For Zhu Jing, many readers have a feeling of "familiar and strange".
Born in 1982, the young writer became famous for Sprouts and published almost every month between 2004 and 2007, as well as four novels in succession. After that, she graduated from Nanjing University with a master's degree, got married at work, gave birth to a daughter, gradually wrote less, and gradually disappeared from the public eye.
2017 is the tenth year of Zhu Jing's "interruption of writing". That year, her daughter joined the nursery, and she resumed her daily life of carrying a school bag and a computer in and out of the library, 500 meters from the nursery. While applying for a project, writing a thesis, and preparing for the PhD, her writing also quietly resumed. At the end of last year, her latest collection of novels, For example, was published by Yilin Publishing House. It's been twelve years since her last book was published.
The new book includes more than a dozen of Zhu Jing's works in more than a decade: from the early "Liansheng" and "Disappearing Light Years" to the mid-term "Frogs of the Andes", to the recent "Ophelia in the Water" and "That Dog It Wants to Go to Anhui", half of which were written in 2018 and later.
"This is my first book since I resumed writing." Recently, Zhu Jing was interviewed by the surging news reporter, "For me personally, it makes me believe that I can continue as a writer, and perhaps closer to what I expected." ”
Looking back at the past, she now believes that writing is not just about choosing and being chosen, it also needs some strength: "In this world, anything you want to admit positively about what you love needs some strength to identify, to persevere, to pay for it." 」 I have always been afraid to face my relationship with writing, but also because I am afraid that I will not have the ability to reach the ideal of writing. ”
Zhu Jing
Review: Zhu Jing of "Sprout" has her literary golden age
The literary resumes of "post-80s" writers seem to be rarely able to bypass "Sprouts" and "new concepts".
In Zhu Jing's high school years, the "New Concept" essay contest has attracted much attention. At that time, she did not sign up for the competition, but only wrote small essays on weekends and evening self-study, and even wrote several notebooks. After going to college, she wrote novels in the writing class of Nanjing Normal University, sometimes with encouragement from her teachers.
The real opportunity to publish began in the third year of college, when it was close to the assessment of guaranteeing graduate students. There is a plus point in the assessment of that year, and one of the bonus points is a bonus point for creative achievements. Zhu Jing selected the literary magazines she felt suitable in the library's periodical lending room, including "Bud".
In 2004, "Sprouts" simultaneously launched Two of Zhu Jing's novels "About Love, About Medicine" and "If Life Is Only Like The First Sight" in the "Novel Family" column of the first issue of that year, which became the earliest moment of Zhu Jing's attention in the "Budding System". In the three years between the ages of 22 and 25, she regularly contributed to "Bud" and "Cloth Tiger Youth Literature", published her works almost every month, and published four books: "About Love, About Medicine", "The Book of Confusion", "Happiness Mystery", and "Zoo Next to the Art Museum".
In the view of He Ping, a professor at the College of Literature of Nanjing Normal University, "Zhu Jing, a novelist, is also the 'Zhu Jing of 'Sprout'.' Zhu Jing has her own literary golden age. ”
Zhu Jing responded: "That was indeed the golden age of personal writing. Because of his young age, he has no scruples in writing, and he can write naturally and freely. And sufficient energy brings strong productivity, and the speed of writing and typing are synchronized. But I didn't know at the time that I was also experiencing the best writing era of young authors of the same era, belonging to the golden age of 'post-80s' writing. ”
In her narration, the readers and the authors of that era grew up together, and the readers paid attention to the authors and concerned themselves: "The 'he' or 'she' as the author is experiencing, living, and making a voice through writing, and that sense of unity may only be seen in the assistance of entertainment and love beans today, but it once happened in the scene of literature that day." ”
In those years, Zhu Jing also had various attempts, such as "A Tear of Promise", "Bear's Sweater" to carry out fantasy writing, "Aunt Xu's Window" and "Pink Story" to write the reality of citizen life. Those, she said, were the product of an abundant, free state of writing, which was very precious to a young writer, even though it would mature sooner or later.
"Personally, it's even more fortunate that while I'm also well aware of the immaturity and solidification in early writing, early writing left me with a lot of important things. First, because of "Classical Woman", "If Life Is Only Like the First Sight" and a few other articles, the more distinct classical style formed is also to give readers the initial impression and memory. Second, in the early days, they found their own language and formed a suitable, stable, and discerning language style. These contents are independent of the text to give themselves some possibilities for the future, especially when it comes to resuming writing after a decade of interruption. ”
Readers who pay attention to Zhu Jing will always lament her "ten years of interruption in writing". In a 2017 feature on the Year of the Dog-born writers in Modern Express, Zhu Jing answered the reason for the "disappearance" of that decade: "Because I found myself unable to deal with things other than writing, I ran away. In fact, until this time, writing for me, I thought it was a choice - I can choose or not. Because I learned Chinese, because I started to write and found that I could write, I wrote. Later, I felt that there were difficulties, there were difficulties in transformation, there were difficulties in establishing contact with the new magazine, so I stopped writing. I think I still have a job, I'm going to be a teacher, thinking and discussing reading and writing with students, and it's good and freer. ”
But in the spring of 2017, as her daughter was in charge, she resumed writing. "After a long pause, the trigger of the feeling is not very difficult. But because of the strangeness, there will be many problems at the beginning, and the first novel after resuming writing, "For example, the eaves" actually changes a lot in sentences. Zhu Jing confessed to the surging news reporter, "I resumed writing because I can only write, and I can only write, this is the only thing that I can call talent, I have come here, and I have the opportunity to make myself more comfortable when I face my relationship with writing." ”
At the end of 2019, Zhu Jing's latest collection of novels, "For example, RuoYi Di", was published by Yilin Publishing House.
New: The novel has changed a lot compared to a decade ago
"For example" contains a total of 13 short stories, many of which are small, ordinary and everyday, and you will feel that it is the story of the people around you:
"I just can't get married in that mood."
"Having a child, or having a cat, is a truth... Maybe then you won't be alone. ”
"No matter how the worldly dogmas discipline us, there are always moments of deviation, with doubts about ourselves, and we hope to be placed in ideals in this world, but there is also an 'I' that cannot be extinguished."
……
Gu Yijun, a ph.D. in modern and contemporary Chinese literature at Nanjing Normal University, wrote in a book review: "Zhu Jing is still thinking about the emotional currents that are about to dissipate over the city, but more importantly, she is eager to give readers who read her works the strength to 'face some kind of reality independently'." Miao Yifan, a former student of Zhu Jing, wrote that what supports the collection of novels such as "For example" is not the construction of a story, but a kind of writing power, which comes from love.
"I think what combines the two may be exactly what my novels think and convey to the reader." Give the reader the power to 'face some kind of reality independently', and this power stems from love and hope that cannot be let go. Zhu Jing said. Her intuition was that her novel had changed a lot from ten years ago, not because her skills were getting better, but because she had written about her strength and desire.
"When I wrote Tianbao in 2011, I felt comfortable because I told a complicated story very well. Now if I deal with the same story, I will no longer use complex character relationships and plots, preset situations, and push everything to the point of being mellow and moving. I want to be slow, I want to be slow, I want to take a little time, give myself and the novel a little more stuff. ”
The new book of the same name is like this, "For example, the eaves drop", it seems to be a popular story on the surface, the earliest derived from a story That Zhu Jing heard - there was a female teacher, because her husband worked in the field, so she was often harassed, and later the female teacher established a relationship with the principal, and no one bothered her.
During that time, when Zeng Jingping's pear garden play "Royal Monument Pavilion" came to Nanda to perform, Zhu Jing booked a ticket very early, but could not see it. She later watched a video on Youku, and the "Shelter from the Rain" segment reminded her of the story she had heard.
"Dou Shi, who is in the county school, and Meng Yuehua, who is in the Imperial Monument Pavilion, both have specific dilemmas that are difficult to get rid of. In their stories, there is a male character as a bystander, for the 'Dou' is the 'I' who sympathizes with her as a neighbor, and for Meng Yuehua is Liu Shengchun who does not share the same room outside the Imperial Monument Pavilion to protect her innocence even if it rains. ”
At first, Zhu Jing wanted to write an intertextual story, but then she chose to simplify it and no longer focus on the relationship between "I" and Dou in italian text. "On the one hand, it will be more real, and most of us will not have time to pay deep attention to the lives of others; on the other hand, I want to get rid of the entanglement of gender relations." In this novel, the center of the story is no longer the rumors of the witch or the desire of 'I' for her, but returns to another proposition--how beauty leads to its own tragedy because of the possessiveness it causes. ”
She wants to express people's specific experiences and real confusion: "The demise of similar women's restraints, beauty and ideals in different situations, it makes this story need more than conflict, it is simple, like Meng Yuehua standing in the Imperial Monument Pavilion, and Liu Shengchun outside the pavilion, there is no word in the night, and the inner waves are early and the stars are moving." This space between moving and not moving, between speechless and speechless, is where the writer can explore. ”
In addition to Dou, there are many female characters in the new book, who are often good-looking, have their own difficulties, and have a special tenacity.
Zhu Jing said that she trusts women's natural ability to be good and beautiful, and hopes that women can fully grow up and choose fairly, first become an independent and complete person, and then become someone else's wife and other person's mother. She does not resent dedication, but also pursues the peace of the family, but hopes that all this is a woman's own choice, not to be empowered by others.
In The Frog of the Andes, she borrowed a novel to say something like this: "You can be someone else's wife, or be the mother of someone else's children, and I will still support you; you or be my wife, whether you have children or not is not the top priority; you may not be anyone's wife, you may choose a more free life, as you have hoped many times before, go where you want to go, do what you want to do." 」 ”
"When I wrote this, I was actually very sad inside, because I knew that this was an almost idealized vision. The strength of women I understand is that there is always resilience and hope, and the bad situation can strive for the possibility of change, close to the inner belief, not to demand blamelessness or to be strong. ”
Zhu Jing also wanted to write a series of essays about the "beautiful life" in Tokyo. The picture shows the 2019 crossover exhibition "Cat Olympics" at the Roppongi Mori Museum in Tokyo. Photo by Zhu Jing
Desire: Constructing an alternative interpretation and imagination of life, approaching infinite proximity
In January this year, Zhu Jing published a new novel "Mr. Sir, Sir" in Flower City. For this story, which revolves around "people who read Chinese departments", she conceived of October, wrote for more than a month, and changed it back and forth several times.
"It was a particularly tough time to write. It's something I've never experienced, and it's a process I think is probably long overdue and necessarily going through. Zhu Jing said, "In this process, the real face I and writing are the kind of hope that in the process of infinite proximity, the force that will inevitably be encountered will not be reached, and there will be gains in the inability to reach, and frustration and loss will sometimes make you more convinced that you want to arrive, although you may not be there now, but you think that you will eventually arrive or approach." This is another kind of uneasiness than ignorance. ”
She even felt that if the molded "Sir, Sir" was still unfinished for her, her uneasiness would make her set off again, to get closer to infinity. "It's a moment I haven't experienced in my previous writing. A trapped, a stagnant, perhaps does not mean fear. These may produce fundamental new knowledge in present writing. ”
Because of her long campus life, she also worried about whether it would become a limitation of her own. "But I should see that I may also be able to focus on another way to start exploring a world that is more accessible to me."
"The content of life is always similar, we are not pursuing 'one' writing like pursuing individuality, blindly seeking novelty. The real 'one' is to write about the unique 'me' and the way the world faces. Man in the crowd, if one of the stars, but each has its own light. For example, she said that the 2019 hit novel "Jin Zhiying Born in 1982" is not new in terms of content, "The key may not lie in the content of life itself, but in the way of perception and the form of presentation." People's emotional needs can have many levels, grasping the subtle differences, while releasing the imagination, is what the writer needs to do. ”
In the past year, Zhu Jing has been a visiting student at Waseda University in Tokyo, where she takes care of young children, writes essays and novels. The study tour has ended, and she has recently returned to Nanjing to establish a new routine.
She revealed that her writing plan has two sequences: one is family observation, observing the changes in family structure and family relationships in the new generation, and exploring the various aspects of intimate relationships. This sequence was written last year with the novels "So Good Night", "Dangerous Wife", "Shadow", and "This Time Sunny and Rainy", "Kasai" in the process of completion; the other sequence is the "College Writing" sequence, that is, returning to the familiar world for another kind of opening. This sequence already has novels such as Ophelia in the Water and Sir, Sir.
When she visited Tokyo, she systematically read books related to Japanese folk art, collected relevant materials, went to many art museums and shops to conduct real surveys, and wanted to write a series of essays about the "beautiful life" in Tokyo under the combination of traditional Japanese folk art and modern craft aesthetics, aesthetic life tradition and modern consumption generation.
"With regard to writing, I write only one aspect of life that I see and understand, and use my understanding to do literary expression. Many times, I choose to be considerate rather than angry, not to rush forward, but I may not appreciate another powerful and even violent force. The significance of writing is that it can construct another interpretation and imagination of life, trying to get endlessly close to truth or ideal. ”