Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 392 The so-called happiness

Recently, Ma Boyong arrives at the company very early every day.

As the "editor-in-chief" of "Tide Culture", he is not only responsible for controlling the direction of the three "Youth" magazines, but also for reviewing the scripts and screenplays of the animation department that Xia Da is in charge of.

For example, the animation department recently prepared to start producing the animation of "The Exiled Children" - but the internal opinions could not reach a consensus on whether to make it into a "serial" and sell it to TV stations, or to make it into an "animated movie" to hit the big screen.

Most of the people in the animation department, including Xia Da, want to make an "animated movie". After all, with the successful experience of "Your Name", everyone is eager to try it; if they make a TV series, many technologies cannot be applied due to the cost limit of each episode.

However, Shuang Xuetao, based on his position and expertise, believed that it should be made into a "TV series" first, and if the response was good, then the possibility of an "animated film" could be considered.

But no matter whether it is a "TV series" or a "movie", the script must be signed and approved by Ma Boyong in the end, so he is caught between the two. He has to spend time every day listening to the nagging of both sides, but dare not express a clear position.

Because he was also hesitating.

At the same time, he also has to create his own works. The current pressure on the manuscripts of "Youth·Non-fiction" is quite high. After all, the concept of "non-fiction writing" has just started in China, and most people still can't tell the difference between "non-fiction writing" and "reportage" or "news reports".

It was not until Zhang Chao handed him Lan Ting's "Peacock on the Assembly Line: Field Notes on China's Shamatte" that he suddenly understood.

Compared with "reportage" which focuses on exposing social problems or recording major events and has news supervision functions, and "news communications" which rely on the rapid and accurate transmission of information to satisfy the public's right to know about events and emphasize timeliness and objectivity, "non-fiction writing" emphasizes real stories to evoke emotional resonance.

The stories in "non-fiction writing" are true, but they are presented in a literary style such as novels, and allow the author's subjective perspective and emotions to intervene, making them more readable than traditional "reportage."

There are simply too few writers. Even though Youth Non-Fiction is a bimonthly magazine, it is difficult to receive manuscripts. Sometimes we need to reprint excellent works from other journals. This is the first time for Youth Non-Fiction.

So Ma Boyong could only figure out how to write for "Youth·Non-Fiction" on his own.

However, what he wanted to write was not Lan Ting's work that was highly consistent with social reality - he now had no time to experience life and conduct in-depth investigations - but the "historical essays" that he had always been interested in.

That is, from the perspective of historical research, combined with the elements of "mystery literature", some cases and unsolved cases in literary history are interpreted. This kind of writing is also "non-fiction" to some extent.

For example, he is very interested in "The Goddess of Luo River" now...

However, writing such a "non-fiction" requires much more energy than ordinary works. He has recently been exhausted by Shuang Xuetao and Xia Da, so he simply arrives at the company two hours earlier every day so that he can write quietly for a while.

But as soon as he entered his office this morning, his eyes were attracted by the fax machine at the door - for no other reason than that there were more than a dozen fax documents scattered on the floor; and a few more were hanging on the paper outlet of the fax machine.

Needless to say, there must be a sheet of fax paper curled up at the front, causing the printed manuscript paper behind to be pushed to the ground. This is also an old problem of this fax machine.

Ma Boyong leaned over and picked up all the fax papers, and took out a few sheets from the paper outlet. He put them together and felt the thickness. There were about 20 pages, a pretty thick stack.

If it is a novel, it must be a relatively long short story, or a relatively short novella.

"Could it be a submission?" Ma Bo grumbled. Most of the submissions to Youth Pie were from young people, and they were mostly sent via email. He hadn't received a paper manuscript for a long time.

He unfolded the stack of manuscripts and found that they were not novels or essays, but modern poems. The strange thing was that they all looked like manuscripts, and it was obvious that the original manuscripts were made of all kinds of materials.

"Modern poetry?" Ma Boyong frowned. He had no prejudice against modern poetry, but there were too few good modern poets in this era. Those that were still in mass production basically had fixed submission channels, either "Poetry Magazine" or "Xingxing", or traditional literary journals such as "People's Literature" or "Harvest".

The three magazines of "Youth" almost default to favoring novels and essays, and do not publish modern poetry - although some of the short stories in the "Youth" magazine are only a few lines or a dozen lines long and look very much like poetry.

However, as the "editor-in-chief", Ma Boyong is still very responsible. He patiently looked through the manuscripts. The first poem was called "They Say" - and then, he couldn't take his eyes off it.

Only after he finished reading all 20 poems did he let out a long sigh, and then he realized that he had been standing instead of sitting in the office chair.

How long has it been since I read such a heart-touching modern poem?
Ma Boyong has always positioned himself as a "storyteller" and his favorite thing is to tell stories. However, poetry, as the purest form of language, has a beauty that reaches deep into the soul and does not require any knowledge of appreciation.

One of the sheets of manuscript paper has the author's information attached:

Xu Lizhi, 134…………, Donghuan Road, Longhua Street, Shenzhen……

What made Ma Boyong's eyes almost pop out was that the final address turned out to be a dormitory in a dormitory area of ​​​​the Foxconn factory, and it also had a detailed room number.

When he first read these poems, he thought they were the imagination of some talented poet.

Now this address means that this poet is really a worker on the assembly line? This is indeed beyond Ma Boyong's imagination.

There was another line of words on the manuscript paper, saying that these poems were submitted to "Youth·Non-Fiction", which surprised him even more.

Ma Boyong read the manuscript again and fell into a long period of thought.

Some of these poems are still a bit "naive", but as a whole they are undoubtedly excellent works. But do the poems meet the requirements of "non-fiction writing"? Is there "non-fiction poetry" in this world?

He was a little unsure and decided to wait until other people from the editorial office arrived before discussing it.

He turned on his computer, clicked on the document titled "Wind and Rain: The Goddess of the Luo River", and continued typing his words: "Cao Pi's attitude of guarding against his brothers like guarding against thieves was something that even Chen Shou, who was writing history, couldn't stand, and commented that..."

But I stopped writing after only a short while.

Somehow, Ma Boyong felt a little restless. He left his computer, went to get a cup of coffee, drank it all in one gulp, but his heart did not calm down.

So he walked into the yard again. Although the city of Yanjing had already become hot in early June, it was only a little after 6 o'clock in the morning and less than 7 o'clock, so it was still quite cool.

Especially as the Olympics were about to start, the environment was well managed, the sky was clear blue, and the ridge beasts on the eaves showed the outline of ink painting in the light blue sky. Ma Boyong walked to the east wall, where there was a large blue and white fish tank, with a few duckweed floating on the water. The ripples caused by a few red carps pecking at the duckweed turned the reflected grape trellis into green glass.

After watching the fish for a while, he still felt a little uneasy. At this time, the breeze brought the aroma of fried dough sticks, and from outside the courtyard wall came the sound of an old neighbor's grandmother listening to the radio, and the footsteps of neighbors walking back and forth.

Ma Bo hesitated for a moment, but decided to open the door. Then he sat on the cold stone steps and watched the people coming and going.

This was the first time he carefully observed the neighbors after Tide Culture moved its office here.

This alley has a good location and a wide street, so many courtyard houses have been sold as a whole, either renovated into clubs or used as private residences. However, there are still many large courtyards that are full of life.

When the neighbors saw Ma Boyong, they greeted him without hesitation, as if he had lived here since birth. One old man even opened the bag of fried dough sticks to him and asked, "Young man, want one?" He was so friendly and natural.

Ma Boyong was at a loss at the beginning, but later he became calm and composed, as if he had grown up here since childhood.

After sitting for about 20 minutes, around 8 o'clock, the second person to go to work appeared - Shuang Xuetao. He looked at Ma Boyong, who was sitting on the steps with a smile on his face, in surprise and asked, "Why are you sitting here?"

Ma Boyong did not answer, but said: "I am so happy!"

Shuang Xuetao frowned and said, "Happiness? Have you decided whether "Children Who Exiled the Meteor" will be a TV series or a movie?"

Ma Bo glanced at Shuang Xuetao with disdain: "Vulgar!"

Seeing Shuang Xuetao looking confused, Ma Boyong led him into the office and handed him the poetry manuscript.

Ten minutes later, Ma Boyong and Shuang Xuetao, two young men, sat on the steps with melancholy looks on their faces, sighing.

They were all hurt by Xu Lizhi's poems.

Writers are the most sensitive people in the world, and they are especially prone to empathy. Both of them are excellent writers, and their ability in this area is even stronger.

Xu Lizhi's poetry provides them with a completely new perspective on the world and reveals a group that has not been paid attention to by literature so far.

All of this went beyond their original life experiences and brought them strong spiritual stimulation.

Ma Boyong was born into an engineer family, his parents are both intellectuals; Shuang Xuetao's parents are both workers, and he has been a "study tyrant" since he was a child. They are not second-generation intellectuals who are out of touch with the world. On the contrary, they both have rich experience in dealing with "workers".

They are not unaware of the conditions of assembly line workers in large-scale OEM factories in the south - at least Lan Ting's article "Peacocks on the Assembly Line: Field Notes on China's Shamatte" wrote about this group of assembly line workers.

But Lan Ting's article focuses on how these young people release their inner repression by modifying an exaggerated external image, and does not dwell too much on the assembly line work itself.

Xu Lizhi's poems reveal the cruelty behind this job in a bloody way - although both of them know that this is inevitably an overreaction due to Xu Lizhi's poetic temperament, and most workers would not be as pessimistic as he is.

But this is precisely one of the ways that literature responds to social reality - even if most people accept something, does that necessarily make it reasonable?

Shuang Xuetao sat on the steps for a while, and finally recovered. He turned to Ma Boyong and said, "You're right. We are indeed very happy."

Ma Boyong nodded without saying anything, feeling the comfort of the morning light of Yanjing shining on his body, but his mind was thinking about his peers who had to enter the workshop in the morning and then stand there until the street lights came on.

A trace of melancholy flashed through my heart again.

After a while, Xu Ruiya also arrived at the entrance of the courtyard and saw two grown men sitting on the steps with silly smiles on their faces. They were also confused...

Ten minutes later, Xu Ruiya said: "I won't sit on the steps. I'll just sit in the yard..."

Not long after he started working, Xu Lizhi's poems spread throughout the editorial department of Youth. This young poet used his words to give the equally young editors a little "Shenzhen shock".

Shuang Xuetao asked: "How is it, where to send it?"

Lan Ting snatched the manuscript, held it in her arms, and said, "I've already said I'll submit it to Non-Fiction, no one should snatch it from me!"

Strictly speaking, Lan Ting has not graduated from Xiamen University yet, but her graduation thesis was submitted and approved a long time ago. In addition, because of Zhang Chao's relationship, the school turned a blind eye to her coming to Yenching to work early. She just needs to fly back to Xiamen for the defense in a few days.

Although she is just an ordinary editor now, she is the backbone of "Youth·Non-Fiction". Not only is she responsible for commissioning, reviewing and proofreading manuscripts, she also contributes a manuscript to every issue. She is simply a little superman with endless energy.

This poet named "Xu Lizhi" has said that he would submit his work to "Non-Fiction", so how could she let it go?

Shuang Xuetao didn't really want to change the owner of Xu Lizhi's poems, he was just joking - since he started dating, he has become more and more lively, and has changed from his previous gloomy nature.

But no one has ever seen who his girlfriend is; he has done a very good job of keeping it a secret.

Ma Boyong said, "These poems are indeed very suitable for Non-Fiction. It just so happens that the June issue has a skylight. With them, there is no need to ask other magazines for reprints."

Lan Ting nodded excitedly, returned to her seat with the manuscript, and began to type the poem on the A4 copy paper into an electronic version word by word.

Ma Boyong thought about it and called Xu Lizhi according to the phone number in the contact list. However, there was only a "beep" sound on the phone and no one answered. This happened several times in a row.

At this time, Ma Boyong finally reacted: "I guess Xu Lizhi is standing on the assembly line right now?"

But at this moment his cell phone rang. He picked it up and saw a familiar name popping up on the screen. Ma Boyong picked it up quickly and heard the familiar voice that he hadn't heard for a long time:
"Old Ma, have you read Xu Lizhi's poems? What do you think?"

(End of this chapter)