When the last sunset in the sky in the 20th century was about to disappear, the young writer Ge Hongbing stood on the moral high ground of Western culture and wrote a poignant eulogy for Chinese literature. In this article, Ge Hongbing took off the clothes of 20th-century Chinese writers one by one as a fake "Taoist" scholar, and then beat them up viciously. After the beating, he indignantly scolded that Er and others were just a bunch of unethical cultural hooligans. Ge Hongbing's approach has aroused the indignation of many enthusiastic young people and elderly people, including me. The reason is simple, Ge Hongbing expounded the wrong point of view in the wrong way at the right time. He described 20th-century Chinese literature as useless, but deliberately sublimated the kitsch and kitsch of Western "liberalism". The conclusion is that the moon in a foreign country is rounder than in China, and the girl in the West is more beautiful than in China, and this "imaginative" arrogant assumption, far from bringing strength to his criticism, buries itself in a rapidly decaying way. Although I disagree with Ge Hongbing, I always defend his right to speak. Regrettably, today, I want to borrow Ge Hongbing's article to support the writing status of my peer "post-80s" writers. This makes me feel embarrassed. From the bottom of my heart, I don't want to do something like this. But today I had to do that.
The reason is, I'm also part of this group. The reason why I am so determined or even desperate to point out the shortcomings of the "post-80s" writers is because our "deficiencies" have reached a dangerous situation. Some people say that the "post-80s" generation without spiritual belief, in my opinion, this is a more civilized statement. Our generation not only has no spiritual belief, but even the most basic "independent spirit" as a literati has been lost by us. We are just a bunch of cultural who don't understand what literature is and what writing is. We are all about everything, that is, our unreal selves. The Chinese literature of the 20th century has brought us two major gains, one is the "liberalism" headed by Hu Shi and Cai Yuanpei, and the other is the ideological writing led by Lu Xun and Wang Xiaobo. And what about new century literature? Leave aside the old and still simple writers of the previous generation. Look at the cultural landscape formed by the "post-80s" writer group, do they have an overall cultural landscape? In the "post-80s" group, can you find a real "cultural" face? Can you identify a "soul" that will be immortal in the history of mankind for thousands of years to come? The answer is clearly pessimistic. Objectively speaking, this pessimism brought me the pain of death. "Optimism" may refute this sentence, "post-80s" only debuted a few years, you so conclude, they have not grown up yet! Such a question is naturally possible, the crux of the matter is that it has been 20 years since the "post-80s" writers officially appeared in 1999. 20 years is not long, and it is not short. It is in this intergenerational writing, known as "20 years", that they expose too many problems, each one of which seems fatal. Let's take a look at Xu Jia, the writer who first represented the "post-80s" writers who appeared and quickly declined. In 1997, Xu Jia launched the novel "I Love The Sunshine", which is the first symbolic work launched by the "post-80s" writers after the "post-70s" woman Yu Xiu's "Flower Season and Rainy Season". This work is not bad from a literary aesthetic point of view, and the work writes about Qin Yu's pain and confusion after being punished in an exam to help his friends cheat. In the end, with the encouragement of wang Haiyan, a first-class student, she got rid of the "pain of loss". From the perspective of realism, it is far worse than the "flower season and rainy season" of the "post-70s" woman Yu Xiu. Not to mention the comparison with those literary predecessors of the 20th century. Any novel by Yu Dafu is many times better than Xu Jia's novel.
After Xu Jia, the most representative figure who appeared in the Chinese literary world was Han Han. Han Han has actually become a figure in the Chinese literary world, and I have always thought that it is the result of the misreading of a chinese generation or even several generations. At least, for now, it should be. The growth of any person requires a process, and it is inevitable to jump to conclusions without going through the test of history. For the "post-80s" writers of the same era, if you talk about the talent of writing novels, I think Jiang Feng, Sun Rui, Li Silly, Luo Luo, and Dian are first-class. Jiang Feng's "Only Forever Injured" is enough to throw Han Han out of the wilderness of ten miles, not to mention Sun Rui's cynical "youth" novels, which are far better than Han Han's ("Minus Zero", "Poison", "Grass"). No matter how Han Han views his works, I think this is the biggest failure in Han Han's "writing history". Publishing such works is in itself a manifestation of his irresponsibility to his readers. I once saw someone on the Internet say: "In the past hundred years or so, Chinese writers have lived twice, one is Lu Xun and the other is Han Han." Under the influence of this irresponsible nonsense, Liang Wendao of Phoenix Satellite TV said as if he was afraid that he would not be able to make headlines: "Han Han is the contemporary Lu Xun." "I am very calm that Liang Wendao can say such a low-level word, in fact, people like Liang Wendao, that is, talking about the mountains in front of the camera, expect him to contribute to literature, I don't think so."
When it comes to Han Han and Lu Xun, we are bound to look at the difference between Han Han and Lu Xun and the gap between them. As we all know, Lu Xun's biggest flaw in this life is that he did not leave a long novel, and he quietly went away like that. This flaw also left a handle for future generations to criticize him. There is a difficult thing here, Han Han has a long story. Using Han Han's novel and Lu Xun's "non-existence" ratio obviously does not explain the problem. Although Lu Xun did not have novels, he had novellas, short stories, and essays. Based on this, we compare novellas, short stories, and essays. Han Han's best novella, I think, is "Small Town Life" in "Minus Zero Degree". This novel shows the outstanding talent of the young Han Han both in terms of "literature" and "entertainment". That is, this best novella and Lu Xun's "A Q Zheng Biography" are put together, and we quickly come to a conclusion, one is a literary work, one is a model composition; one aims to save mankind; one aims to entertain oneself, and the ideological realm is not at all on one level. As far as Lu Xun's works are concerned, in an era when people are not treated as human beings, he uncompromisingly insisted on his independent character and inner freedom as a human being, defended the highest principles of liberalism with literary practice and life practice, and unceremoniously showed the most authentic side of human beings to the decaying world and the decaying soul. Can Han Han's work do this? What is left of his work other than playing the role of the "naked" emperor? I really don't know. As for Han Han's other works, such as "From the Seaside" and "Brothers Grew Up in the Blue Sky Era", they cannot be compared with Lu Xun's works. Since novellas can't be compared, let's look at short stories. Several representative short stories written by Han Han when he debuted, such as "Crooked Moon" and "Bookstore", were selected by "Young Literature and Art". This should be said to be a representative work in Han Han's short stories, at least "Young Literature and Art" thinks so. In fact, compared with Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman" and "Blessings", these short stories not only cannot become literary works, but will make people feel annoying.
In fact, the current situation and future of "post-80s" writers are worrying, as a person with common literary ideals, I not only can not feel honored to be a member of the "post-80s" writer team, but because I am a member of the "post-80s" writers team. In the group of "post-80s" writers, I insist that I am not a good member of this group, but I am a real member of them, so real that this group lacks me, "they will have a hard time understanding the difference between themselves and animals and dust" (Deng Xiaomang). Even so, I still hate everything that is branded with the "post-80s" imprint. I was even nervous because I had the same "cultural ideals" as the "post-80s" writers, and I was inexplicably nervous because I followed the same literary path as them to go far. The reason is that we are so "vulnerable" and so arrogant and self-righteous, not ashamed and still flock to it. Let's go back to the essay. To be fair, as a literary lover of the same era, I still greatly appreciate Han Han's essays. His essays are much better than his novels. No matter how Han Han himself views this issue, in fact, how he views this issue is not important at all, because we are readers, whether a work is good or bad, and readers have the most right to speak. But if you put Han Han's essays and Lu Xun's essays together, anyone who is not blind can see which is better or worse. The reason is that Lu Xun's essays are designed to "save people", while Han Han's essays are aimed at "entertaining people". It is such an article, which is regarded by the public as the best article, which is really confusing. If everything is just so simple, it is understandable, unfortunately, some people pointed to such a text and said: "I believe that one day in the future, there will be a discipline called 'HanXue', specializing in the study of Han Han... Han Han is a writer and thinker..."
This sentence is actually not terrible, what is terrible is the conclusion of "failure first" contained in this sentence. On the issue of "Han Xue", my view is that it is necessary to consider the long term. Although Han Han is a "frontrunner" among the "post-80s" writers, it is obviously to be seen whether there will be "Han Studies" in the future with Han Han's "writing studies" as a phenomenon; secondly, this statement that Han Han is a "thinker" is even more arbitrary. You say that Han Han is a profoundly thoughtful "post-80s" writer, I recognize a few points, maybe completely approved is not impossible, but if Han Han is a thinker, it is simply a fool chanting nonsense. For the definition of a thinker, I would like to borrow a passage from Ge Hongbing to illustrate my point of view: "Measuring a thinker is not the same as measuring a literary scholar." A profoundly minded literary scholar can only have his own unique views on some life or social issues, profound interpretation, but a thinker, he must establish his own unique philosophical ontological, epistemological, and methodological system for the world, that is, he must have his own philosophy, he must provide the world with a comprehensive and systematic new understanding and interpretation of the world, in short, he must be a systematic thinker. Can Han Han provide "a comprehensive and systematic new understanding and interpretation of the world?" "Obviously not. In fact, regarding whether there are thinkers today, Remnant Xue has long concluded, "There is no one here, especially no thinkers, let alone thinkers with philosophical and literary backgrounds." This is not to say that Han Han is useless, in my opinion, Han Han is worthy of affirmation among the "post-80s" writers, one is his essays, although they cannot be compared with Lu Xun's essays, they are first-class in this era, worthy of affirmation and praise; second, the kind of "independent pioneer" temperament on his body. Although his writings may not be passed on for millennia, I believe that his "independent avant-garde" temperament will certainly become an example for future generations of cultural descendants to learn. Here, I would also like to say a word about Lang Dang, that is, there is an example called Han Han.
After "deconstructing" Han Han, let's look at the "post-80s" writer Guo Jingming, who is equally famous with Han Han. Born in the "countryside" of Sichuan and heavily infected with the petty bourgeois mood of the metropolis, this Zigong youth was once popular all over the country for a "plagiarism" novel "How Many Flowers Fall in Dreams". Notice here that I use quotation marks for the word "plagiarism.". Here I have no intention of belittling or insulting Guo Jingming. For Chinese literati, if they are convicted of "plagiarism," many people are sentenced. In order to respect the author's plagiarism so hard, I will not list the names of people and the titles of books. In this sense, Guo Jingming should not have any psychological burden at all, and I support your plagiarism. But one thing I have to remind you is that "plagiarism" is like visiting a foot bath shop, you can't go to the last place, you have to learn to go to "heaven and earth". Also, the word "prostitute" is originally a legally sensitive word, and the word is inherently labeled as "rightist." Since you want to "prostitute", you must be mentally prepared to apologize to people, and don't "duck dead mouth old hard" This can not be done. The so-called "prostitute also has a way" is this truth. Have you forgotten? The Chinese nation has always been known as "the kindest nation in the world", and the people of this nation are the same. Kindness is not because of what kindness can give you, but that he will always forgive you when you know that you have made mistakes and corrected them. Think of that year, "Ba Jin, wrote a confession, we forgave him, fell at his feet again, Zhou Yang, he just reviewed it, we erased his past, thinking that he was really a good man (Ge Hongbing: "Write a eulogy for 20th Century Chinese Literature"). What's your thing. Of course, Guo Jingming's text still has something remarkable. For example, the novel that shocked me the most, "How Much Do You Know About the Flowers in Your Dreams", the text is very beautiful. Unfortunately, this work was identified as "prostitute". To be honest, I was sorry to hear this news for a while.
Regret to regret, I still support Guo Jingming as always. But then I found that his works were getting worse and worse, to what extent, like the rotten tissues that an adolescent girl casually dropped. In particular, published in 2007, "Sorrow Flows Against the River" is simply a novel without disease and groaning and "sick words". I'm here to give you an excerpt from the book, you see whether it's awkward or not.
Have you ever dreamed of such boundless waters? The silent undulating black tide rolls over the horizon with terrifying waves of sound. In this way, from just wetting the soles of your feet, to covering your back, crossing your calves, step by step, towards the cold abyss. As the tide flooded the heart, such a sound was pierced obliquely into the ear... Have you ever heard such a voice? It sounded far away and very close... Blurred white dots of light pull out long lines in the event horizon. Staggered woven into huge loops. Hanging over the window is still a sunny and sunny world. That's it! ("Sorrow Flows Against the River").
I don't know if this was Guo Jingming's intention or if it was for some other reason. Anyway, the novel is full of redundant, lengthy, self-righteous sentences like this. Several times I tried to figure out the problem in a handstand, why he had to make a simple sentence so complicated, but in the end he found nothing. After reading this novel, I came to the conclusion that Guo Jingming is no longer Guo Jingming who wrote "How Many Flowers Fall in Dreams", and his literary path has basically come to an end. If he can continue to write, give people surprises, and give the literary creation of the "post-80s" a sense of thickness and honesty, he still needs to meditate on cultivation. It was this work that became one of the best-selling novels of 2007.
All in all, guo Jingming's text, except for "How Many Flowers Fall in Dreams", the rest of the works do not have any gold content. We cannot expect such novels to bring new blood to Chinese literature in the new century; still less can we expect such novels to bring us any enlightenment and save our "spiritual homeland" in crisis. The absurd thing is that just when I was so upset about this matter, a news appeared on the Internet that Huang Shicheng, Han Han, Zhang Yueran and Guo Jingming had been selected as China's "Four Heavenly Kings of Literature" and that they were trying to split the Nobel Prize for Literature, which had no connection with China. I don't want to verify the truth or falsity of the news, if it is a joke, it will be a joke, if it is true, then I have to say that it is really a ridiculous thing. Those older generation of writers who "literature" for the sake of literature have struggled for decades, few of them have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and today some people are pinning their hopes on a few literary thieves. Are you trying to tease us? Take "Huang Shicheng", before seeing this news, I really didn't know which way Huang Shicheng was a "god" and what kind of person. In order to prove my ignorance and ignorance, I asked all the "post-80s", "post-70s" and "post-60s" around me, and none of them knew Huang Shicheng. What makes me feel the "stomachache" the most is that a "post-70s" friend who calls himself "Haoyitong" said that you have a brain disease, "Huang Shicheng" has long died, how can he represent Chinese to pick up the future "Nobel Prize"? Could it be that the Charter of the Nobel Prize has been revised? It seems that he regarded "Huang Shicheng" as "Zhang Shicheng". In addition to Xu Jia, Han Han and Guo Jingming, there are also a number of "post-80s" writers active in China's contemporary literary scene. Such as Chunshu, Zhang Yueran, Jiang Fangzhou, Xiao Di, Ming Xiaoxi, An Ruyi, Luo Luo, Guo Xiaosan, Zhou Xiaoxun and many others. For now, these literary youths are still working hard, but I think it is too early to make a conclusion about them.
Judging from the above facts, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion. The current situation of the writing of "post-80s" writers is actually not optimistic, in addition to making a lot of money in the commercial society, as for the literary value, it is really difficult to determine. Recently, I saw on an Internet forum that Leng Xinying, a "post-80s" female writer in Guangzhou, published a long novel "My World Without Ifs". The elegant title and subtle design made me buy the book without thinking, and after reading it, I found that I had a feeling of being deceived. This is a novel with an extremely low sense of cultural morality, and reading such a novel not only does not bring spiritual sublimation, but will make people more depressed. The novel writes a group of young men and women who seem to be sunny but are actually decadent and depraved, they seem to have their own ideals on the surface, but in fact, deep in their hearts they all hide a deep sense of betrayal, they not only betray themselves, but also betray their families, society and love. Wang Xiaoxi and Bai Yuhang are representatives of this aspect. Wang Xiaoxi seems to be pure on the surface, but in fact, his heart is extremely dark. She liked Bai Yuhang for 8 years and couldn't help it, and driven by this twisted psychology, she put all her resentment out of the wheat that loved her more than she loved herself. This dark feminine psychology gives a feeling of soul twisting. I don't know if this is a portrayal of a real-life author, but if so, I have to say that our time is beginning to become awkward because of such literary works. Objectively speaking, although the development of literature has degenerated to this day, this does not mean that we do not need to adhere to literary ideals when business comes, the more we do so, the more we need literature to impress people, warm people, enlighten people, and save people. As Mr. Zhang Wei said in "The Tree That Still Grows - Discussion with University Teachers and Students (II)", "Our time is the era that needs literature the most, and we need literature to save people, enlighten people, and tell people the meaning and crisis of survival... Literature must become the people, it must be transformed into the pursuit of life."
Instead of pursuing life, "My World Has No Ifs" tramples on life (Wang Xiaoxi hurts wheat again and again). In fact, this is not the most serious cultural crux, more importantly, Wang Xiaoxi, because of her own repression, will stop at nothing to "steal love" behind her sister-like Xia Feifei and Bai Yuhang, this selfish self-interest eventually forced Xia Feifei to a dead end, making her from a literary and artistic young woman who pursues ideals into a "three-year-old lady" in a nightclub. The culprit who led to Xia Feifei's tragic fate was Wang Xiaoxi. What shocked me was that when the author continued to write such a story, he not only did not have any reflection, but deliberately indulged the protagonist. Everything seems to be taken for granted. Remnant Xue once said: "Great works are introspective and self-critical", and "Minecraft Without Ifs" does not have a little sense of introspection from beginning to end, not even a little critical consciousness. This novel also has a fatal failure, that is, the plot of Lin Ruo's suicide by cutting his wrists. Because her boyfriend Shi Lei had an affair with a rich woman behind her back, after being discovered by her, she not only did not repent and rehabilitate, but also bluntly proposed to break up with Lin Ruo. Because of this incident, Lin Ruo, who was sad and desperate, ended his life by suicide. All of this happened unconsciously, including the slightest despair before she committed suicide, and I think such fiction is inconsistent with reality. In fact, the person who should choose suicide the most is Xia Feifei. At the moment when Wang Xiaoxi, who was like a sister, took away her love, she was so desperate. But in the end, he did not choose to commit suicide, but instead went to the nightclub girl. I don't know what kind of purpose the author is here for, but as a reader, it is quite a surprise to see such an ending. I also sometimes wonder if the author has the ability to write novels. If you don't have to go home and educate others, don't come to the muddy waters of literature that are already dirty and unclear. In addition, Leng Xinying is obviously a southerner, but she deliberately uses the Beijing dialect to write novels, which is somewhat uncomfortable with the practice of "mules in Shudi learning to bark donkeys". In fact, these are all common sense questions. However, it was such a thing that violated common sense that kept happening to Leng Xinying.
I think, how can a person with such a bad sense of cultural morality and social responsibility choose to write a novel? How can it be worthy of the sacred title of "writer"? I say this not out of jealousy. For an author like Leng Xinying, I have nothing to be jealous of. Literature aside, in real life we may become very good friends, but in terms of literary ideals and values, I must draw a clear line with her or even tit-for-tat. Moro has this sentence in the Book of the Disgraced: "If they consider themselves saviors, I am willing to judge God, if they see themselves as the Holy Spirit, I am willing to be evil, if they think of themselves as human beings, I can only be the devil." In my opinion, the reason why the previous generations of writers (Lu Xun, Yu Dafu, Lao She, Wang Xiaobo) were great was because their works contributed to the "liberation" of people, and we look at our "post-80s" writers and "post-80s" literature, either sneering or moaning. Such literature can even become the main tide of an era. Objectively speaking, as an indispensable part of the literature of the new century, "post-80s" writers should have entered their own writing state in the 20 years from the beginning of 1999 to the end of 2019, but so far, I have not seen such a scene. "We live in a barren century without scriptures, without masters, and isn't that enough to make us feel heavy? This is the last days, and all decay is increasingly revealing its decaying face, and all expectations are being more eagerly anticipated, but we cannot hear the declaration of the new birth, the propensia of nirvana, the ambiguity is still ambiguous, the vague is still vague. (Ge Hongbing, "Writing a Eulogy for 20th Century Chinese Literature") "For the current situation and future of "post-80s" writers, please forgive my pessimism and meanness. I criticize "post-80s" writers so harshly because I am one of them.
Lan Xixi, male, born in 1980, from Ningxia. He has published more than 200,000 words in "Novel Review", "Journal of Southwest University (Social Science Edition)," "Creation and Criticism", "Dongguan Literature and Art Review", "Yellow River Literature" and other journals. He is a member of Ningxia Literary and Art Critics Association and a director of Yinchuan Writers Association. He is the author of the novel "Zero Degree Youth".
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