Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 110 Realism is dead, burn paper if you have something to worry about

Fortunately, the script of "Dwelling Narrowness" is not urgent, and Huayi's current focus is still on movies. So Zhang Chao and Shi Hang reached a verbal agreement that after Shi Hang finishes the first two scripts, the rest of the time will be reserved for "Dwelling Narrowness".

But he did have a backup - if Shi Hang failed again, he might just ask Qin Wen to write it.

In the next few days, Zhang Chao could finally start writing The Great Doctor in peace and quiet. Although he was sitting opposite Ma Boyong at the moment, Zhang Chao was not prepared to be a simple copycat.

Although the novel "The Great Doctor" has many advantages and was once regarded as the least "princely" "princely" novel, it still has its problems. One of the more prominent ones is that it is too much like a multiplayer RPG game!
The three protagonists in the original book were in the torrent of the great era, but were pushed forward by coincidences along the way, "embedded" in the key nodes of various historical events, and then relied on their expertise, persistence and various opportunities to overcome difficulties.

The process is extremely compact, with almost no idle writing, it is too much like the protagonists running a group to brush a dungeon. Wuchang dungeon, island dungeon, Shanghai dungeon, single-player dungeon, multiplayer dungeon... The ambition of the work to carry out a grand narrative was blocked by the Prince's overly polished popular novel writing style.

If the other three protagonists were stripped of their differences in origin and fate, they could almost be said to be the same person in terms of their core image. On the contrary, some of the historical figures in the book, the so-called "supporting characters", appear more vivid because of their reality, which also makes readers feel more regretful.

This is also because the prince is too obsessed with "storytelling". He always hopes to use dramatic narrative techniques to carry heavy topics. But sometimes the power of a work must come from simplicity; if it is too clever, it will appear artificial.

Therefore, Zhang Chao planned to take the structure and framework of "The Great Doctor" as he did in his previous novels, but to reshape the protagonist and delete some "copies" to relax the rhythm of the novel and shorten its length.

After thinking it over, Zhang Chao smiled mysteriously at Ma Boyong, who was sitting across the table and reviewing submissions for "Youth School", turned on the computer, and typed the first line of "The Great Doctor": July 3, 1904, Kanto. A pair of Ula straw sandals stepped heavily into the mud...

Immersed in writing, time passed quickly and school started before I knew it.

Zhang Chao’s first class of the new semester was at Yanshi University. The school invited Liang Xiaosheng to teach this class, and the theme was “Presenting “How People Should Be” in Realistic Literature.”

Liang Xiaosheng said passionately in class: "Realism is not only about writing about how people are in reality, but also about writing about what people should do and to what extent they can do it for their responsibilities and missions in reality.

If literature only describes how people are in reality, there is a limit for every writer. You don’t see what people have achieved in reality, you only see those who have failed in reality, which is equivalent to only writing half of reality. "

Liang Xiaosheng then spent some time criticizing some of the chaos in the current literary world: "Nowadays, among writers, especially young writers, there is a trend of ridicule, abandoning the sincerity of literature, treating it as a game, and losing the serious attitude that a writer should have towards literature."

Then he changed the subject and directly mentioned Zhang Chao's name: "Zhang Chao, you are the most famous and the youngest in our 'graduate writer class'. Do you think young writers today have this problem?"

Zhang Chao, who was suddenly shot, stood up in a daze, but still answered bluntly: "At least I think my own creative attitude is still very sincere, and I don't regard it as a game. As for other people... uh, I don't know them either..."

Liang Xiaosheng said, "Look, you are being glib now. As a senior, I can tell you frankly that as a judge of the last Zhuangzhong Literature Award, I was against you winning the award."

When everyone in the classroom heard this, they immediately pricked up their ears and stared at Zhang Chao with curiosity to see how he would react.

Zhang Chao had calmed down at this moment and said calmly: "It seems that not many people agree with you."

Several students who were close to Zhang Chao quietly moved their butts away from him, for fear of being splashed with "blood".

Liang Xiaosheng said: "I have read all your novels. Although "Youth Like You" is popular literature, it is still based on reality, reflecting real problems and "what people in reality should be like". I thought that the Chinese literary world was going to have a young realist writer. But in "Young Babylon", you began to use gorgeous avant-garde literary techniques to package a nihilistic and empty county town world, where people have no subjective initiative and can only passively accept the manipulation of fate.

In Your Name, you simply start writing about mysterious things, with frivolous language and attitude, which completely deviates from the path of realism. I am against giving you the Zhuangzhong Literature Award, mainly because you are regressing in writing!
I also read the recently published novel “Dwelling Narrowness” and was even more disappointed. The people in it live such a mean and lowly life. Although they are all young people, they have no passion or idealism. They seem to be realistic, but in fact they are nihilistic.

Zhang Chao suddenly understood why Liang Xiaosheng was so dissatisfied with him - as a writer who has always adhered to the realistic creative concept for decades, he was angry about the marginalization of realism in the past 20 years, and Zhang Chao just walked into the trap.

As for the fact that he started to make trouble in public in class, it might be due to his personality.

Zhang Chao waited quietly for Liang Xiaosheng to finish venting before speaking: "First of all, thank you Mr. Liang for buying several of my books - you must have bought the genuine ones."

Some of the students couldn't help laughing out loud, and the tense atmosphere eased a little.

Zhang Chao continued, “I respect your persistence in realism, but I have never defined myself as a realist writer. Moreover, I don’t think I will go in the direction of realism—because I think realism is dead in this era! I don’t want to guard its grave.”

As soon as the words came out, the whole room was in uproar. Saying "realism is dead" to Liang Xiaosheng's face was no different from slapping him in the face.

But what was strange was that Liang Xiaosheng didn't look angry at all. Instead, he gestured to Zhang Chao to continue speaking.

Zhang Chao said: “After the birth of realism in Europe in the 19th century, writers have tried to depict things according to their objective appearance, trying to explore their inner spirit and laws in order to achieve the goal of reproducing reality through art.

However, this creative method itself has huge flaws - it is only suitable for capturing the classical, slow social culture and order of the 19th century, and is completely unable to reflect the modern, high-speed, globalized, and even virtualized society since the 20th century.

When Balzac spent 20 years writing The Human Comedy, the French society he described had changed little from when he started writing 20 years ago. In this case, realism is powerful.

But today, no matter which country or society it is, it is being rapidly changed by modern society. Let alone 20 years ago, just 5 years ago, who could have imagined that the era of everyone having a mobile phone and being able to make calls at any time would come so soon?
At this point, if we still cling to the rut of "realism" and always want to write a "heavy" masterpiece, then we have to accept the fate of this work being outdated as soon as it is born.

Mr. Liang, when the amount of information in the real world far exceeds the density that can be penetrated by realistic techniques, even the most outstanding realist writers will become imitations of themselves.

Everything around us is accelerating irreversibly. Most traditional concepts have lost their vitality. Even human subjective experience is no longer as stable as it was in the old days. Every few years, our concepts are overturned.

If a novelist wants to describe this changing world more accurately, he should not adopt the methods of realism, but modernism or postmodernism.

Painting, photography, film, music, and even video games are teaching us young writers today how to write, but realism, as a component of writing techniques, still exists, but it is difficult to become my writing principle. "

After these words were spoken, the classroom fell into deathly silence. Everyone fell into deep thought, even Liang Xiaosheng was lost in thought.

(End of this chapter)