Literary Master 1983

Chapter 234 How to Conduct Literary Research

Some of the letters were of decent quality, and Yu Qie replied patiently, even publishing excerpts of some of them in relevant literary journals.

Some are even more outrageous: "Magical realism is a literary technique that China has had for a long time, and it is recorded in the Yongle Encyclopedia."

Who the hell wrote this?

An unknown amateur scholar of *Dream of the Red Chamber* who works at *Youth Literature* magazine?
Crazy, really crazy.

"Suddenly news came from beyond the sword gates that Jibei had been recovered; upon hearing it, tears filled my clothes."

Who wrote this? A poem copied out of nowhere, how could this possibly be related to Márquez?
The sender's address is the Guangxi Film Studio, and the sender is "an ordinary young man who loves literature." Could this be Chen Kaige, the later director and now a young man who loves literature?
Damn it, when I meet you, I'll make sure you get what's coming to you.

"A couple of years ago, I was in a rented room in Shenzhen. I had two books next to me: one was '1587,' and the other was 'The Big Shot'. I had strong opinions about the experiences of the male protagonist, Gu Yan, in the latter..."

Wang Shitou, the founder of Vanke Group, is now a literary youth and a speculative businessman.

You'd better not read my book. What if you later say that you learned how to speculate and profiteer after reading my book? How am I supposed to face the netizens on Douban, Zhihu, and P2P who are holding Old Deng accountable for reaping all the benefits he made in the 1960s?

“Yu Qie, Chairman, Yu Banxian, it’s been several years since we last met. I have regained my freedom. Now my own company, Nande Group, has established a literary organization that specializes in studying human nature and business strategies through your novels… I will serve as the vice chairman, and the chairmanship will be reserved for you. This literary organization is called Yixin Society, and everyone must have read your novels.”

Our code is: even a pig can fly if it's in the right place at the right time.

Mou Qizhong? The richest man in Wanxian?

Yu Qie was speechless. Dude, how come you can cause so much trouble?
If I hadn't built up a great reputation, I would have been led astray by you.

Faced with the strong public reaction, Yu Qie had no choice but to write an article titled "How to Conduct Literary Research." Although the title and content of this article are simple, it contains many methods for later generations to study literature and basically covers most of the tools for literary research.

Including "close reading of texts", "comparative literature" and more than ten other criteria, if someone can study what Yu Qie has written according to the above conditions, it will not be a piece of stinking dung, but at least it will be a piece of stinking dung that looks good on the outside and can fool people - just like a standard literature department paper.

Furthermore, it increases the research costs for literature enthusiasts, which indirectly cools down their enthusiasm.

Mathematician Chen Jingrun was tormented by countless letters "discussing mathematics." Many people, having just learned the basic rules of arithmetic, tried to tackle this ultimate problem in the world of mathematics, because Goldbach's conjecture was simplified to "one plus one equals two," a proposition that even a fool could say a few words about.

Literature seems to be similar. It is not easy to quantify, nor is it easy to falsify. If even Márquez's own words are not accepted, then it develops into true magical realism, where no matter how much it exaggerates, it can be self-consistent.

Yu Qie showed the manuscript to the editors of "October," and they all gave it high praise. However, the most suitable platform, "Foreign Literature Studies," is a quarterly journal that is only published once every three months. Yu Qie's article must be published as soon as possible.

The journal *Beijing Literature* happened to have space available, so the article was published there. Upon publication, it received widespread acclaim within the literary circle, once again proving Yu Qie's theoretical expertise.

Ba Jin, who happened to be in Yanjing for a meeting, praised the article after reading it: "Our literary world is in a state of disarray and everything needs to be rebuilt. We cannot rely solely on enthusiasm for literary research; we must have a method... Although this article is rough, it is indeed better to be rough than meticulous at this time. We need to delve into the various methodologies it lists."

"How to Conduct Literary Studies" was also listed as extracurricular reading by some writers in the training course. They tried to use Yu Qie's method to study foreign literature and found it to be very effective.

For example, regarding "Dream of the Red Chamber," there are various schools of thought on this topic: those who interpret it from the perspective of the novel itself, those who interpret it from the perspective of the author Cao Xueqin's life experiences, and those who interpret it from the perspective of other novels from the same era... These schools of thought, which have developed for over a hundred years, are all included in Yu Qie's article.

Su Tong, the editor of Zhongshan, described this article as "a book for literature enthusiasts to advance their skills. Knowing these methods will give you a basic understanding of the structure. Yu Qie has truly put a lot of thought into the readers and served up a great dish!"

However, despite the quality of the articles, they could not deter the enthusiasm of the amateur literary scholars. Letters full of sincerity and longing were sent to the editorial department of "October", "People's Literature" and "Beijing Literature and Art", and the recipient of the letters was only "Yu Qie".

Every other week, letters sent to Yuqie had to be transported by car.

Su Yu, the newly appointed editor-in-chief of "October," was embarrassed and said with a wry smile, "The public's enthusiasm for literature is worth encouraging, but their articles have almost no value. In order to correct errors and reply to these letters, we can hardly do anything else."

Xu Chi, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Literature Studies, also apologized for this situation: "Our original intention was to let society rediscover literary creators and inspire their enthusiasm for this industry, but now the effect is a bit too good. We suddenly have 800 million novelists and 800 million critics because the remaining 200 million people in the country have not yet learned to write 3,000 Chinese characters."

Yu Qie could only smile wryly: the literary effect triggered by his reportage "People Want to Be Yu Qie" was even more pronounced than his winning the Akutagawa Prize. 85 was a golden age for literature; even pure literature like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Stranger" captivated readers.

Moreover, it's a piece of literature that they can truly participate in the discussion about.

Students from the Literature Research Institute's advanced training program were conscripted to write letters to readers in Yu Qie's place. There were simply too many letters for Yu Qie to handle alone.

Yu Hua, Su Tong, and the others were quite happy, having a great time every day. Like priests in a church, they openly witnessed many strange things from all over the country: people reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" as if it were pornography; people treating magical realism as wishful thinking novels... It was truly both laughable and absurd.

Yu Qie, Yu Qie, Yu Qie... They all wrote back on Yu Qie's behalf. Some writers from the advanced training class still remembered this scene many years later and talked about it with amusement.

Dongcheng, Shatan North Street.

Feng Mu, the editor-in-chief of Wenyi Bao (Literary Gazette), is currently serving as a project supervisor, overseeing the newly established office building of the Wenyi Bao magazine. This top-tier literary theory journal in China is currently sharing offices with many organizations such as the Writers Association and the Federation of Literary and Art Circles. The entire newspaper has only two floors available and no canteen of its own.

The last time Yu Qie visited their newspaper office, it made Feng Mu quite embarrassed: Yu Qie received preferential treatment everywhere after becoming famous, but here, he couldn't even get a hot meal.

This awkward situation is finally coming to an end!

By next year at the latest, the *Wenyi Bao* (Literary Gazette) will be able to relocate. With the support of the leadership, the supplementary publication *Wenyi Literary Theory* has become a publication similar to an internal reference, directly conveying any literary trends to the higher authorities through its articles.

"People Want to Be Yu Qie" was also reprinted in the "Literary Gazette," and many leaders must have already read this article and witnessed the talent of this young writer.

Thinking about this made Feng Mu feel very happy. It was quite obvious that literature was getting better and better. With enough novels available, the evaluation of these novels became more and more important, and thus literary criticism was born—and the status of novel critics also became important.

Yu Qie's success has truly benefited everyone.

The "Spring Rain Campaign" was such a great thing. Six months of publicity and millions in fundraising almost restored the public's trust in writers, and writing novels is becoming a respected pursuit like never before. The Southern-based *Guangming Daily* commented: "Today's literature doesn't need to save the nation, nor does it need to be a contemporary warning bell..."

"Reflecting changes in social thought and witnessing historical events... of course, they are very useful, but they lack some personal initiative and lofty ambitions."

"The Spring Rain Campaign has enabled writers to use their appropriate influence to promote the goodness and beauty of society, which can only be called a great achievement!"

Touching the dark brick wall, Feng Mu climbed to the second floor and found that the deputy editor-in-chief, Lu Sun, was leading several editors to review articles. The editors were looking at the articles very carefully, their faces flushed, and they almost forgot to breathe.

"What are you looking at?" Feng Mu asked curiously.

Lu Sun looked up and exclaimed: "Oh, the editor-in-chief is here!"

He immediately raised the manuscript in his hand: "How to Conduct Literary Research".

He did not say that it was written by Yu Qie.

Feng Mu's eyes narrowed instantly, then opened wide:
This name is quite remarkable. In academic papers, the simpler the name, the more significant it often represents.

"Let me see it," Feng Mu said impatiently.

He was resting his chin on his hand, reading the article. At first, he was quite relaxed, but then he couldn't help but get closer and closer to the paper, sticking out his fingers to stare at each word and sentence, afraid of missing any line.

Finally, Feng Mu excitedly put down the manuscript: "This must have been written by Yu Qie. He's had this motivation recently, and he's the only one with these word choices. He likes to use witty and humorous language in his papers to attract readers, but he never writes anything too complicated... Sometimes he incorporates economics and humanities into his literary analysis, just like how he used to analyze the 'scar literature'."

"This is rare among other writers. Only a writer like him, from the Economics Department of Yenching University, would think this way."

Lu Sun burst into laughter: "You guessed right. I always suspected he had a science and engineering brain, but he accidentally became a writer—wasn't he bad at Chinese?"

This article was subsequently published in the *Literary Gazette*, and this time it finally elicited some response. A literary symposium was jointly convened by several institutions, including Beijing Normal University, Yenching University, and the Academy of Literature, to establish a framework for conducting theoretical research.

If possible, an editorial board should be established to write a general education textbook. It can be used as a learning resource for Chinese literature majors, as well as for general readers as a hobby.

Isn't this exactly what Yu Qie talked about every day when he was a teacher at the Institute of Literature?

Many prominent figures have been credited with numerous professional textbooks. While these textbooks may not necessarily have been written independently by these figures, the core theories within them are certainly related to their achievements.

Following the meeting, Yu Qie was appointed as a member of the editorial board. This editorial board consisted of more than ten members, including renowned writers such as Ba Jin. Yu Qie was the youngest among them and also the most familiar to young readers.

So, Yu Qie began collecting his previous lecture notes, revising and editing them, and turning them into logically sound popular science articles. He spent the whole day doing this.

Zhang Li visited him several times and found that Yu Qie was extremely busy. Chen Xiaoxu felt sorry for Zhang Li and said: "Men really do love their careers more than their lovers."

On the other hand, they were also happy for Yu Qie: a good man should prioritize his career, and as for your Zhang Li, I will take care of her for you.

Literature Research Institute, Advanced Studies Program.

Guan Moye committed another unforgivable crime. He delved into Yu Qie's novels and wrote a fabricated post-apocalyptic story, producing a complete mess. This time, it finally enraged Yu Qie. Yu Qie was too busy to bother with any more lectures, so he told Guan Moye to come see him after class.

He then launched into a very harsh critique: "Guan Moye, you lack basic science and engineering knowledge, and you know very little about humanities and social sciences. But you are a professional writer with your own areas of expertise. You can't just make up stories about other topics like an amateur who has only read a few books. Otherwise, no matter how well you write, it's useless."

"The reason I say you should write what you are familiar with is because that can avoid your shortcomings in those areas... No one is omnipotent, and neither am I."

"Yu Qie, how come you can write so many articles? From military affairs to science fiction to love... you can do it all. I don't understand. To be honest, many of us want to imitate you... We even think that it is because you have insights in many areas that you can do better in a certain area."

“Because I am me, and because you are you,” Yu Qie said. He also wanted to say that he lives in an era where he receives more knowledge in a day than people forty years ago did in a year, so naturally he can draw inferences from one instance to another.

"Didn't I give you a chance? You need to mature... Now, do what you do best, finish your advanced course, and write an article that you write well."

Guan Moye felt wronged, but he knew he couldn't argue with Yu Qie anymore. However, despite knowing this in his heart, he couldn't help but retort, "What exactly did I do wrong?"

“You’re wrong in many ways!” Yu Qie said angrily. “Gabriel García Márquez once wrote me a letter, saying that when he was an investigative journalist, he found that ‘if you write about one elephant flying in the sky, readers won’t believe it,’ but if you write about 425 elephants flying in the sky, readers will believe it. Do you understand the difference? Are readers really stupid enough to believe that hundreds of elephants are flying in the sky?”

Guan Moye shook his head.

"This is because if you start by exaggerating and writing about hundreds of elephants, the reader will know that this is a literary technique, and thus read the rest of the novel with an artistic appreciation perspective, and even think about what the truth is... But if you sometimes write about an elephant flying in the sky as if it were real, that is not a literary technique, that is spreading rumors!"

Among the people in the advanced training course, Guan Moye's awards and achievements will be the highest in the future. However, his bizarre fabrication of the life experiences of the people around him, which was eventually written into a novel, has made many readers feel uncomfortable about him and has greatly affected his reputation in China.

Yu Qie angrily said, "Your level of literary theory is currently too low, which is not terrible. Some people can overcome all difficulties with just talent. But you can't disrespect the facts!"

(End of this chapter)