Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 307 It’s not in vain that I’m recognized as your uncle!

Chen Kaige has always regarded Zhao Zhenkai as his spiritual idol. He admires Zhao Zhenkai's talent in poetry creation, his profound literary accomplishment, and his unique leadership qualities.

Zhao Zhenkai talks about magical realism and Marquez very fluently, just like he used to talk about Britain's Lake Poets and Japan's New Thought writers.

But Chen Kaige no longer regarded Zhao Zhenkai's words as the gospel with blind admiration in his eyes as he did before, because Zhao Zhenkai's explanation of the magical realism genre was quite different from what Lin Chaoyang told him.

While Chen Kaige was confused and conflicted, the crowd burst into warm applause with enthusiastic faces. Zhao Zhenkai nodded to everyone reservedly.

He finished his speech. Seeing that everyone was impressed by his eloquence, Zhao Zhenkai said, "I think we have said almost everything today. You can exchange ideas with each other. This will help you absorb and understand what we just said."

Zhao Zhenkai asked everyone to communicate with each other, and everyone looked happy. With such free communication, everyone’s doubts could be quickly answered by asking questions.

After Zhao Zhenkai finished speaking, someone immediately stood up to ask questions. He answered them calmly. As the questions and answers came, everyone felt that they had learned a lot and burst into applause.

"Kaige, what's the problem that you can't figure out?" Tian Zhuangzhuang asked with concern when he saw his little brother frowning.

Chen Kaige glanced at Tian Zhuangzhuang, not knowing how to tell him. As he listened to Zhao Zhenkai's answer, he felt more and more that something was wrong, and finally he couldn't help but stood up.

"Comrade Zhenkai, I have a few points I would like to discuss with you regarding the formation and status of the magical realism genre in Latin America."

Zhao Zhenkai had a calm expression and did not speak. Instead, he stretched out his hand to Chen Kaige, motioning him to tell his question.

“I have some superficial knowledge of the Latin American magical realism genre, and as far as I know, it is only one of the major artistic genres of the new Latin American novel, and its importance in the local area is not necessarily greater than other genres.

In fact, there is no typical magical realist writer in Latin America. Even Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez and others who are recognized as the undisputed masters of magical realism are somewhat disgusted with people attributing them to this trend because their works are rich and diverse in style.

Carpentier has repeatedly emphasized that he is not a magical realist, but a writer of magical reality.

For the history of Latin American literature, magical realism is not an insurmountable concept, it is just a way of naming a literary genre.

You just described magical realism as the most important literary genre in the history of Latin American and even world literature in the 20th century, which is a bit too arbitrary. "

Chen Kaige is 1.85 meters tall and has a sturdy physique. He speaks with full energy and a deep voice, and his speeches are very powerful.

While he was speaking, the people sitting nearby kept buzzing with discussion and looked at him with some confusion, thinking that he was just trying to attract attention.

After he finished speaking, before Zhao Zhenkai could speak, someone else stood up and asked, "It is well known that Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Zhenkai's words have a basis. You said that magical realism is not important. What is your basis?"

Faced with the man's aggressive questions, Chen Kaige was not at all flustered.

"Comrade, please don't change the concept. What I said was 'the most important literary genre is an arbitrary statement'.

You asked me what basis I had. I would like to ask you, if winning the Nobel Prize in Literature means that it is the most important, then can I say that the works written by the dozens of writers who won the prize before are the most important?"

Chen Kaige caught the loophole in the man's words and thought for a long time but didn't know how to refute. Seeing that he was silent, Zhao Zhenkai was about to speak, but Chen Kaige added something.

“I think Comrade Zhenkai confuses the concepts of ‘literary explosion’ and ‘magical realism’, mistakenly equating the Latin American literary explosion in the 1960s with the rise of magical realism literature.

The rise of Latin American magical realism literature naturally depends on the literary explosion in the 1960s, but it would be wrong to equate the literary explosion with magical realism literature.

In fact, the scope and impact of the literary boom on Latin American literature far exceeds magical realism.

Can you say that Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch is a work of magical realism? Genres such as structural realism, psychological realism, and fantasy fiction are all important parts of the literary explosion.

To confuse the literary explosion with magical realism is to negate the contributions of these literary genres to the literary explosion, as well as their historical status and influence.

Chen Kaige spoke incessantly, with unfamiliar nouns popping out of his mouth one after another, making everyone present feel awe-inspiring.

Even Zhao Zhenkai, who had been calm and composed, began to sweat as he listened. He was a poet himself, and although he also wrote novels, his knowledge in this area was not as good as his understanding of poetry.

It was only because he started reading some introductions to magical realism literature in the 80s and he specially prepared for several days before today's meeting, so he appeared to be very familiar with magical realism.

Now Chen Kaige stood up to refute his views and statements. He didn't quite understand some of the terms he mentioned, so he could only say to Chen Kaige from another angle:

"You are right. But we should see that magical realism literature, as an important part of Latin American literature, has indeed walked ahead of other genres and won the recognition of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I am not saying that winning the award is necessarily great, but it is indeed because of the pioneers of magical realism literature that Latin American literature has been exposed to more people in the world.

From this point of view, magical realism is indeed the most indispensable genre in Latin American literature. " Chen Kaige listened to Zhao Zhenkai's sophistry and felt that it was a bit far-fetched, but it was not completely unreasonable.

He nodded, agreeing with what Zhao Zhenkai said, and then said:

"In addition, I think the definition of 'magical realism literature' and its representative writers and works that you just explained are not accurate enough.

For a long time, even in Latin America, they have been arguing about the definition, scope, characteristics and other issues of magical realism. There are many different opinions and it is difficult to reach a consensus. So how can we, as Chinese, accurately define this literary genre?

The Latin word for magical realism, realismo mágico, is an 'empty signifier' in Latin whose true meaning cannot be determined. It is illogical to define it.

An elder once told me that magical realism literature is based on the inheritance of Indian classical literature, and incorporates certain creative methods of classical mythology from the East and the West, as well as Western modernist techniques of alienation, absurdity, nightmare, etc., to reflect or allude to the reality of Latin America, in order to achieve the purpose of ridiculing, condemning, exposing, satirizing or criticizing social events.

Its essence is closer to "critical realism", which is a deepened realism and a realism with strong national characteristics.

You just said that Ernesto Salvatore is a magical realist writer. This classification is inaccurate. His "On Heroes and Graves" uses a lot of monologues, reflections, thoughts and stream of consciousness techniques, which is obvious psychological realism..."

Chen Kaige had an excellent memory. He was very excited at the moment and blurted out all kinds of knowledge points about Latin American literature that he had heard from Lin Chaoyang almost without thinking. Large sections of the content were almost all Lin Chaoyang's original words and he didn't even need to think.

When he noticed the panic in Zhao Zhenkai's eyes, he suddenly felt as if his idol had collapsed and his fantasy had been shattered.

It turned out that my idol didn't know everything. I just parroted a few paragraphs of Uncle Lin's usual discussions on Latin American literature, and I actually left him speechless.

Chen Kaige thought so in his heart and stopped with some boredom.

Seeing that Chen Kaige finally stopped, Zhao Zhenkai finally breathed a sigh of relief. He suppressed his inner panic and forced a smile.

“Kego has a thorough understanding of Latin American literature. Thank you for pointing out the fallacy in my speech just now, otherwise I almost misled everyone.

If I had known that you had such profound knowledge in this area, I would not have taught you how to do it.

Today is a rare opportunity. I think it would be better to let Kaige systematically talk to us about the development of Latin American literature and the literary explosion. What do you think? "

When the Latin word "realismo mágico" came out of Chen Kaige's mouth, Zhao Zhenkai realized that he had met an expert today. Who would want to bear this responsibility?
After calming down, he did not try to make excuses but chose to wisely admit his problem.

Everyone has things they don't understand. Although this is somewhat inconsistent with his eloquent image just now, it is better than leaving everyone with a negative impression of someone pretending to know something.

In the end, he did not forget to "retreat in order to advance" and pushed Chen Kaige to the front. On the one hand, it showed his humility and magnanimity, and on the other hand, it elevated Chen Kaige's image and made everyone ignore his previous embarrassment.

After Zhao Zhenkai put forward his proposal, everyone immediately burst into applause.

When Chen Kaige first stood up to question Zhao Zhenkai, many people present did not trust him, and some even stood up to refute him.

In everyone's opinion, the omniscient Zhao Zhenkai is obviously more credible.

But as Chen Kaige continued to speak, many unpopular words that no one had ever heard of came out of his mouth, and no one could even understand them. People who wanted to debate with him didn't know how to start.

And everyone noticed that Zhao Zhenkai seemed to be very convinced by Chen Kaige's speech, which proved that he really had something.

Chen Kaige was somewhat flattered by the enthusiastic applause from the crowd. He had been in the small circle of Today since 78, but had never had any status among these people. Even his leader Tian Zhuangzhuang was not considered a core member of Today, let alone him.

Now that he was being treated so warmly by everyone, he couldn't help but feel a little proud and complacent.

Then, for some reason, the image of Lin Chaoyang emerged in his mind. Compared with the elegant and refined Zhao Zhenkai, Lin Chaoyang's image was not outstanding. But when Chen Kaige recalled the way he spoke, he always felt that he had an extraordinary demeanor.

That kind of demeanor is different from Zhao Zhenkai's temperament that can be discerned with the naked eye, and it is difficult to describe in words.

When he didn't speak, he just stood there quietly, like a silent mountain.

When he opened his mouth, it was like gentle breeze and drizzle caressing the mountains. It seemed ordinary, but it nourished the grass in the mountains, the birds and beasts, and all things flourished.

This is a true cultured person. In comparison, people like Zhao Zhenkai, whom he originally regarded as idols, are just like elementary school students.

It’s not in vain that I’m recognized as your uncle!

(End of this chapter)