Volume 1 Chapter 5
Literature ah literature
This topic is too big. In the past, when teachers taught us, they said that when writing an article, the entry point should be small. If the topic is opened so wide, it must not be discussed thoroughly unless I write "A History of Chinese Literature", but there are already two professors, You Guo'en and Luo Yuming, who have compiled two histories of Chinese literature, so I won't discuss literature here, just sigh with emotion about literature.
Recently, many comments about me said that I am a child obsessed with literature, which shows that people do not understand me. I am obsessed with football, basketball, art, photography, travel, and eating ramen, but not literature. I think being obsessed with literature is not necessarily a good thing, just like being infatuated with a girl makes it impossible to see her flaws. One should be clear-headed about literature; anyone who can write can be an author. Whether or not someone is an author depends 20% on talent and 80% on opportunity. Haven't you seen how many so-called authors in China's literary world are writing nonsense, being pretentious, hypocritical, pretending to be profound, and pretending to be humorous just to earn a living? Those who imitate Yu Qiuyu or Tagore do not have their own style.
I was in junior high school when Yu Qiuyu just started to become popular. One day, a kid announced that he had been practicing hard at home and finally mastered Yu Qiuyu's writing style. When I read his article, all I saw were overwhelming parallel sentences and profound phrases that could suffocate people. How could he possibly learn to write like that? It was still just a Yu Chunyu or Yu Qiuxue at best. Nevertheless, it was comforting to see that there were still people who loved literature.
After entering high school, there are fewer people in the city's key schools who like literature, except for those who read Qiong Yao's books. Although Qiong Yao and I both repeated a grade, this cannot be used as a reason to not dislike her. In the team of repeaters, only Huang Yongyu and Cai Zhizhong can represent the face of repeaters. I don't understand why Qiong Yao, Huang Yongyu, Cai Zhizhong and I are all engaged in literature or painting, but none of us are mathematicians.
The first time in high school, none of our classmates had a higher awareness of literature. Only one classmate inexplicably published an article in a magazine. The article was written in junior high school and had experienced twists and turns similar to Fang Zhimin's "Lovely China". Although this article had no impact at all, it was still her debut work that made it unforgettable for her.
The second time I was in high school, I met a few people who were not like-minded. One of them was called Jīn Dànhuá, whose name I heard when I first entered the new dormitory. At that time, someone introduced me to a young man who was very good at Chinese literature. When he was introduced, Jīn Dànhuá had his back to me, with an air of a master swordsman, and I didn't get a good look at him. What made me blush was that I misheard his name as "chicken egg yolk", which was quite disrespectful. This person is the "mosquito" in my essay "Those Things Those People". The "mosquito" loves literature and is proactive and demanding of himself, striving to become a "four-haves" new student. After listening to me talk about books one night in the dormitory, he hated that he hadn't read enough books and diligently studied various types of books, with impressive results. The names of people that came out of his mouth, I had never heard of before, making me feel inferior.
Another one is Tan Xudong from Class 8, who looks like a refugee and originally claims to be the self-proclaimed "Luwan Old Big Shot" from Luwan District, always spewing profanities. Once he heard that I could play with words, he came running over to say he wanted to collaborate on writing with me. I said you can't even copy my articles, but Tan Xudong claimed he had written poetry before. No matter how I looked at him, he didn't seem like a poet. He brought out his treasured collection, which was the 1998 Shanghai edition of "Youth Literature and Art", with a poem about a narcissus that was quite poetic. Tan Xudong is infatuated with literature, always thinking about writing articles, and whenever he sees me, he says: "Han Han, do you know? I've written an article about you." He says it every time we meet. The last time he came to our dormitory, he finally said something new, saying "The new concept competition is all about winning with innovation", but we all scolded him in unison for speaking nonsense.
Tan Xudong recently has a new poem "Mosquito" which is spread through word of mouth, the general idea is like this:
Every night
I gaze up at the sky
The vast starry sky gave me endless thoughts
Still inspired
And then
I will write some poems
And then
My poems often express
Two "yues" have greatly changed the flavor of the entire poem, and so far he has only expressed one poem. The poem is in a corner of the poetry section of "Youth Literature", probably even the responsible editor doesn't remember it. In fact, we have many corner poets and tofu writers. They are dedicated to literature, among them many people already have some small fame, more people quietly write with their pens, hearts and pen nibs. If they fail, they should also feel lucky because after all, they still leave behind some beautiful illusions.
I'm not sure if literature is popular or unpopular among students. Saying it's popular seems to be an exaggeration, as not many people seem to care; saying it's unpopular, Hai Tian Publishing House receives hundreds of manuscripts for campus novels like "Meng Ya" by Hu Wei Rui and "Girl" by Yu Yu Jun every year, and they always seem delighted when talking about the situation. Countless young men and women are working towards becoming China's second Yu Xiu, hoping that their clichéd and mediocre works can sell well. Yu Xiu is very clever; although "Flower Season, Rainy Season" wasn't written particularly well, it was a first-mover and gained popularity. Knowing her own limitations, she stopped writing after realizing she couldn't produce anything decent. It's said that Yu Xiu has returned from the US and is now working as an editor at Hai Tian, but regardless of whether this is true or not, Yu Xiu will never again cause a sensation in China. If "Flower Season, Rainy Season" were published today, it wouldn't sell more than 100,000 copies.
Literature was not my first dream. My first dream was to go to Tibet, the second was to go to the grasslands, and the third was to go to Daxing'anling. Literature was somewhere after that, I don't even remember what number it was. This article should be dedicated to fellow writers, to "Mosquito", to Tan Xudong, and to those who have just received a rejection letter. Finally, I want to tell a story to friends on the literary path...
A student who had been excellent in his studies at Harvard University drowned while swimming. His parents were grief-stricken and asked to see the president of Harvard, who expressed sympathy for them. The couple, who had been waiting outside for a long time, said they wanted to donate money to build a building or create a statue in memory of their son. The president, seeing that the couple was dressed very plainly, tactfully declined, saying that the school could not accept such a donation and also could not create a statue for just one student. The couple looked at each other and said, "Then we'll use the money to build another university." This is not a joke. Mr. and Mrs. Stanford used the money to build another university, which is now world-renowned and ranked fourth in the US - Stanford University.
