Even if you don't know who Wang Xiaobo is, you must have heard the phrase "love you like love life".
这是出自王小波和他的妻子李银河的书信集结而成的书的书名《爱你就像爱生命》。
I especially liked the sentence "I give you my whole soul, along with its quirks, its little temper, its flickering lights and darkness, and its eighteen hundred bad faults." It's so nasty, only a little good, love you. ”
So, even if you don't know Wang Xiaobo, will you still wonder what kind of person can write such a statement?
In the book "Learning to Write from Spiders" written by Chen Chongzheng, a master of arts and a first-class writer at Beijing Normal University, the next classic example is to analyze Wang Xiaobo's writing secrets. This book not only teaches us how to get started with literary creation, but also gives us a better understanding of Wang Xiaobo.
01 Who is Wang Xiaobo?
Some people say that in this boring world, it is fortunate to have such an interesting soul as Wang Xiaobo.
Wang Xiaobo himself said that he wrote novels to support his family, and he basically achieved his goal and was very happy. He is such a real person.
But he was just starting to get better when he died of a heart attack in Beijing in 1997, at the age of 45. As "Wang Xiaobo's Death" attracted media attention, some of his sentences began to spread widely, and many works imitating him were also published. After his death, he became angry. His particularly famous works are the "Times Trilogy" (Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age). It still has a large readership and is selling well.
Everyone said that Wang Xiaobo's writing style is unique, humorous and funny, and he has profound insights into many issues but is very important. Why is his writing style so unique? Where is his secret?
02 Wang Xiaobo's writing style code
The reader's pleasure comes from Wang Xiaobo's stirring thinking, humorous language and the multidimensional unfolding of the story.
From the summary of reading Wang Xiaobo's works, it can be seen that many of the storylines in his novels will be rewritten and rewritten, including the essays he wrote. This is Wang Xiaobo's creative thinking.
Teacher Chen Chongzheng named this narrative technique of "tearing down and starting over, repeating the cycle, and telling several characters to repeatedly realize" as "sand table poetics". It's like constantly rebuilding on a sandbox, constantly tearing it down and starting over, but each time it is depicted, it leaves the pleasure of reading.
Through specific iconic phrases, exaggerated story forms, exhaustive scenario simulations, and plots that can be repeatedly modified and reinvented, he gives the novel a dynamic narrative and gives the novel an allegorical tendency. And such a unique way of thinking is inseparable from Wang Xiaobo's experience as a first-generation programming master.
And how did Wang Xiaobo draw nutrients from programming thinking, thus influencing the creation of novels at the thinking level?
03 The influence of computer thinking on Wang Xiaobo's creation
It is always said that Wang Xiaobo created iconic words and phrases, what are they? For example, "in summary", "well known", "... The thing is this "about... things", etc., almost all of which are placed at the beginning of the paragraph, and after these sentences are followed by colons to expand the following content. Maybe you look at it and think that there is nothing special about these words and phrases, and the old appearance is also very cumbersome, and how to look at the book like an argument for what truth? Why are there so many such sentences? It is precisely because of the influence of computer thinking on him.
These iconic phrases play a role in supplementing, explaining, and restating in the novel, like a "sub-thread" or a line of "comment" code, when the "sub-thread" task is completed, it still needs to "Return" back to the main process. Then Wang Xiaobo can add many different stories to the main line of writing, which seems to be independent and can be repeated and changed, and each storyline is only responsible for the main plot. It's like the relationship between "function" and "variable".
It is in this way that Wang Xiaobo's works form a light and complex aesthetic.
In order to write a legacy work, in addition to the unique style, it needs to be repeatedly revised. The change from pen and paper to computer writing has also given Wang Xiaobo a great boost. He can keep revising his work until he is satisfied. Typing on the computer of each storyline, like a set of raw data, but also convenient for him to constantly add functions and variables, it deduced a multi-threaded story.
It can be seen that computer thinking has brought Wang Xiaobo unlimited possibilities for creation, and has gradually formed his creative style from the inside.
04 written at the end
You may have seen a lot of Wang Xiaobo's works, at least often see a lot of Wang Xiaobo's quotations, knowing that he is a writer, his works are very popular, but never consider why his creation is like this. And through the book "Learning to Write from spiders", let us know him from a new perspective, the original computer thinking can also have such a big impact on writing, will you also want to try to use such thinking to write.
Besides, wouldn't you also be wondering why we learned to write from spiders? What are the advantages of spiders that are worth learning? What can we learn from spiders and apply these traits or virtues to literary creation or everyday writing?
I hope that through the book "Learn to Write from spiders", you can not only understand Wang Xiaobo's writing secrets, but also learn a lot of methods of literary creation, and you can also persevere like a spider, weave complex but not complicated webs, and become "literary Spider-Man". Start writing, this book will definitely make your writing path further and further.