Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 296 The Influence of a Comment

July is coming to an end in a flash. The hottest news in society this month is that Zhang Hua, a student at the Fourth Military Medical University of the People's Liberation Army in Xi'an, sacrificed his precious life by jumping into a septic tank to rescue an old farmer who accidentally fell into the tank.

On one side are the pillars of talent that the country has cultivated with great effort, and on the other side are the lives of the working people.

When a moral proposition that is almost only likely to appear in a debate competition was put before the Chinese people, it quickly attracted the attention and discussion of the whole society.

Among these discussion voices are those of authoritative media such as Guangming Daily and China Youth Daily, scholars and government officials in the cultural field, as well as the general public.

A nationwide discussion on "how to measure the value of life" swept across China in just half a month. The attention, discussion and public opinion aroused by this incident were no less than the "Pan Xiao Discussion" two years ago.

That evening, Tao Yushu was sitting under a tree in the second courtyard of her home wearing a light and loose dress. The sun was setting, and the shade of the plane trees covered half of the sky. A gentle breeze blew, finally relieving her suffering of the day.

She was flipping through the newspaper, and there was another article discussing "Zhang Hua saving the old farmer".

When the incident was first reported, Tao Yushu read it with great interest all day long. However, after so many days, he has seen all kinds of discussions and inevitably felt a little aesthetic fatigue.

She folded up the newspaper and fanned herself.

She is now almost five months pregnant. Her belly is getting bigger and bigger, and her weight is increasing, which makes her very afraid of heat. The scorching heat these days has made her suffer.

At this time, there was a sound of a motorcycle at the gate of the yard. After a while, Tao Yumo walked into the yard with a heroic look, holding a motorcycle helmet.

The two sisters just said a few words, Lin Chaoyang walked out of the kitchen with small steps, saying in an operatic voice: "Here I come~"

He was holding a bowl of fragrant fried noodles with soybean paste, and suddenly he saw Tao Yumo. He screamed "ouch" and almost dropped the bowl in his hand.

"You scared me! I thought it was some blind bear in the woods who had turned into a spirit!"

"Brother-in-law~"

Faced with Lin Chaoyang's sarcasm, Tao Yumo looked angry.

After Tao Yushu became pregnant, her motorcycle was coveted by Tao Yumo. After tinkering with it for more than half a month, he was finally able to ride it.

At the beginning of the month, Yan University had a holiday. Tao Yumo put his weapons into storage and let his horses go to the mountains. Every day, he would go sightseeing with a few classmates, and live a happy life.

For the past half month, the temperature in Yanjing has been around 35 degrees. She has been running around outside all day, and her skin, which was not white to begin with, is now as dark as a coal ball.

Sometimes, a vicious curse is not as hurtful as the truth.

Lin Chaoyang's words directly broke Tao Yumo's defense, and he ate an extra bowl of noodles with soybean paste out of anger.

The first day of the dog days is dumplings, the second day is noodles. We have just entered the second day of the dog days, and noodles with soybean paste have become the most popular food in Yanjing city.

After dinner, Tao Yumo talked enthusiastically about the discussion on "the value of life" in the newspapers in the past two days. Seeing that she had no intention of leaving, Tao Yushu knew that she must have been scolded at home again and ran here to find some peace and quiet.

After dinner, Tao Yushu took a walk and then sat under a tree to read the manuscript he brought back from work.

The weather was hot and the heat had not yet dissipated in the house. The yard was the coolest place. As it was getting dark, Lin Chaoyang snatched the manuscript from Tao Yushu's hand.

"Don't look at it, be careful not to hurt your eyes."

Tao Yushu was bored and had an idea about him, so he asked, "Are you too idle lately?"

Lin Chaoyang immediately became alert and said, "Didn't I just write a review for Youth Literature at the beginning of the month? Besides, I have to take care of you."

"I have hands and feet, and I still have my mother. You can't stop writing for too long, or you'll lose your quality."

Ever since Tao Yushu became pregnant, Lin Chaoyang has taken care of her meticulously, which of course makes her feel good.

But she also found that Lin Chaoyang's current state was too comfortable and somewhat content with the status quo. In the eyes of her, a paper queen who had to work overtime to review papers even when she was pregnant, this was really unbearable.

Seeing her sister urging her brother-in-law to make progress, Tao Yumo also interrupted and said, "Brother-in-law, I think Zhang Hua's recent incident is very suitable for writing a novel."

"how to write?"

"Isn't the real example right here? Just write about Zhang Hua's story!" Tao Yumo said.

Lin Chaoyang shook his head. "The reason why Zhang Hua's case attracted so much attention is not because the act of saving people was so spectacular, but because of the value proposition behind it. Just writing about a college student saving people is just like writing a news article."

Seeing that her idea was belittled by her brother-in-law, Tao Yumo said unhappily: "You are awesome! You are awesome! Why don't you write it down!"

Lin Chaoyang was too lazy to argue with the little girl, but Tao Yushu felt that the topic of "value of life" and "meaning of life" was a very good core.

She said to Lin Chaoyang, "You can write something with 'life value' and 'life meaning' as the core."

"Hmm! This is a direction." Lin Chaoyang pondered. It has been half a year since he finished the manuscript of "Shutter Island". It's not that he doesn't want to start writing.

However, on the one hand, Tao Yushu's pregnancy did occupy some of his attention, and on the other hand, it was a scorching summer these past two months, and writing at a desk was a tough job, so he thought he might as well get through the summer first.

Seeing that Lin Chaoyang was finally interested, Tao Yushu became happy. For people who are used to being introverted, watching people around them being leisurely is also a torture for them.

At the end of the month, Liu Xinwu came to tell Lin Chaoyang a piece of news.

After more than a month of coordination by Yenching Publishing House, the second channel of "The Chess Master" in Guangdong has been banned.

What he meant by banning was that he found the state-owned printing factory that cooperated with the second channel and cut off the printing source of "The Chess Master". As for those books that had already been printed, there was certainly no way to control it.

Lin Chaoyang actually didn't care too much about this matter. What really made him unbalanced was that those booksellers dared to sell pirated books at a higher price than his genuine books, which was simply going against the will of heaven.

Moreover, according to the sales data collected by Yanjing Publishing House during this period, "The Chess Master" has not been affected by this wave of pirated books, and the sales trend is very stable.

Nearly two months after its publication, sales have exceeded 70 copies, a staggering momentum.

In the view of Yenching Publishing House, "The Chess Master" is not an outstanding work among Lin Chaoyang's works. The reason why they have such an impression has a lot to do with the controversy that "The Chess Master" encountered after its publication.

Even though the overall evaluation of the novel was later reversed due to the extremely high evaluation of the novel by Nie Weiping, a leading figure in the domestic Go community, there are still many people who have preconceived opinions about the novel, believing that the novel lacks logic and literary quality.

Moreover, in the evaluation system of the literary world, the reputation of "The Chess Master" is indeed not as good as Lin Chaoyang's previous works such as "Lai Zi's Summer" and "The Death of Van Gogh".

Therefore, when Yenching Publishing House sought the publishing rights for "The Chess Master", it had actually lowered its sales expectations for the novel.

They just felt that with Lin Chaoyang's appeal among readers, the lower limit of sales would definitely be high.

But Yenching Publishing House never expected that "The Chess Master" could sell 70 copies in two months. This sales figure is comparable to the 50 copies of "The Death of Van Gogh" in one and a half months, and even exceeds it.

"The Death of Van Gogh", which has been published for half a year, has sold over 120 million copies and is heading towards the sales mark of 200 million copies.

It seems that "The Chess Master" is another super bestseller with sales possibly exceeding two to three million copies.

They have already obtained the publishing rights to Lin Chaoyang's "Shutter Island". Judging from the popularity and response the novel received after its publication, the sales are unlikely to be bad.

Whether it is last year's "Lust for Life - The Biography of Vincent van Gogh", the currently published "The Chess Master", or the future "Shutter Island", the popularity or potential popularity of these works is extremely rare among the books published by Yenching Publishing House over the years.

For a publishing house, it publishes dozens or hundreds of books a year, most of which may be unprofitable, only a small part can break even, and only one or two best-sellers can make money.

Just these one or two books may allow the publishing house to recover its losses and make a fortune.

But bestsellers are something you can only encounter by chance. Who dares to expect that the book they publish will definitely be a bestseller?
Although the sales of literary magazines nowadays are often in the hundreds of thousands, the sales of the vast majority of contemporary literary works are still below 10,000 copies. Sales of 50,000 copies are considered above average.

With more than 100,000 or 200,000 views, it is basically a work that has a certain influence nationwide.

So when Yenching Publishing House hit the jackpot three times in a row and had three best-sellers with sales potentially exceeding one million copies, how could they not be excited?

A few days passed, and the happy summer vacation was already halfway through. The review article that Lin Chaoyang gave to Ma Weidu in July had been published in "Youth Literature" for more than half a month, attracting much attention in the literary community.

Part of the reason for this attention is the popularity of "Life" after its publication, but more importantly, the unique perspective and views of the article itself have triggered many people's thinking.

The concepts mentioned by Lin Chaoyang in the article, such as "the collision of new and old discourse systems" and "reshaping the image of contemporary rural characters", have been widely recognized by the literary community and many literary theorists, providing a new perspective and theoretical basis for the literary community to study and understand a work like "Life".

After he published this article, the literary world's originally one-sided criticism of Gao Jialin, the protagonist of "Life", gradually became rational, forming a discussion with the original voices.

As the debate continued to deepen, critics who had calmed down began to give up their positions and rationally comment on such an excellent work as "Life" based on its ideological height and depth of exploration of reality.

With just one article, "On How to Shape Contemporary Rural Characters from the Perspective of Gao Jialin," Lin Chaoyang changed the direction of the literary world's discussion on "Life."

After learning about the situation, Lu Yao wrote an enthusiastic letter to express his gratitude to Lin Chaoyang.

At the same time, the influence of this review was beyond the expectations of the editorial department of "Youth Literature", and even alarmed Wang Weiling, the deputy editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief.

That evening, he and Ma Weidu personally visited Lin Chaoyang. On the one hand, he wanted to get closer to Lin Chaoyang, and on the other hand, China Youth Publishing House planned to hold a symposium for "Life" in September.

The novel "Life" itself was a work commissioned by China Youth Publishing House from Lu Yao, and the original intention of looking for a publication to publish it was to expand the influence of the work.

Now that the work has influence, not only has it influence, but it has influence nationwide, the next step is naturally to publish it.

Before publishing, it is a common practice for publishing houses to hold a symposium to warm up and promote the work.

Lin Chaoyang never liked to participate in such activities, but he had a good relationship with Lu Yao, and Wang Weiling invited him so warmly, so he had to agree.

(End of this chapter)