Tang Jing: Professor Chen Sihe, you are a famous critic, have you seen any changes in Fu Yuehui in the work "Chewing Iron Filings"? And is Fu Yuehui's uniqueness reflected in this book among these post-80s writers? Chen Sihe: Fu Yuehui's creation has changed a lot, he originally gave me a collection of his short stories, called "Anna's Train", and I wrote a preface to him. Fu Yuehui's work at that time was more focused on personal fate, that is, writing about a person from other places after he arrived in Shanghai. But the novel is not about his uninspired, but about his mood in the marginal area, a sigh of his fate. So his novels at that time seemed to have a very concentrated theme, and the characters were a bit like Fu Yuehui's own wandering image. This image is indeed quite common in contemporary literature. I used to say that this image has been inherited, because there are many such intellectuals in our May Fourth New Literature, and now they have been passed down to Fu Yuehui's pen. The novel "Chewing Iron Filings", first of all, it has no popular titles, and it is very grand in terms of artistic conception. The structure of the story is not large, and the characters are faced with an entangled issue of life and death, whether they return to the countryside from the city or to the small town. On the surface, this novel seems to be discussing this theme repeatedly, but when you look closely, it makes a big impact on me, especially the last one. The three works are one higher than the other, and one is advancing further than the other. The first part is a realistic theme, and in the second part, there is a kind of thinking about life, and in the third part, it completely enters an abstract, metaphysical, speculative realm, which looks very illusory and very abstract, but the artistic conception of the writing is very grand. Now is an era of short videos, everyone knows that it is short and fast, to attract people's attention, this novel completely jumps out of the limitations and patterns of our time today, and embarks on a big realm road. I saw in it that Fu Yuehui's progress in the past ten years is very great, and there is a kind of leap in spirit. What I don't understand is why you think about death at such a young age? Fu Yuehui: I don't know what each person is like. I myself thought about these things when I was a teenager. When I was an undergraduate, I once went to Fudan University Hospital for examination of chest pain, and the doctor of the school hospital told me that you should go to Changhai Hospital for investigation of your condition. At that time, I took a chest X-ray or something, and said that it would take a week to know. The doctor told me that it was probably lung cancer, and that you were too young to be likely, and then said that this possibility could not be ruled out. After a week, I went for a follow-up examination, and a female doctor said disdainfully, what kind of lung cancer is this, it is chest muscle pain. But how do you think I spent that week? In life, I have encountered a lot of such things, and it is inevitable that I will think of death. Not only me, but many people should be thinking about this question. Tang Jing: The "Chewing Iron Filings" trilogy, including "Square", "Big River" and "Dangerous Building". From secular life to the spiritual world, to the theme of life and death, this book advances layer by layer, and the more it is written, the better it gets, and it covers many aspects of real life. In addition, this work also integrates poetry, prose, as well as dramas, letters, diaries, text messages, lyrics and other genres. This innovative way of writing makes "Chewing Iron Filings" present a state of breadth and profundity. Mr. Chen Cang, you are a novelist and a poet, please share with you your reading feelings about this book. Chen Cang: When I saw the title of the book, I didn't understand it at first, but after reading the work, we could feel a kind of imagery. What kind of imagery? When a cow chews grass, it is called rumination, and a person is chewing iron filings, what is the feeling? The first is cold, the second is hard, and the third is inertia. This behavior itself is weird, so it is said that he is also lonely. In fact, the title of the book is already explained in the first part. There are two protagonists in the first part, one is called Master Lu and the other is Du Xia, the two are true love, and the place where they meet is in an abandoned hardware factory. On the way to the hardware factory, it was sprinkled with discarded iron filings. When I saw this image, I felt that it was a symptom of chewing iron filings, whether it was apathy, hardness, weirdness, or loneliness, it was actually an urban disease of urban people. The other two protagonists are Hou Che and Lou Chunyu, Hou Che returned to his hometown after a failed marriage in Shanghai, and her classmate Lou Chunyu was doing business in the provincial capital, and the business failed, and then he left the house, divorced, sold his house, and returned to the small county. I think the great thing about Fu Yuehui is that he is at the forefront of understanding the development of society, because I am a person who wrote about entering the city a few years ago, and the topic of entering the city is very hot, and even formed a craze for writing into the city. But then I was thinking, what should we do if we can't go back to our hometown? The first part of "Chewing Iron Filings", "Square", is about how to go back to the city. Hou Che and Lou Chunyu began to go back to heal, but the words "healing" and "escaping" were not enough to explain the problem, and they were not very accurate. The word that can really be used is called regression. Back in the county seat, they must find a spiritual pillar, and only with a spiritual pillar can they be considered to return. Therefore, Fu Yuehui has found a point for all of us to return to the city. He manifested himself through the deaths of three people. The first person was named Li Qingping, and she was sick and hospitalized, and there was no one to take care of her. When the children and grandchildren have moved to the city, the question of the end of life for those who stay in their hometown is very important. Li Qingping is just such a person, and in the end, Hou Che's mother and others set up an organization in the form of mutual aid for the elderly, called Sangyu Story, which solved the problem of Li Qingping's birth, old age, sickness and death, which is actually a self-redemption action. The second person is Zhao Feifei. Maybe many people don't pay much attention to Zhao Feifei, he is Hou Che's classmate, he is the president of their class, he is a person full of dreams, but he did not go out of the small county town and was trapped in the small county town. However, in his daily life, his dreams have not been lost. He has a habit of going fishing, and it's night fishing. The purpose of his fishing is not to eat the fish, but to release the fish after he has caught them. So what is he fishing? It is the kind of vast world that yearns for fish in the water, and a state of life of self-breakthrough. In the end, he ended his life because he caught a large fish and couldn't pull it, so he jumped into the river to catch it. He seems to have had an accident, but in fact he followed the fish to the big river and to the free world. The third person is Master Lu. Master Lu died in order to maintain his love and maintain free marriage and love. Through the life and death of these three people, and through the ultimate questioning of their lives, Fu Yuehui let those who returned to the small county find the ultimate goal of life. What's particularly interesting? Hou Che met a patient with cerebral palsy named Chu Chun. The world of early spring and normal people is completely isolated. After Hou Che got to know her, he brought her to the circle of normal life and made her a "supernumerary classmate" to attend the party. Hou Che also found her emotional sustenance in the small county town from Chu Chun with her kindness. When Hou Che first returned to the county, she and her mother were always estranged and couldn't get close, but after getting to know Chu Chun, two major changes occurred: the first was that she and her mother held hands, and the second was that she and Lou Chunyu also held hands, Lou Chunyu was the person who had a crush on her in middle school. These two handles represent the people who have entered the city, officially returning to the small county town, returning to their hometown, returning to the origin of their own lives, and returning to the origin of their emotions. To sum up, Fu Yuehui wants to tell us that the return of the spirit is not how much you get, but how much you give. Giving is very important, Hou Che's kind care for cerebral palsy patients has given her emotional sustenance, and her spirit has truly returned to her hometown. It can be said that at this time at the end of the novel, all the characters have found their origins, found their roots, and their souls have found the soil to attach to. Tang Jing: Li Li is the deputy editor-in-chief of our Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House, and he and I are both the editors in charge of Chewing Iron Filings. Mr. Li Li was the first of us to read the manuscript of "Chewing Iron Filings". As early as 2020, when "Chewing Iron Filings" participated in the Phoenix Literature Awards, he watched this work, but at that time there were only the first two, and the third only had an outline. I remember that the award speech of "Chewing Iron Filings" emphasized the current and contemporary nature of this work, that is, we can see the figures of our contemporaries in "Chewing Iron Filings", and even our own figures. Let's ask Mr. Li Li to talk. Li Li: First of all, I think it's an ambitious work. When talking about the word ambition, if you talk about someone having ambition in your life, it may not necessarily be positive, but for creation, I think ambition is essential. We can't expect all the novelists, directors, musicians in the world to create according to their own temperament and emotions, and there must be great ambition in them, whether it is to challenge themselves, challenge others, or challenge the classics, they need to have such an ambition. "Chewing Iron Filings" is a very ambitious work. It is a blend of various genres, and it is also a very clear expression. I think that at the age of thirty or forty, ambition is very important, and if you don't have such awareness, you may turn creation in the real sense into an emotion, into a preference, or even a gesture, and then you may waste a lot of talent. Secondly, I think it is particularly important that it is a work of comprehensive self-knowledge, a book of knowledge. Each of us has a different perception of the world and ourselves every day. But in the whole life, there are three stages that are the peak of cognition. The first one is when you're very young, basically a year or two before kindergarten. At that time, it was relatively simple, and it was enough to know things, so I just bought some naturalist books such as astronomy, geography, plants, animals, and oceans for children. The second should be in adolescence, which is basically self-awareness, and begins to be conscious of one's position in the world and in life, and rebellion will also occur, and rebellion is nothing more than feeling that you are not important enough. But the third cognition, I think, is more important, because it may be the last time, basically after adulthood, between thirty and forty. Because at this time, cognition has a very deep foundation, his experience, his memories, his imagination and his thinking, which is very complicated. These three books have such a meaning. His childhood memories, family origins, family relationships, including his place in this world, some possibilities for the future, everything he can think of has basically been sorted out in the three books, of course, in the form of novels. If you take these three protagonists as the center of the circle and extend outward, it can indeed extend to almost all fields. So I think in a sense, the writing of this book is also a comprehensive combing of the author's own life experience, whether realistic or abstract. Of course, there is a theme for such combing, which is life and death. I think this kind of combing is actually very necessary, it is equivalent to climbing a very large, very high mountain. Again, this is the Book of the Times. Much of what he writes about in his book is from the turn of the century to the present day. There is one passage that I am particularly interested in, although it may not be the point, but I think it is particularly contemporary, and that is a review of the Internet experience in the third part. At first, there was no network, then there was the Internet, forums, campus networks, Renren networks, and then the network platforms with public characteristics suddenly became unpopular, and began to become blogs, then Weibo, and in the blink of an eye, it became WeChat. The changes in network applications in the past 20 years have existed objectively, and the characteristics of the times are particularly strong. Moreover, the changes of the network have a corresponding relationship with reality, which is both promoting and counter-effecting, and will definitely have an impact on the public's spiritual level. In addition to the Internet, there are a large number of other details that are very relevant to the times, and also related to life and death. The last feature, which is a book of reflections, is a concern for life and death. My generation is getting older and more exposed to this issue. As a way of thinking, death will always exist. There are a lot of stories of saving people in the three parts, and saving people has become a very important theme. The most interesting thing is that the rescuers often also have suicidal and world-weary emotions. A person who wants to give up, and then meets a person of the same kind who also wants to give up, he is very sympathetic and will eventually save that person. It gives the impression that although many things are bad, they are still optimistic and hopeful about life. I think this is very inspiring for the present, and it is a very good example for contemporary young people.
The full text was published in the 07 edition of Youth Daily Life Weekly on November 19, 2023.