Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 695 The visitor is evil?
I wanted to ask him a few questions about this, but then I thought better of it.

Although I am the chairman of the Writers Association, this kind of academic discussion requires everyone to express their own opinions, and you cannot come up with a unified thought.

Otherwise, Wang Meng is the vice chairman of the National Writers Association, so how could Zhang Binbin, an ordinary cadre, still curse at him?
After one day and two nights, the train arrived at Hangzhou Railway Station in the morning. The four of them bought a traffic map, squeezed onto the bus and went straight to the hotel where the meeting was to be held - West Lake Hotel.

The hotel is located on the west side of West Lake, with the lake on three sides and the mountain on one side, and the scenery is very nice.

The four of them rushed to the hotel to report. It had become more lively than usual. There were already some writers and literati from all over the country who had come to report, and Fang Minghua knew many of them.

Zhang Xianliang, Feng Jicai, Han Shaogong, the younger Tie Nian and Chi Zijian are basically the leaders of the writers' associations in various provinces.

The meeting was held in the hotel conference room the next day, hosted by Wang Meng, vice chairman of the Writers Association.

First, the leader made a courtesy speech, affirming the importance and necessity of convening this meeting, etc., which was basically the routine of eight-part essays and had no nutritional value.

Wang Meng delivered a speech on the theme of the conference on behalf of the Writers Association. The speech was very long, lasting a full two hours.

The main meaning is: the 1990s are about to pass the halfway point, and the entire social, economic and cultural environment has undergone tremendous changes compared with the 1980s.

In terms of literature, many new phenomena and new problems have emerged compared to the 1980s. On the one hand, our writers are becoming increasingly mature. A large number of young writers who had just emerged in the 1980s have now become the backbone of the literary world and have written many excellent literary works.

But at the same time, the literary atmosphere in the whole society is deteriorating rapidly. People no longer have the passion for literary works that they had in the 1980s. This poses a considerable challenge to literature. Everyone discussed this theme and expressed their opinions, offering suggestions for the development of Chinese literature.

Everyone resonated with Wang Meng's speech to varying degrees. The times have indeed changed, and some writers are at a loss.

There were group discussions in the afternoon, but the meeting was not divided into groups based on geographical regions or provinces such as the Northeast Group and the Northwest Group as in the past. Instead, the list of participants was shuffled and divided into random groups.

Fang Minghua was assigned to the sixth group and was scheduled to meet in the third conference room on the fourth floor.

There are about twenty people. Some are familiar to me, such as the leader of this group, Zhang Xianliang, Chairman of the Ningxia Writers Association, and Han Shaogong from Hainan, etc. There are also some people I am not familiar with.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, everyone started a discussion around Wang Meng's speech.

Of course, no one would just talk in general terms in this kind of speech. Everyone had prepared a speech - everyone wrote it in advance, and Fang Minghua was no exception.

The first person to speak was the group leader Zhang Xianliang. As the big brother of the literary world, he is very influential not only in Ningxia, but also in the entire domestic literary world.

The title of his speech is also very "thrilling"

The Literature of the 1990s is Gray

“When talking about the literature of the 80s, there is a sense of certainty. Many writers in today’s literary world, including those attending this conference, especially young writers such as Minghua, Mo Yan, Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua, Liu Zhenyun, Liang Xiaosheng, Su Tong, etc., are either already quite famous or have published their first or representative works. Their roots are deeply rooted in the soil of the 80s, and their branches and leaves flourished in the 90s.

People seemed to be pushed into the 90s without any psychological preparation, and writing in the period of social transformation once again had many uncertainties.

There is a writer named Wang Gan, who did not attend the meeting today. Not long ago, he published a book called "Selected Essays of Wang Gan". He used the word "loose" to describe his newly published book.

In fact, "loose" can also be used to describe the form of literature in the 90s. Writers "went into the sea" to write for the market, the impact of film and television on literature, the rapid decline in the circulation of literary journals, serious literature lost its market competitiveness in the face of popular literature, and more importantly, "readers are dead" - this was a prediction 20 years in advance... The "loose" phenomenon occurred because literature at that time became a victim of invisible violence, and this invisible violence can be regarded as the rapid transformation of society, the fragmentation of thought and culture, and the inability to gather people's consensus and strength. Giving up literature has become a kind of fate."

Zhang Xianliang was speaking while Fang Minghua and Han Shaogong were sitting together, whispering.

"Hey, Minghua, I found that Zhang Xianliang's speech was a bit pessimistic." Han Shaogong said.

"Or, his title is "The Literature of the 1990s is Gray"? " Fang Minghua laughed softly.

"What do you think?"

"I generally agree with what he said, but there are still bright spots in the gray."

"I am still relatively optimistic. I think literature still has a bright future."

Han Shaogong's idea is not surprising. Unlike Zhang Xianliang who was half business and half literature in the end, Han Shaogong has always been active in the literary world, including later planning and publishing the literary magazine "Tianya", and he has never left literature.

It was Fang Minghua's turn to speak. The title of his speech was "The Popularity of Personalized Writing and the Rise of Bestsellers"

The content is very concise:
"The writings of emerging female writers such as Chen Ran, Lin Bai, and Xu Xiaobin represent a tendency towards personalized writing. Note that the core of artistic style is the uniqueness of the writing method, not the privacy of the experience content.

"The other thing is the popularity of bestsellers. Let me first talk about the concept of bestsellers." Fang Minghua looked around with the manuscript in his hand and continued:

"Bestseller" is a word that originated in the United States in 1895, when the American magazine "Reader" published the titles of the six best-selling books in bookstores in cities. This is considered the first bestseller list in history. The characteristics of bestsellers are that they meet the reading tastes of people at that time.
"Books like White Deer Plain by our provincial writer Chen Zhongshi, Wasted City by Jia Pingwa, To Live by Yu Hua, and Wang Shuo's novels can all be considered bestsellers. Of course, my recent work can also be considered a bestseller."

At this point, Fang Minghua emphasized: "I want to emphasize that bestsellers are not necessarily good books, but they may also become famous books. All this depends on whether their actual value can stand the test of time."

"Minghua, let me interject. I dare not say anything else, but at least Wang Shuo's novels will definitely not become masterpieces!" said Han Shaogong.

Fang Minghua smiled slightly and said nothing.

In the great discussion on humanistic spirit, Han Shaogong also severely criticized Wang Shuo!

"Minghua, can we discuss this issue? For example, can the book 'The Convenience Store of Sorrow' that you just published become a classic in the future?" A man's voice came from the opposite side of Fang Minghua.

He is a writer named Liu, over 60 years old, named Liu Guowei, and the vice chairman of the Writers Association of Province X.

Fang Minghua once read the novels he wrote, and it felt like reading Haoran's "Sunny Days" and "Golden Avenue".

In fact, when Fang Minghua said his best-selling book, he was not referring to "The Convenience Store of Sorrow".

This book has been published for a few months, and its performance cannot be compared with novels such as "Heaven's Movement" and "The Piano in a Factory", let alone "In the Name of the People", which was a big hit last year.

I wonder why he suddenly promoted this book?

It seems like there are some bad people here?
(End of this chapter)