Liu Qing is writing profile pictures
Liu Qing (front row, first from left) talks to villagers. Profile picture
History of Entrepreneurship, 1960, Profile Picture
【Chasing Light Literary Giant: Commemorating the 105th Anniversary of Liu Qing's Birth】
On the issue of the evaluation of literary works, Liu Qing once made it clear that it is necessary to "one unit in sixty years", and there are still people watching it sixty years later, which shows that the works can stand and spread. Today, it has been exactly 60 years since the first part of the History of Entrepreneurship was published. In the past 60 years, the times have continued to develop and change, and literary concepts have also been continuously adjusted, combing the historical process of contemporary Chinese literature, and the "History of Entrepreneurship" is still impossible to bypass.
In order to write this novel that reflects the profound changes in Chinese society in the 1950s, Liu Qing gave up her job in Beijing and settled in Huangfu Village, Chang'an County, Shaanxi Province, where she took root for 14 years. Together with the villagers of Huangfu Village, he deeply participated in the practice of socialism in full swing and embarked on a path of life and creation with the people.
"After the meeting in the dark of night and the people sleeping on a plate of kang": to achieve writing and praise to the people among the people
Returning to Shaanxi from Beijing and choosing a place to settle down for a long time is not an accidental choice for Liu Qing. From 1943 to 1945, he had relatively sufficient grassroots work experience. At that time, he was still a little worried that going to the countryside and staying in the village would affect his writing. However, with the deepening of his work, he has a further understanding and understanding of how to view the relationship between life and writing, how to deal with the relationship between works and the times, and between works and people's lives.
This is a very important "rice fat three years" in Liu Qing's creative career. During this period, Liu Qing threw herself down and concentrated on doing some specific and effective service work for the people, including how to write a letter of introduction, how to grow cotton more scientifically, and how to treat the sores on the doll's head. These specific experiences not only enabled Liu Qing to obtain rich writing materials, but also completed the self-"transformation" of personal concepts at a deeper level. With the change of emotion, "after the meeting in the dark and the people slept on a plate of kang", it was "not like their sweat smelled, but like a fragrance". The main literary achievement of Liu Qing's "Three Years of Rice Fat" is the novel "Seed Valley Record". The more important significance of this work is that Liu Qing has gained an important experience in dealing with the relationship between writing and life.
After the founding of New China, Liu Qing came to Beijing to work. After full consideration, he still hopes to sink down and devote all his strength to writing about this era of change. In his view, in order to achieve such a grand goal, it is very important to choose a place where you can settle down for a long time, like "three years of rice fat", and fully participate in specific life and production practices.
In order to realize the sacred literary dream, in order to have sufficient emotional reserves when writing, in order to try to understand the internal laws of life, in order to reach a broader scene of life, Liu Qing resolutely bid farewell to the relatively more comfortable metropolis, plunged headlong into the ocean of rural life, drew nutrition, captured inspiration, looked for materials in the fiery front line of life, completed the refinement and sublimation of life in life, and realized the writing and praise of the people among the people.
After a period of field investigation, among the places to choose from, such as Jingyang, Sanyuan, Gaoling, and Huxian, Liu Qing set Chang'an County as the settlement site. As soon as Liu Qingfu settled down, she quickly threw herself into concrete work and completed another far-reaching "transformation" in life and writing.
The main characters have archetypes and stories have a reason: let the work provide practical, scientific, and effective references for others
Although she is in the practice of fiery life, Liu Qing is unable to complete a work in the plan for a long time, because life and creation are not in the same frequency, and it is difficult to dock. For creation, real life is always providing new subjects and calling for new creations. Feeling the new character image and the new great practice, Liu Qing simply put down the pen in her hand, ran to the field, and participated in specific production and life with ordinary laborers. He wanted to be fully involved in the whole process of the creation of a mutual aid group. Wang Jiabin of Huangfu Village in Wang Qu Commune attracted Liu Qing's attention. After coming into contact with Wang Jiabin, Liu Qing was quickly attracted by the new ideas and new emotions contained in this "new person".
Around Wang Jiabin, Liu Qing is conceiving new works, his creative inspiration is reopening, and those creative ideas that were once deadlocked or even forced to close are gradually reopening.
After basically identifying Wang Jiabin as the prototype of the new work, Liu Qing then actively led and fully participated in the construction of the Wang Jiabin Mutual Aid Group for a long time. He helped the mutual aid group to formulate a production plan, persuaded several families who wanted to withdraw from the mutual aid group, and made substantial contributions to the construction and further consolidation of the mutual aid group. It is also in this process that those important figures who later became active in the "History of Entrepreneurship" gradually appeared in his vision with their new or old ideas and emotions.
He mobilized his own vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, perceive the original appearance of life, and cast it emotionally and brewed art, so that the work had a new atmosphere. His pen no longer dried up, as if it had been injected with a stream of living water, gushing and flowing.
The main characters in "History of Entrepreneurship" almost all have prototypes. Some are directly based on a certain character, and many people are a way of shaping a variety of miscellaneous and synthesizing one. Interestingly, the story of Liang Shengbao and Xu Gaixia, who attracts many readers in the book, has nothing to do with Wang Jiabin, which is the story of a girl named Guo Fuwa. Guo Fuwa was born beautifully, read books, sang plays, returned to the countryside after his voice broke, acted positively, served as a member of the village league branch, and once fell in love with a demobilized soldier named Wang Laiyun. Liu Qing and these two people knew each other and tried their best to match them. Guo Fuwa's mother, Wang Laiyun, was poor and resolutely opposed the combination of the two. Guo Fuwa could not withstand the "persecution" of her mother and married someone else. For the love experience of these young people, Liu Qing is familiar with it, which enables him to accurately grasp the love psychology of young men and women when creating.
Since the characters have archetypes, most of the important events involved in the life story in the work are also true. Events that leave a deep impression on the reader and are of great value to advancing the story, such as Liang Shengbao's purchase of rice seeds, leading everyone into the Zhongnan Mountain to cut moso bamboo, trying rice dense planting methods, livestock troughs, etc., all stem from specific life practices. These incidents are also important issues that need to be gradually resolved in the process of mutual assistance and cooperation.
In the specific progress of the character story, Liu Qing writes down the origin, process and result of these events in great detail, so that the work can provide practical, scientific and effective reference for others.
After the publication of the "History of Entrepreneurship", the people of Chang'an County especially like to read it, and many grass-roots cadres use the concepts and methods of "History of Entrepreneurship" as a guide to deal with the specific practical problems they face. This may also be an important purpose of Liu Qing's creation. The working masses work in concrete production and life to promote social progress. For the writer, the works he writes are in this way, and they have practical significance for real life.
Strive to shorten the distance between expression and mass: the work should be readable
In 1960, after receiving the 16,065 yuan manuscript fee for the first part of the "History of Entrepreneurship", Liu Qing handed it all over to Wang Qu Commune for no other reason: "The state feeds me, and my manuscript fee should be given to the people." He also said: "I am also a member of the commune, the members are manual labor, the harvest is handed over to the commune, I am mental labor, the harvest should also belong to the commune." ”
This pen fee was first established as an agricultural machinery factory for the company, and later converted into Wang Qu Hospital. This matter is not complicated, but it clearly shows Liu Qing's understanding of creation - creation is also a kind of labor, and there is no essential difference from labor on the land. This understanding of creation not only affects Liu Qing's understanding of the relationship between writing and the times and reality, but also affects his understanding and practice of artistic creation.
In the process of preparing Liu Qing for the upcoming work, Du Pengcheng's "Defending Yan'an" was published and widely acclaimed. After carefully reading this work, Liu Qing believes that the success points of "Defending Yan'an" are twofold: "One is that Du Pengcheng has always lived in battle, and the novel is a summary and refinement of his long-term feelings, so there is passion; one is that the writing time is long, the number of rewrites is many, and the author reads a lot of books while writing, so that the process of writing becomes a process of improvement." These two points later became important experiences for him in writing the History of Entrepreneurship.
Liu Qing once said that writing a novel is like a flat burden, "one end picks life, the other picks skills." In order to make those virtual characters vivid and vivid, Liu Qing carefully pondered engels and Gorky's theories on the way the characters were shaped, and carefully read classic works of Chinese classical literature such as "Dream of the Red Chamber" to obtain nourishment from them. He strives to make it easier for even readers with lower levels of education to understand the ideas he wants to convey from the works, "to make the works both profound and vivid, but also understandable, and to shorten the distance between the means of expression and the masses", which is "a big problem in our artistic skills". Because of the change in artistic technique, it comes from the writer's own life experience. It is different life experiences that prompt the writer to complete the exploration of personal artistic skills.
The first part of "The History of Entrepreneurship" "uses a new technique, that is, the author's narrative and the inner monologue (psychological description) of the characters are mixed together." The inner monologue, unticulated, serves as an action part of the plot's progression; both seek to give the reader a sense of movement." The purpose of such a narrative is to "bring as close and harmonious as possible the literary language narrated by the author and the mass language of the inner monologue of the characters".
Not only that, he wants to describe in detail how the psychology of the characters develops synchronously with reality in the specific life practice, and fully write the interpersonal relationship between "inside" (psychological activity) and "outside" (external events that trigger psychological changes). Those specific life practices are real, and the psychological changes they inspire are vivid and vivid, reading as if in front of the eyes.
In "Three Years of Huangfu Village", the gratifying achievements of the mutual aid group led by Wang Jiabin and other leaders are described, and Liu Qing uses "the lighthouse, shining on us" to illustrate the exemplary significance of their success. Nowadays, Liu Qing's literary heritage, as well as his life and creative path, are also like a beacon, illuminating the latecomers in life and literature, inspiring them to create a beautiful and bright happy life, and inspiring them to create excellent works full of rich life atmosphere and deep people's feelings.
(Author: Ma Jiana, Unit: School of Journalism and Communication, Shaanxi Normal University)