Chapter 7 "The Matter of Writing" Part 3 Proficiency and Strangeness

What art has to oppose, after hypocrisy, is proficiency.How can there be skilled art if there is skilled technology? Proficiency (or proficiency) in language can be praised in official documents or reports, but it is a dead end in literature.In proficiency, no matter how difficult it is to create language, it is mostly language consumption.Roland Barthes said: Literature is an adventure in language.That is to say, literature is to open the way to unfamiliar territory.The strange domain does not only refer to the strange space, but mainly refers to the place in the heart and soul that has never been opened.How could one be familiar with the unfamiliar land?In the case of exploration, intentions such as imitation, reflection, and representation recede into the background, and discovery becomes its gist.Milan Kundera said: Literature without discovery is not good literature.Discovery is the source of language creation, so it is naive and does not lose its literary qualities.Where the soul of man is unknown, when the condition of man is neglected, when the learned life reveals strange news, literature has its mission.Skillful writing makes good merchandise, but not good literature.

Proficiency in writing indicates a stagnation of thought and numbness of sensibility, while a fascination or self-admiration for the proliferation of proficient languages ​​is certainly not avant-garde, but it is not tradition either. If tradition is the thought, language, style, writing style, structure, sentence structure, taste... then there is no need for new writers, only new printing and new storytellers are enough.But tradition does refer to some things that have existed before. It seems that the key is: what do we want to inherit and what does the word inherit mean?Tradition must be related to inheritance, otherwise it is nonsense.However, the standards of inheritance have always been flexible and therefore vague. If you push the ruler of radicals to the left, you are sticking to the rules, and if you pull the ruler of conservatives to the right, you are abandoning tradition.The reason for the ambiguity probably lies in the fact that inheritance includes both the eternal position and the ever-changing future.However, everything is subject to change, but is there anything that is eternal and needs to be eternal?If not, what exactly does tradition (especially a tradition of thousands of years) indicate?Or just talk about change, but what is inheritance emphasizing?There are things that are eternal, and that is the realm of strangeness. The siege of strangeness is the eternal situation of human beings, so there is no need to worry about its disappearance.However, it seems that it is impossible to discard like the sun, moon, mountains and rivers, and the emphasis on inheritance is really superfluous.but!In the face of unfamiliarity, there have been different attitudes since ancient times: go to explore, and escape to become proficient.So I think that tradition emphasizes the former attitude—surprise, longing, even respect and admiration for strangers, but this attitude needs to be inherited forever.The road under this attitude is of course unpredictable and boundless, so good literature, in fact, inherits tradition every step of the way, and does not linger in proficiency at every step, so it becomes the pioneer of exploration.Tradition is its unchanging spirit, and pioneer is its inquiry on the way before all changes.

(Perhaps the word avant-garde refers to a school of style, but it should be explained: this "pioneer" is just the name of a genre, and does not mean the future of literature. Mr. Yu Hua, who has always been considered an avant-garde, said that he is not an avant-garde , because no real writer writes for genre. That speaks volumes for us.) So why write?I think it is because of the existence of that boundless and strange land.It is not a place to be entered by skill, where the strangeness and danger demand new thoughts and languages.If you want to write, what induces this "thinking"?Three possibilities: market, genre, soul.Markets, enough has been said.Genre, Yu Hua also gave us the best answer.Heart and soul, however, has been neglected in the heat wave of the market and the genre, but at the time of such neglect, it sends out strange whispers or calls.Leaving proficiency, go to listen and comprehend, and follow the strangeness that is chaotic and boundless.

When writing under the lure of the soul, there is a question: Is it me who seduces me, or is it me who is tempted?This roughly proves that the soul and the brain are two different things—the seducer is my soul, and the seduced is my brain.Heart and soul, you are not familiar with all of them. It carries all the news of the world, makes the tree of life evergreen, and makes new languages ​​grow. It is a god that all schools, theories, and doctrines want to approach but are always far away.At any time, if literature is stagnant or sluggish, one of the most important reasons is that the brain is separated from the soul, and the distance is getting farther and farther, so that it can neither hear nor see it.It's like there is no one in front of the computer, and the computer is showing off in a flashy manner, although it is proficient.