Chapter 493 "Youth Mentor" Jiang Xian
Wang Xiaobo had a very high vision.
Because of his unique and avant-garde ideas, it is difficult for him to appreciate ordinary literary works.
Even Jiang Xian.
Most of his works are bestsellers.
But in Wang Xiaobo's eyes, not all of Jiang Xian's works can be considered excellent. In his opinion, there are a few that are definitely substandard and mediocre, and cannot be considered top-notch works.
But this "Variations without a Theme" really conquered him.
You could hardly even tell it was a novel.
This "Variations without a Theme" does not have a complete storyline, only a flat narrative.
It's like a few close friends are chatting about family matters over a bottle of wine.
Jiang Xian also tells his writing experience through the protagonist in this "Variations without a Theme":
"Every day I write down whatever comes to my mind, without any theme or coherence. When I have written a handful of pages, I string them together, and that's it.
This is called a card novel, and like life, it can be interpreted in any way, except that it cannot be explained. "
Ah, card fiction.
Jiang Xian's writing style is so avant-garde that even Wang Xiaobo, a writer who always prides himself on being avant-garde, has to bow down to him.
Such a bold writing!
How did you come up with this way of writing?
It actually completely abandons the traditional storytelling style of novels!"How come you can write so well?"
“Why can’t I write like this?”
Wang Xiaobo was like a poor student looking at the test paper of a student who scored 100 points.
Envy and jealousy.
If Jiang Xian had written another novel, it would be fine if it was well written, and Wang Xiaobo would not feel bad.
The key is that he is writing a novel called "The Golden Age".
In this novel, he wants to portray a character with an extremely rebellious and subversive personality, and also to portray a group of characters born in the traditional cultural background with ugly souls.
So in fact, the core of this article, "Variations without a Theme", is to abandon the value concepts of traditional life.
And the most similar thing is that what he wants to write is exactly the same as Jiang Xian's. Both are criticizing the world rather than criticizing it. Both are dissatisfied with the dark side of the world, but their expression is unsystematic.
The Wang Er he wanted to write about was actually the same as the protagonist written by Jiang Xian.
Their contempt for society does not carry the anger of the big-character posters.
This is the bitterness and joy of a small person.
I just want to write about some young people who are smart and clever that we often see.
Full of passion and humor.
Before reading "Variations without a Theme", Wang Xiaobo was always feeling proud and arrogant.
He felt that before this, no one except him had ever written a novel in this way, and no one had ever achieved such a breakthrough in literature.
His mentor Xu Zhuoyun, the famous historian and sociologist, also spoke highly of his novels.
But now I have finished reading this "Variations without a Theme".
Wang Xiaobo became autistic.
It was as if he had just learned to use tools such as bone spurs and charcoal to paint things around him on the rock wall to record hunting experiences, express religious beliefs or commemorate events.
Jiang Xian has already started to engage in Cubism, Expressionism, and abstract art. He no longer pursues light and shadow, perspective, and human body structure, nor does he pursue specific descriptions of specific objects. Instead, he focuses on the transformation of emotion, expression, and form.
It was as if he had just implemented the "Hu clothing and horse riding" policy, changing the way of warfare from infantry combat to cavalry combat.
When he turned around, Jiang Xian was already rushing up, pushing a row of cannons and holding a row of rifles.
The gap between him and Jiang Xian is too big!
Wang Xiaobo could clearly feel the gap between himself and Jiang Xian.
Can I really write a better novel than him?
Wang Xiaobo was doubting himself.
This novel really hit and shocked him deeply.
"Have you finished reading the novel?" asked his wife Li Yinhe who had just woken up.
"Ah."
"How about it?"
"Wonderful."
Wang Xiaobo nodded. "I even think this is the best novel Jiang Xian has ever written, and it is also the best novel published in China this year."
"Is it that good?"
"It's not just good, it's so good that it kills all the previous modernist novels!"
Li Yinhe was shocked. She rarely heard Wang Xiaobo speak so highly of an author.
"Let me see."
Li Yinhe was born into an intellectual family. She was once the editor of Shuguang X Newspaper. Later, she participated in the establishment of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and studied under Fei Xiaotong.
Fei Xiaotong knows this, right? I have said before that Bai Yueguang is the one with Yang Jiang.
In addition to these achievements, Li Yinhe is also quite accomplished in literature. Although she is not as famous as Wang Xiaobo, she is also a writer.
Wang Xiaobo handed the novel "Flower City" to Li Yinhe and immediately felt sleepy. He fell asleep thinking about the content of the novel "Variations without a Theme".
When I woke up, I found Li Yinhe still in her pajamas, sitting on a chair, looking tired, with the book "Flower City" on the table in front of her.
Li Yinhe looked at her favorite passage in the novel:".What's on the other side of the mountain?One day I asked Old Q, and she gave a very unpoetic answer:'There are mountains beyond the mountains!'
Maybe she is right, but I don't want to believe it. The other side of the mountain will still cheer me up. Although this answer has been deeply imprinted in my mind"But where there are mountains, there are always people climbing them," I said.
"
"You watched it all night?"
Li Yinhe seemed to still be immersed in the world of novels. Wang Xiaobo called her twice before she raised her head and looked at him.
"Xiaobo, this novel is so well written. It's so well written."
Li Yinhe was so sleepy that she kept yawning while saying this, but she couldn't hide the excitement on her face.
"I really don't know how Jiang Xian could write such a novel."
"I do not know either."
Wang Xiaobo shook his head. In his opinion, Jiang Xian was now very famous, with so many masterpieces selling well in the world. He must have made a lot of money from his writings. He was already a "big shot". How could he pay attention to a small person like "me" and write works about a small person like "me"?
"I'm beginning to like him."
"Hmm?" Wang Xiaobo felt a little jealous.
“I think he is different from ordinary people.”
Li Yinhe said, "He is not like others who are arrogant and pretentious just because they have a little status. He is also willing to focus on young people and small figures. I think he has kept the original intention of a writer."
"."
Wang Xiaobo nodded slightly after hearing this.
Isn’t that what it is?Whether it is "Going on a Long Journey at the Age of Eighteen", "You Have No Choice", or this "Variations without a Theme".
Jiang Xian's eyes were focused on the young man.
He uses his literary talent and profound thoughts to explore human nature, society, culture and other aspects, guiding every young person wandering in confusion to find their own direction and strength.
The writerHe really cares for young people!
"I read a 'hippie' feeling from this novel," Li Yinhe said. "I can't say it's a 'hippie'. I can't describe that feeling. If you don't need to be comprehensive but you must grasp the description of the characteristics, I think it can be called a 'hippie'," Li Yinhe said.
Wang Xiaobo nodded, "'Hippies' are originally a kind of 'superfluous people'. If we look at world history, whenever traditional values collapse or a culture encounters a crisis, there will be a kind of doubt, ridicule and re-evaluation of values, culture and even life itself.
In fact, people who hold this attitude have existed in China's long history, such as Zhuang Zhou, Lie Zi, and Yang Zhu, who believed that this is right and that is wrong, Liu Ling and his followers, who regarded the world as their pants and life as their drunkard, and Ji Dian, who cursed Buddha and his ancestors. These people all have the cynical 'hippie' spirit you mentioned.
"Correct."
Li Yinhe became more and more excited as she spoke, "Nietzsche used the phrase 'the sacred is dead!' to summarize the sense of value crisis in modern and contemporary Western culture.
When analyzing the image of Rameau's nephew, Hegel pointed out: "For a calm consciousness, such words are simply a grotesque mixture of wisdom and stupidity, a mixture of elegance and vulgarity, correct ideas and wrong ideas, complete emotional confusion and ugly obscenity, and extremely open and sincere frankness."
I think this review can also be applied to this "Variations without a Theme"! "
The couple didn't care about breakfast at the moment and kept sharing their feelings about the novel with each other.
For such a couple, doing this is more enjoyable than having sex.
"Jiang Xian is really becoming more and more like a young mentor." There was no trace of sleepiness on Li Yinhe's face.
"No, he didn't see himself as a mentor to the youth."
Wang Xiaobo shook his head, rubbed his eyes, opened the book "Flower City", turned to a paragraph, held it in front of Li Yinhe, motioned her to read it, and at the same time, a sarcastic smile appeared on his ugly face:"Jiang Xian cares for young people, but he does not see himself as a mentor to young people. However, what he does is a thousand or ten thousand times better than what some people think, that copying, adapting or reprinting previous ideological education textbooks can solve the various ideological problems of contemporary youth.
Look how he mocks it in this novel."
Li Yinhe looked in the direction Wang Xiaobo pointed:
".What is dialectics?I started to express my opinions on the test paper with a pen, and it would be a miracle if the teacher appreciated my paper.
But the beginning is always the same.
Dialectics is a method for people to understand the world.Dialectical materialism believesMaybe it was the last day, so there were almost no people when I came to sign up for the second time. The two people sitting in the window were still there, and they each had a cup of tea.
I leaned against a big tree to catch my breath. What force drove me to run twice just to sign up?The two people in the window seemed a little bored. A fly flew around and after some selection, it finally landed on the nose of one of them. He was too lazy to wave his hand away, but stretched out his tongue to lick it, like a fucking cow.
Another one came up with a brilliant way to pass the time. He randomly pulled out a sheet from a pile of application forms, studied it for a while, and suddenly burst into laughter, imitating the Henan accent, which was really lifelike, worthy of an art school. In XX years, in XX years, I graduated from the Middle School of XX Commune, XX County, Henan. Name XX. What are my specialties: I have written a novel of 400,000 words.
Then the other one started laughing too.
I was shocked! I felt dizzy.
Will this guy take out my registration form and ridicule me one day out of boredom? Will he also think that my life of suffering in my twenties is worthless? If I pass the exam, will he be sanctimonious and give me a lecture on socialist spiritual civilization in class?
Old Q! I just want to be an ordinary person. I don't want to be a scholar at all, and I don't want to be one now. I should have the right to choose my own life path and maintain my own personality!What would the mocked person think if he witnessed this scene? The young man from the XX Commune in XX County, Henan Province, would probably not be sentimental, but his egocentricity that supported him to come all the way to take the exam would be destroyed.I finally finished the question about dialectics, and I gave it my all.
I want to tell you how I answered:
'We should look at a person dialectically.'
'For example, if a teacher is a complete jerk, he likes to give private lessons to pretty girls, and he regards farmers, workers, and soldiers as inferior people, you can't just say he is a jerk, you have to look at it dialectically.'
"
beautiful.
After reading this paragraph again, Li Yinhe also felt that it was very well written.
Spicy and sharp.
Jiang Xian’s level of swearing is too high, he doesn’t even utter a single dirty word.
This sentence was like a sharp knife, mercilessly mocking those so-called "youth mentors".
"What time is it? Is it time to go to class?" Wang Xiaobo reminded.
"I don't want to go today."
Li Yinhe sat at the table, looking excited. "After reading this novel, I have so much to say. I want to take this opportunity to write a literary review of this novel."
"Literary review?"
This immediately enlightened Wang Xiaobo, "Good idea, I have to write one too."
The novel "Variations without a Theme" is so avant-garde.
Wang Xiaobo can read its goodness.
What about the rest?
Wang Xiaobo didn't know.
But he was particularly worried that the novel would be buried.
He couldn't explain why he should worry about other people's novels.
It can be said to be an idea of loving the house and loving the dog in it.
If his "The Golden Age" was written, Wang Xiaobo also hoped that the world would be able to accept his avant-garde and appreciate the goodness of this novel from the avant-garde nature of this work.
Wang Xiaobo asked for leave, then sat at the table, holding a pen, and began to think about what kind of story this novel told.
Without any deep thinking, this "Variations without a Theme" is actually about something very simple:
My girlfriend Lao Q wants to turn the protagonist "I" into a person with a "promising" career.
The basis of their love is the recognition of life.
But Old Q's spirit is to be aggressive and unscrupulous.
The protagonist "I" is full of energy and considers the dignity of personality above all else.
Old Q's strong sense of expansion destroyed the protagonist "I's" smiling mood and self-sufficient inner balance.
So, Old Q, with tears streaming down his face, said he was proud of him, and said goodbye to the protagonist.
Of course.
The best part is that the story doesn’t stop here.
(End of this chapter)