Chapter 166 To Chen Youxun

Mr. Youxun: Your opinion also represents the psychology of some people; you say that short stories are good, but long ones are boring, but we still receive letters from readers who hope to have long ones.Modern novels all take very bland "fragments of life" as their themes, and there are some too bland parts, such as "Traveling Companion";I am ashamed to say that my friend's work "The Journey's Companion" is simply a masterpiece; but I dare say: this article is not just a little "family darkness", not necessarily all "frivolous descriptions" and "unrealistic".I dare say: the gray life of Pearl's parents is at least a gray life worth studying.Whether Pearl's father was good or bad could never be determined in a few words.If all the thinkers in the world were to criticize Pearl's father's outlook on life, I guess there would be many opinions to the contrary.I often think that a novel has different impressions depending on the personality and emotion of the reader: I am bored, and I like reading novels that describe youth's boredom; people who are often close to the natural world like to read works that praise nature.Ye Jun's article seems a bit too plain, and you are probably not the only one who is dissatisfied with it.We are very willing to listen to criticism from the outside world, and hope to enlighten us from time to time.

Yan Bing [June 1922]