Chapter 24 Must go free - written in third year of professional writing

"It is in limitation that a master emerges, Only the law can set us free. " - Goethe Years ago, a friend from Shaanxi came to Yinchuan and invited me to visit Xi'an, a famous historical city, and at the same time learn from the seniors in the Northwest literary world and exchange creative experience with my colleagues.I am very happy.But I asked my friends to agree to this request: Will I be allowed to leave after January 4, 1984?A lesbian asked in amazement with her unique sensitivity, why did the fourth day of the first lunar month happen?I smiled and said, it's not a big deal, it's just because January 4th is my son's third birthday.

It seems absurd.For the birthday of a young child who "has not remembered Chang'an", he postponed the opportunity to learn from the old seniors and comrades, and did not show a happy and eager mood.However, for me, this day is memorable.I dare not be like Lu Xun said: "Pity is not necessarily a husband", and I think I still have a manly spirit, but it is only because I started professional literary creation almost at the same time as my son was born. Three years ago, on January 4th, it was a rainy and snowy day in Yinchuan.The rain of snow particles drifted to the ground and quickly melted.The streets and the corridors of the hospital are wet; the weather and scenery are like early spring and late autumn.It makes people full of joyful hope and entangled with unreasonable sorrow.I sat on the floor in the maternity waiting room with broken glass and drafts at the city hospital.There were puddles of vomit and litter all over the ground.The walls are also filthy, smeared with horrible bloodstains; most of the hygiene posters are incomplete, and there is only one complete human anatomy diagram left, which seems to permeate an ominous atmosphere.From time to time in the corridor, the groans of the imminent mother and the comfort of the companions can be heard.This nagging comfort made people even more flustered.Most of the people sitting in the waiting room were men and old ladies. Although they were all silent, they showed a dazed and bewildered expression on their faces.Each of them (including me, of course) has large and small bags and mesh bags full of food around them.That appearance, it doesn't look like welcoming the birth of a new life, but it looks like preparing to go on a long and difficult journey.

Suddenly, my heart moved, and I felt that the atmosphere formed by all these seemed to have a kind of allegory meaning to me and to the new era of our republic.A person's new life, a country's new era, and the birth of a small life all begin in such an atmosphere.Such a beginning indicates that they all must fight tenaciously to win or survive. I waited for more than 30 hours, and I couldn't bear it anymore, so I went to the porter of the hospital to warm up.When I came back after warming up, the little guy was finally born at eleven o'clock in the middle of the night.The nurse who came out of the delivery room with him in her arms said that she had seen my "Gypsy" and "The Story of Old Man Xing and the Dog", and privately gave me a little privilege to see him before he entered the isolation room glance.The face was not very good-looking, like a flesh-red bug; his face was stained with blood, his brows were frowned, his eyes were closed, as if he had struggled hard for half his life just like me.At this moment, tears welled up in my eyes.These tears did not come from the joy of being a father, but a sense of being touched by life and realizing the heaviness of taking responsibility.The birth of a child, and my career as a professional writer, was something that I hadn't even thought about during half (maybe most) of my troubled life.In the past two decades, the identity prescribed by the ultra-leftist line did not allow me to take any responsibility for the society and the country, but it also made me relaxed and leisurely. Picking up a cigarette butt is the biggest thing in the day. enjoyment.I can use cynicism to cover up my worries about the fate of the country and society; "looking at the world with cold eyes", this kind of "coldness" is a hot "coldness", which contains the bitterness and bitterness of wanting to do something but being unable to do something sorrow.However, today, I suddenly have a sense of mission from the sky.How can such a change not make me cry?

Later, the child gradually grew up, one year old, two years old, and three years old; I also wrote more and more works, including short stories, medium stories, and long stories.Some works have been adapted into movies, one, two, three.One of them was adapted by myself, and I participated in the filming process from beginning to end, which seems to have set foot in the film industry again.From babbling, the child can now speak some complete sentences, and can even use function words such as "because", "so", and "then" quite accurately; he likes to paint with a pencil since he was very young, and now he can Draw some cars and houses similar to abstract paintings.I often secretly use him to compare myself.I think my progress in literary creation is probably no more than my son's current level of talking and scribbling.Because I face literature, and he faces the world and life, and they start to run simultaneously.

That's why I take his third birthday very seriously.This day is also the third anniversary of my professional literary creation.Of course, he still can't sum up his harvest in the past three years, he can only eat chocolate.But I want to settle down in a quiet environment and think about what is my most important experience in literary creation in the past three years. I want to put aside all the issues about artistic skills, the relationship between life and creation, and various "contemporary literary and artistic trends". I think my most important experience in literary creation in the past three years is to be more I deeply realized that, as a contemporary Chinese writer, I must enter the state of "freedom!"

The first thing I want to say is that the "freedom" I mean is a philosophical concept, not a political concept as it is usually called.In fact, there is no absolute freedom in politics.The "freedom" proposed by the bourgeois revolution in the 18th century only required the full and comprehensive expression of bourgeois ideology and the exercise of bourgeois domination, which had great revolutionary significance at that time.Therefore, in the final analysis, political freedom and lack of freedom are nothing but subjective feelings.In order to explain this issue more clearly, I would like to quote a passage from Hegel’s Aesthetics:

"The highest content that can be grasped on the part of the subject may be called 'freedom' for short. Freedom is the highest quality of the mind. In its pure form, freedom consists first of all in the fact that the subject is not alien to what is I think it is a benefit, boundary and limitation, but I find myself in that opposite thing. According to the definition of this form, with freedom, all shortcomings and misfortunes will be eliminated, and the subject will reconcile with the world and all antagonisms and contradictions have been resolved. But to be more exact, liberty generally has reason as its content: such as morality in action and truth in thought.... The ignorant are not free, because and What he opposes is a strange world, what he depends on on top and outside,... the impetus of curiosity, the attraction of knowledge, from the lowest to the highest philosophical insight, all originate from a desire , is to eliminate the above-mentioned situation of unfreedom, and make the world something that people can grasp with ideas and thinking.  …”

"In a word, human's physical needs as well as knowledge and will are actually satisfied in this world, and the conflict between subject and object is eliminated in a free way, and the conflict between inner freedom and existing external necessity is eliminated. " Marx once said, "Hegel often makes a real narrative that grasps the things themselves in the speculative narrative." This passage of Hegel belongs to this category.In "Anti-Dühring", Engels expounded this idea in more detail, more concretely, and more reasonably, and concluded that "man's leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom" is the historical mission of the communist movement. The well-known glorious proposition.

What, then, does the removal of the conflict between inner freedom and existing outer necessity matter to our current literary creation?I am not going to start from the abstract law of literary creation, here I just talk about my feelings.And to talk about real feelings, we must start from the actual situation.If I from my.The situation observed by the angle is not accurate, which proves that I have not yet gained complete freedom.But I am willing to enter into this freedom through comradely discussion. There is a saying that contemporary literature after the "Gang of Four" was overthrown, during the period of the ideological liberation movement in 1978 and 1979, when "practice is the only criterion for testing truth" was advocated, that is, the whole country was united with the enemy. When criticizing the crimes of the "Gang of Four" ultra-left line that harmed the country and the people, whether it was novels, poems, or reportage, there was an unprecedented prosperity.At that time, many novels and poems were scrambled to be recited by the masses, and some literary figures became household names, as if he or she lived or died among ordinary people.Later, although some good works that aroused readers' interest still appeared for a period of time with the momentum of the previous two years, gradually, the works with greater influence as in the previous period obviously decreased; The enthusiasm for literary works, especially novels and poems, began to fade, and dissatisfaction of one kind or another was naturally expressed; sales of literary journals generally declined, and the literary world seemed to be showing a "depressed" situation.If we don't talk about the reason, but only talk about the phenomenon, we should admit that this phenomenon exists.

There are many reasons, including readers' social psychological changes and various factors belonging to the historical category.Now, we can often hear criticisms of writers who are divorced from life, stay away from politics, make up random things, make no effort to dig deeper and wider in real life, and only pursue formal refurbishment and so on.This is also a reason, it is true that there is such a situation.However, this is only a phenomenon, not a substance.We should explore the deeper layers beneath the phenomenon. In my opinion, the root cause of this phenomenon lies in the relationship between the writer's subject and the object opposite to the subject.

During the period of the ideological liberation movement and criticism of the ultra-left line of the "Gang of Four", because many writers and the people of the whole country suffered from the ultra-left line, they hated the ultra-left line both emotionally and intellectually.The literary works that they pointed at the ultra-left line are all the expression of their hearts; the ideological liberation movement and criticism of the ultra-left line are not foreign things to them, not a kind of boundary and limitation, but precisely the requirements of their subjects; The necessity of subject and object is consistent, and it is in this necessity that the subject discovers and expresses itself.In this way, they are free.Looking back now, even the more influential works published in those years were still rough and immature artistically. It can be seen that the author wrote in a hurry, without traces of meticulous craftsmanship, and used is the traditional method.However, because the author has entered a state of freedom, the work can still shock the readers, and the collision of soul and soul occurs. The recent criticism of writers is actually the distress of many writers.Under the new situation, facing the new requirements of the times, the minds of writers still need a process to obtain new satisfaction and freedom.That is to say, many writers are temporarily unable to adapt to the changes in the situation and the requirements of the times; they seem to be facing a strange world all at once, and thus lose their sense of freedom.It is not that the picture of the world in which the writer lives has all changed.Life is still like that.Moreover, in my opinion, most contemporary young and middle-aged writers have a life; which one of the people who have lived in their 30s, 40s, or 50s has not accumulated some materials and feelings for writing?At the same time, the lives and feelings of each two people are special and cannot be replaced by another person.To get into describing something special about yourself is to create.In this sense, most young and middle-aged writers have great creative potential.The problem here is how to follow the principles of Marxism and scientific socialism to understand the life they are facing, and how to express it in a realistic way. It can be said that contemporary young and middle-aged writers are all the products of the party's Third Plenary Session line.Without the line of the Third Plenary Session of the Party, there would be no group of young and middle-aged writers active in the contemporary literary world, and there would be no prosperity of contemporary literature.Therefore, the vast majority of contemporary young and middle-aged writers are unquestionable in supporting the leadership of the party; their belief in Marxism and their belief in the truth that "only socialism can save China" are also sincere.However, advocacy and belief do not equal understanding and mastery.And only after understanding and mastering can we feel that the leadership of the party, Marxism, and scientific socialism are not "something above and outside that he has to rely on", and can we integrate the subject and society to the subject in a universal way that covers everything. Only by canceling the opposition between the requirements of the human body and the external necessity can the subject obtain new satisfaction and freedom. Writers did not solve the problem from the subject's world outlook and methodology, and all well-intentioned requirements and assumptions for literary creation that proceeded from the interests of society as a whole would become external shackles that opposed the writer, making the writer more and more feel that he had more Boundaries and limitations.Even if the writer voluntarily considers the social effect and strives to grasp the "proportion" and "angle" in the creation, the writer's thoughts and feelings unconsciously revealed in the artistic image and his exposed thoughts added to the work for the pursuit of social effect may appear. Emotions form a contradiction between true and false, and conflicts between the outside and the inside; the bright tail is artificially placed on the story, "proportion" has become the writer's external scale, and "angle" has become a clever way to avoid it. trick.This dualistic tendency will inevitably destroy the harmony and consistency that art must be integrated into one, and greatly reduce the quality and moving power of literary works.The final facts have also proved that the requirement to divide the subject matter of creation by era to make the work have a positive effect is of no help at all, and it is very unwise.I asked someone to make a rough count, and more than half of the novels that have been criticized recently and have a tendency to make mistakes are written after 1977 and before 1949. It is self-evident that our contemporary young and middle-aged writers must maintain a high degree of political unity with the party.However, where this "height" is must be clarified.This height can only be based on the party's theoretical foundation, that is, Marxism-Leninism.If a writer is only satisfied with the "low level" consistency, the works will inevitably have a tendency to be conceptualized and formulaic, repeating the previous set of graphic policies.If a writer masters the Marxist world outlook and methodology, not only will the problem of keeping literary works away from politics solved, on the contrary, at this time the writer will also have a kind of political passion and impulse, and it seems that he must write on sensitive and sharp contemporary political themes. It is impossible to discover and express oneself; writers will have an unstoppable enthusiasm to use their pens to directly participate in the ideological and political struggle for the construction of a socialist society.We cannot fail to see that if a writer is not very familiar with Marxism and scientific socialism, politics is a foreign thing in his eyes; During the conversion period, if there is no scientific insight of Marxism, but only empirical observation, then, as Hegel said, "empirical observation... makes us aware of one change after another... but it does not give We express the inevitability of the relationship.” Thus, politics is simply a piece of what Engels called “the chaotic kingdom of chance” in front of people.He will stay away from it, and he can’t hide it. How can you tell him to write about politics? Only when the mind is free, can the writer exert the maximum creativity of the subject; only when the mind is free, can the writer reach the "transcendence" of literary creation.In this state, there is no need to think about exposure and praise, darkness and light, social effects, what subjects should be written, and so on. "Everything that comes out of the fountain is water", must be confirmed by personality, and requires the integration of thoughts into one's own flesh and blood.If Marxism and scientific socialism have become the writer's main thoughts, there will be no boundaries and limitations to restrict his choice of writing subjects and life materials. The personal relationship between children will be imprinted with historical materialism, will have profound social significance, and will have progressive and inspiring social effects. In this way, the writer can do whatever he wants without transgressing the rules. In fact, the problem of the writer's subject entering a free state is not a special problem faced by young and middle-aged writers of our generation.Every great writer in history, or one who has achieved something, is all connected with the progressive thought at that time, and many of them are still representatives of the progressive thought at that time.The progressive thought at that time was the relative truth in the long river of human history.Marxism and scientific socialism are merely inherited and developed from those ideas.Of course, there have been conservative or reactionary writers in history who also wrote great and excellent classics, such as Tolstoy and Balzac.But this does not mean that there are exceptions, it only shows that they are faithful to the reality of life and follow the creative method of realism, so that they adopt a posture that is detached from the interests of their class or strata, and express themselves in their works. a historical inevitability.The eyes of these masters have penetrated under the surface of life and reached what Hegel called "the highest truth, the original truth".Therefore, the opposition between freedom and necessity, mind and object, law and motivation, etc., no longer exists; they also enter a state of freedom. It is obviously absurd to say that our contemporary young and middle-aged writers can also learn from Tolstoy and Balzac, without having to master Marxism and scientific socialism, as long as they strictly follow the realistic creative method and be faithful to reality. .The disturbing problem now is not only that many of our comrades have not yet grasped the Marxist world outlook and methodology well enough to see the reality beneath the surface of life so that "all deficiencies and misfortunes are eliminated" and "subjects and World reconciliation", and it is not even clear where the boundaries of the two principles of Marxism and socialism among the four principles lie.Originally, we had a very wide world to gallop in, but now some comrades have demarcated the land, like a blind man traveling on a blind horse on the great plain, thinking that there are cliffs and traps everywhere.In this state, we may be bound by criticism of one kind or another, thinking that we have made mistakes when we did not make any mistakes, or we may be attracted by such and such "new trends of thought" and "new doctrines" and engage in Dazzling, I have gone astray but I think I am always right.In this way, how can he still handle his rich and typical life materials and life feelings? When I was a professional writer, the so-called "scar literature" (this concept is extremely inaccurate, so I used it falsely) had come to an end. The Party Central Committee had put forward four principles, and the literary and art circles had already emphasized the positive social effects of works. .And just at this time, I had an irresistible passion to discover and express myself on practical issues, so I wrote "Dragon Seed". "Dragon Seed" was not artistically successful, and I have summed up the lessons in a letter (published in the sixth issue of "People's Literature" in 1982).But that is by no means less artistic because I wrote about politics.When I was writing "Dragon Seed", I was against a trend in the society.At that time, the view that "the introduction of foreign modern agricultural machinery is a feasible way to promote farm reform" was popular, and the newspapers and periodicals vigorously publicized the "advanced experience" of a large farm in Heilongjiang in introducing American agricultural machinery; It is not suitable to implement; the concept of the enterprise economic responsibility system has not yet been fully formed, and the reform of the state farm is nothing more than a fixed salary plus a bonus.And today, three years later, the results of the discussion at the Ningxia Agricultural Reclamation Work Conference are exactly the same as the literary language in the "Dragon Seed" I wrote three years ago.Of course, looking at the novel and movie "Dragon Seed" now has no taste.However, now at least it proves that I was in a state of freedom when I started to engage in professional literary creation. In the longer novella "Descendants of the River", I did not avoid "anti-rightist" and "cultural revolution".I believe that history cannot be cut off; in fact, the great character and characteristics of the socialist newcomers and the Chinese nation in the contemporary era were honed and manifested in the period of history after the "anti-rightist movement".So I wrote from "anti-rightist" and "cultural revolution" all the way to the implementation of the rural production responsibility system. I wrote a village history of a village on the bank of the Yellow River, and I did not evade the scenes of the "rebels" fighting.Later, some readers wrote to ask, if I did not let Han Yumei die, but sent her back to Wei Tiangui, did I put a bright tail on purpose.In fact, it was only out of my sympathy for Wei Tiangui; I love him, so I don't want to see his bleak end.Throughout the novel, on all the dark backgrounds, the dawn of the new era is smudged, and the light is not in the tail, but in the relationship between people and the personality of people.I have always believed that darkness is light when it is fully written; a piece of pure light is still equal to darkness.All my works do not avoid darkness. On the contrary, when I write darkness, I try to see through the back of the paper to achieve the "natural reality" of life - beauty and light.If you can't write clearly in the dark, and pay attention to "measurement" and "angle", it will weaken the sense of reality of the work, and will not achieve positive effects. After "Shorebrak", I wrote the novel "Man's Style".To be honest, by this time I could no longer contain my enthusiasm for socialist reform.Because the whole situation has clearly told us that in such a difficult and complicated journey, our country will not be able to take a single step without carrying out socialist reforms.I believe that "Man's Style" will attract the attention of the critics, and may be criticized in one way or another for its portrayal of bold statements and violent actions of its protagonist.But I am sure that although the actions of the protagonist in my novel are not the same as those stipulated in some specific documents, he still maintains a high degree of political consistency with the Party Central Committee.It can even be said that it is precisely because his actions are different from some established habits and popular opinions that he is truly in high political agreement with the Party Central Committee.Although his arguments are unique, they can all be found in the works of Marx. At a symposium, a comrade once handed over a note and asked me: "What do you really want to do? Do you want to be a writer or a politician?" I said, from the first day I started to engage in professional creation, I Not prepared to be a writer of art for art's sake.Twenty-two years of painful experience tell me that if Chinese politics deviates from Marxism and scientific socialism, there will be no room for writers; ivory towers are beautiful, but they must not be built on quicksand.No matter what you pursue in art, you must first create a social condition that can make art flourish; literature cannot be separated from politics, and contemporary Chinese writers should be socialist reformers first. This idea is especially reflected in my writing.When I wrote this novella, it was at a time when clearing and resisting spiritual pollution was understood and implemented by some comrades outrageously.Rumors continued to spread to my ears: first, it was said that the central government wanted to criticize "The Wrangler" by name, and then it was said that the Propaganda Department of the Autonomous Region called some people to study all my works, "specially looking for spiritual pollution."According to past experience, if you want to "find", you can always "find".But I firmly believe that the essence of the Party Central Committee’s proposal to eliminate and resist spiritual pollution is to prosper socialist literature and art, rather than another “movement” as rumored.If it is proposed that the elimination of spiritual pollution will cause some signs of decline in socialist literature and art, the people will not scold those who take the opportunity to fuel the flames and want to start a "movement", but will blame the Party Central Committee.Those understandings that departed from the spirit of the Party Central Committee (some of which can be published in the newspapers) aroused my intellectual indignation, so I poured all my emotions into writing this novella, which can be said to be a long novel; There is also a kind of obstinacy against those who have misunderstood the spirit of the Central Committee.I wrote about love, about the dark side, about 60 years of widespread hunger, and about what some people consider "yellow"; Young intellectuals from landlord families.And it is in all these that I want to write about the magnificence and richness of life, about the healthy rationality and strong emotions inherent in the people, about the great appeal of Marx's works, and about the socialist cause no matter how much it goes through. Difficulties and ups and downs will also bring the inevitability of victory. Of course, as we all know, the Party Central Committee promptly clarified some misunderstandings and clarified the boundaries of spiritual pollution.The Propaganda Department of our autonomous region specifically asked me to publish a talk in the newspaper and appear on TV, and also clarified that the so-called "search" some time ago was indeed a rumor.But at that time, I had already written the first draft of more than 120,000 words.My comfort is not that I could write it, but that I was able to write it in that atmosphere of rumours. All of the above can only describe the past three years so far.Looking back now, those three years seemed to me to be free.However, at that time, every day, every hour, every minute, I was by no means content and free.That's the trick to getting into freedom.I keep in mind the words of Marx all the time: "The ancient world provided satisfaction seen from a limited point of view, but the modern day does not; wherever the modern appears in self-satisfaction, he is vulgar" ( "The Complete Works of Marx and Engels", Volume 46, Volume 1, p. 487).In modern times, a system of rapid movement has been created from the most tense social contradictions, and the human brain must operate rapidly to keep up.Today you think you are in a state of freedom, maybe tomorrow you will feel that you are facing a strange world.I would like to end this article with this sentence, to share with comrades: "He who realizes that he is not free is free; he who thinks he is free is not free." Drafted in Zhiguo, Xi'an on January 15, 1984 Changed to Yinchuan West Bridge on the 20th