Literary Master 1978

It was the coldest time of the year in winter, and the trees in Yanjing City were withered, without a trace of green. Today was a north windy day, the sky was gloomy, and everything was bleak.

Tao Yushu had finished her exams and was on vacation, so she didn't have to go to school. Lin Chaoyang rode her bicycle to the city. The north wind blew, and he felt chilled. He couldn't help but complain.

After riding for almost an hour, his nose was almost frozen off. Lin Chaoyang finally arrived at the venue of today's symposium, the Yanjing Federation of Literary and Art Circles Building, which is also the office of the editorial department of Yanjing Literature and Art.

He greeted Zhang Dening, Zhou Yanru, Li Qingquan and others, and after warming up for a while, he was taken to the meeting room on the third floor.

When he entered the door, there were really a lot of people, more than Lin Chaoyang had imagined.

Li Qingquan led Lin Chaoyang to greet this group of people, which basically covered the fields of writers, critics, and editors. Many of them had direct or indirect connections with Lin Chaoyang.

For example, Yan Gang of the Literary and Art Newspaper was not only an editor, but also a well-known critic. He had written a review for The Horse Herders, and he had also published a review article in the Yenching Youth Daily three months after the publication of Little Shoes;

Wang Zengqi from the Yenching Peking Opera Troupe, the two had met before in the editorial department of People's Literature. His Biography of Cavalry was just published in People's Literature two or three months ago, and he was officially back in the literary world. Today he was invited by Li Qingquan;

Another acquaintance is Li Shuguang from Renwen Press, who was responsible for the publication of the single volume of Little Shoes.

More than a dozen guests came to today's symposium, all of whom are influential and influential figures in the Yenching literary world. It can be seen that Yenching Literature and Art has really put a lot of thought into this symposium.

After greeting everyone, everyone chatted with each other before the symposium started.

When it was almost nine o'clock, everyone saw that the time was almost up, and their voices consciously lowered.

The symposium was hosted by Li Qingquan, the person in charge of Yenching Literature and Art, and Lin Chaoyang sat next to him.

There was a banner hanging on the north wall of the conference room: Literary Symposium on the Novella "Little Shoes". On the long table in the middle of the conference room were everyone's nameplates and tea cups, and a circle of literary people listened to Li Qingquan's speech.

After Li Qingquan finished speaking, it was time for everyone present to express themselves.

The first speaker was Yan Gang, who made a few polite remarks before starting to communicate with everyone.

"I remember that I spent two nights reading the novel "Little Shoes", which left a deep impression on me at the time.

I think the most touching thing about the novel is its spiritual core - the innocence, kindness and tenacity that belong only to children.

I used to read Comrade Chaoyang's "The Shepherd", and the character Xu Lingjun had long paragraphs of psychological description. In general works, this kind of psychological description is usually boring, but Comrade Chaoyang handled it very well at the time.

When it came to "Little Shoes", he played to his strengths in this area, cleverly using inner monologues and psychological descriptions to allow us to understand the children's thoughts and feelings more deeply, and also feel the little dog and sister. Mutual assistance and growth in adversity.

Let the innocent smiles and resolute eyes of the brothers and sisters facing poverty suddenly jump out of the paper, which undoubtedly enhances the emotional resonance of the story and makes the image of the puppy and his sister more vivid.

Secondly, the portrayal of the social environment and the relationship between the characters in the novel. The poverty, crowding, mutual assistance and competition between neighbors in the story construct a three-dimensional social ecology.

At the same time, the personality characteristics of parents, teachers, neighbors and other characters and their subtle relationship with the protagonist are fully displayed in the novel, making the social background of the story more full..."

Because of the process, the exchanges at the symposium seemed more or less stereotyped.

However, the symposium at this time is much better than that in later generations. At least everyone is not gathering together to laugh and haha, and the flowery sedan chair is lifted by everyone and then ends.

Yan Gang praised "Little Shoes" for a long time before, and then turned the topic and mentioned some of the shortcomings in the novel that he felt.

"But I think the novel is still a little loose in structure and layout, which may be due to the overall tone of the novel. The setting of contradictions and conflicts is not intense enough.

As a result, the handling of the character branch line is a little hasty and stiff, and the logical connection with the main plot is not done in a coherent way. This treatment weakens the compactness of the story to a certain extent. From the reader's perspective, it is less attractive."

Yan Gang's evaluation was mixed, and his attitude was objective, which made everyone present nod in agreement unconsciously.

After listening to his speech, Lin Chaoyang was also touched. "Little Shoes" was adapted from the later Iranian movie of the same name. The original movie itself is a warm story, so it is indeed not so good in terms of the compactness of the plot and mobilizing readers' emotions.

This is also a shortcoming that this type of story usually has, especially compared with the scar literature that vents wantonly in the past two years, the shortcoming of "Little Shoes" is more obvious.

However, everything has its pros and cons. Although the freshness, timelessness and warmth of "Little Shoes" cannot arouse the readers' strong hysterical emotions, it can move people's hearts silently, and this kind of touch is often more lasting and unforgettable.

When it was Wang Zengqi's turn to speak, he also mentioned this point.

"In the past two years, there have been more novels describing anti-Y in the literary world, and many of them have had a great influence, such as "Scars", "Class Teacher" and "Horse Herder".

I occasionally try to write about this, but after finishing, I find that there is neither great suffering nor great sorrow in the novel, no life-and-death, heart-wrenching plots, and people are not moved at all.

Sometimes I also reflect on myself, whether I suffered too little persecution and suffering when I was buzzing, why others write about it with tears and snot, but I can't do it?

Later, I thought that this may still be related to personal concepts.

I think that after so many years, everyone has suffered a lot of suffering and punishment. Now that we have finally lived a more comfortable life, there is really no need to dig up those old accounts and make everyone feel depressed.

Comrade Qingquan invited me to attend the symposium, so I will say a few sincere words.

The novel "Little Shoes" is good because of its truth, goodness and beauty.

Sticking to kindness and positivity in difficult situations has a far-reaching impact on cultivating young readers' empathy, sense of responsibility and tenacity in the face of difficulties.

The deep love between brothers and sisters, honesty and trustworthiness, and respect for others depicted in the novel are all virtues, and are values ​​that we should cherish and promote.

I agree with Comrade Chaoyang's creative concept and creative purpose. Works like "Little Shoes" happen to be the most lacking literary works in our Chinese literary world at this stage. ”

Wang Zengqi is a very unique existence in the Chinese literary world. He was active in the literary world at an early age, but he really became famous in the literary world and became famous in his sixties after the 1980s.

He is good at novels and essays. Many works such as "Taking the Initiations", "Notes on Da Nao" and "Three Friends in Winter" have been widely welcomed by readers once they were published.

His works do not pursue painstaking efforts, nor do they pursue profoundness and strangeness. They are plain and simple, and they are told in a leisurely manner, like talking about family matters. He always uses personalized small and trivial themes to aestheticize daily life, which is full of frankness, beauty, optimism, and unrestrained and open-mindedness that is not burdened by external things.

But at the same time, his creative style has also been criticized by the contemporary literary world.

"Beautify life", "empty suffering", "exaggerate true feelings", "avoid the truth" are labels that are attached to Wang Zengqi by those self-proclaimed profound figures in the literary and critical circles. .

In the eyes of these people, Wang Zengqi's thoughts and his aesthetic concepts are both vulgar and kitsch, without the profound insight and criticism of life and society that a literary creator has.

So it is not surprising that "Little Shoes", a work based on simplicity and beauty, is deeply loved by him, which is also the reason why he agreed to Li Qingquan to attend the symposium.

There is nothing wrong with Wang Zengqi praising "Little Shoes", but his words made some people present feel unhappy intentionally or unintentionally.

The popularity of scar literature in the past two years is a general trend in the literary world, representing not only the literary world, but also the inner voice of the broad masses of people.

As soon as Wang Zengqi finished his speech, someone immediately expressed different opinions on his words.

"The novel "Little Shoes" is good, but we cannot simply attribute its popularity to the praise of truth, goodness and beauty.

I think the greatest success of the novel lies in the author's meticulous portrayal of the overall social environment and style. In it, we can not only see truth, goodness and beauty, but also the complexity of human nature and the subtlety of interpersonal relationships.

The urban-rural gap and educational inequality implied behind the novel story are also worthy of our attention and deep thought.

If the novel is simply guided by the praise of truth, goodness and beauty, then it cannot bear the power and thickness given to it by literature itself. "

The speaker is Zheng Zhiyuan, a middle-aged writer from the Yenching Literary Association. His tone is sonorous and powerful, and the content of his speech can be regarded as insightful, but it is obviously too targeted.

Because of the two people's completely opposite speeches, the atmosphere at the symposium suddenly became tense.

To be honest, Lin Chaoyang actually appreciates Wang Zengqi's point of view.

The source of literature is text and records, and no one has ever given it any lofty meaning and historical mission.

Wang Zengqi and Zheng Zhiyuan's views are opposite, and it is impossible to say who is right or wrong, but Lin Chaoyang has the perspective of later generations. He always feels that if literature emphasizes profundity, criticism, literary and ideological too much, it will be a disaster. , that is tantamount to pushing oneself to the opposite side of the masses.

Because you have to admit that once literature embarks on the path of pursuing profoundness and criticism, it will easily distance itself from the common people, thus lacking the environment and soil, and in the end it can only be unpopular, or even self-destructive.

Although Wang Zengqi's views are not comprehensive enough, they are at least close to life.

Literature can only have a bright future if it is close to life and the masses.

The atmosphere in the conference room became deserted because of tension. At this time, Lin Chaoyang suddenly laughed lightly, and his laughter immediately attracted everyone's attention.

"Comrade Chaoyang, what do you think?" Li Qingquan looked at his actions and knew that he must have something to say, so he handed him a sentence.

"What Comrade Wang and Comrade Zheng said makes some sense. I am not laughing at your speeches, but I think of the exchange with Mr. Wu Zuxiang a few days ago. "

When everyone heard Wu Zuxiang's name, they all showed cautious curiosity on their faces.

As a Chinese writer who spans the history of modern and contemporary Chinese literature, although Wu Zuxiang has stopped writing in recent years, his influence cannot be underestimated, not to mention that his status in the academic world is much higher than his achievements in creation.

"We talked about Lao She at that time. As we all know, since the founding of New China, Mr. Lao She has focused his main creative energy on drama creation. In 15 years, he has created 23 scripts, including "Tea House" and "Longxugou".

In fact, personally, I feel a little sorry for Mr. Lao She's choice, because I think his talent in novel creation is far greater than drama.

But Mr. Wu's words at that time made me have a sincere admiration for Mr. Lao She's choice.

He said that the reason why Mr. Lao She chose the field of drama was because of his patriotic feelings. Mr. Lao She believed that with the cultural level of most working people at that time, reading novels was a barrier, but If you are watching a play, there will be no such obstacle.

Mr. Lao She wrote "Longxugou". He wrote about the harm of the old society to the people and the changes brought about by the new China. He wrote "Teahouse", about the big society and the little people.

The greatest beauty of literature is that it has thousands of faces not only in the readers' hearts, but also in the pens of different writers.

Back to what you two said just now, everyone has different opinions on the usefulness of literature, but we can reach a consensus that literature is very useful.

As for how to use it, it depends on each person's ability.

But what I want to say is that with Lao She's talent and achievements, he still knows how to make compromises in his creation. Who dares to be proud of being a "people's teacher"? "

After Lin Chaoyang finished speaking, everyone looked thoughtful.

His words seemed to be muddy, but in the end he put forward a very sharp point, that is -

No one can point fingers at the people in the name of literature.

Lin Chaoyang used a gentle attitude to ease the clash of opinions between Wang Zengqi and Zheng Zhiyuan, but at the same time he expressed his attitude in a soft yet firm manner, and it was quite insightful. Everyone present couldn't help but look at him with a bit of caution and respect.