Chapter 41 Rejecting the Game (Postscript)

Wang Yuewen People have the impression that I am a writer who specializes in officialdom.This actually only shows that people pay too much attention to officialdom these days.I have also written novels about different lives, and those novels can still be read.I rely on the blessing of officialdom to let readers pay attention to my novels, but I would rather my novels have no applause, and I don’t want people to care so much about officialdom.Because the sun rises and the moon sets, and the stars turn and move, they follow the way of heaven, and human beings will not make a fuss.Only when the El Niño phenomenon occurs, human beings will turn their attention to the vast sky.

Perhaps it is because I have written too much about the life I am familiar with, so my friends often suggest: Do you also write about other subjects?This makes it difficult for me to answer.In fact, I do not admit that what I am writing is a novel about officialdom.I hardly agree with the so-called theme.I usually don't take it seriously when I hear friends talking about industrial themes, agricultural themes, and reform themes.I didn't laugh out loud just because I still wanted to be a little gentleman.I think that if a writer always thinks about the important subject he is writing about, and always thinks about the significance of a certain subject, he may not be able to write any good works.In fact, since there have been writers in this world, they have been writing about people, and they are writing about real (or present) people.Regardless of whether the writers themselves are conscious or not, whether they admit it or not, whether they write about history, whether they write about gods and monsters, or whether it is romanticism or surrealism, they are all writing about people who can be seen every day.If we have to talk about subject matter, then in my humble opinion, people will always be the only subject matter.I have a not-so-bright analogy: if you compare writing a novel to a chemical experiment, then people are the test subjects. If you put them into different reagents such as officialdom, shopping malls, academia, battlefields or love scenes, they will have different reactions. .Writers record this reaction artistically, which is fiction.Remember what Hugo said: It is the human heart that releases the infinite light, and it is also the human heart that creates the boundless darkness.Light and darkness are intertwined and fighting, this is the world we are nostalgic for but helpless.So, why do we not write about people, but always want to write about a certain subject with a quixotic passion? Some people say that my novels go deep into the criticism of the social system, which seems to be true. A flattery, but I don't take it seriously.I think people should not be slaves to the system, any system is just a temporary game, no matter how decent or fake the game is played.Only people's hearts, rivers and rivers are eternal.The reason why I often put the characters I want to write in the environment I am familiar with may be just to be familiar with them.I am a person with an extremely limited imagination. It may be very difficult to write about unfamiliar environments.

Although I don't want to bother too much, I've always been serious about writing fiction.I'm not going to play games in the world, whether it's writing or human beings.Some people may feel nauseous when they hear what they say about the history and the like.For people are accustomed to regard the sublime and the sublime now as absurd.The true solemnity and nobility are ignored and ridiculed, while all kinds of false solemnity and sublime are professionally dressed up by some people.Because of their debut, these people always hold blue-chip stocks in their hands, and they can often earn dividends.I don't want to be mocked or put on any false masks.Writing a novel is a matter of exposing one's soul.Any writer, no matter how obscure and tortuous his writing is, his soul will loom in his works.I believe my soul can see the light of day, so I write novels.If one day my veins are filled with putrid gore and my soul is polluted by gore, I will stop writing novels.

I was originally an idealist, but reality gradually made me understand that idealism is the easiest way to slip into decadence.Ideals always seem to be on the other side, and this side is full of hypocrisy, injustice, deceit, tyranny, pain and so on.Decadence is naturally not a good thing, but decadence is still the skin left after the ideal has withered.But now, although many people are not decadent, they choose to be numb, and they go straight to numbness without even having the ideal bubble.I don't want to be decadent or numb, just criticize.The achievement of creating "isms" in the Chinese literary world in recent years seems to have surpassed the achievements of literature itself.All kinds of "isms" come and go in a hurry, and before you have time to figure out what a certain "ism" is, it has already faded away.The wind passed over the shoulders, leaving no trace.I think what we need most at the moment is critical realism.

My novels have always been written with ease, where I write and write as I please.Perhaps this is the reason why my novels are not as satisfactory.Mr. Wang Meng said that my novella "The Garden of Autumn Wind" is full of twilight atmosphere, but it is not very satisfying when it ends with the sigh of twilight.Mr. Zhang Chu said in the preface to my collection of novels "Official Spring and Autumn", that my novels contain anger, lamentation, and ridicule, and they stop at anger, lamentation, and ridicule; People are somewhat sighed, but also somewhat helpless.I respect these two teachers very much, and I am impressed by their criticism, but I just don't know how to make up for this regret.I don't think Cao Xueqin thought of saving the Qing Dynasty by this when he wrote it. Prescribing medicine to the society is only a recent saying that some writers have awakened their sense of mission.Writers don't have to take jobs from politicians or thinkers.Facts have long proved that since the writer wanted to be a doctor, he has been unable to do what he wants, and he is also incompetent.If this analogy is used, then the writer can at best provide a handful of test sheets and X-ray negatives one by one, and the responsibility for diagnosis should be left to the people and history.