On the morning of October 15, at the fourth session of the "Go to the People" professional ethics education training and literary social service practice activities exchange summary meeting held by the China Writers Association in Nanhu, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, Zhang Bing, vice chairman of the Chongqing Writers Association and vice president of the Chongqing Academy of Literature, revealed that in a selection of young writers in a series of young writers, he found that 4 young writers who wrote about rural themes only wrote about their own sorrows and joys, excessively exaggerated the dark side of society, and deviated from actual life.
Doubts: The countryside of the four writers is numb and desperate
According to Zhang Bing, at the end of 2013, the first issue of the "Young Eagle Writers Series" organized by the Chongqing Academy of Literature was published and distributed by Chongqing Publishing House, which included the works of five young writers. The criteria for the selection of the young eagle writers series are very simple, and young writers who have a certain level of creation and have not yet published works are the support measures of the Chongqing Academy of Literature for literary newcomers.
In 2017, Chongqing University of Literature prepared the second phase of the Young Eagle Writers Series. After reading the works of the seven pre-selected young writers, Zhang Bing was not happy, but had some doubts. Four of the seven young writers have works on rural themes, are well written and can also be thought about. However, after reading these rural theme works, he seemed to feel that he had turned back time. "The countryside they write about presents an atmosphere of numbness and despair, the fate of people is full of all kinds of misery, and many villagers in the work are in a state of ignorance and poverty. Some village cadres appear as the opposite of the villagers, are backward, corrupt, and representative, and some are in cahoots with the criminal syndicates and evil forces and do things to bully and oppress the villagers. Zhang Bing said frankly.
As an old grassroots who has worked in the town streets for many years, Zhang Bing always feels that the countryside in their pen is different from the countryside where he once worked, not a place, not an era. "In the countryside where I work and live, there are all kinds of complex conflicts, and sometimes conflicts of interest, even fierce conflicts, for the sake of interests. However, since the beginning of reform and opening up, the main theme of the countryside has been positive, high-spirited and full of vitality. ”
Opinion: Although rural life is insufficient, it is generally upward
In Zhang Bing's view, changing the fate is the common dream of the villagers, to put it more bluntly, everyone wants to get rich, so many young and middle-aged people in rural areas go out to work and do business, and those who stay in the countryside will find ways to engage in breeding and breeding, or work in local enterprises such as coal mines. Of course, this has also led to the emergence of new social problems such as the emergence of a large number of left-behind children.
In the 1990s, building a road in rural Chongqing required every household to raise funds, and the cost of agricultural electricity was higher than that in cities. In recent years, the state has implemented the rural revitalization plan, roads, electricity, communications, water, natural gas, etc. have entered the countryside, rural infrastructure has developed rapidly, and some young and middle-aged people who have gone out to work have chosen to return to their hometowns to start businesses. According to incomplete statistics, in the past few years, there were nearly 7 million people working in Guangdong in the Bashu region, and in recent years, after the rural infrastructure has become better, the industry has risen and the personnel have begun to return. At present, about 5 million people in the Bashu region work in Guangdong.
"I worked at the grassroots level from the early 1990s to 2000, as a village cadre, secretary of the town youth league committee, armed forces minister, and deputy town mayor, and was familiar with the rural situation. Although there are still various deficiencies in rural production and life, on the whole, they are going upwards, and the most progressive are middle-aged and young people, who have gone out of the countryside, have experience in living in the city, have seen the bustling world, can go online after returning to their hometown, can get outside news in time, and the gap with urban youth has been significantly narrowed. This is Zhang Bing's general view of rural life and production, which is completely different from the rural state presented by the four young writers mentioned above. So he communicated with young writers separately.
Communication: Small probability events do not represent the mainstream of rural life
The first young writer was a graduate student in modern literature at a university, whose works won many awards. After Zhang Bing questioned, the writer said in an affirmative tone that he wrote in the novel that people and things have happened in the countryside, but only expressed it in the style of the novel.
Zhang Bing communicated with him, "What you write is a small probability event, and it is not the mainstream of rural life. For example, a thousand rural families may have an incest incident, but a thousand rural families will have hundreds of normal families who have started their own businesses and become rich. I think these typical examples of entrepreneurship and prosperity are more worthy of writing, and the process of their going out of the countryside and the impact they have suffered are all vivid themes. ”
In Zhang Bing's view, comparing rural society to a relatively clear river, the overall reach of class II water, which is true, and there are a few inferior five types of dirty water in the section of class II water, which is also true. However, it would be biased to use a small amount of dirty water to represent the overall condition of the Class II water section.
Zhang Bing said that the young writer once again affirmed that what he wrote was the real thing, believing that writing about the pain and sorrow of the countryside was to face social contradictions head-on, which was more profound and powerful than writing about rural prosperity, and expressed that he did not want to avoid contradictions and engage in that kind of theme creation. The ideas of several other young writers are very close to those of this first young writer, emphasizing that it is more meaningful to face the dark side of rural society, and to drum and shout for the countryside that has lost its original appearance.
Reflection: There is a clear deviation from the creation of the society
"After the face-to-face exchange with these six young people, I picked up their resumes again, four writers are all post-90s, two are from the countryside, two are urban youth, all have bachelor's degree or above." Zhang Bing said,
In the end, the opinions of the judges were more unanimous, and the main problem of these 4 young writers was that they were locked in the study to write novels, and they did not really enter the fiery life. Therefore, his works are clearly detached from the current society, in order to be profound and profound, but superficial, reduced to another seemingly profound conceptual writing, caught in another cliché.
"If a work is created from a similar angle, it is a personal choice. All four works have chosen similar angles and similar styles, which makes us think deeply. Zhang Bing and the judging experts analyzed these young writers, who wanted to write their works well, repeatedly revised them, and had a very serious attitude. The problems they have in their writing are ultimately divorced from the public, divorced from reality, keen on the so-called art for art's sake, and only writing about their own sorrows and joys, cups of water and turmoil. When touching social problems, because they have not taken root in the people's lives and cannot gain insight into the life at the bottom, they over-render the dark side of society when reflecting the people's sorrows, expressing their feelings for the people, and painting the portraits of the times, and their writing goals have obvious deviations from their actual works.
It is worth mentioning that Lu Yao's "Ordinary World" centers on the fate of Sun, Tian and Jin in Shuangshui Village, On the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi, reflecting the broad social outlook from the late "Cultural Revolution" to the early reform period; the TV series "Mountains and Seas" mainly takes "poverty alleviation" as the theme, and some people relocate from the mountains to the plains near Yinchuan, open up the land, develop production, and build new homes, becoming a hit.
Zhang Bing believes that the reason why these two works can be successful is that the writer can go deep into life, take root in the people, grasp the pulse of the times, and closely combine personal destiny and social development, which has produced a strong literary appeal and aroused strong resonance among tens of millions of people. This is also the great significance of the writer's "going to the people".
Expectation: Go out of the house and write about the evolution of rural spirit and social pain points
On October 13, during their study in Jiaxing, Zhang Bing and his group members visited Miaojia Village, Dayun Town, Jiashan County, Jiaxing City. The village is located in the east of Dayun Town, the village area of 7.07 square kilometers, the existing cultivated land area of 4700 acres, 12 villager groups. In 2021, the village's collective income will reach more than 13 million yuan, fixed assets will be invested in more than 8 million yuan, and it will have two four-star scenic spots.
Jiashan Chocolate Sweet Town is the first batch of provincial characteristic towns in Zhejiang Province. Chocolate Sweet Town focuses on the two major functions of industrial cultivation and tourism and vacation, takes the local natural rural idyllic scenery as the background, retains the original water system and original style, and builds the chocolate town into a famous chocolate style experience base, wedding honeymoon vacation base and cultural and creative industry base in China by excavating the connotation of chocolate culture.
In Zhang Bing's view, villages similar to Miaojia Village actually exist throughout the country, but the level of development is fast and slow, the economic level is high and low, and the achievements are large and small. In this regard, writers should go out of the house, open their hearts, open their eyes to see the real world, explore the root causes of rural changes, write about the evolution of rural spirits, record the changes in folk customs and customs, and find pain points and deficiencies in rural society, which is a very meaningful work.
"The motherland is vast in size and developing too fast, and most of us, including writers, are limited by our vision and insight, and it is actually difficult to fully grasp social development." Zhang Bing said, but he believes that as long as writers persist in going to the people, going deep into life, and taking root in the people, there will be classic works that can be passed down to future generations that can be passed down to future generations.
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Zhang Bing is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, vice chairman of the Chongqing Writers Association, and vice president of the Chongqing Literature College. He is the author of "Notes on Hou Weidong's OfficialDom", "Hou Haiyang Grassroots Storm", "Strivers: Notes on Hou Canghai's Commercial Road", "Hou Dali's Criminal Investigation Notes" and many other best-selling books. In 2012, "Notes on Hou Weidong's Officialdom" won the bronze medal of the West Lake Genre Literature Biennial Award jointly selected by the Zhejiang Writers Association and China Literature and Art Daily. In 2017, "Strivers: Notes on Hou Canghai Commercial Road" was selected into the 2017 China Online Novel Rankings, and in 2018, "Strivers: Notes on Hou Canghai Commercial Road" won the first Chinese Internet Literature Golden Keyboard Award.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Enjie
Editor/Liu Jianghua