to see eagles, etc., many factors were mixed together, and there was "Qingcheng". "After writing, these three sisters, at least so far, until I turned forty, some of my views on women, marriage, love, and family were almost reflected in these three works." Xu Zechen said.
In Zhang Li's view, Xu Zechen's new work "Qingcheng" has reached the height of being an excellent novelist and is a writing with a deep sense of gender. "There are usually two types of women in male writing, one is an angel and the other is a slut. In fact, in addition to these two types, there is also a type of woman in the history of Chinese literature since ancient times, that is, the moth-fighting woman, she dedicates, she is stoic, she is like a mother of the earth, but at the same time she has her fierceness, Dou E'e, Du Liniang came back from the dead, and the spirit of fighting to the end when she dies. Xixia, Juyan and Qingcheng, although they are trapped in some kind of dilemma, they can see their rebellion against their own fate and dilemma in the subtleties. ”
Cong Zhichen believes that there is a close connection between the three novels in "Qingcheng", and they reflect a man's different understanding of women at different stages. From being unmarried, just married, until being with women for a long time, "for example, "Xixia" is very mysterious, much like a person who has not really grasped marriage, or even really grasped love. For a man, women are a very elaborate or very vain product. In "Juyan", as Teacher Zhang Li said, what is particularly moving is that a woman in the huge city of Beijing can finally fully obtain the autonomy of feelings. This means that men have begun to live with women and have begun to have a more mature understanding of women's subjectivity. And when it comes to "Qingcheng", it is the last sublimation. Xu Zechen's children are now also in primary school, and I believe that in the process he has become more and more deeply aware that in life, we are taken care of by women a lot, and women sacrifice a lot for the family. The image of that teacher is really a symbol of a useless man. But Qingcheng is still willing to dedicate himself in this way, and in this novel, what I see is Xu Zechen's certain modesty and high recognition of women as a man. ”
As a fruitful writer, Xu Zechen will still not stop and will continue to create, about Beijing, about running, and possibly about women. "Western Xia", "Juyan" and "Qingcheng" are the three sisters who belong to Xu Zechen alone, but their fate may not have ended.
"At the beginning, when there was no "Qingcheng", someone suggested that I put "Xixia" and "Juyan" together to produce a collection, and I felt that the time was not up. But now I don't put it together, and I don't want to. These three women grew up with me. Maybe in another ten or twenty years, when I am slowly getting older, I will have a new understanding of women, I will write another article and add it, become four sisters, or five sisters, maybe there will be different ages, different feelings about life, family, marriage, love, and so on. Xu Zechen said.