Chapter 54 Difficult and tortuous literary road

As early as in junior high school, Xie Sizhong began to have a "writer's dream". After going to junior high school in the county, Xie Sizhong saw so many literary publications in the reading room for the first time; therefore, he went to the reading room every day after school; moreover, he also subscribed to magazines such as "Literary Knowledge" that were not in the reading room. .He also often went to the Xinhua Bookstore not far from the school to read books, and when he encountered a favorite, he bought it with all his heart.The money for ordering magazines and buying books was earned during vacations and after-school work-study programs; but at that time, in order to save money, he was eating steamed buns soaked in boiling water, and he was reluctant to buy pickles.

The more literary books and periodicals I read, the better my writing skills will be.From junior high school to high school, Xie Sizhong's composition has always been the best in the class and even in the whole school. He is often criticized by the teacher with the word "posting", and he copied it and posted it on the wall behind the classroom for other students to see; It was also copied on the blackboard and explained as a model essay.With the growing interest in literature, he determined to become a writer in the future.At that time, novels such as "Song of Youth" and "Lin Haixueyuan" were popular in society; whenever he picked up these thick books, he couldn't help rubbing them repeatedly with his hands, staring at the author's signature on the cover for a long time. , I thought: If only I could write such a novel sometime!

In order to realize his ideal, Xie Sizhong secretly made up his mind to take the Chinese Department of Peking University in the future.In normal times, he works hard to learn all kinds of homework, and concentrates on literature during vacations.He used a winter vacation to excerpt hundreds of Tang and Song poems, bound them into a volume, and named them "Excellent Poems" for his own enjoyment and recitation.He also used a summer vacation to stay in school, working part-time during the day, and burning lights at night to study classical literature.In order to avoid interference, I live alone in a classroom full of desks and chairs—because I have to bow my head when I go in and out, and carefully sneak through the gaps between the desks and chairs, so that others will not come in; after a summer vacation, He excerpted several large volumes of famous prose from the pre-Qin period to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and translated some of them into vernacular.

However, just before graduating from high school, Xie Sizhong suddenly changed to science and engineering because he was worried that his family background would affect his admission.In the "ultra-left" era at that time, candidates from poor family backgrounds were often deprived of their admission qualifications due to "unqualified political examination"; major.He thought that although he had been planning to apply for liberal arts, his math, physics and chemistry scores were also among the best in his class. If he changed to science and engineering, he would be more likely to be admitted to a national key university; moreover, studying science and engineering would not prevent him from realizing his dream of becoming a writer in the future. ——He once saw in a book introducing Russian writers that a writer was also an engineer.

After entering university, Xie Sizhong still maintained his love and pursuit of literature despite intense study. He often went to the library to read and borrow books in his spare time. After the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution", although most literary works were banned as "feudal capitalism", schools and social libraries were closed, and there were almost no books in bookstores, he still tried his best borrowed a large number of humanities works. In September 1967, when the "Cultural Revolution" was at its climax, he lived with his eldest sister in Beijing for a month, reading behind closed doors every day, reading "The Complete Works of Lu Xun" from beginning to end, and excerpted a book of quotations; From then on, he not only admired Mr. Lu Xun's profound thoughts, but also began to have a strong interest in national character.

After joining the work, Xie Sizhong took literature as his spiritual sustenance in the harsh environment of the Qinling Mountains. After the Spring Festival holiday in 1973, Xie Sizhong stayed on duty at the construction site. During this period, two major events occurred in his life: one was the birth of his son; Using poems to express their ambitions, the title is "Reading "Mencius Gao Zixia": "Shun is a farmer who plows and farms; Fu Shuo is a prime minister, and he is listed in the edition. Examining its roots, common people and ordinary people; how to achieve success? Difficulties and hardships There is no food to be full, no home to be safe; self-improvement, great success is unbiased. It is not too late for a gentleman to reward his ambition; if he does not sing, he is already, and he is famous." —— Another novel written by him 10 years later Finally adopted by the publisher!

At that time, although it was still in the midst of the "Cultural Revolution" and the field of literature was still barren and withered, it was no longer the situation of only a few "revolutionary model plays" in previous years. Several novels had been published, and some provincial literature Publications have also resumed one after another.In order to support the elderly and raise children, Xie Sizhong kept only a dozen yuan a month for living expenses, but he still gritted his teeth and ordered almost all the literary publications at that time, so that the post office thought he was ordering magazines for the reading room of his work unit.During the construction of the mining area, there was only one copy of "Shaanxi Daily" on the construction site; after dinner, he often rode a bicycle on a mountain road for more than ten miles, went to the reading room of the factory to read the newspaper, and then came back in the dark.

Not long after, Xie Sizhong was transferred to the factory area for construction, and the accommodation conditions were much better than those in the mining area; but in order to avoid external interference in his spare time, he offered to live in a dormitory that no one else wanted to live in—a lonely dormitory surrounded by exterior walls , It can be described as "warm in summer and cool in winter", and it is only five or six square meters.After he set up a bed inside, he couldn't even fit an ordinary table, so he had to nail a simple small table with wooden boards; when he was writing, he would sit on a small bench, hunched over it; when he was tired of writing, he would Straighten up, beat his back, and look at the photo of his son on the table.

After two years of writing, Xie Sizhong finally completed a novel of about 300,000 words; after it was posted to a publishing house in Beijing, it was like a mud cow into the sea.After he was seconded to Beijing to participate in the construction of the Capital International Airport, he went to the publishing house to inquire about the manuscript; only then did he know that every novel published at that time had to be reviewed and approved by a certain leader in charge of ideology in the central government, and there was only such a novel in the country. A publishing house publishes novels, one or two novels per year.Seeing that there was no hope of publication, he brought the manuscript back and locked it in a drawer of his desk.

Afterwards, whenever Xie Sizhong opened the drawer and his eyes came into contact with the manuscript, his heart would be stabbed faintly; own good hope. After the start of "Combating the Right Deviation and Overturning Verdicts", he was extremely depressed; after some painful thinking, he decided to give up literary creation, and threw the manuscript into a small ditch near the farmland behind the house.Unexpectedly, a few days later, the manuscript floated up like a drowning man; he picked up the manuscript, tied it with bricks, and threw it in again.In the past 10 years, although he has continuously published new works, he always has an unforgettable memory of this manuscript; whenever he takes off and lands at the Capital Airport, he can't help but look at a building on the north side of the tarmac - there used to be a building behind it. A small ditch where he buried his first manuscript.

After the "Cultural Revolution" ended, Xie Sizhong once again had the desire to create; after some argumentation, he decided to write a novel based on the theme of Fang Zhimin's founding of the Northeast Jiangxi Revolutionary Base.The reason for choosing this theme is that on the one hand, works of this kind of historical theme will not become "outdated" due to a long time-he is ready to fight a protracted war; on the other hand, it is because Fang Zhimin My admiration - he is not only a revolutionary martyr, but also an intellectual who loves the motherland, is loyal to the faith, and has integrity; he is not only a model of Communist Party members, but also a model of intellectuals and a model of life. In 2001, more than 10 years after the publication of this novel, Fang Zhimin Research Association hired Xie Sizhong as a consultant when it was established; The spirit of Min was praised. To create historical works, you must first collect data.However, at that time, some revolutionary memoirs such as "Red Flag Fluttering" and "A Spark Started a Prairie Fire" were sealed up in the "Cultural Revolution" and had not been lifted. Only two libraries in Beijing could borrow such books and newspapers: one was located in Beihai. Beijing Library, the other is the Capital Library located in Guozijian; both libraries have to borrow letters of recommendation from their units, and books, newspapers and periodicals are not allowed to be taken out of the reading room.At that time, Xie Sizhong was working and living at the Capital Airport construction site far away from the urban area, so he chose the nearby Capital Library; even so, it took nearly two hours to take a bus from the Capital Airport.Due to the tight construction tasks, the construction site only has one day off every two weeks, so I can only use this day off to go to the library to borrow books. During the year from October 1976 to October 1977, Xie Sizhong spent almost every rest day in the reading room of cultural and historical materials in the Capital Library.Every time he arrived at the library when it opened, he quickly copied the book after borrowing it, hardly resting except for going to the toilet, and did not leave until the library was closed.Due to continuous intense copying, my finger joints were so sore that I had to stop after copying for a while to stretch my fingers.There is a bucket of boiling water for readers to drink in the reading room. Every time he goes there, he brings dry food and a cup for drinking. He eats dry food and drinks boiled water for lunch.At that time, there were very few readers who borrowed books and periodicals from the library. He was often the only one in the reading room of literature and historical materials, and occasionally there were one or two people who were mostly elderly.After he copied in this way for about half a year, he finally moved the management staff and made an exception to allow the book to be borrowed back for copying; in this way, the speed was greatly accelerated.There are millions of words in the materials he extracted back then, and they are still preserved and reluctant to be discarded-after all, it records the hardships of those days! After going through various twists and turns, it was after being transferred to the Ministry of Construction that I really entered the creative stage.During the day, Xie Sizhong had to stay on duty for eight hours, and he had to do housework after get off work. He didn't start writing until around nine o'clock in the evening until late at night.After nearly a thousand nights under the lights, I finally finished the 300,000-word novel "Blood Stained in the Southeast". It was already the end of 1983.For more than two years, he only watched the televised Spring Festival Gala on New Year's Eve, and he didn't usually watch TV; on Sundays and other holidays, he almost devoted himself to writing.In his book "Essence and Destiny", he once described the scene of his night writing in those years: In the dead of night, sometimes when I get tired from writing, I take a break, lean on the back of the wicker chair, and look out the window—the surroundings are dark and completely silent, just like the feeling I felt when I lived in the Qinling Mountains at night a few years ago.Sometimes, when I write with a headache, I scratch my scalp vigorously with both hands. At this time, the dandruff and hair loss will fall down one after another; Sweep the dandruff and hair loss into a pile and throw it away.Sometimes, when I really couldn't write any more, I just stared blankly at the mirror on the table, looking at my wrinkled brows and my eyes that were red and slightly swollen due to congestion.Due to long-term fatigue and lack of sleep, my face was aging rapidly, a lot of hair fell out, and the left eyeball was left with a cloud due to long-term congestion. After the manuscript of "Blood Stained in the Southeast" was posted to China Youth Publishing House, it was quickly adopted (it was later published by the China Workers Publishing House because the responsible editor was transferred to China Workers Publishing House); according to the introduction of the publishing house, they received natural About four or five hundred works were submitted, and only one or two were selected for publication.In order to publish it as soon as possible, the publishing house asked Xie Sizhong for a few months of creative leave to revise the manuscript.Since the creative materials come entirely from books, newspapers and periodicals, in order to clarify some problems, during the revision of the manuscript, he also used business trips to Northeast Jiangxi for interviews. In the autumn of 1984, shortly after completing the first revision of the manuscript of "Blood in the Southeast", Xie Sizhong devoted himself to the creation of the second novel "Buried Love in the Ancient Capital".This novel is based on the love tragedy between revolutionist Gao Junyu and poetess Shi Pingmei in the 1920s—known as "Gao Shi's Love" in the world. "Gao Shi's Tomb", which "cannot be the same roommate in life, but will be the same house after death", is still preserved in Taoranting Park in Beijing for future generations to look up to. In the summer of 1986, Xie Sizhong had just completed the revision of the manuscript of "Buried Love in the Ancient Capital", and then devoted himself to the creation of the long biographical literature "Reminiscence of the Dead-Liu Dabai Biography".Poets, professors, tribute students, monks, martyrs of 1911, editor-in-chief of newspapers, exiled politicians, May 4th generals, deputy ministers of the Ministry of Education, ordinary people... weaved into the strange and magnificent life of the hero Liu Dabai; Enjoy the blessings of life, and make full use of life force" outlook on life. In the winter of 1989, Xie Sizhong responded to the appointment of the publishing house and created a long expository reportage "Awakening the Sleeping Land-A Documentary of the Contemporary Chinese Land Market". The above four full-length literary works were published successively within four years—an average of one publication per year.The people around him found it inconceivable that Xie Sizhong went to work every day, but his works continued to come out. He explained that there is nothing strange about it, but he just made the best use of his spare time. For more than 20 years, his lifestyle has basically remained unchanged—there are few leisure and entertainment activities, and most of his spare time is devoted to reading and writing. Although these full-length literary works were all well-received, they were sold out quickly when the publication of the books entered a trough at that time, but in comparison, the time spent on "Awakening the Sleeping Land-A Documentary of the Contemporary Chinese Land Market" The least energy and energy, but the greatest social response, especially in the real estate industry in the Mainland and Hong Kong.On the one hand, this benefited from the fact that the issue of land use was still a hot issue of social concern 10 years ago. At that time, he was the director of the Regulations Department of the Ministry of Construction, and he had an advantage in data and information; The potential of his work - this has been confirmed by his later success in academic writing. After the publication of "Awakening the Sleeping Land - A Documentary of the Contemporary Chinese Land Market", the full text of "Chongqing Real Estate" magazine was serialized; the editor-in-chief of "Shenzhen Real Estate Herald" not only wrote a book review, but also bought 1,000 copies and gave them to people in the Hong Kong real estate industry. "China Construction News" also published a book review and pointed out: "The 'difficulties' of this book: First, this book inevitably expresses its position on some politically and theoretically difficult and extremely sensitive issues. , such as whether the transfer of land is humiliating to the country, whether the commodity management of factors of production such as land violates the socialist system, etc., and these, even professional theoretical researchers in the doorway, have not yet been involved. Second, when writing, you have to To convert this serious political and theoretical topic into a fairly readable literary work, if such a bridge from rationality to sensibility cannot be built, the author's voice calls out with the mood of taking the world as his own responsibility, It will be like a firefly wandering in the night sky. The "valuable" features are: complete materials, timely questions, fair opinions, and decent rules. This book combines many important viewpoints and innovative insights from economics, law, and sociology. step into the ranks of literature without shame." While creating long literary works, Xie Sizhong also created some medium and short literary works; among them, the prose "Second Reading <Excessive Words" won the first prize of "Qu Qiubai's Essays and Essays", and the documentary literature "Unfortunate Life is Unlimited". "My Love" won the second prize in the writer group of the "Writing to Mothers" at the Fourth World Conference on Women of the United Nations. On March 22, 1990, Xie Sizhong was accepted as a member of the Chinese Writers Association—finally realizing the "writer's dream" he had started when he was in junior high school.He wrote in his book "Quality and Destiny": I fell in love with literature when I was young, but before graduating from high school, I changed to science and engineering against my will; after leaving school, I have been engaged in a profession that is almost insulated from literature.For decades, no matter whether I was bumping around the construction site in the Qinling Mountains, or pitching and circling the Wenshanhuihai in the government building, whether I was at the bottom or in a high position, I have always regarded literature as my spiritual sustenance and way of liberation———————————————— Not only does it fill my heart with hope and the courage to overcome difficulties and vulgarity, but it also improves my spirit and illuminates my life.