I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 268: If you want to write a novel, you have to write it to the point where it can become famous in the world literary world!

This was probably the most difficult and stuck time for Hidefumi Kitagawa since he copied a novel.

Today in Japan, although he is still not accepted by the older generation of Japanese literary circles, in the hearts of the new generation of readers, he has long been a veritable "number one in the world."

If you open the literature section of any Internet forum, you will see "outrageous remarks" like "Tanizaki Ichiro is the greatest Japanese writer I have ever heard of, and Kitagawa Hide is the greatest Japanese writer I have ever seen."

It can be seen that Kitagawa Hide now has a status in the hearts of new readers that is no less than that of Tanizaki Ichiro.

Now he is no longer as short of money as before, and it is time to shift his attention and focus to the world literary scene.

Then the problem is coming.

What book is this article copying?
There is no need to say much about Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". It is the most dazzling pearl in the history of French literature. If it is copied out, it will definitely shock the French literary world.

However, "Remembrance of Things Past" also has many problems that need to be solved by Hide Kitagawa.

Starting from "South of the Border, West of the Sun", Kitagawa Hide has tried to incorporate his own insights and writing styles into the copied text, rather than copying it verbatim from the original work.

Admittedly, such plagiarism may be superfluous and destroy the artistic conception and beauty of the original work.

But Kitagawa Hide's goal is to become a true writer, and this transformation is essential on his long journey of plagiarism.

Fortunately, every novel after "Border" brought good positive and negative feedback, and made Kitagawa Hide clearly realize that he was on the right track.

Therefore, when he planned to plagiarize "Remembrance of Things Past" this time, he spent a lot of time recalling the plot and content of the novel, just like the previous times, and then began to think about the areas in the original work that needed to be changed.

Anyone who has read this book knows that for ordinary readers, there are two reading barriers to Remembrance of Things Past:

First, the novel is mainly based on the narrator's life experience and inner thoughts, interspersed with descriptions of a large number of characters and events. Because the content is too fragmented, it reads like a broken cake.

The taste is that of cake, but no one eats cake grain by grain.

Second, compared with most pure literary novels in the world, it is too long, and the 300 million words of text are somewhat redundant.

But because the book was completed early and the work is very famous, later generations did not dare to mention the issue of deletion.

This has become one of the core reasons why new-age readers are turned away.

The advantages of "Remembrance of Things Past" are innumerable, the most noteworthy of which is that as the pioneering and representative work of "stream of consciousness", it has opened up a brand new pure literary track for countless subsequent writers.

According to the original history, this book was written in 1908. A hundred years later, the stream-of-consciousness school is still an indispensable part of the field of pure literature, and a large number of masters of stream-of-consciousness literature have emerged.

Kitagawa Hide has been organizing the plot outline of "Remembrance of Things Past" these days. His goal is to shorten the 300 million words to 200 million to 250 million words. It won't be shorter because, after all, it is Marcel Proust's life and many things cannot be simplified.

The task of reducing the number of words is actually quite simple.

What really bothered Kitagawa Hide was how to knead the tiny pieces of cake into its original shape as much as possible while ensuring the integrity of the stream-of-consciousness writing style.

He felt that the difficulty of copying this book would be far greater than that of copying any other book.

Moreover, he is a Japanese writer, and he has to write a first-person novel in Japanese set against the backdrop of World War I in France, which just sounds terrifying.

This operation is nothing if it is placed next to the original history in the online literature.

Some of the online articles are novels written by authors with overseas backgrounds, from Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States to India and Thailand. There is nothing that the authors cannot write, as long as the readers can't think of it!

But in the parallel universe of 1997, once it is written, it will surely be a powerful nuclear bomb that can directly blow through the literary world!
Although it is difficult, it is of great significance.

Kitagawa Hideya, as always, believes that everything is in our hands, and as long as we are willing to put in some thought and work, we will always succeed!
In addition to the extremely long stream-of-consciousness pure literature novel "Remembrance of Things Past", he also has to write a few more Japanese literary novels that can win foreign awards and have a certain influence internationally.

This time, in order to strive for his own position in the world literary arena, Kitagawa Hideki set his sights on Japanese literature that had won awards overseas.

After such a selection, there are actually not many books left to choose from.

Ancient literature such as "Kokin Wakashu" and "The Tale of Genji" are skipped first. These things are not like the four great classics next door, which are classics that are passed down and can still be popular today. They are really limited by the times. Without mentioning the content, the pure reading experience of the text is not very good.

Next to be omitted are novels such as "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" and "Rashomon", which are very famous but the reason for their success overseas is the particularity of the era.

Plagiarism can help them continue to gain achievements and reputation in the Japanese literary world, but what’s the use?

These old guys don't want to play with him at all.

Instead of humbly cooperating with them in playing the "unspoken rules game", it is better to break the shackles yourself and jump to the new copy to play!

Just like the big boss said.

"Is the Tanizaki Prize so great? It's useless to be famous in such a corner of the Japanese literary world! If you want to write a novel, you have to write it to become famous in the world literary world!"

In this way, there are only two types of books that Kitagawa Hide can choose from.

The first batch includes masterpieces such as "Snow Country" and "The Soccer Team of Year 1001", which are actual winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The second batch is the works of the great Haruki Murakami.

Although Haruki Murakami, like Kitagawa Hide, is often despised in the Japanese literary world, he has won numerous awards abroad.

The only thing that makes him regretful is that he has been a runner-up for the Nobel Prize in Literature for many years, and he doesn’t know if he will have another chance to win the prize in the future.

"Should I pick another book by the great writer Murakami, or just throw out the best book in the pile, Snow Country?"

Kitagawa Hide scratched his head in distress.

Plagiarism also involves adaptation, and more importantly, he hopes to "copy" the book correctly.

Just like before, it is best for novels to be close to real life so that they can bring readers the ultimate enjoyment.

Just when Kitagawa Hide was still worrying about which book to choose, there was a knock on the door outside the study.

"Xiujun~ Excuse me, can I come in and talk about something?" Mengzi's sweet voice came from outside.

"Ok!"

Kitagawa Hide got up, but before he could open the door, Mengzi came in and jumped into his arms!

My arms are filled with warmth, fragrance and softness, and spring has come, and the flowers are in full bloom.

My little wife rarely takes the initiative to throw herself into my arms and ask for a kiss.

She has always been very reserved and introverted, and many times she doesn't dare to express her love in person.

After the two hugged and kissed for a while, Beichuan Xiu couldn't help but asked with a smile: "Is there any good news? You look so happy today."

"Yeah! It's very, very, very good news!" Mengzi's hands were still around his neck, her face was rosy, and the blush was very attractive.

She used the word "very" three times in a row, indicating that it was great news.
"The first thing is that Sister Lingna just called and said that the first-day data of the January issue of "Wenyi" has come out."

"It seems to be better than the last one." Kitagawa Hide chuckled. This was not surprising.

The previous issue of "Wenyi" serialized "The Dancing Girl of Izu", which directly broke the first-day print record held by the issue of "Shincho" that serialized "Devil's Tattoo".

This issue is a revision and the second half of "The Dancing Girl of Izu". Even if the quality is not as good as the previous issue, readers will buy it in large quantities out of inertia, so it is certain that the sales volume will be better than the previous issue.

I just don’t know if this issue can make up for the regret of the previous issue and break the record of 580 million copies.

"Yes! 38.8 copies! You are really great, so amazing, Xiujun~" Yumeko, who is also a literary girl, looked at Kitagawa Hide with starry eyes and admiration.

When this news was mentioned on the phone, Saito Reina and Kawaide Shizuko on the other end were incoherent.

Breaking a record once can be considered a coincidence, but breaking it twice or three times can only mean that his strength is far beyond that of others.

Moreover, this was a new node in the strategic development of Kawaide Shobo. Kawaide Shizuko suffered from insomnia for several days and her hair fell out in clumps.

Even Yumeko, who occasionally went to the headquarters of Kawaide Shobo to discuss business, could feel this tremendous mental pressure.

Now that the dust has settled, she is sincerely happy for her two good friends.

"What about the second and third? Is there a fourth?" Kitagawa Hide carried her to the lazy sofa and let his little wife sit in his arms, enjoying the unique softness.

"Yes, yes, yes!"

The young wife nodded repeatedly, not caring that her thoughts were completely guessed by Kitagawa Hide.
"The second best thing is that Toho has decided to start filming I Am a Cat next month. Rei-chan and I have been invited to guest star, and Pete has been chosen to play 'Myself'!"

The copyrights of "I Am a Cat" and "Border" were specifically given to Yumeko by Kitagawa Hide for her practice.

Although Kitagawa Hide has always emphasized that he doesn't care about this, he pays more attention to Yumeko's experience than whether the adapted film or television drama can be a hit.

But Mengzi was still worried for a long time.

As the future Mrs. Kitagawa, and the president of many other companies, she doesn’t know if she is qualified. What if she holds Hidejun back?
Fortunately, thanks to her efforts, the copyright operation of "I Am a Cat" finally came to fruition and made good progress!

"You're great too, Mengzi." Kitagawa Hide hugged her from behind, pinched his wife's cheeks, and whispered in her ear to encourage her, "What about the third thing?"

Yumeko's cheeks turned even redder.

However, when she mentioned the third happy event, her shyness was suddenly overwhelmed by joy.

Among the four things, the third one made her happiest.

"Shizuko and Reina received a text message from France, which seemed to be from a writer named Combesco.

They said they were willing to persuade the Paris University Press to publish a collection of your novels, and, and..."

As she spoke of this, her breathing became much more rapid.

After a long pause to calm down her excitement, she continued, "And they are willing to recommend Xiujun and The Dancing Girl of Izu for the Nobel Prize in Literature!"

"They recommended me?" Kitagawa Hide was also shocked by the news.

The recommendation mechanism for the Nobel Prize in Literature is very strict and highly confidential.

There are only a few nominees in each country's literary circles who are qualified to make recommendations, and the number of nominees for each country is fixed throughout the year.

Although the French literary world is stronger than the Japanese literary world, there won't be too many places to fill.
As for recommending yourself.

Kitagawa Hide quickly reviewed the Nobel Prize recommendation rules in his mind several times, and it seemed... that there was really no violation!

After all, the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Prize Committee would never have thought that any country would give up its own quota to recommend writers from other countries!
"Yes! Reina-san and I have confirmed several times that this message is indeed from France, and there is no problem with the sender.

Sister Lingna has already prepared your resume and cover letter, Xiujun, and sent them over. It seems that all you have to do is wait for further notification.

By the way, if Miss Olivia hadn’t called us, we would have suspected it was a new type of online fraud!”

Mengzi kept nodding her head like a chick pecking at rice. She was really so happy.

It is well known in the industry that Ichiro Tanizaki and others did not recommend Hide Kitagawa for the Nobel Prize.

Unfortunately, the list of recommenders is kept absolutely confidential. Ichiro Tanizaki and his colleagues insisted that they did not do anything and no one could expose them.

Unless Naoki Momota makes it into the nominees list, or simply wins the award.

But this is even more magical than Kitagawa Hide being recommended by the foreign literary circles. No one has ever considered this possibility.

These people, Shizuko Amakawa, used all kinds of means, even at the risk of offending a bunch of people from the Japanese Literature Society and even at the risk of legal responsibility, to help Kitagawa Hide vent his anger.

It's because she knows that there is no way out of this matter and they have to accept this injustice.

She herself is quite flexible. After all, as the head of a consortium, she has at least a dozen more ideas than the average person.

But she was afraid that Beichuan Xiu could not bear it, so she was willing to risk everything to get an explanation for her own people.

Even though they did this, the big boss, the old editor and the young wife were still not very happy these days. Every time they saw news about Ichiro Tanizaki and others, they felt nauseous.

Now that she had received this good news, Mengzi rushed home without stopping and immediately informed Kitagawa Hide who was in seclusion, wanting to quietly enjoy the tranquility and joy of the moment with him.

When he heard Combesco's name and heard the call from that little girl Olivia, Kitagawa Hideya believed it most of the time.

He also breathed a sigh of relief.

It doesn’t matter whether he wins the award or not, he still has many opportunities to win the Nobel Prize.

But he was not happy about not being recommended because of that disgusting guy.

But even if France helps, the war in the country still needs to be fought!

He also has a temper!
If you respect me a foot, I will give you a foot in return.

If you step on my face, I'll chop off all your feet!
"It's good news indeed." Beichuan Xiu hugged his little wife tighter and continued to ask, "What about the last thing?"

“The last one.”

Mengzi's ripe face slowly turned around and pressed against Kitagawa Hide's, then she said quietly and leisurely,
"Today, I used that to test it, and I, I am pregnant with our baby, Xiujun~"

(End of this chapter)