Zhou Daxin: Long "seal the pen", the heart is not willing

It took more than two years to complete the first draft, from March to October 2020, after many revisions, Mao Dun Literature Prize winner and writer Zhou Daxin's latest novel "Los Angeles Flowers" was recently released. He announced that he would "seal the pen" for the novel, which immediately attracted the attention of the literary community. To this end, the reporter interviewed the writer Zhou Daxin.

Marriage is like a thatched house to be repaired and maintained

"Los Angeles Flowers" is written in the Chinese version of the marriage story, with the method of "quasi-documentary", from the perspective of a matchmaker, with the faithful record of four divorce trials, telling the wind and snow moon and "a chicken feather" in a marriage story. Zhou Daxin regards it as a long-form "sealed pen" work, which can be described as well-intentioned.

"Los Angeles Flowers Fall", the title image is derived from Ouyang Xiu's poem titled "Yulou Chun". More people are familiar with the sentence "Life is a lover, this hatred is not related to the wind and the moon", in fact, the next few sentences are more sad: "Away from the song and do not renew the que, a song can teach the intestines to knot." Straight to see all the flowers of Los Angeles, the beginning of the spring breeze is easy to say goodbye. Zhou Daxin said that the title of the book with such an image structure contains the tragic meaning of the withering of love and the separation of lovers. At the heart of this tragedy, in fact, it also implies the cost of women's growth.

Over the years, Zhou Daxin has noticed that the divorce rate is getting higher and higher, and even the number of divorcees in his hometown has increased. He also noticed the news of divorce because of a word, a newlywed couple went to the mall together, a quarrel occurred, the woman immediately wanted to divorce, and the two sides really went through the divorce procedures. There are also couples who change from relatives to passers-by to enemies. All of this caused him to think deeply, so he wanted to write a novel to tell young readers about his understanding and thinking about marriage.

"I think if you compare marriage to a building, it is not a building made of reinforced concrete, it is a thatched house, the shelf life is only three to five years, if the shelf life is over, if it is not repaired together, it will leak wind and rain, and it will collapse before long." 」 Zhou Daxin said that the best materials for repairing the "thatched house" are love and tolerance, two materials that can re-knead all the cracks in the house. And repairing with suspicion and hatred will only get worse and worse, and maybe those mars that jump out will burn the house.

Zhou Daxin said that there are several signals that the marriage building has become a dangerous house, one is that it is quarrels and indifference caused by trivial matters in life, the second is that domestic violence is caused by emotional out-of-control, the third is that one or both parties are cheating, and the fourth is that the life of the husband and wife is not harmonious, "Once the marriage house collapses, it will also hurt the innocent." ”

In "Los Angeles Flowers", zhou Daxin focuses on the fact that what tests marriage is never the real difficulty itself, but the feelings of two people. In his view, for marriage, life is far more difficult than mutual suspicion. Like a snowball, the ghost of suspicion exerts its divine power, making everything in the marriage entangled, and also exposing the unkempt side of the marriage that has been torn off.

Because of this, Zhou Daxin wants to explore the emotional ability brought by the original family, and explore the problem of "marriage quotient" in addition to IQ, emotional intelligence, and financial quotient. Life is tiring, marriage is expensive, but we have to love each other. And when we are in love, when we are married, we should probably all think about whether our "love quotient" is enough?" Marriage merchant" is enough? If it's not enough, learn. He used this novel to integrate law and human feelings, prejudices and insights, and wrote a "guide to rational marriage" and a "happy tip of love".

In the future, if you have a new feeling and experience, write essays

"I am 69 years old this year, what to do and what not to do, should be soberly aware, to learn to retreat, can not go forward desperately." Zhou Daxin said.

No longer writing long stories, Zhou Daxin said that making such a decision is actually unwilling in his heart, and he will feel more pain. He said that the novel is like the "eldest son" of the novel family, he loves to write novels, but at the same time he must face reality. I didn't feel tired when I used to write for six or seven hours a day, but now I would be tired when I write for two or three hours, "I used to write 200,000 words, and I felt like I was turning over a hill; Writing 200,000 words now is like turning over a mountain, and it will take years to turn it over. He also believes that what he wants to say to the world is basically said, and then it is self-repetition, "My understanding of life, society, life, and the relationship between man and nature is presented and expressed in the novel." ”

Of course, with the passage of time, for his new feelings and new experiences, Zhou Daxin can still write, but no longer in the form of novels, but in prose for direct expression, "many of the works of russian great writers in their later years, literary things are weaker, and there are more reasonable things." ”

In the past year, in addition to finishing "Los Angeles Flowers", Zhou Daxin has also completed a film script , adapted from his novel "Dark Slowly". If it were not for the epidemic, this Sino-Japanese film would have already started filming. Zhou Daxin revealed that writing film scripts will also become a direction for his future writing.

"I did it right"

In the contemporary Chinese literary scene, Zhou Daxin has always been a diligent and sincere writer. Starting from "Lake Light and Mountain Color", which won the Mao Dun Literature Award, he has solidly completed the mission and responsibility of a writer who is committed to the status of "secretary of the times" with the rhythm of a novel every three years. By the time of "Los Angeles Flowers", he had just completed 10 (13 volumes) novels.

Zhou Daxin's "Out of the Basin", "Act 20", "Legend of War", etc., have a wide influence among readers. In recent years, "Qu Finally In" and "Dark Is Slow" have built a bridge between "fiction" and "non-fiction", so that the novel and life can be synchronized, pulling readers to the stage and interpreting the story of life with the characters.

Zhou Daxin recalled that his first novel, "Out of the Basin", was completed in 1988, and he never dared to tell anyone the secret of writing a long novel. Later, the work was published in the magazine "Novel Circle" and launched by the Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Publishing House in 1990, which began his novel writing career.

In 1998, Zhou Daxin published a three-volume novel, Act 20, totaling 1 million words. He recalled that during the creation, there were problems with his body and family, and he thought that he was going to die, and the work would definitely not be completed. Who knows, he just painted one stroke at a time, and completed the work with strong perseverance, "I feel that the tasks I have to complete in my life have been completed, and the things I wrote later are earned." ”

Looking back at the road of decades of novel creation, Zhou Daxin reflected on himself, "Because of the lack of innate literary preparation and systematic literary training, I have taken many detours, but I did the right thing in writing, because in line with my personality and disposition, I am willing to be in a room, alone, facing the manuscript paper and screen." ”