Chapter 29 postscript

Twenty years ago, I graduated early from East China Normal University in Shanghai, and embarked on a literary world full of storms, waves, and disasters.Blind obedience and ignorance gave me confidence and strength.I thought I had mastered the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism, correctly understood society, and understood people.I stood on the podium and read aloud the script written according to the intention of the leadership, criticizing the humanitarianism my teacher preached.I said: "I love my teacher, but I love the truth more!" I was intoxicated by the applause, and I was proud of being such a "warrior".

Today, twenty years later, I am writing a novel.What I want to promote in my novels is exactly what I have criticized before; what I want to pour out in my novels is exactly the "human touch" that I tried to restrain and transform before.This is really ironic to me. Philosophers only need to use one sentence to explain this change in me: I experienced a negation of negation.I am not a philosopher, but just an ordinary person with normal sense organs.So, what I see is destiny.The fate of the motherland, the fate of the people, the fate of my relatives and myself.O bloody, heartbreaking fate!Also, what I see is the tortuous course that a generation of intellectuals have gone through.O long and torturous course!

I used to be a passionate and innocent young man. I had nothing in my mind other than loving the party, loving the new China, studying hard, and serving the people.My feelings for the party and socialism are very sincere.This is because the liberation of the motherland provided me with a path that no one in my family had traveled for generations. I became the first girl in my family to study and the first person to complete a higher education.The bright future of socialism and communism attracts and inspires my young heart.I firmly believe that our cause is just, our future is bright, and our road is smooth.I am carefree, selfless and fearless, and my heart is full of warmth and friendship.

In 1957, there was an extra string in my head: class struggle.In 1966, another string was added to my mind: the line struggle. I have struggled to understand and "tighten" these two strings in my head.I have been a "small steel cannon" of "big criticism", and a "rebel soldier" of "Red Commander".I used to believe devoutly: everything in the world is a class struggle.Every year, every month, every day, class struggle must not be forgotten. However, I am human after all, and my senses have not been numb, so I can feel the roughness of the road, see the blood on people's bodies, and the tears on their faces.This "people" includes myself and my relatives.Although I dare not and am unwilling to doubt that ultra-left line, I can feel the creeping of my conscience and hear the groaning of my soul.I often ask myself in my heart: Will our struggle go too far?Have we wronged good people?Is it necessary to stir up the two strings of "class struggle" and "line struggle" all the time and endlessly on Chinese soil?

As the struggle to expose the "Gang of Four" deepened, I learned many things I didn't know or imagined before.Suddenly, I felt the sanctity in my heart shaking, and the spiritual pillar was collapsing.I can't see anything.I was often alone in a daze, crying and yelling.How much I want to grasp the gods I once believed in and those people who worked hard to build gods in my heart to ask: Is everything that happened in the past true?Why did you say it differently at the time?Is it intentional concealment, or is there a "process of understanding"? My soul was in darkness for a period of time.

The discussion about practice being the only criterion for testing truth led me from darkness to light.I understood that whether it is a human, a ghost, or a god, they are all firmly grasped by the giant hand of history, and they are required to accept the test of practice.Everyone has to hand over their account books and their souls.You have to put your hands in the sun to see if it's stained with blood or dust.I am as small as mustard.But before history, all people are equal.I have to settle the account by myself.The soul wants me to judge myself.I have to wash my hands myself.God's to God.The devil's give back to the devil.For your own, just bravely carry it on your shoulders, even engrave it on your face!

So, I started thinking.While bandaging the bleeding wound on his body, he dissected his own soul.Flipping through the history I wrote page by page, reviewing the footprints I stepped on one by one. Finally, I realized that I had been playing a tragic character in the form of comedy: a man who had been deprived of his freedom of thought and thought he was the freest; a man who flaunted his spiritual shackles as a beautiful collar; People who have lived most of their lives and have not yet known themselves and found themselves. I stepped out of character and found myself.It turns out that I am a person with flesh and blood, love and hatred, emotions and thinking ability.I should have my own human worth and not be reduced or degraded into a "tame tool".

A capitalized text quickly moved to my eyes: "people"!A long cast aside, forgotten song rushed out of my throat: humanity, humanity, humanitarianism! I woke up like a dream.Although the cold sweat was wet and the shock was still uncertain, he always woke up.I want to declare my sobriety to others, so I write novels.The year before last, I wrote my first novel "Death of a Poet", and this year I wrote this one. The common theme of these two novels is "people".I write about human blood and tears, about the painful groans of distorted souls, about the sparks of the soul bursting out in the dark.I shouted "The soul is back", recording the recovery of human nature with infinite joy.

I haven't read all the works of Marx and Engels, let alone studied Marxism-Leninism.But based on the few works of Marx and Engels that I have read, I think Marxism and humanitarianism are interlinked or identical.Even if I can't find a theoretical basis from the classics, I don't want to suppress the voice of my heart anymore.Criticize what should be criticized, it is always my own thoughts and feelings, and it is also a voluntary self-expression.Take the blame on yourself, punish without resentment. It's also true that things must be reversed, and now I'm not afraid of the "self-expression" hat at all.I am not afraid that people will find a "I" from my works, let alone be responsible for this "I".I think that the reason why a person picks up a pen to create is always because he has some special feelings in his heart that he wants to express?Literary and artistic creation should be insulated from or draw a clear line from "self-expression", I am afraid that it can only be an illusion, or ignorance of literature and art.The whole question is how this "self" the writer wants to express relates to his time and people.In my opinion, in life and struggle, writers should try to forget themselves and integrate themselves into the common cause of the people.He should breathe and share fate with the people.His joys, sorrows, sorrows, praises and criticisms should also be closely connected with the people.In this way, the "self" he wants to express is also a concrete and personalized expression of the "self" of the masses.However, when creating, the writer must not forget himself anyway.He should discover himself as much as possible and express his unique feelings and opinions.He wants to sing with his own throat and speak with his own language.A writer standing in front of the people is like a child who has just landed in front of his mother: naked, not afraid of blood and amniotic fluid;There is nothing to be ashamed of. Joy and pain, beauty and ugliness are inherently interdependent.

To write after many years of literary and artistic theory work, and now still engage in the teaching of literary and artistic theory, is like "being a monk halfway through" and "leading the way to practice", and it is inevitable that "the world will never end".When I am creating, I often involuntarily think of some problems in literary theory.When writing this novel, I more consciously explored certain theoretical issues in practice. In my opinion, all the great writers and artists in China and abroad are almost at the same time great thinkers and even great philosophers.Isn't lack of deep thinking and lack of insight into life also one of the reasons for formula and conceptualization?I am a teacher of literary theory, and it is impossible for me not to be exposed to a large number of theoretical works, including literature, philosophy, and even political economy.At the time of creation, it is impossible for me to give an order to temporarily retreat these concepts and logic, giving way to the unpredictable "image thinking".I have adopted this attitude: let all thoughts and logic move freely, let them help me understand and analyze life, and even constitute the content of my works.Usually, I have a little bit of feeling in my life. After thinking about it, I feel that it has the value reflected.However, I couldn't jump right into the creative process.Only when I have a relatively clear understanding of many phenomena, that is to say, when I have a theme, can I start writing.Thoughts, far from hindering the activity of my imagination and my emotions, actually gave them a boost.I am a very excitable person.Even more so in creation.However, at any time, I have not lost my clear rationality, and I have been constantly analyzing and thinking about what I have written.I even have to temporarily suspend my creation to read some theoretical works.I feel that the more fully I know what I have written, the more intense is my emotion.

I do not deny that there are very complex spiritual phenomena in the process of literary and artistic creation.For these phenomena, our research and discussion is far from enough.For example, the role of artistic imagination in the process of forming artistic images; the law of artistic imagination and the cultivation of artistic imagination; the formation of inspiration and its status and role in artistic creation; the author's subjective intention and objective How does real life interact?How do the writer's reason and emotion interact?How do the writer's life experience, cultural accomplishment and personality traits transform into creative personality?Etc., etc.A special discipline should be established to study it, called "phenomenology of literary and artistic spirit" or "literary and artistic psychology". After the "Gang of Four" was smashed, in order to restore the life of art and pursue the truth of art, realism was raised to a high status, which is understandable.However, I have been thinking, can the realism of art be achieved only by means of realism?Or, is realistic art the truest art?The answer is not in the affirmative. If the truth of art is only understood as the imitation of real life, then the method of "depicting life as it is" adopted by realism is undoubtedly the best method, and the art of realism is undoubtedly the most authentic art. up.However, artistic reality is not an imitation of real life, but a positive and correct reflection of the writer's real life.Strictly speaking, the highest task of artistic creation is not to truly reproduce reality, but to truly and vividly express the cognition, attitude and feelings of writers and artists towards reality.The highest truth pursued by art is not just a vivid description of life, but should be the correct understanding and attitude towards life and the accurate and vivid expression of this understanding and attitude.This seems to be a deliberate conceptual circle, but it is not. I want to emphasize the importance of the writer's subjective world in artistic creation, and emphasize the importance of mobilizing all artistic means to express the writer's subjective world. The method of realism—reflecting life as it is is of course a way to express the writer’s understanding and attitude towards life.But it's definitely not the only way, and it's not even the best way.Some of the thoughts and feelings that the writer wants to express can be expressed through real and concrete life pictures, while others cannot.Why did Wu Chengen create a series of absurd images of gods and demons such as Monkey King?Why did Cao Xueqin write a big illusion outside of the real world?It's all about expressing your own subjectivity more fully!In the West, after the trend of realism, modernist art emerged.The so-called modernists have many factions and different opinions.But adopting more abstract and absurd methods to resist realism is their main tendency or basic tendency.In the past, we were against the art of the modernists, but now we have started to analyze it scientifically, but when we mention it for reference, some comrades still shake their heads: "Why do you want to learn the art of the bourgeoisie?" Comrades with this view have forgotten that we have been learning bourgeois art methods, but what we have learned is their ancestors and antiques; ".I just want to say that serious modernist artists are also pursuing the truth of art. They just feel that the realism method restricts their pursuit of truth, so they innovate in art.They want to fully express their true subjective feelings and understanding of the world, while the method of realism emphasizes "objectivity" and emphasizes that the writer conceals himself.This kind of emphasis goes to the extreme and becomes objectivism and naturalism.Trivial objectivity engulfs or suppresses the writer's subjectivity, and of course the writer must resist.Therefore, from the perspective of art alone, the rise of modernist art also has its inevitability. It is not only the denial of realism by modernist writers, but also the denial of realist art itself. We are also facing such a situation today.After ten years of turmoil, great changes have taken place in the team and mental state of writers.We have entered an era of thinking, an era of change.Everyone is thinking, they all have their own unique feelings and emotions, they all have their own demands and fantasies, and they are all eager to tell others.In recent years, the general strengthening of lyricism and philosophy in the works is probably not accidental, is it?Apparently, some comrades already feel that the traditional method of realism is not enough to express their own thoughts and feelings, and therefore it is not enough to express our times.They started artistic exploration and innovation, and showed practical results.There are also a large number of young comrades who have had difficulty publishing their works so far, and their artistic exploration may be more successful.Will it form a new genre of Chinese and modern literature?I think it is very possible if there is no unexpected storm.I sincerely call for the formation of this new genre as soon as possible.I would like to be a small drop of water and gather in this small stream. When writing "The Death of a Poet", I followed the method of realism more strictly.A friend said politely: "Your method is classical." I understood that he meant that mine was old-fashioned.While writing this novel, I consciously made some breakthroughs.I no longer pursue the coherence and meticulousness of the plot, the specificity and delicacy of the description.No more painstakingly concocting a history for each character to reveal the causes of their character.I take all means to my own goal: to express my understanding and ideal of "human".For this reason, I concentrated all my energy on the portrayal of the soul of the characters.I let a character stand up and open the door of his own heart, exposing the extremely complex world contained in a small square.I have absorbed some expression methods of "stream of consciousness", such as writing the characters' feelings, fantasies, associations and dreams.I think this is closer to the real psychological state of people.However, I am not an irrational admirer.I still try my best to embody the inner logic in the seemingly impermanent mental activities.I have also absorbed certain abstract expression methods, because abstract methods can express certain thoughts and feelings more accurately and economically.I wrote about the dreams of several people: Sun Yue's dream, Zhao Zhenhuan's dream, and You Ruoshui's dream.These dreams are symbolic.The content they express may not be profound, but it is still quite laborious and expensive for me to express these contents in another way. I don't know how good my exploration is.But I hope young friends like my work.Truth be told, I write for them.I love them and strive to understand their thoughts, feelings and artistic interests.Maybe I got it wrong, but I don't regret it.I will continue to be friends with young people and use young people as teachers.Of course, I also hope that I can give them a little help.I hope that one day, I can write a work with them as the main characters. author August 1980 in Guangzhou