I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 506 Gorky Trilogy: Childhood, In the World, My University

I hope Kitagawa Hide can try again and write a literary work that will go down in the history of world literature. This is not only the long-cherished wish of Saito Rena and others, but also what many great figures in the Japanese literary world want to see most.

Since his debut in March 1995, Kitagawa Hide has been overcoming many obstacles and has gradually become the recognized "number one" in the Japanese literary world from a low-ranking winner of the Newcomer Award.

It can be said that Kitagawa Hide has already conquered most of his peers in the Japanese literary world with his strength, but at the same time they were conquered, they found that the "god" in their hearts repeatedly hit a wall when winning the highest overseas awards, which left them with a knot in their hearts that is difficult to eliminate.

Saito Reina's previous awkward psychology is a true reflection of these people's moods——

If you feel that others look down on you and discriminate against you from the bottom of their hearts, then simply don't play with them, so as not to make yourself bored;
At the same time, I felt that if I didn't defeat these short-sighted people, I would feel uncomfortable with the anger in my heart.

“You can ignore this award, but you can’t live without it.”

This is the true inner thoughts of millions of readers, colleagues, and people around Kitagawa Hide.

This emotion not only tormented them repeatedly, but also gradually affected Kitagawa Hide.

Especially in the Western world, not only do they simply not want to play with you, but they can't wait to smear shit on your face once they get the chance!

After confirming that he wanted to write a literary masterpiece that would subvert those people's cognition and thinking, Kitagawa Hide entered into seclusion at the speed of light.

After the release of "Kitagawa Bunko (Physical Edition)" on March 3, he neither followed Saito Rena and others to attend the book club meeting, nor continued to manage the subsequent copyright operations of the "Disabled but Determined Us" trilogy.

Even the book "Ring World 1: Bell" that he was still writing was put aside temporarily.

In the second half of March, he locked himself at home. Apart from normal eating, drinking, defecating and urinating, he stayed in the study. Even the two little ones, Toru Kitagawa and Midori Kitagawa, found it difficult to see their father.

During this period, Kitagawa Hide was mainly searching the arsenal in his mind, combining it with the current situation in this parallel world to see if there were any trump cards that had not been used yet.

Because the goal is to use works to shut up Westerners, the more the work fits their reading habits, the easier it will be to conquer them.

This is also the core reason why "The Dancing Girl of Izu", "Snow Country" and "Norwegian Wood" failed to completely convince these people.

These three masterpieces of Japanese literature have actually received very good responses in Western countries.

However, in the process of translating works such as "The Dancing Girl of Izu" and "Snow Country" from Japanese into English, a lot of their charm and advantages in word choice and sentence structure will be lost. They are like the ancient poems next door, which are inherently lame.

The more modern "Norwegian Wood" is more popular than them, but its extremely Japanese love atmosphere may make Westerners, who are relatively more bold and passionate, feel uncomfortable.

Being reserved, reserved and delicate are the characteristics of many Oriental people and countries, which are exactly contrary to the mainstream Western concept of love.

Considering the use of Japanese literature to conquer these Westerners, Kitagawa Hide actually did not have much in his arsenal.

Yukio Mishima's "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" is similar to "Snow Country". It will definitely be a sensation in the country, but it is hard to describe its performance overseas.

Referring to the Japanese writers who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the original history, the only ones that can still be copied are the remaining works of Yasunari Kawabata and "The Soccer Team of 1994", for which Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel Prize in Literature in .

"The Football Team of the Year of Man'en" must be copied. Its core is to use magical realism to criticize Japan's poor political and economic situation, and to use literature to show the author's deep humanitarian feelings.

But the person in charge now is Keizo Obuchi, who has a good relationship with Kitagawa Hide.

Many of the people in the prime minister's cabinet led by him are also fans and supporters of Kitagawa Hide's books.

It was completely unnecessary to write such a novel criticizing his party and his governing style when he was the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and prime minister.

And if history had not changed, Obuchi Keisaku would have been hospitalized due to a stroke on April 2000, 4, and would have been declared brain dead a month later.

Mori Yoshiro and Koizumi Junichiro, who took office after him, were not good people. At that time, Kitagawa Hide used "The Football Team in the First Year of Man'en" to severely criticize them, which was a good move.

There were no good options for Japanese literature for the time being, so Kitagawa Hide had to turn his attention back to world literature.

In recent years, he has carefully studied the world literary history of this parallel world in his spare time.

After comparing the arsenal with the one in his mind, Kitagawa Hideki eliminated the top writers who existed on both sides.

These include Shakespeare, Hugo, Leo Tolstoy and others who are familiar to countless people.

To be honest, any one of these famous names in the history of world literature is enough to make the Nobel Prize officials in this parallel world shut up completely.

It is a pity that these people existed and their works will be forever preserved in the hall of world literature.

After selecting several non-existent literary masters, Kitagawa Hide did not rush to make a selection, but carefully recalled the evaluations and opinions of these people by readers and colleagues from various countries in the original history.

The customs and realities of each country are different, so the views and evaluations of these world-class literary masters are also very different.

If we select some world-class writers with extremely high specificity, a situation may occur where Japanese literature cannot defeat Western writers.

For example, Charlotte Bronte, who wrote "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights", never appeared in this parallel world.

However, these two literary works have received mixed reviews since their publication. Many critics believe that they are limited to female perspectives and emotional explorations, and over-represent women's struggles in society and their desire for freedom.

These messy remarks continued for a long time, and the two works were even listed as unnecessary reading materials in countries where women have a low status (such as Japan).

It was not until long after Charlotte Bronte's death that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were gradually "vindicated".

Similar situations and works emerge endlessly in the history of world literature.

If the wrong choice is made, Kitagawa Hide's new book may go to another extreme.

Therefore, he was extremely serious about selecting books and copying texts. He repeatedly compared the real situations of the two worlds and made extensive reference to the world literary scene of this parallel world, striving for a perfect result.

Researching and analyzing this matter was much more difficult than Kitagawa Hide had expected.

Moreover, since it involved his own biggest secret, he didn't even have the possibility to discuss it with anyone.

After sitting in his study at home for several days, Kitagawa Hide finally thought of a literary event that took place in 2000 in the original history while flipping through the "World Literature Yearbook".

In 2000, based on a poll of millions of readers in thousands of cities across five continents, including Europe, Asia, America, Australia and Africa, organized by The New York Times and Reader's Digest, the American Literature Association selected ten classic novels.

These ten masterpieces represent the most world-renowned masters of world literature from Britain, France, Russia, the United States and other countries, as well as their most influential masterpieces.

The ten literary works selected through this selection activity are called the "Ten Greatest Classics of the World", and this title has been used and recognized for many years.

It is worth mentioning that these “Top Ten Classics of the World” for the first time abandoned the industry’s unwritten rule that literary works are not divided into high and low categories, and instead ranked them by influence using a simple and crude method of “First Classic” and “Second Classic”.

The winner of the "First Classic" award is naturally Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

The fact that this masterpiece ranks first should be the least controversial and least criticized thing.

Tolstoy's failure to win the Nobel Prize in Literature is also a major black spot on the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In this parallel world where literary works are of varying quality, the status of Tolstoy, a legendary literary giant, has become even higher, and the stupid behavior of the Nobel Prize officials has been criticized even more harshly. With the previous experience of this big shot, Kitagawa Hide was targeted in various ways this time, which immediately caused ptsd among many literary writers.

Unfortunately, the "first masterpiece" already exists, and none of Tolstoy's books can be copied.

The "second masterpiece" is also a masterpiece familiar to countless people, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".

There is no need to say much about Hugo.

The French literary world, which is currently in a period of transition, is still making huge profits from his remaining enthusiasm.

Today's French literary giants such as Audemaison have rushed one after another to study Kitagawa Hide's novels, hoping to find a way out and a solution for French literature from the books of this young writer from the distant East.

It is impossible that a hundred years later, researchers of French literature will discover that the most influential French work since Hugo is "Remembrance of Things Past" written by Hide Kitagawa!

“The third masterpiece”: “Childhood”.

"The Fourth Masterpiece": "Wuthering Heights".

"The Fifth Masterpiece": "David Copperfield".

“The Sixth Masterpiece”: “The Red and the Black”.

“The Seventh Masterpiece”: “Les Miserables”.

"The Eighth Masterpiece": "Anna Karenina".

"The Ninth Masterpiece": "Jean-Christophe".

“The Tenth Greatest Book”: “Gone with the Wind”.

Kitagawa Hide quickly reviewed these works and the literary masters who wrote them in his mind.

Excluding a few people who already exist in this world, the only works suitable for Kitagawa Hide to plagiarize at this stage are obviously Gorky's "Childhood", Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield", and Stendhal's "The Red and the Black".

"The Red and the Black" is slightly inferior to the previous two in all aspects and is not the best choice.

As for Dickens, Kitagawa Hide actually prefers his works "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities", and believes that these two works are more widely spread than "David Copperfield".

However, in the literary world, "David Copperfield" is recognized as Dickens's masterpiece, and its literary quality and priority are higher than the other two.

Since his time traveling through time, Kitagawa Hide has always adhered to the principle of not judging market conditions based on personal preferences.

Since the facts are contrary to his own understanding, he will not do it.

After abandoning Dickens, whom he knew better and liked more, Kitagawa Hide was left with only one answer.

"Gorky was a Mao Zedong person. Because he lived in a special era, his works have a strong sense of Mao Zedong's grassroots culture and social environment.

"Childhood", or more precisely, Gorky's autobiographical trilogy "Childhood", "In the World" and "My University", is a masterpiece written after he had extensive experience and understanding of the life of the lower classes and gleaned countless materials.

But this trilogy is also very controversial.

Many people think that Gorky is a fake "lower-class person".

Because since he became famous, none of the publishing houses that published all his novels have ever invited him to write a true autobiography.

Whenever talking about this, Gorky would only tell everyone that the trilogy was his personal autobiography.

Some people have also pointed out that Gorky came from a completely "bourgeois family" and that the experiences in his novels were all fabricated.

In the trilogy, the tramps he created can speak beautiful and poetic sentences, which is completely different from most people's perception of the lower class."

Kitagawa Hide closed his eyes and reviewed everything about Gorky.

This most legendary top writer of the Russian Bear has received both praise and criticism throughout his life, and is surrounded by a lot of controversy.

As to whether the trilogy is his true autobiography and what the problems pointed out in the book are, there are many different opinions in the original history. In the end, we can only wait for time to settle and for future generations to judge.

But since he is aware of these problems, Kitagawa Hide will definitely try his best to avoid and improve them during the plagiarism process.

Making up stories out of nothing must be the stupidest way to plagiarize.

"It seems I have to find time to visit the Russian bear." Kitagawa Hide supported his chin with his hand and muttered to himself thoughtfully.

Past experiences have taught him that the best way to solve these problems is to feel, understand and comprehend them in person.

After making up his mind, he immediately called Rena Saito to inform her.

"Going to Mao Xiong? When? Are you going alone?"

At this time, Rena Saito was slacking off in her office writing "The Grudge".

Like the physical version, the Beichuan Library (Online Edition) must maintain a writing schedule of one update every five days, which is a bit difficult for most authors.

When Saito Rena heard that Kitagawa Hide suddenly had the idea of ​​going to the bear country, she was shocked and asked several questions immediately.

As we all know, the Russian bear has always been at odds with the United States.

Who is America?

That's your dad.

No matter how the Japanese people view this political issue, in the eyes of the outside world, you are America's little brother.

Although this is no longer a special period, it is always better not to visit a country like Russia.

This is one of the reasons why Japanese publishers rarely develop the market there.

Another reason, of course, is that their own literary market is also very powerful, and your imported products may not be competitive.

"I might leave at the end of the month, and I'll go alone." Kitagawa Hide nodded.

In the past, when he went abroad, he either brought his family with him or went with Saito Rena. He had never traveled alone.

Gorky's trilogy gave him the feeling that he must have his own independent creative space, so he decided to go to the Russian bear alone this time.

"Is it related to the new book?" Saito Rena keenly caught this point.

(End of this chapter)