Chapter 54 (Four)

The novels I have spoken of are very different from each other; but they have one thing in common: they tell good stories, and the author's method of telling them is straightforward.They tell stories and explore motives without resorting to those boring literary tricks like stream of consciousness and flashbacks that make so many modern novels boring.They tell the reader exactly what they want the reader to know, instead of, as is the fashion nowadays, leaving the reader to guess who the characters are, what they do, what their situation is: in fact, they try to make it easy for the reader to read.They don't seem to want to impress them with some profound mystery, and they don't want to shock them with something new.As people, these people are very complex; but as writers, they are surprisingly simple.They are profound, mysterious, and unconventional, as natural as M. Jourdin's mouth full of prose.They try to tell the truth, but they inevitably see it through the deforming mirror of their own idiosyncrasies.With solid instincts, they deliberately avoided topics of concern at the time (these topics have lost meaning over time); they dealt with those topics that human beings have always cared about: God, love and hate, death, money , ambition, envy, arrogance, good and evil; in short, those passions and intuitions that have been common to all men from the beginning, and for which reason generations of men have found in these writings what is right for them. some value.It is precisely because these writers use their extraordinary personalities to reveal life, and observe, judge, and describe it based on this, that their works have a lasting atmosphere and characteristics that strongly attract the world.In the final analysis, everything presented by the writer is still himself, and it is precisely because of these writers' superior abilities and unique personalities that their works can withstand the passage of time, as well as different living habits and brand-new ways of thinking. Undiminished charm.

Here's the odd thing, though: Although these men rewrote their work again and again, and often revised it constantly, none of them were great stylists.It seems that Flaubert was the only one who paid attention to writing.Ironically, what he worked so hard to accomplish was, precisely because of its style, less appreciated by French intellectuals than those haphazardly written letterheads.A few years ago, when Prince Kropotkin was talking to me about Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, he told me: Tolstoy wrote like a gentleman, and Dostoy Lewski's writing style is very similar to that of Eugene Sue.If he meant that Tolstoy used the traditional style of elegance and propriety, it seems to me that the novelist's choice of writing is very good.I must say that Miss Austen's style of writing is very similar to what we imagine the ladies of the time to say, and this style is very suitable for her novels.A novel is not a scientific document, and each novel must have its own unique style, which Flaubert knew very well, so the style of the novel is different from the novel, and the style of the novel is different from that of "Bouvard and Baicuchet".As far as I know, no one has claimed that Balzac, Dickens, and Emily are good writers.Flaubert once said that it was impossible for him to read Stendhal's works, because the writing style of the other party was really bad.And even in translated works, it is obvious that Dostoevsky's writing style is really rough.A good writing style does not seem to be the essential quality of a novelist, what is more important is vigor and vitality, imagination, innovation, keen observation, insight into human nature, concern and compassion for human nature, as well as creative ability and Smart and wise.But in any case, good writing is always better than mediocre writing.

What is strange, however, is that each of these outstanding writers did not write language that is much better than it actually is, and what is even more strange is how these people became writers.From their family biography, it is impossible to see why they can have talents.Their family has more or less status, but it is still ordinary, neither special wisdom nor elegance.When they were young, they had no contact with anyone who was passionate about literature and art.They didn't know any writers, and they weren't particularly hardworking.And the entertainment activities they participated in were also played by children of that age and status.There is nothing to suggest that these individuals had extraordinary abilities.With the exception of Tolstoy, who was born aristocratically, everyone else belonged to the middle class.Logically speaking, in this environment and upbringing, they should become doctors, lawyers, government officials or businessmen.These people start writing, just like birds with fledgling wings flying high in the sky.But two children in the same family (for example, Cassandra and Jane Austen, Fyodor and Mikhail Dostoyevsky) have the same upbringing and almost the same life. Facing the same environment and having deep feelings for each other, it is really strange that this one, not that one, has an unparalleled talent.Remember I said that great novelists need talents of all kinds, not only creativity, but keen perception, attentive eye, ability to benefit from experience, and above all, an understanding of human nature. The wholehearted devotion of the above factors, and the lucky combination of the above factors, can make him such a novelist.But why are these talents bestowed upon one man and not another, and why are their possessors, so inexplicably, the daughter of a country parson, the son of an unknown doctor, a sophist, or an unreliable government clerk? Son, for me, this is really an unsolvable mystery.How these novelists acquired these prodigies no one can say.The matter seems to depend on personality, but personality seems to consist, for the most part, of predictable qualities and insidious flaws.

The artist's special talent, his brilliance, or his genius (if you will use the word) is like a sleeping orchid seed that falls by chance on a tree in a tropical jungle and is about to germinate, it Gets no nourishment from the tree, but from the air, and bears a queer, beautiful flower; but the tree is felled for lumber, or floated down the river to the sawmill, and so, This piece of wood, with its splendid and strange flowers, was like thousands of other trees in the primeval forest.