Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 178 Talent Beyond the Times

Just after New Year’s Day, on a weekday morning, the entrance of the Renwenshe compound located at No. 166 Chaonei Street was bustling with people.

Li Shuguang parked his bicycle in the garage, greeted his colleagues one by one and went into the building.

He put down his briefcase, wiped the table with a rag, and went to get a kettle of hot water to make some tea. Colleagues arrived one after another, and some of them held out their cups to ask him for water. Li Shuguang poured water for everyone one by one.

"Mr. Li's service is really good," colleagues joked.

Li Shuguang chatted with everyone with a smile on his face.

After the prelude to every day's work, he sat down and prepared to get into work mode. He took out the manuscript that he had not finished reviewing yesterday from the pile of manuscripts on the right side of his desk.

He turned to the page with the bookmark and was about to continue reading when he heard someone calling him.

"Old Li!"

When Li Shuguang started, he saw Chen Zhihe from the publishing department standing at the door with a smile on his face.

"Old Chen, what are you so happy about?"

"Of course it's a good thing." Chen Zhihe walked into the office, sat opposite Li Shuguang, and picked up the tea can that he had not had time to put away.

"What good thing?"

Chen Zhihe smiled but said nothing. Li Shuguang understood and got up to make him a cup of tea. "Can you tell me now?"

Chen Zhihe took a sip of tea with pride, but unexpectedly he got scalded and put down the cup with a trembling mouth.

"You're too hot."

"How can the freshly-drawn hot water not be hot? Let's talk business. What's the good news?" Li Shuguang asked.

"'Laizi's Summer' is selling well."

"That's it? I think you're here to mix tea leaves?" Li Shuguang was a little dissatisfied after hearing this.

"Lai Zi's Summer" was originally published in "Contemporary", which helped "Contemporary" break the sales record of 50 copies. Although the sales have declined in recent issues, the sales are still stable at more than 35 copies.

Compared with the 13 copies before the publication of "Lai Zi's Summer", this number is like heaven and earth. It is no exaggeration to say that "Lai Zi's Summer" can be said to have brought "Contemporary" from a quasi-famous magazine to the level of a famous magazine.

This is the magic of good works!
It’s no wonder that “Lai Zi’s Summer” can bring the magazine that published it to such a high level and that the novel is also a hot seller when it is published.

"Hey, what do you mean by mixing tea leaves? I have a basis for saying this!"

"What's the basis for that?"

"The Yanjing Publishing House asked us to prepare more printing."

Hearing this, Li Shuguang finally took it seriously and asked attentively, "How much do they want to order?"

"We're still counting. I think we'll be able to let you know in two days. What do you think? Am I just making this up?"

Li Shuguang laughed, "Old Chen, you are well-informed."

The distribution house mentioned by Chen Zhihe is the distribution department of Xinhua Bookstore, which happens to be connected with the distribution department of Renwen Press.

The print run of a book, especially the first print run, is not decided by the publishing house leaders on a whim; it must be based on certain criteria.

The basis for this is usually that the publishing house first mails subscription orders to Xinhua Bookstore's distribution offices in various places, waits for bookstores in various places to fill out the subscription orders, and then summarizes the subscription volume. This subscription volume is the most important basis for the publishing house to print books.

Before the publication of "Lai Zi's Summer", Renwen Press spent more than a month soliciting subscriptions, and the results were gratifying. The total number of subscriptions from bookstores across the country totaled more than 9 copies.

Renwen Press is a national publishing house that publishes hundreds of books every year, but only a handful of them can reach this subscription volume.

The first print run of "Lai Zi's Summer" was 10 copies. Yanjing is the capital, and its book sales have always ranked first in the country. One-tenth of the 10 copies were sold in bookstores of all sizes in Yanjing.

It has only been a week since the novel was released for sale. Even if the 10,000 copies have not been sold out, they are probably almost all sold out. Otherwise, how could the publishing house communicate with them about reprinting?

Chen Zhihe asked: "I heard that you are reviewing another novel by Lin Chaoyang?"

"Yes. 'Parental Love', which he wrote under another pseudonym."

"What pseudonym will you use for publication?"

"This... we haven't discussed it in detail. I think I should still use the pen name I used when I published it."

"No, no, no. You have to use the pen name 'Xu Lingjun'. His pen name has appeal.

He has published several novels, all of which are selling well. He uses that pen name, but how many readers know that these are his novels?

A large number of potential readers were lost, which affected sales.”

Li Shuguang said: "You need to discuss this matter with Old Madam Wei."

"I'm a publisher. If I tell her about book publishing, won't I be scolded? You go and tell her."

Li Shuguang finally understood and asked with a smile, "So this is why you came here?"

Chen Zhihe smiled but said nothing.

"Okay, I'll tell her later. I still need to communicate with the author about this matter."

After Chen Zhihe left, Li Shuguang came to Wei Junyi's office and told her about Chen Zhihe's proposal.

Wei Junyi only said, "The author's opinion is the main thing." Her words made things simple. Li Shuguang only needed to find the author Lin Chaoyang to confirm.

Just as he was about to leave, Li Shuguang's eyes suddenly caught the manuscripts piled up on the upper right corner of Wei Junyi's desk. The name of the manuscript on the top caught his attention. "Is this the new novel written by Chaoyang?"

"Ah."

Wei Junyi's eyes fell on the manuscript, full of appreciation.

"There was a lot of noise in Contemporary Magazine a few days ago. Was it because of this novel?"

Wei Junyi raised her head and looked at him quietly, her eyes saying: If you have something to say, say it. If you have to fart, fart.

Li Shuguang immediately understood, "If you have finished reviewing the manuscript, could you lend it to me?"

"We have to return it to Contemporary Magazine."

"I'll go and return it. Please lend it to me first and I'll send it to them later."

"Then remember to return it to the owner as soon as possible."

"Don't worry."

Li Shuguang happily left Wei Junyi's office with the manuscript.

When he returned to the Contemporary Literature Editorial Office, a colleague saw the manuscript in his hand and asked, "Old Li, do you have a new manuscript?"

"No, I borrowed it."

"borrowed?"

Li Shuguang's words aroused the curiosity of his colleagues.

The Contemporary Literature Editorial Department is one of the editorial departments with the heaviest workload in Renwen Press. On weekdays, they are already too busy reviewing manuscripts. How could Li Shuguang still have the heart to borrow manuscripts?

Someone came up to him, curious about what kind of manuscript Li Shuguang would take the initiative to borrow to read.

“The Death of Vincent van Gogh?”

"Hey! Is this Lin Chaoyang's novel?"

"That should be it. Liu Yin from Contemporary Magazine was talking about this novel yesterday, praising it to the skies."

Zhu Changsheng took the manuscript of "The Death of Van Gogh" from Lin Chaoyang more than a week ago, and first delivered it to Qin Chaoyang's home under the cover of night.

Editorial review is a three-review system, divided into preliminary review, re-review and final review.

According to the normal process, the editor-in-charge would review the manuscript step by step after receiving it. However, in order to catch up with the first issue of the revised "Contemporary" in January, Zhu Changsheng sent the manuscript directly to the editor-in-chief Qin Chaoyang.

Qin Chaoyang also attached great importance to this novel. He worked two nights to review the manuscript. He agreed to Zhu Changsheng's request and decided to publish the full text of "The Death of Van Gogh" in the form of a special issue of the novel in the first issue of "Contemporary", which was revised into a literary bimonthly.

Originally, the manuscripts, layout and cover of the first issue of the revised "Contemporary" had been almost prepared, but something unexpected happened, and the editorial department was inevitably busy again.

Colleagues in the editorial department are also full of curiosity about this novel that Qin Chaoyang has given the green light to. Although the novel has been confirmed to be published, it does not prevent everyone from competing to read it.

Needless to say, the professional qualities of the editors of "Contemporary" are outstanding. Many of them have edited some of the most famous works in China's contemporary literary world.

For example, the boastful Rong Shihui was the editor of "Song of Youth" and "Lin Hai Xue Yuan" which were popular all over the country in the 1950s.

Since the establishment of Contemporary Magazine, Renwen Press has also strongly supported it, and any good manuscripts are always given priority to this beloved magazine.

It should be said that the editors of "Contemporary" are outstanding in the industry of literary editing in terms of both professional quality and insight. It is no exaggeration to say that they are well-informed.

But when reading the novel "The Death of Van Gogh", their inherent ideas were broken again and again.

First of all, there is the idea of ​​time travel, which is actually not uncommon in ancient Chinese literature.

For example, the Yellow Millet Dream in "The Pillow Book", Tang Xianzu's Linchuan Four Dreams "The Purple Hairpin", "The Southern Branch", "The Peony Pavilion" and "The Handan Story", Pu Songling's "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and Yuan Mei's "Zi Bu Yu".

In all these works, there are more or less stories that use dreams as a medium to travel between reality and virtuality, between ancient and modern times, and between different spaces.

However, in the creation of contemporary Chinese literature, very few people use this creativity.

The idea of ​​"The Death of Van Gogh" is relatively rare, at least in recent years, so when you suddenly see this kind of work, it will naturally give people a bright feeling.

Secondly, the structure and style of the novel have a strong suspense element, which is also very rare in the literary world where realism is the mainstream.

The addition of this suspense element makes the novel far more readable than general mainstream literary works. In the words of some editors of "Contemporary", it is addictive to read.

The plot of the novel is ingeniously designed. It takes Aaron's time travel and his encounter with Van Gogh in the tavern as clues, and step by step reveals a series of secrets about the genius Van Gogh hidden behind history.

The fast-paced battles with monsters and the suspense of deciphering Van Gogh's tragic life firmly grasp the reader's curiosity, making it difficult to put the book down while reading.

Moreover, Lin Chaoyang also integrated rich European historical knowledge and artistic analysis into the novel, allowing these editors to gain knowledge while enjoying the fun of decryption.

Even though the novel contains certain elements of stream-of-consciousness writing techniques, it does not affect the overall story of the novel at all.

Finally, the overall reading experience of the novel, although it is a mixture of many elements such as stream of consciousness, science fiction, suspense, etc., but the reading experience is still dominated by the story.

The protagonist Aaron experienced a journey through time and space, in which he not only had a close exchange with his idol Van Gogh, but also gained a profound understanding of what art really is, and strengthened his inner persistence in and pursuit of his artistic beliefs.

Especially at the end of the story, Aaron's figure overlaps with Van Gogh's across a hundred years. Looking at those intact works of art and listening to the infinite praise of Van Gogh by later generations, Van Gogh witnessed his greatness that he was unable to witness in his lifetime through Aaron's body.

The theme of the novel is fully sublimated at this moment. Talent that transcends the times is always accompanied by doubt and loneliness, but only art is immortal.

(End of this chapter)