I am a literary giant in Japan

"Only by doing it can there be results, right?"

This is the first sentence of the final chapter of "Asakusa Red Group".

This is also a core concept that Mr. Kitagawa repeatedly mentions in this novel.

At this time, Sato Gang was squatting on the tatami in the small living room, muttering this line softly, as if he was thinking about something and seemed to have an epiphany.

It was this sentence that made Ono Satoko, who was on the brink of destruction, "turn over a new leaf" and become the well-behaved girl who works as a cashier in a 7-11 convenience store today.

At first, Sato Tsuyoshi couldn't understand such a big change in Ono Satoko.

He once thought that "Asakusa Red Circle" had cast a curse on Satoko, making her a completely changed person.

Until now.

In the cramped rental house, the two of them, one on the floor and the other on the bed, were quietly reading magazines and admiring the final chapter of "Asakusa Red Group". Sato Tsuyoshi finally understood the reason for Satoko's transformation.

He had watched "Asakusa Red Circle" intermittently, but had long forgotten the content before it.

At this time, he turned the pages of the final chapter one by one. Although he had no idea what the previous chapters were about, every time he saw those familiar names, Sato Tsuyoshi always felt an inexplicable sense of throbbing.

".The Red Group, with only about 90 members, is an insignificant small group anywhere in society.

But I think it is this inconspicuous small group that shows others the style, culture and future of Asakusa.

Miss Oshin, who is known as the 'Thousand-Man Killer', is actually just an eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl who wants to live a good life;

Sister Jiu, who has a soft personality and seems to have no opinion at all, is actually more opinionated than anyone else. She never hesitates when faced with major issues.
Yumiko and Ono Fukuko are the other two extremes in the team.

They have dazzling beauty and figures that far exceed their peers.

If they were not in Asakusa or Kabukicho, but in an ordinary girls' high school, their lives would be very exciting and the envy of many of their peers.

But what about in Asakusa?

No one's life is perfect.

Gongzi will continue to work hard to pursue her literary dream. Maybe she will succeed, maybe she will fail, it doesn’t matter.

Because as long as you take that most critical first step, you are already halfway to success.

Fuko may continue to wander and roam around in various brothels, but she may also pick herself up and become a completely new and different person.

There are also Meggie and Xiaogang.
There are too many variables in Asakusa. With the development of the times, perhaps even Asakusa will disappear, but so what?

Only by doing it can there be results, right? "

As he read the ending of each character in the novel, Sato Tsuyoshi's heart became more and more throbbing, especially when he saw his own name appear. At that moment, he was completely stunned.

So this is how the great writer viewed himself, who was only interested in blackmailing him?
It turns out that in his heart, is there still hope for everyone?
For a moment, Sato Tsuyoshi, who was holding "Kitagawa", suddenly didn't know what expression to use to face Ono Satoko.

Ono Satoko, who had just finished reading "Asakusa Red Brigade", had just put down her magazine. When she looked up and saw Sato Tsuyoshi's expression on the tatami, she was visibly stunned.

After a few seconds, their eyes met, and they both saw the desire to change in each other's eyes.

The perfect ending of "Asakusa Red Ball" has received widespread praise from readers.

Even several newspapers that had always been rather harsh on Kitagawa Hide used up half of their literature section to write lengthy articles praising the humanistic spirit embodied in "Asakusa Red Circle".

The offline literary criticism community was also more tolerant of Kitagawa Hide on the ending of "Asakusa Red Circle", believing that although his writing of a happy ending might seem to damage the literary quality, it actually had a good impact on the general public.

As for the online platforms, as well as those publishing houses and newspapers that have good relations with Kawaide Shobo and Kitagawa Entertainment, they were madly praising Kitagawa Hide.

Netizens unanimously agreed that "Asakusa Red Group" landed smoothly and ended perfectly.

On Yahoo Japan's literary forum, "Asakusa Red Circle" has received over 1000 million ratings, with the final average score being as high as 9.6 points, ranking among the top must-read books in Japanese literary history.

For a time, ancient-style pure literary novels such as "Asakusa Benidan" written in the ancient style of the Edo period appeared on the market like mushrooms after a rain.

Urban villages and slums similar to the Asakusa community across Japan have become a holy place for many writers to collect inspiration.

The more unlucky ones were the officials of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the Ministry of Labor. They finally made it to the end of the year, and saw that their performance evaluations barely met the standards. They had just muddled through another year.

it's good now.

Because of the emergence of such literary works, people began to pay attention to these ghost places that had been ignored for hundreds of years.

When people pay attention, traffic will be generated, and when there is traffic, those media will swarm in like locusts, making the matter bigger and bigger.

The best examples are Izu City, which became popular with "The Dancing Girl of Izu", and Niigata Prefecture, which became famous all over Japan with "Snow Country".

To this day, although the two novels written by Kitagawa-sensei have been completed for a long time, Izu City and Niigata Prefecture are still among the top three most worthwhile tourist destinations in Japan.

After these hellholes were exposed and noticed, many people soon wrote letters or even called directly to question the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, asking why it was almost the year 2000 and there were still people in the country who were poorly clothed and hungry?
Politicians elected from such places are even more overwhelmed.

The new Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi is inclined to dissolve the House of Representatives and re-elect members of parliament.

It is at this time that these trivial problems erupt one after another, making those congressmen wish they could use a nuclear bomb to fill all these slums.

Kitagawa Hide, the instigator, was not aware of all this. He is now the "number one in the world" and a "national teacher" in the literary world. Even if writing these things angered a bunch of congressmen, they would just come and lick his ass in a friendly manner and would not target him.

Under the influence of these events, the popularity of "New Wenxiang", which was also released on the 15th, dropped sharply and failed to support the initial expectations of the editorial department and the two major foundations.

On November 1998, 11, Oricon released the pure literature magazine sales credible chart both online and offline.

"Beichuan" and "Xinwenxiang" were released simultaneously on the 15th. The first-day sales of the former were 80.7 copies, while the latter was 61.4 copies, with a significant gap.

This issue of "New Literature" is actually competing against "Wenyi" which will be released on the 18th.

But now they can’t even beat the “younger brother” “Kitagawa” which was released on the 15th, which really makes those conservative writers who were shouting so loud lose face and feel a little embarrassed. The dozen conservative writers who have published new books are now comforting themselves with the excuse that “Kitagawa is so popular because of the final chapter of “Asakusa Red Group”. After all, Kitagawa Shu is the ‘best in the world’, and it’s not shameful to lose”, and they are trying to evade the editorial department and the foundation.

They can hide in their shells like turtles and not come out, but the editorial department of New Literature and Art must give an explanation to the two major consortiums.

After much deliberation, the editorial department of New Wenxiang finally decided to put the blame on Nagai Kazufu, who had not yet published his book.

Only Nagai and Fengneng, the "Tianxia Yipin" that has just launched a wave of "hunger marketing", can afford to be held accountable by the two major conglomerates.

Now all the pressure is on Nagai Kazufu's new book, making this old man who loves to show off feel very anxious.

At this moment, he finally understood the terrible and uneasy mood that Ichiro Tanizaki, Naoki Hyakuta and Yoshiyoshi Arima had felt at that time.

However, no matter how nervous he was, and no matter how tough he tried, Nagai Kazukaze resolutely stood up, and while stabilizing the morale of the conservatives, he held a press conference and continued to promote and warm up his new book.

This time, in order to eliminate the impact of the final chapter of "Asakusa Red Group", he announced the title and subject matter of the new book:

"Flowers of Hell" mainly tells the ups and downs of the protagonist Kurofune Nagayoshi's family.

Judging from his simple narration, "Flowers of Hell" gives people the taste of a youthful version of "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

Perhaps he had long realized that "The Flowers of Hell" would be compared with "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and the latter was obviously a masterpiece that he could never compare to.

Therefore, Nagai Kazufu decisively told the reporter that "Flowers of Hell" is not a long documentary novel like "One Hundred Years of Solitude" that uses family history to reflect the style of the times.

It is more in line with the "interview" model, which uses records and interviews with the Kurofuchi family to show the core idea of ​​the novel. It is a rare "interview + story" writing method in the history of Japanese literature.

Since he emphasized it so much, the nosy journalists could not continue to compare "The Flowers of Hell" with "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and had to give up this tempting headline.

In short, with his strenuous promotion, "Flowers of Hell", like Ichiro Tanizaki's last work "The Idiot's Desire", did cause quite a stir in the literary circle.

University professors, publishing editors, countless industry insiders and readers have begun to look forward to this creative and novel pure literature novel.

Before Nagai Kafu became famous in his early years, he was known for his fresh and unconventional writing style. Later, he became known as "the best in the world". While the number of his works decreased sharply, his writing style became more concise and excellent.

In his later works, his novels were written in a mature style, revealing lingering sentiments and erotic tastes everywhere, which triggered a hedonistic trend in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s and even promoted the development of some bubble economy eras.

This new work seems to continue his personal style.

In terms of writing ability alone, Nagai Kazukaze is an opponent who is no weaker than Tanizaki Ichiro.

But Kitagawa Hide, who is being compared to him, still doesn't care much about these things.

At the end of October, the list of winners of the 10 Nobel Prize was announced one after another, and the Literature Prize was won by Portuguese novelist José Saramago.

Not only did Kitagawa Hideichi gain nothing, he was also banned from speaking, prohibited from participating in subsequent selections, and was blamed for various things.

He didn't even take this matter too seriously, let alone the minor fights in Japan.

Since the last time I talked to Yumeko, Kitagawa Hide has been focusing on continuing to write "White Tower", planning a trip to Athens, and helping to complete the Ministry of Education's "1Q84" assignment.

As for the Nobel Prize ceremony in December, he wouldn't mind going there again with Rena Saito to see what those disgusting guys can do.
The literary circles in countries such as Norway and Sweden are fully supporting the Arnault Club, and some celebrities associated with it are also sparing no effort to target Kitagawa Hide.

However, "One Hundred Years of Solitude", "Remembrance of Things Past" and "The Old Man and the Sea" are too famous and too perverted. In the vast overseas world, there are far more people who admire Kitagawa Hideo than those who belittle him.

The Arnault Club is just a small part of it.

After being humiliatingly invited to attend the award ceremony, the first messages to express condolences to Kitagawa Hide were from writers from major countries such as France and the United States.

Several lifetime judges of the Swedish Academy also refused to participate in the selection of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, and some even announced their withdrawal from the lifetime jury.

These are the people who are strongly supporting Kitagawa Hide.

So he was not afraid to go to Stockholm and confront the Arnaults.

the other side.

As time went by, the November 1998 issue of "Wenyi" was released in major bookstores on time on the 11th.

This time, the magazine serialized new books by more than a dozen new generation writers of the Kitagawa school, including Keigo Higashino, which was obviously a counterattack against the recent actions of "Shin Wen Xiang".

Readers who were not too concerned about the infighting in the publishing and literary circles enjoyed this feast very much. They bought both "New Literary Image" and "Wenyi".

You can fight and we can watch, there is no conflict!
The only thing that makes readers feel regretful is that after finishing "The Villain", Mr. Kitagawa did not seamlessly connect with the new book as usual.

And this time, for the first time ever, Mr. Kitagawa did not announce the subject matter and content of the new book in advance.

"The Villain" and "Asakusa Red Group" have both ended, and the only one that is still being serialized is "White Tower", which makes readers a little uneasy.

I used to be used to Kitagawa Hide's frequent updates, but now I'm worried that Mr. Kitagawa might be a little tired and ready to rest and recuperate.

On the evening of the 18th.

It was with this feeling in mind that Chihaya Ruri and Kyoko knocked on the door of Kaoruko's house.

All three of them are in their third year of high school this year and will graduate and go to college next April.

Kaoru has been busy with her studies recently and is also busy with work, so it has been a long time since she went shopping and playing with her two good friends.

Seeing that they came to see her specially, Xunzi, who was wearing pajamas, felt a little touched and a little guilty.

When she first came to Tokyo, Kaoru was unfamiliar with the place and worried about being laughed at as a "country girl" at school. She relied on the support of Kyoko and Chihaya Ruri, who had a sharp tongue but a soft heart, to gradually settle down.

Now that I’m busy, I’ve neglected my two best girlfriends. I always feel like I’m a stinky man who’s “heartless and dick-pulling”.

"Good evening~ It seems like Kaoru-chan has gained weight again!" Kyoko came up to her with a smile.

The more arrogant Chihaya Ruri snorted coldly, holding the brand new "Literature" in her hand, stepped into the entrance, and skillfully changed into indoor shoes, saying sourly: "Yeah~ The famous editor Kaoru is now a big celebrity in the "Kitagawa" editorial department. She must eat and drink well. How can a little JK like us compare?" (End of this chapter)