Chapter 11 Chapter Eleven

When the special reading activity for writing "The Ordinary World" was almost unbearable, I immediately transferred to another "basic project" as planned-preparing the background material of the work. According to the preliminary design, the content of this book will involve a wide range of urban and rural social life in China during the ten years from 1975 to 1985. These ten years were a period of great transformation in Chinese society, during which there were many densely-packed major historical events; and these events were interlocking and caused each other. It is impossible for this work to use a certain degree of chronicle structure Avoid them.Of course, I will not examine these historical events with the eyes of a politician.My basic idea is to use historical and artistic perspectives to observe people's survival and living conditions under this social background (or conditions).The attitude towards political events in a specific historical background to be revealed in the work, which seems to be the author's attitude, should actually be the attitude of the characters under that historical condition; the author should stand on a historical height and truly embody Balzac's The function of the so-called "clerk".However, it is absolutely impossible for a writer to be "neutral" in his attitude towards life. He must make a philosophical judgment (even if it is not accurate), and express his outlook on life and personality to readers passionately and sincerely.As the great Leo Tolstoy said: "In any work of art, the author's attitude towards life and the descriptions in the work that reflect the author's attitude towards life are of the utmost importance and value to readers. , The most convincing... The integrity of a work of art does not lie in the unity of conception, the carving of characters, etc., but in the author's clear and firm attitude towards life, which permeates the entire work. Sometimes, the writer can even basically not modify the form, if his attitude towards life is clearly, vividly and consistently reflected in the work, then the purpose of the work will be achieved.” (Chertykov Transcript, 189 four years)

Now, the first task is to fully understand what happened in China (and even the world - because China does not exist in isolation, it is a member of the world) in the past ten years.Not only a macroscopic understanding, but also a microscopic understanding, because there are great differences across the huge China, and the same policy at that time may have various practices and manifestations.We have generally experienced and generally understood what happened in the past ten years, but it is far from enough to enter the description of the works.Life can be turned into a story, but history cannot be fabricated, and there must be no specious things.Only by thoroughly clarifying the social and historical backgrounds can it be possible to accurately depict the life forms and spiritual forms of people in these backgrounds in art.

A surer way is to consult the newspapers of the decade—day by day, month by month, and year by year.Newspapers not only recorded major events that happened every day inside and outside the country, but also generally reflected people's lives at that time. So, I found all the bound editions of "People's Daily", "Guangming Daily", a provincial newspaper, a regional newspaper and "Reference News" in the past ten years. Immediately, one "mountain" after another piled up in the room. I started this dull and necessary work without knowing it.Flip through the pages one by one, and write down the important events of a certain year, month, and day and some things that are considered "useful" in the notebook.The workload is so huge that it almost becomes a kind of slave-like mechanical labor in the middle.The corners of the eyes were covered with gum, and the capillaries of the fingers were worn out by the paper. They rested on the paper as if they were resting on the edge of a knife, so I had to use the back palm of my hand (where the flesh is thicker) to continue reading.

It took several months to get this annoying job done.It was later proved that this matter is very important, and it has brought great convenience to my writing - at any time, I can quickly find the world, China, a province, a region (the region is directly Reflecting the situation at the grassroots level at that time) what happened. While consulting the newspaper, I also wanted to get many documents and other crucial materials at the time (the original structure had designed one or two national central leaders as important figures in the work).Of course, I was unable to consult the archives at the national level or even the provincial level. I could only transcribe some limited things at the district and county levels using acquaintances. I got a little supplement with great regret, but forced me to basically give up. It is the intention to describe the central leader of the country as a character.