Chapter 13 A Letter to Hairong——Preface to "Hairong's Fiction Collection"

Comrade Hairong: I am so glad that your novels are finally published as a collection.The crops finally received Changshangguang.Farmers always have wheat autumn once a year, but you are the result of years of hard work, so you are more worthy of congratulations. You asked me to comment on your work.I thought Comrade Gao Song should have more say in your works, and it was through him that I got to know you and your novels.In his introduction, what I admire most is this sentence: "He is like a baby, like a drunk, and he drifts into the conflict of reality as if nothing had happened." Later I participated in a discussion meeting with you and several other amateur writers in Ningxia After reading a few of your works, I really have the same impression as him.But I thought you were a sober drunk, just pretending to be crazy.Our literary circles and society as a whole, of course, mainly need sober people, but at a certain moment, sober people often appear as drunks. I have seen this banner of the old man in Banqiao, but the owner is very likely to be a fool).

Well, I'm not going to say much about the social function of your work and what you've achieved.Being able to publish books and being recognized and valued in Ningxia's literary circles is enough to explain the problems in this regard. In a discussion session discussing you and several other authors, I made a presentation that I hadn't intended to make.I clearly know that some people may misunderstand, but the "urge to tell the truth" is always irresistible.Of course, there are reasons why the words are not clear because I didn't plan to say them, and there are also reasons why ordinary people find it hard to understand.After the meeting, some people seemed to say that I was advocating everyone to "practice Zen", but I was just trying to remind people whether they can use another way of contemplating life and contemplating life.If I were facing a group of religious believers, I would ask them to use dialectical materialism and historical materialism to observe life and life.

From the decline of novel art, I can't help but think of the degradation of human wisdom.This is not a problem of our own country.In the world, Soviet novelists, even if they have won the Nobel Prize, have not surpassed Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky so far; the United States has a short history, let alone him; I haven't seen a contemporary author who is more talented and whose works are more classic than Dickens and Thackeray; the same is true in France, and the works of several Nobel Prize winners are no better than Balzac and Stanley. Tonda, Hugo, Zola, and Maupassant have been passed down for a long time; just take fairy tales as an example, can you name a contemporary writer who has reached (not to mention surpassed) the level of Andersen or the Brothers Grimm?For ourselves, let’s just read the short stories without mentioning the ones everyone is familiar with. Is there one that can catch up with "In the Restaurant" in terms of art, and is more typical than Ah Q in terms of character creation?

However, modern times and contemporary times are the times when the most discussions on creative methods and creative ideas are the most intense and "fruitful". "We sow dragon seeds and reap bedbugs." Although the novel is a trivial skill, it is actually the expression of human intelligence like all art forms and sciences.In all the novels you read, it's not the virtuosity that strikes you, but the brilliance of wit.Some people may say that although novels are not very good, haven't human beings made unprecedented progress in science?It seems so on the surface, but it is also unprecedented for human beings to self-destroy by scientific means.It doesn't matter that you "lodged into the conflict of reality like a drunk, as if nothing had happened", the whole human being is very smart and stupid, but it is really worth worrying about.

Please forgive me for saying so many ramblings.If you notice what I said at that meeting and what I'm writing now, you'll know that I'm not thinking about fiction at all, and that I'm just trying to do my best as a leader of a literary group by proposing various writing seminars. obligation. But I'm not a pessimist.Please read Toynbee and Daisaku Ikeda's dialogue "Looking Forward to the 21st Century".It is not unreasonable for these two scholars to pin their hopes for the future of mankind on China.Chinese culture does contain ways to develop wisdom, it depends on whether you can discover it.For a novel author, the study of skills and horses is far less important than improving one's own wisdom.

A short letter can only go so far.Please believe me, I really see that some paragraphs and sentences in your novels still have flashes of wisdom, and I think it is good for the current reading circle that your works can be published in a collection, so I tell you these; I I also believe you can understand.