I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 285 "Remembrance of Things Past" is now available!
Tokyo in March 1997 was different from the spring days of previous years. Although the cherry blossom season was approaching, the weather was still cold, damp and chilly.

The murder case of a TEPCO office OL that shocked the whole country a while ago has been completely closed.

The murderer was a small restaurant owner from Nepal. He claimed to be a frequent customer of Watanabe Yasuko when she was a prostitute. He turned from love to hate and killed Watanabe Yasuko.

It doesn’t matter whether the truth of the case is this or not. Whether it is TEPCO, Yasuko Watanabe’s family or those guys hiding behind the scenes, they all got what they wanted.

The only people who have doubts about Watanabe Yasuko's death are ordinary office workers like her.

While the bubble economy brought rapid development to Japan, it also laid numerous hidden dangers.

The highly developed capitalist society is like a sleepy tiger, yawning all the time and seemingly harmless, but you never know when it will suddenly jump up and bite you.

The unresolved death of Yasuko Watanabe inevitably makes office workers and social animals feel a sense of despair as if the rabbit has died and the fox has grieved.

It is in such an environment that "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland", which is obviously intended to reflect the plight of capitalist society and the life of ordinary office workers, has experienced an unexpected reversal in reputation.

The calculators in "Cool Wonderland" who work like robots to help the company make money all the time make people feel very involved, but also very sad.

The protagonist of the novel diligently does his job and lives in a very regular world every day.

If no "accident" happens, "I" want to use the money I save after retirement to buy a villa in the suburbs, read books, watch movies, learn the cello, and spend the rest of my life leisurely.

This is also the post-retirement life that most office workers dream of.

The truthfulness and depth of [Cold Wonderland] are beyond doubt. More than 50 readers gave this chapter an extremely high score of 9.5!
"A Fool's Love", which also has a good reputation, was rated by about 30 readers, but the score was only 8.7.

The chapter "The End of the World", which was generally considered to be a drag on the performance, was rated by only 21 readers, and the final score was 6.7 points, just one step away from the passing line.

But after word of mouth recovered, many people began to try to combine the two, and gradually some scholars and professors suggested that the unnamed town in "The End of the World" might be the subconscious world of the "computers".

It seems that Mr. Kitagawa is writing two unrelated stories, but in fact, they are one and the same. [Cold Wonderland] implies that the real world that seems beautiful and like a fairyland is very cold.

[The End of the World] refers to the end of everyone's inner world.

The flourishing interpretations have injected a bit of vitality into Kitagawa Hide's new book, and the reader rating of the "End of the World" chapter has also risen from 6.7 to 7.2.

Unfortunately, no matter how heated the discussion about "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland" is in society, Mr. Kitagawa seems to have disappeared and doesn't care about it at all. No one can contact him, and he never says anything on social media or his personal website.

On the contrary, the previously "aloof" Ichiro Tanizaki has become more high-profile. At the age of 80, he is still doing various publicity activities with Shinchosha. A few days ago, he even went to several well-known universities to hold seminars, where he talked at length about the current situation of the Japanese literary world and how the path of Japanese pure literature can be truly smooth.

In order to increase the sales of "Shincho", Ichiro Tanizaki collaborated with many famous literary figures to organize an event where buyers could participate in a literary exchange meeting, which greatly boosted the sales of the March issue of "Shincho".

这样一直到了三月底，正好卖了15天的3月号《新潮》总销量299.4万册，看来月销量突破400万册轻轻松松，就是不知道能不能打破1月号《文艺》的561.9万册的新纪录。

This also indirectly reflects how terrifying the historical record of 580 million copies of "New Wave" was.

The March issue of "Wenyi", which sold three days less than "Xinchao", was not far behind, following closely with total sales of 3 million copies, ranking second.

After getting this data, Ichiro Tanizaki, who originally thought he had won the battle and was full of confidence, was stunned for a moment. He couldn't believe that "The World's End and Hard-Boiled Wonderland" could still hold on so strongly even though its reputation was not as good as "The Idiot"!

"We spent at least twice as much as Kawade Shobo on publicity, and The Idiot's Desire obviously has a better reputation among readers. In this case, can it still keep up?"

Ichiro Tanizaki held the data sheet, his skinny hands trembling slightly.

At this moment, he truly realized the appeal of this young man, Kitagawa Hide, in the Japanese literary market.

"Tanizaki-sensei, you don't need to worry so much, right? Our total sales are 26.3 more than theirs! Even Gunzo's annual sales may not be that high."

The president of Shinchosha asked doubtfully,

"We obviously won the sales competition this time!"

"But we sold it three days earlier than them!" Tanizaki Ichiro shook the paper in his hand and said coldly, "Even if the sales volume drops sharply later, we still can't reach 26.3 copies in three days. But when the public opinion and momentum are far inferior to ours, they can still hold on so hard."

The president of Shinchosha doesn't think so.

He has always believed that publicity resources and financial strength are also part of a publishing house's strength.

In the end, all the industry sees is the bloody sales data, everything else is empty.

As long as I sell more than you, no matter how I sell, I am better than you. If this trend continues, I will definitely win this month.

As we all know, the first month of competition often determines the outcome of the following months. In other words, asking Ichiro Tanizaki to punish Kitagawa Hide was successful in the end.

This is something that all conservative members of the Japanese literary world would like to see.

What else is there to worry about?

In Japan, the literary community is still arguing over which one is better, "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland" or "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland."

And in faraway France, the "Collection of Novels by Hideo Kitagawa (French Translation)" published in hardcover by the University of Paris Press made its grand debut, hitting the French literary market like a blockbuster bomb!
"The Dancing Girl of Izu (French translation)" has sold nearly 80 copies. With the strong promotion of the French President, it has become one of the must-read overseas literature for all readers.

Thanks to this best-selling work and the popularity of "Paradise Lost", which won the Goncourt Prize, "The Collected Novels of Hide Kitagawa" was snapped up by countless French readers as soon as it appeared in bookstores.

Thanks to the strong support of the French Ministry of Culture and the full recommendation of literary celebrities such as Oudmaison, Combesco and Marguerite, "The Collection of Novels of Hide Kitagawa" became the first overseas literary work to be sold in bookstores across France as soon as it was released.

Olivia happily took groups of friends to the bookstore to buy books every day. She herself bought hundreds of copies of "Kitagawa Hide's Novels"!
She was very happy and excited, especially after reading "Remembrance of Things Past" written by Hide Kitagawa. She saw through the protagonist's first love at a glance, and realized that the noble lady Gilberte Swann was based on herself!
Teacher Beichuan did not break his promise!

The "Collection of Beichuan's Novels" which was released at the end of March achieved extremely brilliant results on the first day of publication - over 3 copies were sold across France that day. At this rate, selling 20 million copies a year would be no problem.

The French literary market is even larger than the Japanese literary market, and is adjacent to countries such as Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Pure literature in this market generally sells well in these countries as well, so the upper limit of sales of physical books and magazines is higher than that of Japan.

But even so, there are only about ten pure literary novels that can sell 200 million copies a year. For a pure literary novel that comes from Japan to achieve this result in the French market, it is already enough to be proud of, and it can also be written about on the resume!

After the "Collection of Novels by Hide Kitagawa" became popular, French readers began to collectively call on the University of Paris Press to republish the novels separately - each of them has different tastes, and the complete collection of novels has collection value, but there are many novels that they do not like to read. It would be more cost-effective if they could only buy a few of the novels they like.

Don’t think that because France entered the ranks of developed countries early and its citizens have ample money, they will be tolerant of entertainment products.

The fact is, like the common people in other countries, these French readers even care about a discount of one franc!
Hearing such a huge demand from the market, the senior executives of the University of Paris Press immediately launched a market survey to see which books written by Hide Kitagawa were attractive to their readers, so as to provide some data reference for local French writers.

In early April, this carefully crafted data report appeared on Oddsmason's desk.

"The Dancing Girl of Izu" 69.3 votes
Paradise Lost: 66.1 votes
South of the Border, West of the Sun: 60.1 votes
"Youth Trilogy" 52.7 votes
I Am a Cat: 30.4 votes
"Confessions" 22.2 votes
No Longer Human: 18.7 votes
"Jieqi Literature Award Serial Murder Case" 12.3 votes
"Killing the Grand Master" 10.9 votes
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" 7.7 votes
It can be seen that readers in the French literary world are very fond of pure literary novels of the "romance" type, and they would be very resistant to novels with too strong a Japanese style.

In addition, "The Killing of the Grand Master" and "The Shape of the Strange Bird", which were written specifically for war literature, have only a small audience and are of little significance in publishing.

However, Odmeson just glanced at the table and put his attention back on "Remembrance of Things Past".

After having a long conversation with Kitagawa Hidenaga that day, he had a general understanding of his creative ideas for "Remembrance of Things Past". Originally, he wanted to help repair this masterpiece, but after the conversation, Oddmason only had one idea about it.

This is not a work I can repair.

Its literary quality and value are far beyond my ability!
Therefore, Odemeson decisively gave up the idea of ​​helping Kitagawa Hide to repair the book, and instead turned to Ma Yueran, who was more knowledgeable about Oriental literature, and asked him to help revise the French version.

Ma Yueran was the only one among the lifetime judges of the Nobel Prize in Literature who strongly recommended Kitagawa Hide to win the prize. Unfortunately, he was the only one who was so optimistic about Kitagawa Hide, and in the final selection round, "The Dancing Girl of Izu" failed to make the list.

This time, Ma Yueran was invited to revise "Remembrance of Things Past". After reading it, she felt moved, regretful and excited.

Kitagawa Hide is indeed a writer who can compete for the Nobel Prize in Literature!
It’s a pity that I didn’t win the award this time.

But after watching "Remembrance of Things Past", he felt that it was only a matter of time before Kitagawa Hide won the award!
It was the first time that Ma Yueran saw a writer write a novel with other countries as the background, and he wrote it so well!

The two of them collaborated with many French literature translators and after working hard for several days and nights, they finally revised "Remembrance of Things Past".

4 month 2 day.

The day after April Fools' Day.

The originally quite peaceful streets of Paris suddenly exploded!

Readers who occasionally walked into the bookstore did not wait for the separate "Collection of Kitagawa Hide's Novels", but saw a pure literary novel written by Kitagawa Hide, which described the life of a rich second-generation young man against the backdrop of the First and Second World Wars in France!
"Remembrance of Things Past? Isn't this a piece of rubbish published under the name of Mr. Kitagawa?"

A reader held it and asked in confusion.

The clerk immediately shook his head and explained: "No, no, no, this is the work written by Mr. Beichuan!"

(End of this chapter)