1988 The author poses with Robert Grillet in Paris
One day in early October 1985, news came from Stockholm that year's Nobel Prize in Literature had been awarded to the French writer Claude Simon. The General French people are interested in this award, and they are also happy that the French writer has won the award again, but the French people in the streets, roadside cafes, and subway passages are mostly asking each other: "Who is Claude Simon?" Of course, soon some people popularized science through newspaper radio and television: Claude Simon was a member of a small literary genre in France, the "New Novel School", so the Swedish Academy awarded him an award, which also meant an affirmation of the French "New Novel School". But the Swedish Academy has always advertised that they are awarded to individual writers, regardless of institutions, groups, genres, and they awarded the prize to Claude Simon this year, mainly because he wrote the novel "Flanders Highway", which "in the depiction of the human condition, combines the rich imagination of poets and painters with a profound understanding of the role of time".
After the reform and opening up, the Chinese literary circles and many literary enthusiasts, especially the "Wenqing", attach great importance to the Nobel Prize in Literature. Three years after Simon won the award, a "Wenqing" saw me and was still angry about the practice of the Swedish Academy that year. It turned out that he was "clear to the French "New Novel School" and "Men erqing", he told me that the representative of this genre, first of all, Alain Robert-Grillet, the masterpiece of the novel is "Eraser", and also wrote the film script, of which "Last Year in Malenbad" was directed by Aaron René and made into a movie, the response was strong, the Swedish Academy should award the Nobel Prize to Greer, but unexpectedly gave Simon, which caused an uproar, and he also shouted in the air, because Simon ranked fourth and second in the "New Novel School". The three are Natalie Salot and Michel Bhutto.
It was a winter day in 1988, and the "Wenqing" had been introduced to my study by relatives, because I had just returned from France, so there were several pictures taken in Paris on the shelves, and when he saw one of them, he was surprised and uttered the following sentence: "You actually stood with Rob Grillet and drank champagne!" I felt harsh when I heard it, and my heart was unhappy, and I couldn't help but say, "It was Rob Grillet who drank champagne with me!" "Listening to the sound, the gongs and drums listening, he knew that he had inadvertently offended me, and he was busy taking other words to split, and I was calm, and I talked to him about paris.
At that time, it had been ten years of reform and opening up, and at that juncture, Western literature, especially Western modernist literature, was in a serious state of transcendence in the exchange of Chinese and foreign literature. Take the French "New Novel School", the midnight publishing house that publishes their works is a small, even shabby, small publishing house in Paris, led by a narrow staircase, and of course the works of writers published by this publishing house, in addition to the four "new novel school" masters headed by Robert Grillet mentioned above, also includes avant-garde writers of other genres or genres, such as Sartre, Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Robert Pange, Aragon, etc. All the organs are complete", in the eyes of some people, in the heart, it is simply a mighty shore, a literary holy land. The "Wenqing" asked me if I had been to the Midnight Press in Paris, and even if I hadn't gone upstairs and taken a photo outside the door with a small sign, I wouldn't have wasted my trip to Paris. I told him that when my French friend was hanging out with me, he had also passed by the Rue Bernard Barrissey in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, and pointed me through the small door of the midnight publishing house, and I also looked at it a few times, but I did not have the idea of stopping for a photo. That "WenQing" also noticed that there was a photograph on my bookshelf in front of the statue of Balzac in the former residence of Baun, and he looked at it, probably because he had a sigh in his heart that "this uncle is unteachable", so he stopped discussing literature with me.
Recently, I sorted out the old photos and found this old picture of him standing side by side with Rob Grillet drinking champagne, which is indeed very emotional. It is inevitable to take this opportunity to sort out my own mental journey in the process of reading and borrowing foreign literature in many years of writing.
In my youth and youth, I drew nourishment mainly from Soviet and Russian literature and was deeply influenced by it. It also gained aesthetic pleasure from the translations of European and American literature officially published by the state at that time. But until the reform and opening up, my understanding of Western modernist literature was very weak, and there were translations of Kafka's works in the "Translation" magazine at that time, but it was only introduced from the perspective of exposing the evils of capitalist society, and the significance of its textual innovation was not emphasized, so the "Wenqing" like me did not have the concept of modernism or modernism. After the reform and opening up, the doors and windows were wide open, and it was only then that classical writers like Balzac had already had "new novelists" like Robert Grillet in France who bluntly announced that they would be "overthrown." Rob Grillet's essays "The Road of the Future Novel" and "Nature, Humanism, Tragedy" are regarded as theoretical manifestos of the "New Novel School", in which he proposed the establishment of a new system of fiction, believing that the world is composed of things independent of man, and that man is surrounded by matter, so he advocated the overthrow of Balzac, opposed the realist novel tradition, distinguished between man and matter, and focused on the description of the material world. Works written according to his creation theory have no clear theme, no coherent plot, no thoughts and feelings of the characters, and the author does not express his own tendencies and feelings, only pays attention to objective and calm description, and cancels the boundaries of time and space.
In the short ten years after China officially announced the reform and opening up at the end of 1978, the main genres of Western modernist literature and the works of representative writers poured into China like a tide, the works of the top four representative writers of the French "New Novel School" were all rapidly translated into Chinese published, and all of Robert Grillet's novels, as well as his film scripts, were not only translated and published in China, but also invited to Attend Cultural Events and Give Special Lectures in China. By the end of the last century, a provincial publishing house in China simply signed a long-term cooperation contract with the French Midnight Publishing House, compiled and published the "Midnight Literary Cong", the head of the Chinese publishing house and the French Midnight Publishing House President and Editor Jérôme Landon as advisers, "Midnight Literary Cong" included both the works of the older generation of "new novel" writers, as well as the works of Beckett and Duras, as well as a new generation of writers, such as Eshnowz's "I'm Gone", "Greenwich Meridian", "The Tall Blonde", and Tucson's "The Tall Blonde". In 2011, the "Midnight Series" set off again to launch the 18-volume collection of Rob Grillet. A total of 38 books have been published in 12 years. Thanks to these domestic publishers and translators, they have done a very meaningful job in introducing novel Western literature. But I have to sigh again: this is amazing. No French publishing house attaches such importance to the works of contemporary Chinese writers, but does the French Midnight Publishing House, as a cooperating party, publish French translations of Chinese writers' works? As far as I know, the number is zero, because the programme of cooperation has been one-way from the outset.
I remember in the early 1980s, when I learned that there was a movie of "Last Year in Marionbad" being screened internally as an "expansion film", I also tried to run to watch it, I was really stunned, the film can still be made like this? It doesn't matter the plot, it doesn't matter the character image, the hazy, the obscure, the broken logic, the far-fetched ending... But I did learn a few tricks, such as suddenly all the background characters on the screen are stationary, only one or two foreground characters are still "alive"; for example, the empty shot of no one, the sun is obviously over there, according to the tree, the lamppost is roundly carved, the shadow should be on this side, but it is clearly displayed to the audience: there are rows of shadows brushing together against nature, spreading to the side of the sun... If you write a novel, wouldn't it be possible to strip characters from society in this way? Isn't the text structure also counter-logical? In short, his aesthetic pursuit along the way, formal innovation is the highest value, as for the content, you can understand it as profound, or you can not pursue it at all.
In the 1980s, some people described it as if a dog called Western Modernism was driving in the back, and a group of Chinese writers were running in front. The metaphor is mean. What are chinese writers afraid of? Afraid of being outdated, afraid of being outdated, afraid of being marginalized, so that out of the game. At that time, if you tell people that you are still reading Balzac, reading Dickens, reading Chekhov, it is really a bit unspeakable, if you say that you are reading Kafka, Calvino, Márquez, Borges, it seems very advanced, very musical. In those ten years, the full translation of Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's Remembrance of the Lost Waters had not yet appeared, and to this day, it added up to "two cards and four siths", and it would be difficult to get on the stage without appreciating their masterpieces.
I also tried to read these works that are particularly fashionable in China, and of course, I read Chinese translations. To tell the truth, "two cards" still feel good, "four Si" really can't like it. Among the "Four Si", Marquez of Colombia has the greatest influence in China, especially his "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which begins:
"Years from now, facing the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia will recall the distant afternoon when his father took him to see the ice cubes."
I have been admired by many Chinese writers and readers. Although I also felt quite funny, I couldn't feel the shock. Is it the beginning of Dickens's Tale of Two Cities:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst times; it was the years of wisdom, it was the years of ignorance; it was the time of faith, it was the time of doubt; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of disappointment; we were all heading straight for heaven, we were all going in the opposite direction—in short, it was very similar to now, and some of the noisiest authorities insisted on describing it at the highest level of adjectives. To say it is good is the highest; to say it is not good, it is also the highest. ”
And the opening of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina:
"Happy families are all similar, and unhappy families have their own misfortunes."
Aren't they all "leopard heads"?
If it is necessary to write about the psychology and actions of the characters at the beginning, then Chekhov is already a master, such as "Baby":
Olenka, the daughter of retired Eight Pins Civil Servant Premnikov, sat on the porch of the courtyard thinking about her thoughts. It was hot, and the flies were always annoyingly pestering people. The thought that it would soon be dark made my heart ache. ”
But, more than thirty years ago, I wasn't very willing to be open about my reading appreciation tendencies. That's not inferiority. I'm also quite proud in my bones. I stood with Robert Grillet sipping champagne, I knew a lot about him, he didn't know much about me, I'm afraid he didn't know anything, probably only knew that I was a writer from China, it was a cocktail party of Sino-French cultural exchanges, we were brought together by French people, he treated me with courtesy, I admired him and did not think so. I admire him because I know that he is the godfather of the "New Novel School" that rose up in France after World War II, and I don't think so, but I read the Chinese translation of his masterpiece "Eraser" and felt that the taste was the same as chewing wax, so I was mysterious. I understand his idea of overthrowing Balzac, but I do not agree with it. From the instinctive reaction of the "Wenqing" who saw our group photo, it can be seen that we were asymmetrical at that time, I belonged to "actually", and Griyer belonged to "taking it for granted".
Since then, I have no longer hidden my "difficulty in swallowing" modernist literature such as the "New Novel School", nor do I feel embarrassed that I still love the old works of classical writers like Balzac. I went to Paris four times, visited the Balzac House and hugo House twice, visited the Maramé House once, visited the Rodin Museum twice and always felt that I hadn't seen enough, and the Picasso Museum went to see it once and felt full. Re-reading Balzac's "Eugenie Grande", the beginning of the detailed description of the house furnishings of the text feels long and dull, because now the audiovisual culture has been very developed, there is no need to use language to feel that, but as soon as Charlie appears, the characters are vivid, the plot ripples, eugenie's spring heart, the dresser storm... Until the end of "Nothing Seems to Be Done": "This is the story of Eugenie, who is in the world but not in the world, she is a natural wife and mother but no husband, no children, no family." The cover-up is still "difficult to reconcile in the end."
Hugo's former residence / Xinhua News Agency
I feel like a peaceful, well-connected person. I am used to Chinese food, but I also occasionally try Western food. I do not give up my appreciation for the works of classical writers, but I am also willing to learn from avant-garde and new wave literature, from modernist to postmodern literature. I myself don't like that kind of literary pursuit, I don't write like that, but when I am in the editorial position, I always try to accommodate bold and out-of-the-ordinary literary attempts. I advocate the middle way, and I hope that my works can be neither conservative nor subversive, not only to reflect the aspects of China's current social life and the faces of sentient beings, but also to strive to integrate humane care and human exploration into world literature.
But in the end, I realized more vividly that I was a Chinese writer, and I wrote in square characters, so I should draw nourishment from the original classic texts of the square characters from the ancestors of my own nation, that is, after tasting champagne side by side with Robert Grillet, I was committed to perusing "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Golden Plum Bottle", and trying to integrate the vitality I got from my future novels such as "Four ArchEs", "Bay Window", and "Cruise Ship Fragments". Fortunately, since then, Chinese contemporary writers and works have made great strides to the world, and Rob Grillet did not win awards, but Chinese writers put on tuxedos and went to Stockholm to receive awards. Although in general, in terms of literary exchanges, we are still in a superior position, but since we have a clear understanding of this situation, we can still do a lot of things to know more actively and actively let the world know the breadth and depth of Chinese culture, including the colorful works of contemporary Chinese writers.
Rob Grier died in 2008 at the age of 86. The soul of the Midnight Press before 2001, Jerome Randon, also died. Suddenly, it had been thirty-three years since he had taken a picture with Rob Grillet.
The cocktail party that day was held at the Chryon Hotel in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, when I was introduced by Rob Grillet, standing on the terrace of the hotel, looking towards the Place de la Concorde, someone translated for us, we had some conversation, the person who visited my study in the winter of 1988, has long been no longer called "Wenqing", he has entered the year of the flower armor, recently met me again, he did not change his reverence for Grillet, still feel that even if his people's cough, it is all pearls, so he asked me who entered the old age: "That day." What exactly did Grillet say to you? I told him that what I would never forget was what Rob Grillet said to me: "Strange." I am more famous in China than in France. ”
June 20, 2021 Wen Yu Zhai
Author: Liu Xinwu
Editor: Xie Juan